A short-story reading challenge in 2019

Chris P

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awriter: Does the Munro compilation include the story Amundsen? It was in the New Yorker in 2012 (I Googled it; my memory isn't that good!). If so, I look forward to your take on it. I recall it was a slow mover, but excellent on atmosphere and setting.
 

awriter

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awriter: Does the Munro compilation include the story Amundsen? It was in the New Yorker in 2012 (I Googled it; my memory isn't that good!). If so, I look forward to your take on it. I recall it was a slow mover, but excellent on atmosphere and setting.

Yes it does, and it is in fact the next story in the compilation, so I'll be posting about it sometime today. Now I'm looking forward to reading it. :)
 

Elle.

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My Purple Scented Novel from Ian McEwan

This is the tale of a pair of novelists – one once celebrated, and the narrator who was once obscure, until (no spoilers). I have to say I didn't love it as much as the short stories from his collection "Between the Sheets". I missed the quirkiness or slight underlying uneasiness from those stories.


Not sure what’s up next. I have a stack of modern stories to read, but I think I’m a little avoidant of them, as I don’t want to be reminded how much better they are than the story I have out on sub right now. :/

:e2coffee:

Don't worry it is a very normal feeling. I am trying to this year to get better at not comparing my stories and writing to others but it's hard and so easy to slip and doubt. Just remember that whoever you are, even a renown writer, you can always find a better writer than yourself but that doesn't mean in return that your writing is no good.

Ps Thanks for the Plath short story collection recommendation, I've added it to my list.
 

Chris P

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9. "Wednesday's Story," by Wole Talabi (Published in Lightspeed Magazine)


This delightful story fills in the details of the Solomon Grundy nursery rhyme, from the point of view of Wednesday, a supernatural being who exists outside of time with Sunday, Monday, and the others (a nod to G. K. Chesterton there?). Wednesday takes pity on Grundy, and tries to intervene on the Wednesday of the Grundy poem to change the ending to something happier. That Wednesday cannot do so is told in parallel with African-esque folk tales interspersed into the narrative of Wednesday's attempt. Talabi channels both Kurt Vonnegut and Neil Gaiman in the dark, futile, and supernatural.

___________________

1. "Acceptance Speech," by David Naimon (published in Boulevard)
2. "Let the Devil Sing," by Allegra Hyde (published in Threepenny Review).
3. "A suburban weekend," by Lisa Taddeo (published in Granta)
4. "Do I look sick to you? (Notes on how to make love to a cancer patient)" by C. J. Hribal (published in Bellevue Literary Review)
5. "Brace yourself," by Leslie Jill Patterson (published in Prime Number)
6. "American Dream," by Nonyelum Ekwempu (published in Red Rock Review and reprinted in Anthem)
7. "Involution," by Stacy Hardy (published in Migrations: New Short Fiction from Africa)
8. "Fanta Blackcurrant," by Makena Onjerika (published in Wasafiri)
 

awriter

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I just finished reading "Amundsen," but before writing about it I want to revisit my thoughts on "To Reach Japan." Out of curiosity, I skimmed through Munro's Wikipedia page this morning, and noticed that she was compared to Southern Gothic writers, which completely changed my perspective on the story. At some point while reading I had mistakenly classified it as a Kate Chopin-esque story of sexual self-discovery, which made the creepiness of it very jarring to me.

Now I see the story as a deliberate subversion of that paradigm. Greta thinks that she is embarking on a journey of self-discovery with Harris, but it seems the reality is that she is slipping into a manipulative and possibly abusive relationship and dragging her daughter into it with her. She realizes that after an unfortunate incident with her daughter near the end of the story, but at that point it's too late - she already set her affair with Harris into motion when she sent him a note long beforehand. So it's still very creepy - maybe even more creepy - but the creepiness makes sense to me in a way that it didn't before. Interesting but depressing stuff.

3. "Amundsen," Alice Munro

I liked this one more than "To Reach Japan," even after reevaluating that story this morning. The writing was excellent and the setting was vividly established. The pacing wasn't fast by any means, but I didn't find it slow either. Nothing seemed unfocused in the way that parts of the beginning of the other story did. The characterization was amazing; Mary in particular was a great character. The premise - teaching at a school for children with tuberculosis before there was any reliable treatment - was tragically compelling. I kind of want to read more about the actual history of such schools, but I have a feeling it would be too depressing.

Once again this story was basically about a woman, Vivien, who ends up in a relationship with an awful man. The man in this case - a doctor named Alister who is her boss (!) - was again a creep (maybe not quite as much as Harris in the last story), and also just a plain old asshole and misogynist. The ending was a tad bit more hopeful, (spoilers ahead*) since Vivien and Alister almost get married but don't go through with it. Vivien was actually upset when this happened, but seeing how horrible Alister was in the brief time they were together, I'm going to assume that she dodged a major bullet. It does mention that she later married someone else and that they had been arguing, so maybe whoever she ended up with is as bad or worse.

In a way I wish that Alister had just left Vivien alone, so that the story could have focused on her teaching the children with TB and her friendship with Mary. The relationship between Vivien and Alister, though messed up, was well written and interesting enough, but I thought the few scenes that focused on Vivien's job and the constant loss inherent to it were the strongest of the whole story. The idea of not knowing whether a student was alive every time they didn't show up for class was a really powerful emotional dynamic that wasn't explored all that much. Changing the focus in that way would basically amount to rewriting the story, though, so this isn't exactly a fair criticism. Maybe that would make a good writing exercise: create an alternate version of the story where Vivien's job is not derailed by her asshole boss and instead her interactions with her students are more fleshed out.

*Unrelated question, but is there/should there be any particular guidelines regarding spoilers in this thread? Until this post I've tried to be deliberately vague about plots in case other people want to read these stories without having too much given away.




1. "Rashomon," Ryunosuke Akutagawa
2. "To Reach Japan," Alice Munro
 

Chris P

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*Unrelated question, but is there/should there be any particular guidelines regarding spoilers in this thread? Until this post I've tried to be deliberately vague about plots in case other people want to read these stories without having too much given away.


For spoilers, see this thread here: https://absolutewrite.com/forums/showthread.php?56252-A-word-regarding-Spoilers!


I'm glad you like Amundsen. It was a memorable one for me (although I had forgotten a lot of the details until your summary.

I kind of want to read more about the actual history of such schools, but I have a feeling it would be too depressing.

Not exactly the same, but my mother had polio in the mid 1950s. She lived in a very rural area in Michigan, and the only effect of the polio was a shortening of her left side, particularly the cord in her neck. For a time, her head was permanently cocked at about a 30-degree angle off center. The first doctor they sent her to was "Battery Anderson," who today would be referred to as a touch therapist, but sixty-five years ago was regarded as a local medical authority. They called him "Battery" Anderson because (this was in the age of television and jet airplanes and space flights, remember) he had electricity in his hands because when he rubbed you quickly, your skin warmed up. In any case, my grandparents eventually sent her to a polio ward at a hospital in a town two hours away. Some random stranger from the hospital picked her up (she was nine at the time), drover her there while my grandparents stayed home, and she had the surgery to correct the cord in her neck, and the same guy drove her back home a week later. My mom never mentions what the polio ward was like, only that it was entirely open across the entire second floor of the hospital, you could see everyone with no privacy shields, and that is was the most terrible place she had ever been. Mom's still around and active, and I have tried to encourage her to write about this, but she hasn't risen to the bait yet.
 
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awriter

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Not exactly the same, but my mother had polio in the mid 1950s. She lived in a very rural area in Michigan, and the only effect of the polio was a shortening of her left side, particularly the cord in her neck. For a time, her head was permanently cocked at about a 30-degree angle off center. The first doctor they sent her to was "Battery Anderson," who today would be referred to as a touch therapist, but sixty-five years ago was regarded as a local medical authority. They called him "Battery" Anderson because (this was in the age of television and jet airplanes and space flights, remember) he had electricity in his hands because when he rubbed you quickly, your skin warmed up. In any case, my grandparents eventually sent her to a polio ward at a hospital in a town two hours away. Some random stranger from the hospital picked her up (she was nine at the time), drover her there while my grandparents stayed home, and she had the surgery to correct the cord in her neck, and the same guy drove her back home a week later. My mom never mentions what the polio ward was like, only that it was entirely open across the entire second floor of the hospital, you could see everyone with no privacy shields, and that is was the most terrible place she had ever been. Mom's still around and active, and I have tried to encourage her to write about this, but she hasn't risen to the bait yet.

Yikes. That sounds terrible. I hope your mom has had better experiences since then. I don't blame her for not wanting to write about it, but if she ever does it would certainly be compelling.
 

Lakey

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I am enjoying the amount of commentary and analysis you are all sharing about your stories - thank you!

awriter - the Alice Munro sounds really interesting. She’s one of those writers who is in the New Yorker’s regular rotation so I am sure I have read her stories now and again, but I can’t remember any specifically at the moment.

ChrisP and Elle - Thanks for the encouragement. ;) I took it to heart and my next story is from one of the journals I’m on sub with right now - one of my “it can’t hurt to lob in a submission right?” ambitious attempts.

5. “I Like to Give Twenty Percent,” Rebecca Schiff, in Columbia Journal

It took me a few paragraphs to get into this story, which starts with a choppy series of short paragraphs all beginning “My mother....” It has a disjoint, impressionistic feeling that isn’t appealing to me. After about half a dozen of these, the story’s engine kicked in; a narrative took shape, and it became wonderfully engaging. It was still in short paragraphs, and many of them (though not all) began “My mother...” but there was a narrative in it, some substance to fortify all that self-conscious form. It ends up being a very sweet, often quite funny story about an immigrant woman (it’s not specified from where) and her two adult daughters.

My favorite line is: “We don’t correct my mother when her mistakes in English are loveable. Like when she says that we don’t know what’s in storage for us.”

:e2coffee:

_______________________

1. “Children Are Bored on Sunday,” Jean Stafford. From The New Yorker, 1948 (reprinted in the December 3, 2018 issue).
2. “Pierre Menard, Author of The Quixote,” Jorge Luis Borges (in a Borges collection called Labyrinths)
3. “My First Fee,” Isaac Babel, in The Collected Stories of Isaac Babel
4. “Wants,” Grace Paley, in Enormous Changes at the Last Minute, 1970
5. “I Like to Give Twenty Percent,” Rebecca Schiff, in Columbia Journal, 2018

Goal for now: 52 in 2019
 

Chris P

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10. "Calling the clouds home," by Heran T. Abate (published in Redemption Song and Other Stories)


Mititi is a young Ethiopian girl who encounters Hanna, a neighbor girl with special needs. In her unfamiliarity with such other children, Mititi says some insensitive things, and the local adults say Hanna is cursed. Mititi becomes convinced Hanna is going to curse her next, and the only way to prevent the curse is to make amends to Hanna. The story was pretty straightforward, but the action scenes are hard to follow, and although aspire to some nifty language, I don't think it quite achieved it.


___________________

1. "Acceptance Speech," by David Naimon (published in Boulevard)
2. "Let the Devil Sing," by Allegra Hyde (published in Threepenny Review).
3. "A suburban weekend," by Lisa Taddeo (published in Granta)
4. "Do I look sick to you? (Notes on how to make love to a cancer patient)" by C. J. Hribal (published in Bellevue Literary Review)
5. "Brace yourself," by Leslie Jill Patterson (published in Prime Number)
6. "American Dream," by Nonyelum Ekwempu (published in Red Rock Review and reprinted in Anthem)
7. "Involution," by Stacy Hardy (published in Migrations: New Short Fiction from Africa)
8. "Fanta Blackcurrant," by Makena Onjerika (published in Wasafiri)
9. "Wednesday's Story," by Wole Talabi (Published in Lightspeed Magazine)
 

mrsmig

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I started the O. Henry Prize Stories 2018 anthology with Jo Ann Beard's "The Tomb of Wrestling," about a home invasion told from the viewpoints of the victim and her attacker. The POVs of each character reflect not only what they're experiencing, but their thoughts and memories. It was intriguing, but I was afraid the story might be wandering too far afield when the victim's dogs became POV characters as well. I needn't have worried. The story wound up in a very satisfactory way, and I can see why it was chosen by the judges. I've liked it best of the four stories I've read so far this month.

1. "Cookies for Ghost" by Emily McCosh (Daily Science Fiction)
2. "The Lord of the Beasts" by Zac Smith (Jellyfish Review)
3. "The Hostile Truth" by Claire Guyton (Jellyfish Review)
4. "The Tomb of Wrestling" by Jo Ann Beard (O. Henry Prize Stories Anthology 2018)
 

Cobalt Jade

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I'm in on the Challenge. I'll do one story a month.
 

awriter

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4. "Leaving Maverley," Alice Munro

The more I think about it, the more certain I am that this is my favorite Munro story thus far. This is the shortest of the three I've read by a small margin, but it contains far more material than the others. I feel like I read an entire novel in a single sitting.

At first I thought it was about a repressed teenager learning more about the world by taking on a job at a movie theater. Which it is - at first - but then it keeps going and going, following two intertwining plots across multiple years, with some unexpected twists along the way. The characters, especially Leah, are also quite dynamic in spite of the short length. Leah goes through at least two but arguably three or four distinct character arcs before the story is over.

It's an impressive amount of plot and characterization to pack into one short story, which suggests that the writing might be too dense or that the pacing might be rushed, but I found neither of those to be the case. Arguably it violates the "show, don't tell" rule at times, but I was never bothered by that - the prose was always engaging enough that it never felt like a synopsis. I would even say that this story is a good example of why "show, don't tell" is a guideline rather than an absolute law of writing.

Another more or less legitimate criticism is that the story is unfocused, since some events in the plot are not causally linked but simply happen in chronological order. This didn't bother me at all, but I have a very high tolerance for slice of life plots. In fact I like them if the characters and themes are strong enough to carry the story, and in this case both are more than sufficiently strong.




1. "Rashomon," Ryunosuke Akutagawa
2. "To Reach Japan," Alice Munro
3. "Amundsen," Alice Munro
 
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Lakey

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I really am so delighted at how much you all are writing about your stories. Thank you! I know life gets busy and we won’t always be able to keep it up, but I’m thoroughly enjoying it for now. Very thoughtful, insightful commentary.

I'm in on the Challenge. I'll do one story a month.
Fantastic! Welcome.

It's an impressive amount of plot and characterization to pack into one short story, which suggests that the writing might be too dense or that the pacing might be rushed, but I found neither of those to be the case. Arguably it violates the "show, don't tell" rule at times, but I was never bothered by that - the prose was always engaging enough that it never felt like a synopsis. I would even say that this story is a good example of why "show, don't tell" is a guideline rather than an absolute law of writing.
This is great. I love densely-packed writing - not dense in the sense of thick or hard to read, but dense in the sense of heavy with meaning. You are definitely making me want to read these stories.

Okay, my turn. I have stumbled into a pile of short stories lately. First, the edition of A Room of One’s Own that I was reading turned out to have a handful of short stories at the end of it. The first of them I will not count - I would call it a poem rather than a story, as it has no narrative - it is a collection of disjoint and fragmentary images, and I couldn’t make a lick of sense out of any of it. But then there were three that better fit the bill.

6. “A Haunted House,” Virginia Woolf.
This has a lot in common stylistically with the poem that I’m not counting here (entitled “Monday or Tuesday”), in that is also structured rather loosely, but at least the images are related and something of a narrative emerges - it appears to be the story of a couple examining their new home while the past residents of it swirl around them with their own memories and impressions. Your interpretations may differ, however.

7. “Kew Gardens,” Virginia Woolf.
This one is more in the Mrs Dalloway style, as the focus hops from person to person (and, briefly, to the POV of a snail) crossing a particular footpath in Kew. A slice of ordinary middle-class life, as a man tries to rein in his father’s dementia-fueled ravings, two old women reminisce and gossip, a young couple try and figure out what being a young couple is all about. And maybe I should have compared it to To the Lighthouse, rather than Mrs Dalloway, because at the end they all converge on a pavilion to take their tea.

8. “The New Dress,” Virginia Woolf.
This one compares to The Voyage Out in style. (I haven’t, but I ought to, look up when these were written and see if they line up with the novels they remind me most of.) It is a tense internal monologue by a woman with terrible anxiety and depression, that’s the only way I can describe it. The protagonist is at a party (at Clarissa Dalloway’s house; I love the way she makes cameos all over Woolf’s work), absolutely sure that her dress is awful and all the other guests are laughing at her. It goes on in that vein. It’s a better story than this makes it sound.

The other thing that happened to me, short-story-wise, is that I finished a novel I was reading on my kindle and next in the queue was a collection of Edgar Allen Poe stories. I started them and they are so enjoyable that I’m sure I will tear through the rest and they will all end up on this thread before another week is out. First up was:

9. “William Wilson,” Edgar Allen Poe, in Tales of Mystery and Imagination.
A man - one of Poe’s pioneering unreliable narrators - recounts the story of his life beset by a doppelgänger, a schoolmate with the same name, same general physical description, and so on. As the story progresses, it becomes quite clear that this other William Wilson is his conscience, projected outward and incarnated. The narrator grows up a kind of Dorian-Gray-like debaucher, except that every time his worst schemes are about to come to fruition, in bursts this other William Wilson and ruins everything. The story ends, because it’s Poe, with Wilson stabbing his alter ego to death.

Phew! That’s all for now. I’m halfway through the second Poe story so I’m sure I’ll be back to report on it later. I’m leaping ahead of my pace! And I shall have to be intentional about working in more modern stories.

:e2coffee:
_______________________

1. “Children Are Bored on Sunday,” Jean Stafford. From The New Yorker, 1948 (reprinted in the December 3, 2018 issue).
2. “Pierre Menard, Author of The Quixote,” Jorge Luis Borges (in a Borges collection called Labyrinths)
3. “My First Fee,” Isaac Babel, in The Collected Stories of Isaac Babel
4. “Wants,” Grace Paley, in Enormous Changes at the Last Minute, 1970
5. “I Like to Give Twenty Percent,” Rebecca Schiff, in Columbia Journal, 2018
6. “A Haunted House,” Virginia Woolf
7. “Kew Gardens,” Virginia Woolf
8. “The New Dress,” Virginia Woolf
9. “William Wilson,” Edgar Allen Poe, in Tales of Mystery and Imagination

Goal for now: 52 in 2019
 

awriter

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5. "Gravel," Alice Munro

This is a very depressing story, much more so than the others I've read*. The plot somewhat resembles "To Reach Japan," in that it's about a woman having an affair with a rather dubious guy and its impact on her children. However, the story does not end just as the affair begins, but continues on to show how her two daughters cope with the end of their mother's marriage and her new relationship. Without going into too much detail, the older daughter does not handle the transition well at all, leading to tragic results.

There's a really striking line in this one that pretty much sums up the whole story: "All the eviscerating that is done in families these days strikes me as a mistake." In another context that could come across as a conservative, maybe even reactionary sentiment, but in the context of this story it's hard to dispute.

*One could argue that "Rashomon" is more depressing, but it's depressing in a generalized, "lose faith in humanity" way, whereas this story is focused on a single tragedy.




1. "Rashomon," Ryunosuke Akutagawa
2. "To Reach Japan," Alice Munro
3. "Amundsen," Alice Munro
4. "Leaving Maverley," Alice Munro
 

Chris P

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11. "No Ordinary Soiree," by Paula Akugizibwe (published in Redemption Song and Other Stories)


Rwandese socialite and businesswoman Arielle, lambasted on the social pages and losing business due to formally charging her husband with adultery--a criminal offense in Rwanda--plans and hosts her own surprise party to save face by giving the appearance of having forgiven him in front of all the selfie and social press cameras. What she didn't plan is how Arielle's school-days flame Rukundo is the frontman for the live band her friend Neza has booked for the event. This story, on the surface, has all the elements of a fun rom-com film, and as this is the writer's first short story it's likely inspired by such.

However, behind this is a more complicated story. Post-genocide Rwanda is a difficult place for fans of western-style democracy. On one hand, the reforms introduced by Paul Kagame have resulted in a booming economy, one of the best doing business scores in Africa, low corruption, and post-genocide reconciliation efforts are hailed as the most innovative anywhere. When I visited Kigali in 2013 after living a year in Uganda, I was impressed by the infrastructure, cleanliness, orderliness (they had traffic lights and people obeyed them!), and feeling of safety. However, Kagame has been in power since 2000, is seen by many as a heavy-handed dictator by consolidating power and removing term limits, limiting the freedom of the press, jailing political opponents, and the amendment mentioned in the story where even forgiveness by the accuser for adultery does not cause the charges to be dropped is a real thing. It's against the backdrop of a fairly repressive legal system, and power structure that supports it, that the story makes more sense.

___________________

1. "Acceptance Speech," by David Naimon (published in Boulevard)
2. "Let the Devil Sing," by Allegra Hyde (published in Threepenny Review).
3. "A suburban weekend," by Lisa Taddeo (published in Granta)
4. "Do I look sick to you? (Notes on how to make love to a cancer patient)" by C. J. Hribal (published in Bellevue Literary Review)
5. "Brace yourself," by Leslie Jill Patterson (published in Prime Number)
6. "American Dream," by Nonyelum Ekwempu (published in Red Rock Review and reprinted in Anthem)
7. "Involution," by Stacy Hardy (published in Migrations: New Short Fiction from Africa)
8. "Fanta Blackcurrant," by Makena Onjerika (published in Wasafiri)
9. "Wednesday's Story," by Wole Talabi (Published in Lightspeed Magazine)

10. "Calling the clouds home," by Heran T. Abate (published in Redemption Song and Other Stories)
 
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Chris P

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12. "Where rivers go to die," by Dilman Dila (published in Redemption Song and Other Stories)


I'm . . . not exactly sure what I've just read. This post-apocalyptic story follows the unnamed main character, an abiba--someone with magical powers--after he is run out of his village for trying to re-animate his mother, who was killed in an accident he caused by trying to mechanize the tread plow (something else prohibited by the primitive throwback society). In a post-apocalyptic supernatural journey bringing to mind "By the Waters of Babylon" by Stephen Vincent Benet and Dante's "Inferno," as well as incorporating creatures likely borrowed from African folk tales, the MC meets his dead mother (maybe) and is transported to a new society that lacks an abiba.

___________________

1. "Acceptance Speech," by David Naimon (published in Boulevard)
2. "Let the Devil Sing," by Allegra Hyde (published in Threepenny Review).
3. "A suburban weekend," by Lisa Taddeo (published in Granta)
4. "Do I look sick to you? (Notes on how to make love to a cancer patient)" by C. J. Hribal (published in Bellevue Literary Review)
5. "Brace yourself," by Leslie Jill Patterson (published in Prime Number)
6. "American Dream," by Nonyelum Ekwempu (published in Red Rock Review and reprinted in Anthem)
7. "Involution," by Stacy Hardy (published in Migrations: New Short Fiction from Africa)
8. "Fanta Blackcurrant," by Makena Onjerika (published in Wasafiri)
9. "Wednesday's Story," by Wole Talabi (Published in Lightspeed Magazine)

10. "Calling the clouds home," by Heran T. Abate (published in Redemption Song and Other Stories)
11. "No Ordinary Soiree," by Paula Akugizibwe (published in Redemption Song and Other Stories)
 

Tocotin

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So many interesting stories! Ajaye, I read a little bit of The Young Visiters, it almost killed me :D It's hilarious.

4. "Medical Training" by Tazawa Inabune, 1895. From "Tokyo Centennial Tales vol.1".

This story was extremely interesting and frustrating to me at the same time. Interesting, because it has fantastic period details and fascinating insight into lives of Japanese female students in early Meiji period; frustrating, because it is haphazardly structured, melodramatic, and resolved by deus ex machina (aka earthquake). It's the story of an unloved and Totally Beautiful daughter; she doesn't want to marry, so her father and stepmother make her study medicine, even though she is interested in literature, painting, and art in general. It was shocking and funny to see that medicine was, in fact, a despised profession for lower classes and "girls who couldn't hope to get married" (due to being ugly). The heroine, Hanae, hates her vulgar lady teacher and other students, who "resemble vegetables at the market" (because they are ugly), and only pretends to study – she spends her time mostly hanging out in the library, drawing, and generally feeling sorry for herself. She does have some sad personal history, but uh... her crying and becoming more and more beautiful was getting on my nerves.

Now the descriptions of the medical school and students, and the whole story of Hanae being forced to become a doctor seem very over-the-top, BUT the interesting thing is that the author herself was a daughter of a doctor, and her family was very much against her becoming a writer. She died very young (at 23), after a short and unhappy marriage with another writer, Yamada Bimyō, and I don't know much about her, but perhaps her father tried to force her to study medicine? Poor Inabune!

(She was the contemporary of Higuchi Ichiyō, one of the most famous Japanese women writers. Ichiyō died young of tuberculosis, just like Inabune. Her short story, The Thirteenth Night, is next in the collection, but I've already read it a few times and I'm going to omit it for this challenge.)


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1. "Ginza Journal" by Seki Kenshi, 1882. From "Tokyo Centennial Tales vol.1", October 2018, Iwanami Shoten.
2. "Kong Yiji" by Lu Xun, 1919. From "Call to Arms", May 2006, Iwanami Shoten. (Japanese translation)
3. "The Lifted Veil" by George Eliot, 1856. Kindle edition, Serenity Publishers, 2006.
 
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Chris P

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13. "Redemption song," by Arinze Ifeakandu (published in Redemption Song and Other Stories)


This one left me pretty meh. Obinna arrives at his ex-wife Adrianna's house to collect some of the belongings of their now-deceased son Michael. I never understood why he was doing this, and it seemed like, honestly, a cheap way to set up the scenario for the backstory, which is the real story. Obinna was an absentee father, and Michael was killed when he ran out into traffic at a time Obinna should have been watching him. Michael was the only reason the couple stayed together, and soon after his death Obinna takes up with his boyfriend Martin, who has since left. There was so much potential for the story to examine guilt, resentment, and redemption that never went anywhere. As it was, the story came off as a slice of life of a key moment, and could have packed more punch than it did.

___________________

1. "Acceptance Speech," by David Naimon (published in Boulevard)
2. "Let the Devil Sing," by Allegra Hyde (published in Threepenny Review).
3. "A suburban weekend," by Lisa Taddeo (published in Granta)
4. "Do I look sick to you? (Notes on how to make love to a cancer patient)" by C. J. Hribal (published in Bellevue Literary Review)
5. "Brace yourself," by Leslie Jill Patterson (published in Prime Number)
6. "American Dream," by Nonyelum Ekwempu (published in Red Rock Review and reprinted in Anthem)
7. "Involution," by Stacy Hardy (published in Migrations: New Short Fiction from Africa)
8. "Fanta Blackcurrant," by Makena Onjerika (published in Wasafiri)
9. "Wednesday's Story," by Wole Talabi (Published in Lightspeed Magazine)

10. "Calling the clouds home," by Heran T. Abate (published in Redemption Song and Other Stories)
11. "No Ordinary Soiree," by Paula Akugizibwe (published in Redemption Song and Other Stories)
12. "Where rivers go to die," by Dilman Dila (published in Redemption Song and Other Stories)
 

Chris P

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14. "The Weaving of Death," by Lucky Grace Isingizwe (published in Redemption Song and Other Stories)


Betty, after witnessing the violent murder of her boyfriend Kalisa, decides to kill herself following the resulting trauma, nightmares, and threats of the murderers. I won't say more than that, as this is one story where spoilers would truly ruin the story. What really impressed me was how the writer incorporated third, first and second-person narration so seemlessly in an only eight-page story without jarring the progression of the action. If anyone were looking for an example of doing this well, I will point them toward this story.

___________________

1. "Acceptance Speech," by David Naimon (published in Boulevard)
2. "Let the Devil Sing," by Allegra Hyde (published in Threepenny Review).
3. "A suburban weekend," by Lisa Taddeo (published in Granta)
4. "Do I look sick to you? (Notes on how to make love to a cancer patient)" by C. J. Hribal (published in Bellevue Literary Review)
5. "Brace yourself," by Leslie Jill Patterson (published in Prime Number)
6. "American Dream," by Nonyelum Ekwempu (published in Red Rock Review and reprinted in Anthem)
7. "Involution," by Stacy Hardy (published in Migrations: New Short Fiction from Africa)
8. "Fanta Blackcurrant," by Makena Onjerika (published in Wasafiri)
9. "Wednesday's Story," by Wole Talabi (Published in Lightspeed Magazine)

10. "Calling the clouds home," by Heran T. Abate (published in Redemption Song and Other Stories)
11. "No Ordinary Soiree," by Paula Akugizibwe (published in Redemption Song and Other Stories)
12. "Where rivers go to die," by Dilman Dila (published in Redemption Song and Other Stories)
13. "Redemption song," by Arinze Ifeakandu (published in Redemption Song and Other Stories)
 

Lakey

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Thanks for reporting on those interesting stories from Africa, ChrisP.

I’ve read two more of the Poe stories (today is Poe’s birth anniversary, as it happens) and I admit I’ve lost my enthusiasm a bit. Neither was anywhere near as good as the first one. They are:

10. “The Gold Bug,” Edgar Allen Poe, in Tales of Mystery and Imagination.
This meandering story felt like Poe couldn’t decide which of three different ideas to turn into a story so he crammed all of them into one - a mysterious golden scarab, a lost pirate’s treasure, and a ciphertext. It suffered, too, from atrocious “eye dialect,” Poe’s rendering of the speech of a manumitted slave (who nevertheless stayed on the rest of his life continuing to serve his “massa,” yech). One has to expect such things in 19th-century writing, but when the story isn’t terribly good it’s that much harder to overlook. The story was a structural mess, too - our hero follows his friend through a series of mysterious actions culminating in the digging up of the treasure, after which the friend narrates (in page upon page of suspenseless exposition) how he learned of the treasure and deciphered its location. Really not a worthy story.

11. “The Fall of the House of Usher,” Edgar Allen Poe, in Tales of Mystery and Imagination.
This is one of the more famous ones so I thought it might be good, but it just isn’t. I started to recount it here but it’s such a dumb, unfrightening story that there’s no reason to waste your time with it as it wasted mine. One can read a bit of Poe’s pioneering unreliable narrator into it - indeed, one has to, for it to make any sense at all - but it’s not integral and insightful, as it is in “William Wilson.” Rather, I feel like I’m making an ad hoc attempt to find something of value in the story. Feh.

I will keep reading the Poe but I might mix in something else first, for the challenge.

:e2coffee:
_______________________

1. “Children Are Bored on Sunday,” Jean Stafford. From The New Yorker, 1948 (reprinted in the December 3, 2018 issue).
2. “Pierre Menard, Author of The Quixote,” Jorge Luis Borges (in a Borges collection called Labyrinths)
3. “My First Fee,” Isaac Babel, in The Collected Stories of Isaac Babel
4. “Wants,” Grace Paley, in Enormous Changes at the Last Minute, 1970
5. “I Like to Give Twenty Percent,” Rebecca Schiff, in Columbia Journal, 2018
6. “A Haunted House,” Virginia Woolf
7. “Kew Gardens,” Virginia Woolf
8. “The New Dress,” Virginia Woolf
9. “William Wilson,” Edgar Allen Poe, in Tales of Mystery and Imagination
10. “The Gold Bug,” Edgar Allen Poe, in Tales of Mystery and Imagination
11. “The Fall of the House of Usher,” Edgar Allen Poe, in Tales of Mystery and Imagination

Goal for now: 52 in 2019
 
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Chris P

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I feel the same way about Poe: good in small doses. One or two of his stories at a time is all I can do. There is a . . . sameness? . . . to them that gets tiring for me.

However, one of the best dramatic representations I've seen is Vincent Price playing both Fortunado and Montressor in Cask of Amontillado. Performed well, Poe comes to life amazingly. I feel the same way about Shakespeare, who is tough to read unless in a study group will a good facilitator but performed is enchanting.
 
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Brightdreamer

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10. “The Gold Bug,” Edgar Allen Poe, in Tales of Mystery and Imagination.
This meandering story felt like Poe couldn’t decide which of three different ideas to turn into a story so he crammed all of them into one - a mysterious golden scarab, a lost pirate’s treasure, and a ciphertext. It suffered, too, from atrocious “eye dialect,” Poe’s rendering of the speech of a manumitted slave (who nevertheless stayed on the rest of his life continuing to serve his “massa,” yech). One has to expect such things in 19th-century writing, but when the story isn’t terribly good it’s that much harder to overlook. The story was a structural mess, too - our hero follows his friend through a series of mysterious actions culminating in the digging up of the treasure, after which the friend narrates (in page upon page of suspenseless exposition) how he learned of the treasure and deciphered its location. Really not a worthy story.

Back in school, there was a film adaptation of The Gold Bug we watched (not full-length film, IIRC - not sure when or where it was made, but it was in color) with one of the best twists on the story: at the end, the MC finds a skeleton on the beach, hand outstretched as though pointing, and this is when he declares he's not giving up until he finds the treasure - throwing his whole life away, basically, in his obsession. And if you watch the scene, it's clear to the viewer that the skeleton is pointing to a half-buried chest in the sand right behind him. He was almost on top of the gold, and was too wrapped up in the riddle and everything to see it.

As for Poe, I have to agree that he's a small-dose author. Not personally my cup of cocoa, and some stories - like Murder in the Rue Morgue - really... aren't that great, TBH, even not accounting for aging.
 

Chris P

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15. "Spaceman," by Bongani Kona (published in Redemption Song and Other Stories)


A lot going on in this one. The story starts with the narrator driving his friend Alderman, Alderman's son Archford, and a wounded dog to meet "The Russian." I turns out that the dog was injured when Alderman's homemade rocket explodes. The story combines comedy--the aged Russian, whose blood alcohol content seems at a permanent set point of 0.3 and who is likely mad, insists on being tied to the top of the car as they drive through the night to get . . . somewhere . . . to do . . . something--and tragic, as the dog is very severely injured and Archford is intensely upset. The humor is dark in the same way Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas or a Quentin Tarantino film is, but the comedic elements fall back as the story progresses. I don't really understand how the story ends, or how the digression into the Zimbabwe Bush War relates to the final section.

___________________

1. "Acceptance Speech," by David Naimon (published in Boulevard)
2. "Let the Devil Sing," by Allegra Hyde (published in Threepenny Review).
3. "A suburban weekend," by Lisa Taddeo (published in Granta)
4. "Do I look sick to you? (Notes on how to make love to a cancer patient)" by C. J. Hribal (published in Bellevue Literary Review)
5. "Brace yourself," by Leslie Jill Patterson (published in Prime Number)
6. "American Dream," by Nonyelum Ekwempu (published in Red Rock Review and reprinted in Anthem)
7. "Involution," by Stacy Hardy (published in Migrations: New Short Fiction from Africa)
8. "Fanta Blackcurrant," by Makena Onjerika (published in Wasafiri)
9. "Wednesday's Story," by Wole Talabi (Published in Lightspeed Magazine)

10. "Calling the clouds home," by Heran T. Abate (published in Redemption Song and Other Stories)
11. "No Ordinary Soiree," by Paula Akugizibwe (published in Redemption Song and Other Stories)
12. "Where rivers go to die," by Dilman Dila (published in Redemption Song and Other Stories)
13. "Redemption song," by Arinze Ifeakandu (published in Redemption Song and Other Stories)
14. "The Weaving of Death," by Lucky Grace Isingizwe (published in Redemption Song and Other Stories)
 
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ajaye

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5. 'The House on Hill Street' by Judy Nunn

This one turned out to be a fictionalised take on a gruesome 1983 murder in Tasmania. What threw me was its opening, which focused on a neighbour and his attempts to befriend the soon-to-be-victim/her children. I kept waiting for the neighbour to reappear, expecting some twist to the tale, but he never did. So while it was interesting enough, it didn't quite work for me.

_______________________

1. 'The Stone Of Invisibility' by Giovanni Boccaccio
2. 'The Room With Forty-Eight Stars' by Maurus Jokai
3. 'Sticks, Stones' by Christos Tsiolkas
4. 'The Young Visiters or, Mr. Salteena's Plan' by Daisy Ashford
 

Chris P

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16. "Departure," by Nsah Mala (published in Redemption Song and Other Stories)


Nangeh has won the Diversity Visa lottery, which will allow her to emigrate to the United States where she can make enough money to support her family, including her husband Ngek, who is disabled in an accident and unable to work, their daughter and extended family. However, she needs a sizable chunk to pay the fees and travel costs, so she approaches the local District Official for a loan. He agrees, but on one condition: she marries his ne'er-do-well son Chiamoh so he can emigrate with her. Because Nangeh and Ngek were married in a traditional ceremony and did not have the fees for a civil marriage certificate, no official record of their marriage exists. As far as the Cameroon or American government are concerned, she is not married . . . unless the District Official provides a certificate, between her and Chiamoh, of course. No certificate, no loan, no "Obamaland."

Many times in SYW, people suggest that a short story be the opener to something longer, and of course there is the never-ending discussion of prologues. I usually disagree on both counts, but not in this case. I could very easily see this story continuing some months later on page one with Nangeh and Chiamoh is some church-sponsored apartment just outside some major US city. And a tale to tell from there.


___________________

1. "Acceptance Speech," by David Naimon (published in Boulevard)
2. "Let the Devil Sing," by Allegra Hyde (published in Threepenny Review).
3. "A suburban weekend," by Lisa Taddeo (published in Granta)
4. "Do I look sick to you? (Notes on how to make love to a cancer patient)" by C. J. Hribal (published in Bellevue Literary Review)
5. "Brace yourself," by Leslie Jill Patterson (published in Prime Number)
6. "American Dream," by Nonyelum Ekwempu (published in Red Rock Review and reprinted in Anthem)
7. "Involution," by Stacy Hardy (published in Migrations: New Short Fiction from Africa)
8. "Fanta Blackcurrant," by Makena Onjerika (published in Wasafiri)
9. "Wednesday's Story," by Wole Talabi (Published in Lightspeed Magazine)

10. "Calling the clouds home," by Heran T. Abate (published in Redemption Song and Other Stories)
11. "No Ordinary Soiree," by Paula Akugizibwe (published in Redemption Song and Other Stories)
12. "Where rivers go to die," by Dilman Dila (published in Redemption Song and Other Stories)
13. "Redemption song," by Arinze Ifeakandu (published in Redemption Song and Other Stories)
14. "The Weaving of Death," by Lucky Grace Isingizwe (published in Redemption Song and Other Stories)
15. "Spaceman," by Bongani Kona (published in Redemption Song and Other Stories)