A short-story reading challenge in 2019

Lakey

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Invitation accepted! :)

*reads*

Errrrr.....yeah. Odd, as you said.

I’m really glad you read them! I keep thinking about them—I don’t exactly like them, and I certainly couldn’t read a lot of it at once, but it has stuck with me, and what more can you ask as a writer but that you stick with your readers?

As for me, a little more spelunking in open browser tabs:

88. "Field Survey," Matthew Zanoni Müller, in Southeast Review (2019)
A rather sweet story about an earnest, peculiar young woman trying to navigate dating life.

89. "Possible Wildlife in Road," Jen Fawkes, in Storysouth (2019)
Oof. This is a deeply sad and very heavy story, beautifully written with layers and connections from top to bottom. I’m a little too sleepy to try and summarize it right now, but it’s going on my favorites for the year. Very moving.

:e2coffee:


Goal for 2019: 100 short stories

Favorites of the year:
1. “Children Are Bored on Sunday,” Jean Stafford, in The New Yorker (1948)
9. “William Wilson,” Edgar Allen Poe, in Tales of Mystery and Imagination
12. “The Good Deaths, Part II,” Angela Ambroz, in Beneath Ceaseless Skies (2014)
24. "A whale, a tree, a vine," Sarah Norek, in West Branch (2018)
28. “American Gothic,” Dan Moreau, in Third Coast (2018)
31. “Cut,” Catherine Lacey, in The New Yorker (2019)
51. "The Sinkhole," Joyce Li, in Brooklyn Review (2018)
52. "Paper House," Stefan Kiesbye, in Delay (2019)
54. "Cruel and Barbarous Treatment," Mary McCarthy, in The Company She Keeps (1942)
65. "Boys Go to Jupiter," Danielle Evans, in Best American Short Stories 2018
68. "Come on, Silver," Ann Glaviano, in Best American Short Stories 2018
75. "A Big True," Dina Nayeri, in Best American Short Stories 2018
89. "Possible Wildlife in Road," Jen Fawkes, in Storysouth (2019)


My list of stories from the first half of the year is here.
 

Lakey

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A little more on Gary Lutz -- I have been having a bit of recency illusion with respect to this writer, whom I had never heard of until I read the stories I posted about here a week or two ago. Since then I've seen his name come up two or three times. This article in the Paris Review is the latest to pop up: The Only Untranslatable American Writer

:e2coffee:
 

mrsmig

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Catching up on my progress in the BEST AMERICAN SHORT STORIES 2019 anthology:

I backed up to read Jeffrey Eugenides' Bronze, Ella Martinsen Gorham's Protozoa and Nicole Krauss' Seeing Ershadi. I'm in agreement with Chris P's assessment of all three stories; I liked Seeing Ershadi the best, for its smooth, mysterious narrative. Moving forward, Manuel Munoz' Anyone Can Do It, about two women in agricultural California whose husbands haven't come home (one assumes they've been picked up in an immigration raid) was a good read - I enjoyed its somber, matter-of-fact tone. Sigrid Nunez' The Plan left me cold - as weird as it sounds, I just couldn't get interested in the murderous, misogynistic main character.

Maria Reva's Letter of Apology was interesting (particularly its description of the flooded Ukranian neighborhood where much of the story takes place), but it went on too long for my taste. Karen Russell's Black Corfu was an odd and sometimes intriguing take on a zombie theme but, again, it seemed overlong to me, and the ending a bit predictable. I didn't care for Said Sayrafiezadeh's Audition at all; maybe it's because I'm in the acting business myself and the main character's flabby attempts at building a career (and indeed, a life) was irritatingly familiar. Alexis Schaitkin's Natural Disaster, about a woman who finds meaning in writing real estate descriptions, took its time getting to the point, but I liked the latter third of it very much.

I'm four stories out from finishing this anthology and to be honest, will be glad when it's done. I'm finding many of the stories to be something of a plod. However, finishing it will bring my short story count for the year to a nice, even 100.

ETA: I read Lakey's recommendation of Jen Fawkes' Possible Wildlife in Road, and am echoing her response of "Oof." I don't think it's going to make my favorites list - everyone is just so damaged - but I appreciate the writing, which I found reminiscent of Annie Proulx.


My count to date is: 97.

And my favorites are:

1. "Lucky Dragon" by Viet Dinh (O. Henry Prize Stories Anthology 2018)
2. "Nights in Logar" by Jamil Jan Kochai (O. Henry Prize Stories Anthology 2018)
3. "Queen Elizabeth" by Brad Felver (O. Henry Prize Stories Anthology 2018)

4. "The Candlestick" by Carla Miriam Levy (GNU Journal 2019)
5. "A New England Nun" by Mary E. Wilkins Freeman (Great Stories by American Women)
6. "About Time" by Elizabeth Bonesteel (from the author's website)
7. "Hellion" by Julia Elliott (Best American Short Stories 2019)


 
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Lakey

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One more from the New Yorker podcast:

90. "Old Hope," Claire Sestanovich, in The New Yorker (2019)
A somewhat poignant story about a young woman and her rather flailing attempts at connection with people. I enjoyed the symbolism in various bits of the story but I can't really say I grasped the whole, and even after just a couple of days the details have fled my brain.


And, I've been reading a Carson McCullers collection, The Ballad of the Sad Cafe. The title story is a novella, so I won't include it here (though it's absolutely wonderful). The rest are short stories.

91. "Wunderkind," Carson McCullers, in The Ballad of the Sad Cafe
A sweet and sad story about a girl who is a talented piano player but is losing her confidence as adolescence descends upon her. She did a joint concert with a boy her age, a violinist who was also her close friend; the concert catapulted him to nationwide prodigy status, but she received poor reviews and now finds it difficult to play. Like McCullers's novels (especially The Member of the Wedding) do, this story grasps at the awkwardness and confusion of female adolescence with deep longing and sadness. As I was reading it I had a vague recollection that McCullers had been a pianist herself; I looked it up and this was true; she had been bound for Julliard but some circumstance stopped her going and she wound up a writer instead. "Wunderkind" was her first published story, with obvious autobiographic elements.

:e2coffee:


Goal for 2019: 100 short stories

Favorites of the year:
1. “Children Are Bored on Sunday,” Jean Stafford, in The New Yorker (1948)
9. “William Wilson,” Edgar Allen Poe, in Tales of Mystery and Imagination
12. “The Good Deaths, Part II,” Angela Ambroz, in Beneath Ceaseless Skies (2014)
24. "A whale, a tree, a vine," Sarah Norek, in West Branch (2018)
28. “American Gothic,” Dan Moreau, in Third Coast (2018)
31. “Cut,” Catherine Lacey, in The New Yorker (2019)
51. "The Sinkhole," Joyce Li, in Brooklyn Review (2018)
52. "Paper House," Stefan Kiesbye, in Delay (2019)
54. "Cruel and Barbarous Treatment," Mary McCarthy, in The Company She Keeps (1942)
65. "Boys Go to Jupiter," Danielle Evans, in Best American Short Stories 2018
68. "Come on, Silver," Ann Glaviano, in Best American Short Stories 2018
75. "A Big True," Dina Nayeri, in Best American Short Stories 2018
89. "Possible Wildlife in Road," Jen Fawkes, in Storysouth (2019)

My list of stories from the first half of the year is here.
 

mrsmig

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Continuing with the BASS anthology. Last night I read Jim Shepard's Our Day of Grace, which is a series of letters between two Confederate soldiers and their wives/sweethearts, on the cusp of the Battle of Nashville, late in the war. It's beautifully written - there's an aching longing that runs through each letter - and the story is even more poignant if you know the history of that disastrous battle. It's made my favorites list.


My count to date is: 98.

And my favorites are:

1. "Lucky Dragon" by Viet Dinh (O. Henry Prize Stories Anthology 2018)
2. "Nights in Logar" by Jamil Jan Kochai (O. Henry Prize Stories Anthology 2018)
3. "Queen Elizabeth" by Brad Felver (O. Henry Prize Stories Anthology 2018)

4. "The Candlestick" by Carla Miriam Levy (GNU Journal 2019)
5. "A New England Nun" by Mary E. Wilkins Freeman (Great Stories by American Women)
6. "About Time" by Elizabeth Bonesteel (from the author's website)
7. "Hellion" by Julia Elliott (Best American Short Stories 2019)
8. "Our Day of Grace" by Jim Shepard (Best American Short Stories 2019)
 

Lakey

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I love Carson McCullers’s novels — The Heart is a Lonely Hunter is one of my favorite books ever — and the title novella of The Ballad of the Sad Cafe was delightful. But the rest of this collection, after the one pretty good story that I wrote about last time, sagged. The stories just aren’t that good. They all play on themes of love and loss, of the discomfort that comes of being isolated from human connection, but they don’t all work equally well.

92. "The Jockey," Carson McCullers, in The Ballad of the Sad Cafe
A jockey comes unglued with rage after another jockey, his close friend (perhaps his lover?), is injured in a race.

93. "Madame Zilensky and the King of Finland," Carson McCullers, in The Ballad of the Sad Cafe
One of the better stories in the collection. A woman tries to fill her lonely life with lies and fabrications; when confronted, she has a sort of panic attack.

94. "The Sojourner," Carson McCullers, in The Ballad of the Sad Cafe
Slightly cloying story about a man whose view of love, and his connection to his lover and her son, are sharpened by an encounter with his ex-wife and her shiny new domestic life.

95. "A Domestic Dilemma," Carson McCullers, in The Ballad of the Sad Cafe
A ham-fisted polemic about the demon drink.

96. "A Tree, a Rock, a Cloud," Carson McCullers, in The Ballad of the Sad Cafe
An old man recounts the tale of his obsessive love to rapt child and a handful of jeering adults. I absolutely hated this story.

Almost there! I hope we can do this again in 2020. I’ll start the thread soon.

:e2coffee:


Goal for 2019: 100 short stories

Favorites of the year:
1. “Children Are Bored on Sunday,” Jean Stafford, in The New Yorker (1948)
9. “William Wilson,” Edgar Allen Poe, in Tales of Mystery and Imagination
12. “The Good Deaths, Part II,” Angela Ambroz, in Beneath Ceaseless Skies (2014)
24. "A whale, a tree, a vine," Sarah Norek, in West Branch (2018)
28. “American Gothic,” Dan Moreau, in Third Coast (2018)
31. “Cut,” Catherine Lacey, in The New Yorker (2019)
51. "The Sinkhole," Joyce Li, in Brooklyn Review (2018)
52. "Paper House," Stefan Kiesbye, in Delay (2019)
54. "Cruel and Barbarous Treatment," Mary McCarthy, in The Company She Keeps (1942)
65. "Boys Go to Jupiter," Danielle Evans, in Best American Short Stories 2018
68. "Come on, Silver," Ann Glaviano, in Best American Short Stories 2018
75. "A Big True," Dina Nayeri, in Best American Short Stories 2018
89. "Possible Wildlife in Road," Jen Fawkes, in Storysouth (2019)

My list of stories from the first half of the year is here.
 

mrsmig

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I finished the BEST AMERICAN SHORT STORIES 2019 anthology this morning.

I'm not sure what to make of Mona Simpson's Wrong Object. The story is told by a therapist who finds her latest patient boring until he reveals that he's a pedophile. He's a pedophile who doesn't act on his urges, but a pedophile nonetheless. I found the narrator's character tiresome and the patient weirdly sympathetic, but I couldn't decipher the point of the story.

Jenn Alandy Trahan's They Told Us Not to Say This is about a group of Filipino girls struggling to assert themselves. The narrative voice is unusual; it reads more like an essay than a story, although the story elements are there, and unexpectedly delightful. I ended up really enjoying it, and it's made my list of favorites.

The final story, Omakase by Weike Wang, the story of a Chinese woman and her American boyfriend on a sushi date, felt like a long buildup to nothing much (I actually fell asleep halfway through it last night). The writing's fine; Wang didn't name her characters, so you have the woman and the man and the chef and the waitress, etc., and that sense of being kept at arm's distance from the story is in line with the main female character's feelings of isolation. But that may have also been why it didn't grip me.

As I've said in the past, anthologies can be something of a mixed bag, and the BASS 2019 is definitely mixed. There was a clear effort to include under-represented voices, and I liked that aspect of it, but IMO at least half the stories were overlong, and finishing the collection was often a bit of a slog.


My count to date is: 101.

And my favorites are:

1. "Lucky Dragon" by Viet Dinh (O. Henry Prize Stories Anthology 2018)
2. "Nights in Logar" by Jamil Jan Kochai (O. Henry Prize Stories Anthology 2018)
3. "Queen Elizabeth" by Brad Felver (O. Henry Prize Stories Anthology 2018)

4. "The Candlestick" by Carla Miriam Levy (GNU Journal 2019)
5. "A New England Nun" by Mary E. Wilkins Freeman (Great Stories by American Women)
6. "About Time" by Elizabeth Bonesteel (from the author's website)
7. "Hellion" by Julia Elliott (Best American Short Stories 2019)
8. "Our Day of Grace" by Jim Shepard (Best American Short Stories 2019)
9. "They Told Us Not to Say This" by Jenn Alandy Trahan (Best American Short Stories 2019)
 

Lakey

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The final story, Omakase by Weike Wang, the story of a Chinese woman and her American boyfriend on a sushi date, felt like a long buildup to nothing much (I actually fell asleep halfway through it last night). The writing's fine; Wang didn't name her characters, so you have the woman and the man and the chef and the waitress, etc., and that sense of being kept at arm's distance from the story is in line with the main female character's feelings of isolation. But that may have also been why it didn't grip me.

This is so interesting. I read a Weike Wang story a couple of weeks ago (I commented on it upthread) in which the main characters were unnamed. I agree that it’s distancing, especially in the use of “his wife” to refer to the POV character’s wife. (Wouldn’t he think of her by her name?) But in that story, I found meaning in the contrast with the few minor characters who were named, and as the story was about identity—particularly “his wife” and her shifting Chinese-American identity—the choice not to name also felt like it had meaning in context. It’s interesting if it’s a thing Weike Wang does more generally, especially when it doesn’t seem to add anything to the story.

My count to date is: 101.
Hooray! Congratulations. It’s been a pleasure to have you along in this thread, and I appreciate your contributions.

:e2coffee:
 

mrsmig

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Thanks, Lakey. I'm glad you started the thread - I probably wouldn't have read so many short stories this year without it.
 

Chris P

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Great job reaching the goal mrsmig! It's been great discussing the stories. I agree this year had a lot of longish stories. Ten pages is my sweet spot, and most of these were over that.

Lakey: I look forward to next year. I might not finish Best American Short Stories by the end of December, so I already have several on my list :)
 
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Tocotin

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I read two almost touristy stories about Tokyo. In "A View from the Rickshaw" the narrator/main character, who is seriously ill, decides to on an excursion in a rickshaw on a sunny day. Not much happens – he watches various people and talks with his rickshaw puller; it was difficult to read for me because it's written in literary Japanese, but once I got used to it, I liked the richness of detail and the narrator's quiet joy of life. It is actually a sad story, because it's autobiographical; Shiki was terminally ill with tuberculosis and was not able to walk anymore, so I guess he was describing what had become a rare threat for him. The other story was even less story-like – it was just a depiction of the fashionable Ginza neighborhood at dawn. Difficult as they were, I'm glad to have read them for research reasons :)

Now "A New England Nun" and the Kate Chopin story were both quite satisfactory for me, although I felt really, really bad for the poor dog in the first one. No, don't worry, the dog doesn't die, but he's being fed with cake and bread... I don't know, I just couldn't get over it. I would have loved the story if the main character gave the dog meat. "The Storm" was just lovely, probably the best, most cheerful and optimistic story ever that deals with the topic of adultery. I liked the style too.

Lü Xun's story was not much of a story, it was more of a dull, didactic dialogue of two friends about the opposition of Chinese activists and reformers (who often fought by adopting nontraditional hairstyles) against various forms of tyranny, and about the way the sacrifices of are now forgotten. Lü Xun himself has once decided to cut off his queue (which was mandatory for Han Chinese under the Qings) during his stay in Japan, and he had problems because of that when he came back to China. Yeah well, "but it really happened" doesn't a good story make...

:troll

--------
1. "Ginza Journal" by Seki Kenshi, 1882. From "Tokyo Centennial Tales vol.1", October 2018, Iwanami Shoten.
2. "Kong Yiji" by Lü Xun, 1919. From "Call to Arms", May 2006, Iwanami Shoten.
3. "The Lifted Veil" by George Eliot. 1856. Kindle edition, Serenity Publishers, 2006.
4. "Medical Training" by Tazawa Inabune, 1895. From "Tokyo Centennial Tales vol.1", October 2018, Iwanami Shoten.
5. "The Good Deaths, part II", by Angela Ambroz, in Beneath Ceaseless Skies, 2014.
6. "A Madman's Diary" by Lü Xun, 1918. From "Call to Arms", May 2006, Iwanami Shoten.
7. "Mr Salary" by Sally Rooney, reprinted in Irish Times, 2017.
8. "Brother Jacob" by George Eliot, 1864. Kindle edition, Serenity Publishers, 2006.
9. "After the Ball" by Leo Tolstoy, 1903. Kindle edition, 2014.
10. "A Big Sake Cup" by Kawakami Bizan, 1895. From "Tokyo Centennial Tales vol.1", October 2018, Iwanami Shoten.
11. "Life in the Iron Mills" by Rebecca Harding Davis, 1861. From "Great Short Stories by American Women", Dover Publications, 2014.
12. "Medicine" by Lü Xun, 1919. From "Call to Arms", May 2006, Iwanami Shoten.
13. "Transcendental Wild Oats" by Louisa May Alcott, 1873. From "Great Short Stories by American Women", Dover Publications, 2014.
14. "Bullet in the Brain" by Tobias Wolff, 1995.
15. "Night Patrol" by Izumi Kyōka, 1895. From "Tokyo Centennial Tales vol.1", October 2018, Iwanami Shoten.
16. "Light and Shadows" by Fyodor Sologub, 1894. From "Light and Shadows. Selected prose", Mastatskaya litaratura, Minsk 1988.
17. "The Worm" by Fyodor Sologub, 1896. From "Light and Shadows. Selected prose", Mastatskaya litaratura, Minsk 1988.
18. "A White Heron" by Sarah Orne Jewett, 1886. From "Great Short Stories by American Women", Dover Publications, 2014.
19. "Tomorrow" by Lü Xun, 1920. From "Call to Arms", May 2006, Iwanami Shoten.
20. "An Incident" by Lü Xun, 1920. From "Call to Arms", May 2006, Iwanami Shoten.
21. "A View from the Rickshaw" by Masaoka Shiki, 1898. From "Tokyo Centennial Tales vol.1", October 2018, Iwanami Shoten.
22. "A Morning in Ginza" by Okamoto Kidō, 1901. From "Tokyo Centennial Tales vol.1", October 2018, Iwanami Shoten.
23. "A New England Nun" by Mary E. Wilkins Freeman, 1891. From "Great Short Stories by American Women", Dover Publications, 2014.
24. "The Storm" by Kate Chopin, 1898. From "Great Short Stories by American Women", Dover Publications, 2014.
25. "The Story of Hair" by Lü Xun, 1920. From "Call to Arms", May 2006, Iwanami Shoten.
 

Lakey

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97. "The Kaleidoscope Kid," George T Anderson, in PANK (2016)
A terrific story by AW's own gtanders, about a young man with a multi-faceted identity--artist, writer, musician, and even conformist, a part of his identity that makes him uncomfortable and doesn't play well with the others. I especially loved the way this splitting is visualized quite literally in a fitting-room mirror--who hasn't gotten lost in the infinite regress of that environment, and the strange opportunity to see yourself for a moment the way others see you? And the brief reference to playing with tupperware as a child, with different-color lids, each fitting a different container--a very nice memory and metaphor.

:e2coffee:


Goal for 2019: 100 short stories
 

Tocotin

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There is a great thread over at AW Roundtable, a discussion on what makes a short story good. I've been thinking about it. I just read a story by Willa Cather, "Paul's Case", and it absolutely rocked my socks. Not much happens in it, it's mostly a character study, and yet a lot happens – it describes nearly a whole life of a person, distilled into a few intense, memorable moments. The main character is not even particularly likable, I didn't care what happened to him, I didn't look forward to the story itself being unfolded; what I looked forward to was the presentation of the world of that story. It was so engrossing that I almost missed my station.

The Wharton story was nice and touching, but not quite in the same way. It felt more like a construct, something written to prove a point, and its language was a bit tedious. Or maybe it's that I'm a bit impatient with Wharton recently...

The Sologub stories were horribly sad, the second one was downright depressing. I read it on a cloudy day and just wanted to go to bed and sleep. The "Insolence" one (my translation of the title, not very accurate) was about a schoolboy with socialist leanings, who cannot understand his mother and grandmother, and is not understood by them either; the oppressive atmosphere of the late imperial Russia is to blame. I'm not sure what exactly was the point of it, however, other than great characterization. "The Smile" is about a shy, poor boy who grows up into a shy adult who cannot find his place in life. The construction of the story is absolutely masterful; it consists of just three scenes, and one has the feeling of knowing the MC's entire life.

The Sōseki story was a hilarious quasi-ghost story, very long, full of funny situations and twists. The main character (a former university student) visits his friend and they talk about ghosts. On his way home, late at night, he starts thinking about his fiancee who has caught a cold, and somehow convinces himself that she is seriously ill and will soon die; he sees a group of people carrying a little coffin with a dead child, he sees a lantern in the distance, back at home he keeps hearing strange noises, and by the morning he's half-dead of fright. He rushes to his fiancee's home, finds her in good health, and obediently marches to the barber shop after she tells him to get a shave because he looks horrible. It's a messy story, but the mental state of the main character is very realistically and vividly described, and the conversations are hilarious (especially with the main character's old and pious servant lady, who terrorizes him better than any ghosts).

:troll

--------
1. "Ginza Journal" by Seki Kenshi, 1882. From "Tokyo Centennial Tales vol.1", October 2018, Iwanami Shoten.
2. "Kong Yiji" by Lü Xun, 1919. From "Call to Arms", May 2006, Iwanami Shoten.
3. "The Lifted Veil" by George Eliot. 1856. Kindle edition, Serenity Publishers, 2006.
4. "Medical Training" by Tazawa Inabune, 1895. From "Tokyo Centennial Tales vol.1", October 2018, Iwanami Shoten.
5. "The Good Deaths, part II", by Angela Ambroz, in Beneath Ceaseless Skies, 2014.
6. "A Madman's Diary" by Lü Xun, 1918. From "Call to Arms", May 2006, Iwanami Shoten.
7. "Mr Salary" by Sally Rooney, reprinted in Irish Times, 2017.
8. "Brother Jacob" by George Eliot, 1864. Kindle edition, Serenity Publishers, 2006.
9. "After the Ball" by Leo Tolstoy, 1903. Kindle edition, 2014.
10. "A Big Sake Cup" by Kawakami Bizan, 1895. From "Tokyo Centennial Tales vol.1", October 2018, Iwanami Shoten.
11. "Life in the Iron Mills" by Rebecca Harding Davis, 1861. From "Great Short Stories by American Women", Dover Publications, 2014.
12. "Medicine" by Lü Xun, 1919. From "Call to Arms", May 2006, Iwanami Shoten.
13. "Transcendental Wild Oats" by Louisa May Alcott, 1873. From "Great Short Stories by American Women", Dover Publications, 2014.
14. "Bullet in the Brain" by Tobias Wolff, 1995.
15. "Night Patrol" by Izumi Kyōka, 1895. From "Tokyo Centennial Tales vol.1", October 2018, Iwanami Shoten.
16. "Light and Shadows" by Fyodor Sologub, 1894. From "Light and Shadows. Selected prose", Mastatskaya litaratura, Minsk 1988.
17. "The Worm" by Fyodor Sologub, 1896. From "Light and Shadows. Selected prose", Mastatskaya litaratura, Minsk 1988.
18. "A White Heron" by Sarah Orne Jewett, 1886. From "Great Short Stories by American Women", Dover Publications, 2014.
19. "Tomorrow" by Lü Xun, 1920. From "Call to Arms", May 2006, Iwanami Shoten.
20. "An Incident" by Lü Xun, 1920. From "Call to Arms", May 2006, Iwanami Shoten.
21. "A View from the Rickshaw" by Masaoka Shiki, 1898. From "Tokyo Centennial Tales vol.1", October 2018, Iwanami Shoten.
22. "A Morning in Ginza" by Okamoto Kidō, 1901. From "Tokyo Centennial Tales vol.1", October 2018, Iwanami Shoten.
23. "A New England Nun" by Mary E. Wilkins Freeman, 1891. From "Great Short Stories by American Women", Dover Publications, 2014.
24. "The Storm" by Kate Chopin, 1898. From "Great Short Stories by American Women", Dover Publications, 2014.
25. "The Story of Hair" by Lü Xun, 1920. From "Call to Arms", May 2006, Iwanami Shoten.
26. "The False Sound" by Natsume Sōseki, 1905. From "Tokyo Centennial Tales vol.1", October 2018, Iwanami Shoten.
27. "Insolence" by Fyodor Sologub, 1897. From "Light and Shadows. Selected prose", Mastatskaya litaratura, Minsk 1988.
28. "The Smile" by Fyodor Sologub, 1897. From "Light and Shadows. Selected prose", Mastatskaya litaratura, Minsk 1988.
29. "The Angel at the Grave" by Edith Wharton, 1901. From "Great Short Stories by American Women", Dover Publications, 2014.
30. "Paul's Case" by Willa Cather, 1905. From "Great Short Stories by American Women", Dover Publications, 2014.
 

Chris P

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"Anyone can do it" by Manuel Munoz

Delphina is a recent transplant from Texas, relocated with her husband and toddler son to California to get agricultrual work. She meets Lis, a neighbor who, despite the excellently executed tension in the story, agrees to help Delphina find day work while their husbands are in the fields (and possibly detained by immigration raids). As mrsmig said above, a good read that exposes some slice-of-life struggles in a tough, nuanced environment.

Tocotin: I need to read more Willa Cather; I think she doesn't get the attention she deserves. My Antonia was delightful (like the Little House on the Prairie books for adults), while Sapphira and the Slave Girl should be required reading up there with Uncle Tom's Cabin and Frederick Douglass's autobiography.
 
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Lakey

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98. "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God," Joyce Carol Oates, in The New Yorker (2019)
I am woefully unfamiliar with JCO's work; I've read a handful of essays and short stories (chiefly in the New Yorker) but none of her novels. Anyway, this is a rather depressing story about a community of friends growing old and infirm; entire sections of it seem to be little more than lists of names paired with the ailments that are besetting or felling them. Oates manages to spin a somewhat sweet and hopeful ending, however. I didn't love the story, but it might have been handicapped because I heard it via the New Yorker's "The Writer's Voice" podcast, in which authors read their own stories, and, well, if you don't already know, Oates does not exactly have a radio voice.

:e2coffee:
 

Chris P

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Oates is very much a short story writer, in my opinion. I've read We Were the Mulvaneys and one other that I can't even remember the title of, and I found both rambling and forgettable. My sense was she struggles to maintain tension in novel-length pieces, despite how talented she is with shorts.
 

Lakey

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I finished up my 2019 challenge with two more episodes of the New Yorker’s “The Writer’s Voice” podcast.

99. "The Fellow," Joy Williams, in The New Yorker (2019)
I ... have no idea what this story is about. I listened to it twice and it did not make a lick of sense, from the first sentence to the last. I don’t get the setting, I don’t know who the narrator is, I can’t comprehend what happens in the story, I don’t understand the story’s meaning. Absolute word salad. I’d say it was the least satisfying experience I’ve ever had reading a story in The New Yorker, except that I usually stop reading when I am as lost as I was here.

100. “The Stone,” Louise Erdrich, in The New Yorker (2019)
This one, though, is lovely. It’s about a woman’s relationship with a peculiar stone that she found as a child, and kept with her, more or less, throughout her life. The story teeters on the edge of magical realism but does not quite tip into it—there is almost something mystical or magical about the stone, but then there isn’t, really, only attachment psychology. It’s so just on the edge that perhaps you can read it either way. At any rate, it’s very intriguing. The girl’s attachment to the stone, in preference even of human relationships, ought to be depressing, but there is something ineffably sweet and hopeful about the story. There’s also a pleasant digression into the life story of the stone itself, thousands upon thousands upon thousands of years old. Wow. Definitely going on the year’s list of favorites.

:e2coffee:
 

Chris P

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Congrats on finishing! Quite an accomplishment!
 

mrsmig

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Congratulations, Lakey!