"The Farmer's Children" by Elizabeth Bishop

*photo credit

"Once, on a large farm ten miles from the nearest town, lived a hard-working farmer with his wife, their three little girls, and his children from a former marriage, two boys aged eleven and twelve."

It begins like a fairy tale, complete with a stepmother, princess-like half sisters, and two motherless boys. When Elizabeth Bishop adds in oppressive cold and a full moon, the tale quickly turns dark and foreboding. Since their father and the hired man (who usually sleeps in the barn) have gone to town, Cato and Emerson must take his place in the barn and guard against vandals. Cato decides it's a "night  for the crumbs" and hides four slices of bread under his sweater during dinner. On the way to the barn, he leaves his trail of crumbs.

"Outside it was almost as bright as day. The macadam road looked very gray and rang under their feet, that immediately grew numb with the cold. The cold stuck quickly to the little hairs in their nostrils, that felt painfully stuffed with icy straws. But if they tried to warm their noses against the clumsy lapels of their mackinaws, the freezing moisture felt even worse, and they gave it up and merely pointed out their breath to each other as it whitened and then vanished. The moon was behind them. Cato looked over his shoulder and saw how the tin roof of the farmhouse shone, bluish, and how, above it, the stars looked blue, too, blue or yellow, and very small; you could hardly see most of them."

Inside the barn, the boys are cold and scared. Judd's blankets are nowhere to be found and the farm implements look malevolent in the moonlight. They long to follow their breadcrumb trail home before sunrise. Unsurprisingly, the story ends in tragedy. It is a peaceful tragedy, one that I was not expecting.


Bishop's writing is very visual, allowing the reader to "see" every detail as the story unfolds. Although Elizabeth Bishop is best known for her poetry, I am happy to discover her short stories.

I read "The Farmer's Children"in The Best American Short Stories of the Century, edited by John Updike. It also appeared in Harper's Bazaar in 1949.  Unfortunately, I could not find the story on the internet.

Short Story Monday is hosted by John Mutford at The Book Mine Set.

"A Venetian Night's Entertainment" by Edith Wharton

*image credit

Short Story Monday, meet Venice in February. I'd been searching for stories set in Venice to share this month, when Audrey pointed me toward Edith Wharton. The story was exactly what I'd hoped for and Wharton, as always, was a pleasure to read.

"A Venetian Night's Entertainment" is a story Judge Anthony Bracknell liked to tell his grandsons. Ever since childhood, the mere mention of Venice had been like "a magician's magic wand" to the judge. His fascination stemmed from a print depicting a "busy merry populous scene" in St. Mark's Square.

"For here, by their garb, were people of every nation on earth, Chinamen, Turks, Spaniards, and many more, mixed with a parti-coloured throng of gentry, lacqueys, chapmen, hucksters, and tall personages in parsons' gowns who stalked through the crowd with an air of mastery, a string of parasites at their heels. And all these people seemed to be diverting themselves hugely, chaffering with the hucksters, watching the antics of trained dogs and monkeys, distributing doles to maimed beggars or having their pockets picked by slippery-looking fellows in black -- the whole with such an air of ease and good-humour that one felt the cut-purses to be as much a part of the show as the tumbling acrobats and animals."

As young Tony grew up, that image faded, but Venice still figured prominently in his dreams. All he learned in subsequent years seemed to "confirm its claim to stand midway between reality and illusion" - Venice still meant magic.

"It was the kind of place, Tony felt, in which things elsewhere impossible might naturally happen..."

Tony finally had an opportunity to visit Venice 1760, as part of his grand tour aboard the family's merchant ship. The story perfectly conveys the carnival-like atmosphere as, almost immediately upon arrival, Tony becomes an unwilling participant in a strange series of events involving a chance encounter with a beautiful young woman, an arranged marriage, misdelivered correspondence, and a chase. Tony is never exactly sure what is happening and, as a result, neither is the reader. This story was great fun! You can read "A Venetian Night's Entertainment" here.

Can you suggest other short stories set in Venice?

Short Story Monday is hosted by John Mutford. Venice in February is hosted by Bellezza and Ally.

"The Geranium" by Flannery O'Connor

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 "Old Dudley folded into the chair he was gradually molding to his own shape and looked out the window fifteen feet away into another window framed by blackened red brick. He was waiting for the geranium. They put it out every morning about ten and they took it in at five-thirty. Mrs. Carson back home had a geranium in her window. There were plenty of geraniums at home, better-looking geraniums. Ours are sho nuff geraniums, Old Dudley thought, not any er this pale pink business with green, paper bows."

From these opening lines, it's easy to surmise Old Dudley isn't very happy in New York City.  He agreed, in "a moment of weakness", to leave his home in a southern boarding house and move into the apartment his daughter shares with her family.

"The apartment was too tight. There was no place to be where there wasn't somebody else. The kitchen opened into the bathroom and the bathroom opened into everything else and you were always where you started from. At home there was upstairs and the basement and the river and downtown..."

Now Old Dudley is lonely, isolated, and intimidated by the city. He resents the relaxed racial attitudes of the north and struggles with the fact that black people live in the same building as his daughter. The geranium's appearance on the windowsill each morning is the single constant in his life... until one day when it is no longer there. The ending is very moving.

Why has it taken me so long to discover Flannery O'Connor? I recently purchased The Complete Stories and my first inclination was to turn to "A Good Man is Hard to Find", but I decided to start at the beginning instead. "The Geranium" was Flannery O'Connor's first published story. It appeared in Accent: A Quarterly of New Literature in 1946 and was written as part of her six story Masters thesis project. Reading these stories in order will allow me to watch this great talent unfold. I really enjoyed "The Geranium"- you can read it here.

Short Story Monday is hosted by John Mutford at The Book Mine Set.

"An English New Year" by Henry James

"It will hardly be pretended this year that the English Christmas has been a merry one, or that the New Year has the promise of being particularly happy. The winter is proving very cold and vicious - as if Nature herself were loath to be left out  of the general conspiracy against the comfort and self-complacency of man."

More of a letter or essay, Henry James wrote "An English New Year" during the economically unstable 1870's. He was 35 years old, living in England, and the piece was published in The Nation on January 12, 1879. It later appeared in his Collected Travel Writings: Great Britain and America.

James talks of the general gloom prevalent throughout the country. As London is mired in fog and snow (described in in prose reminiscent of  Dickens), he hopes to recover his 'nervous balance' with a brief escape to the country.

"Of all the great things that the English have invented and made part of the credit of the national character, the most perfect, the most characteristic, the one they have mastered most completely in all its details, so that it has become a compendious illustration of their social genius and their manners, is the well-appointed, well-administered, well-filled country-house."

James is invited to accompany the lady of the house on a charitable holiday visit to a workhouse where she is to distribute toys to the children. The dispatch ends abruptly as he is reminded of Oliver Twist.

"An English New Year" is this week's Library of America Story of the Week and includes drawings by Joseph Pennell. You may read it here.

Short Story Monday is hosted by John Mutford at The Book Mine Set.

"Story of a Madman" by Emile Zola

This week, I returned to Dead Men Tell No Tales and Other Stories by Emile Zola.  "Story of a Madman" (1868) is reputed to have many plot similarities to his novel Therese Raquin, published just a year earlier. The first paragraph captured my attention, touted similarities appeared in the second, and by the third paragraph, I had no doubt where the story was headed.

Forty year old Isidore-Jean-Louis Maurin marries the 18-year-old blonde daughter of one of his tenants, but Henriette soon begins to cheat on him with a young doctor from the flat upstairs.

"Their close proximity, the fact that they were separated from each other by nothing more than the thickness of a ceiling, sharpened their desire still more. At night, the lover could hear the husband coughing in bed."

After a few weeks, Henriette ran out of excuses for visiting the second floor and a plan to get rid of Maurin was hatched.

"They were reluctant to resort to violence or crime. How could you possibly slit the throat of such a tame sheep? Besides, they were afraid of being found out and sent to the guillotine. In any case, the doctor, who was an ingenious young man, hit on a less risky by equally effective method, the bizarre nature of which fired the young woman's romantic imagination."

Henriette staged several incidents which suggested her husband's madness. Compounded by gossip of neighbors, all of Maurin's actions are eventually construed as those of a madman, and he is taken away.

Forcible confinement of the allegedly insane was a timely issue in the late 1800's, and still evokes strong feelings today. Zola utilized the themes of madness and guilt very successfully in Therese Raquin and would return to them again in parts of the later Rougon-Macquart novel La Conquete de Plassans of 1874.

Unfortunately, I was not able to find "Story of a Madman" online, but if the plot interests you, I would strongly recommend reading Therese Raquin. My thoughts on that novel can be found here.

Short Story Monday is hosted by John Mutford at The Book Mine Set. Karen and Tamara are the hosts of Paris in July.

"Abandoned" by Guy de Maupassant

When plans for another Paris in July were announced, I knew Guy de Maupassant (1850-1893) would be on my itinerary.  "Farewell" was a favorite last year. It left me marveling at the author's ability to write so simply and directly about basic human experience (aging, in this case), yet have it resonate so deeply.

"Abandoned" succeeds on the same level. What must it be like to give up a child at birth? The story opens:

"I really think you must be mad, my dear, to go for a country walk in such weather as this. You have had some very strange notions for the last two months. You drag me to the seaside in spite of myself, when you have never once had such a whim during all the forty-four years that we have been married. You chose Fecamp, which is a very dull town, without consulting me in the matter, and now you are seized with such a rage for walking, you who hardly ever stir out on foot, that you want to take a country walk on the hottest day of the year. Ask d'Apreval to go with you, as he is ready to gratify all your whims. As for me, I am going back to have a nap."

Madame de Cadour, an elderly woman, does convince her old companion to accompany her on a walk, while her husband returns to the hotel for a nap. We learn almost immediately that there is much more to both the purpose of the journey and the relationship when Monsieur d'Apreval says,

"if our son guesses anything, if he has any suspicions, he will have you, he will have us both in his power. You have got on without seeing him for the last forty years. What is the matter with you to-day?"

The puzzle is quickly pieced together as the reader learns Madame de Cadour was sent away years earlier to have a baby. She held her son for a single day before he was abruptly taken. What must forty years of daily longing be like? Surely expectations have been formed as a picture of the long-absent child (now man) was fashioned in her mind.

After so much time, can anything really turn out as one imagines? Read the eight-page story here.

Short Story Monday is hosted by John Mutford at The Book Mine Set.
Paris in July is hosted by Karen and Tamara.

"A Box to Hide In" by James Thurber

James Thurber always manages to bring a smile to may face. It's been a couple of years since I read "The Unicorn in the Garden" (my post is here), so I was delighted to find Thurber's "A Box to Hide In" featured as last week's Library of America story.

This story opens with a man asking a grocery clerk for a box - one large enough to crawl into and hide. When none is available,  the question is posed (unsuccessfully) at several other groceries.  One confused clerk asks "Whatta you mean?" and our narrator responds,

"It's a form of escape, hiding in a box. It circumscribes your worries and the range of your anguish. You don't see people, either."

The next morning as the cleaning lady arrives, our narrator imagines a scenario (think Walter Mitty) in which he barks or laughs from inside the box as the unsuspecting woman walks past... precipitating her fatal heart attack.

As the story closes, a box has yet to be located.

"I haven't found one yet, but I still have this overpowering urge to hide in a box. Maybe it'll go away, maybe I'll be all right. Maybe it will get worse. It's hard to say."

In just three pages, Thurber has created a story with universal appeal. Haven't we all dreamed of escape at one time or another?

The story may be read here. Short Story Monday is hosted by John Mutford at The Book Mine Set.

Short Story Monday: "Overseasoned" by Anton Chekhov

There's a hole in my short story reading where Anton Chekhov belongs. Widely regarded as one of the greatest short story writers, he has never been mentioned here at Lakeside Musing.  At least one or two of his collections appear on my amazon wish list, I've read articles and reviews about his stories, but don't recall ever reading an actual story. Surely, he must have been assigned in high school?

A couple of weeks ago, we moved our oldest daughter into her NYU summer housing and I jumped at the opportunity to spend a few minutes at Strand Books. Working under time pressure, I found three books in five or ten minutes (though my husband claims it was closer to thirty), including this edition of Wordsworth Classics Selected Stories.

The first story, "Overseasoned" (1885),  seemed vaguely familiar. A surveyor arrives at a station, only to find that his business is still another thirty or forty miles farther. With no post horses are available, he warily enlists the services of a willing peasant.

They left the station at dusk. To the right stretched a cold, dark plain so boundless and vast that if you crossed it no doubt you would come out the Other End of Nowhere. The cold autumn sunset burnt out slowly where the edge of it melted into the sky. To the left, in the fading light, some little mounds rose up that might have been trees or last year's haystacks. The surveyor could not see what lay ahead, for here the whole landscape was blotted out by the broad, clumsy back of the driver. The air was still, but frosty and cold.

What a vivid picture Chekhov paints! The surveyor soon becomes uncomfortable and more than a little nervous. He begins boasting (falsely) to the driver about a revolver he claims to be carrying, his physical prowess in fighting off would-be robbers, and a group of his friends trying to catch up with the wagon. In a comic twist, his bravado backfires and causes the driver to become afraid of the surveyor.

I have probably read this story before and am curious to see if the others produce a similar feeling of deja vu. A different translation of this story can be read online. Interestingly, it is more aptly titles as "Overdoing It".

Short Story Monday is hosed by John Mutford at The Book Mine Set.

"A Morning Walk" by Kate Chopin

Kate Chopin's "The Story of an Hour" was the subject of my first Short Story Monday post two years ago. I give it partial credit for renewing my interest in short stories and have been meaning to return to Chopin ever since. Over the weekend, I had a chance to read "A Morning Walk". It was featured as a Library of America's Short Story of the Week last month and originally appeared as "An Easter Day Conversion" in the Criterion (St. Louis) in April, 1897.

The story opens:

Archibald had been up many hours. He had breakfasted, and now he was taking a morning stroll along the village street, which was little other than a high ledge cut into the mountain-side. 

It goes on to give a detailed description of Archibald's physical qualities, as well as the natural surroundings. While walking, he meets a young girl with a bunch of lilies and carries them for her. They eventually arrive at church, and we learn it is Easter morning. To everyone's amazement, Archibald follows the girl into the church, takes a seat, and begins to listen to the sermon.

The words "I am the Resurrection and the Life" are spoken - words Archibald has heard before. The story then ends abruptly with:

It crept into the consciousness of Archibald, sitting there. As he gathered it into his soul a vision of life came with it; the poet’s vision, of the life that is within and the life that is without, pulsing in unison, breathing the harmony of an undivided existence. 

He listened to no further words of the minister. He entered into himself and he preached unto himself a sermon in his own heart, as he gazed from the window through which the song came and where the leafy shadows quivered.

Strange. Apparently, Archibald has had a conversion of sorts. I didn't really like the story and don't know what else to say about it. It can be read here if you are interested.

Short Story Monday is hosted by John Mutford at The Book Mine Set.

"Bliss" by Katherine Mansfield

Virginia Woolf once said Katherine Mansfield produced "the only writing I have ever been jealous of."  Woolf also wrote  "... the more she is praised, the more I am convinced she is bad."  


That quotation opened my 2010 post on Katherine Mansfield's short story "The Doll's House" (a story which remains one of my favorites), yet at the time I did not truly understand how Woolf could have been jealous of Mansfield's work. After reading "Bliss", I am better able to appreciate her feeling. The story opens:

Although Bertha Young was thirty she still had moments like this when she wanted to run instead of walk, to take dancing steps on and off the pavement, to bowl a hoop, to throw something up in the air and catch it again, or to stand still and laugh at - nothing - at nothing, simply.

     What can you do if you are thirty and, turning the corner of your own street, you are overcome, suddenly by a feeling of bliss - absolute bliss! - as though you'd suddenly swallowed a bright piece of that late afternoon sun and it burned in your bosom, sending out a little shower of sparks into every particle, into every finger and toe? ...

Bertha has a handsome husband, a lovely young daughter, and a beautiful home and garden. She marvels at the beauty of a fruit arrangement and at the pear tree in the garden. The tree becomes one of the central images in the story suggesting fertility or sexuality. Bertha is overcome by an intense feeling of bliss as she prepares for a dinner party that evening. A stream-of-consciousness narration is especially effective in telling the story.

Friends arrive and the party is a success. After the meal, Bertha shares a moment of understanding with her new friend, Miss Pearl Fulton, as they gaze upon the garden.

 And the two women stood side by side looking at the slender, flowering tree. Although it was so still it seemed, like the flame of a candle, to stretch up, to point, to quiver in the bright air, to grow taller and taller as they gazed - almost to touch the rim of the round, silver moon.

     How long did they stand there? Both, as it were, caught in that circle of unearthly light, understanding each other perfectly, creatures of another world, and wondering what they were to do in this one with all this blissful treasure that burned in their bosoms and dropped, in silver flowers, from their hair and hands?

The actions of Bertha's husband suggest he may not like Miss Fulton, so Bertha vows to change his mind when they talk in bed later that evening. The reader then comes to understand Bertha's feeling of bliss as newly awakening desire for her husband. When the guests are leaving, Bertha witnesses a startling exchange between her husband, Harry, and Miss Fulton.

Is the exchange real? Has Bertha misunderstood or imagined it? The story ends abruptly with no resolution, just another image of the pear tree " as lovely as ever and as full of flower and as still."

I loved this story! "Bliss" was one of Mansfield's last, written in 1920, just three years before her death at age 34.  It shows the work of a more mature writer and I cannot help but be reminded of Mrs. Dalloway, published five years later in 1925. You may read the story here.

Short Story Monday is hosted by John Mutford at The Book Mine Set.

"The Night We All Had Grippe" by Shirley Jackson

Shirley Jackson (1916-1965) is not generally associated with humor. "The Lottery", her most famous story, is nothing short of gruesome, and funny isn't an adjective I'd choose to describe We Have Always Lived In The Castle either.  "The Night We All Had Grippe" introduces a side of Shirley Jackson I had never imagined.

We begin with a family that is 'very fond of puzzles'. The mother, our narrator, explains The Great Grippe Mystery and asks the reader's help in trying to figure out what has become of a blanket (as they are 'very short of blankets').

A detailed description of the floor-plan, bedroom furniture arrangement, bedtime drink preferences, color of bedding and ambient temperature in each room follows. It reads like a word problem from grade school math - the kind that's filled with confusing, extraneous information. I'm already smiling at this point.

The entire family becomes sick at the same time (an all to familiar occurrence, at least around here).

"In our family, we take ill in different manners; my husband is extremely annoyed at the whole procedure, and is convinced that his being sick is someone else's fault, Laurie tends to become a little lightheaded and strew handkerchiefs around his room, Jannie coughs and coughs, the baby turns bright red, and I suffer in stoical silence, so long as everyone knows clearly that I am sick. We are each of us privately convinced that our own ailment is far more severe than anyone else's."

A night of musical beds ensues as blankets, pillows, and nightstand supplies move from room to room with their owner. This section had me literally laughing out loud.

The story ends with a summation of the problem:

"The puzzle, is, of course, what became of the blanket from Baby's bed? I took it off her crib and put it on the bottom half of the double-decker, but the dog did not have it when when he woke up, and neither did any of the other beds. It was a blue-patterned patchwork blanket, and has not been seen since, and I would most particularly like to know where it got to. As I say, we are very short of blankets."

"The Night We All Had Grippe" was originally published in Harper's in 1952 and collected in Come Along With Me in 1968. It is this week's featured story from Library of America and can be read in its entirety here.

Short Story Monday is hosted by John Mutford at The Book Mine Set.

"No Pain Whatsoever" by Richard Yates

I'm a hopeless realist, especially when it comes to fiction. That probably explains why I've come to love Richard Yates' writing. His characters are nothing if not real.

"No Pain Whatsoever" opens with Myra smoothing her skirt and pushing Jack's hand away. She is in the back seat of a car, heading toward the hospital TB ward for a weekly visit with her husband. Jack is her boyfriend.

It wasn't that there was anything to be ashamed of - Irene and Marty knew all about Jack and everything; most of her friends did, and nobody blamed her (after all, wasn't it almost like being a widow?) - it was just that Jack ought to know better. Couldn't he at least have the decency to keep his hands to himself now, of all times?

Tension builds as details slowly emerge. After deciding they will go out for drinks, Myra's friends drop her off at the hospital.

All the sheets and the hospital pajamas were dyed yellow, to distinguish them from uncontaminated linen in the hospital laundry, and this combined with the pale green of the walls made a sickly color scheme that Myra could never get used to.

At last we are introduced to her husband, Harry. He has been in the hospital for an undetermined length of time, with no discharge plans in the foreseeable future.

When he bent forward to take the match the yellow pajamas gaped open and she saw his chest, unbelievably thin, partly caved-in on one side where the ribs were gone. She could just see the end of the ugly, newly healed scar from the last operation.

Their visit is comprised of solely superficial conversation. It's obvious Harry has developed a new routine around the rhythm of hospital life. Clearly more anxious to delve into the new issue of Popular Science, he seems only vaguely interested in Myra's conversation. When Myra asks if it hurts, he responds,

"Not at all any more... I mean, as long as I don't go raising my arms too high or anything. When I do that it hurts, and sometimes I start to roll over on that side in my sleep, and that hurts too, but as long as I stay - you know - more or less in a normal position, why, there's no pain whatsoever."

Myra has a brief breakdown after she leaves the ward, but recovers in time to join her friends for one final round of drinks.

This story, like the Yates novels I've read, is very real and slightly sad. Simon (Stuck in a Book) said it perfectly in his post yesterday: "... next time I feel like a bit of American sombreness, I'll turn to Yates."

It's interesting to note that Yates contracted TB and recovered after a brief convalescence. Using the resulting army disability pension, he moved to Europe in 1954, lived there for several years, and wrote stories. "No Pain Whatsoever" is from The Collected Stories of Richard Yates. I was not able to find it online.

Short Story Monday is hosted by John Mutford at The Book Mine Set.

Short Story Monday: "Eveline" by James Joyce

"She sat at the window watching the evening invade the avenue. Her head was leaned against the window curtains and in her nostrils was the odour of dusty cretonne. She was tired."

The opening lines of "Eveline" by James Joyce create an immediate sense of loneliness or isolation in this very interior story.  The bookmark in my copy of Dubliners hasn't moved in months, but Irish Short Story Week hosted by Mel U at The Reading Life provided the motivation to finally return to this classic.

Our story occurs mainly in Eveline's mind. While recollecting happier childhood days when her father 'wasn't as bad', and her mother and favorite brother were still alive, she becomes wistful. But, 

"Everything changes.  Now she was going to go away like the others, to leave her home."

She pauses to reflect on home, question the decision to leave, and examine her hope to be respect as a married lady in a new country. Eveline does not want to be treated as her mother had been. With no one to protect her, she is afraid of her father's violence, yet she has two younger sibling to care for. And then there is the promise made to her mother. But what about Frank and the possibility of a new life as his wife?

Eveline's plight was not uncommon; few choices were available for women in early 20th century Ireland. Leaving offered the only opportunity for a better life, yet ties to family, home, and the past often proved too strong to be broken. Eveline is left paralyzed... as trapped as a 'helpless animal'.

Dubliners was first published in 1914, and "Eveline" may be read online.
Short Story Monday is hosted by John Mutford at The Book Mine Set.

"Rentafoil" by Emile Zola

Everything is for sale in Emile Zola's Paris, and beauty, as a commodity, is no exception. After moaning for years that no one can make money out of ugly girls, the old businessman Durandeau finally hit upon a way to market ugliness.  His company, Rentafoil, allows a moderately pretty girl to rent an ugly one as a 'suitable embellishment', or foil, in order to enhance her own beauty as the pair stroll the streets, gaze in shop windows, talk, and laugh together.

Durandeau, like Zola, knows human nature and realizes

"...only pretty women have the courage to make a false confession of ugliness.  The ugly ones would never admit of their own free will that  their mouths were too big and their eyes ludicrously small.  You could put up notices all over Paris offering ten francs to every ugly woman who cared to apply without the slightest risk of becoming impoverished."

His advertisements are of no use, so Durandeau searches the city himself, and with great finesse, is able to find enough women willing to act as foils.  The business became a huge success boasting many regular beauty/foil pairs.

But what of the life of the foil?

"They spend all day in a whirl of gaiety. At night, they fret and fume and sob. They've had to take off their fine dress which belongs to the agency, they're alone in their attic, sitting in front of a bit of broken mirror which tells them the truth. Their ugliness is staring them mercilessly in the face and they're quite aware that nobody will ever love them. They may help to excite desire but never will they know the joy of being kissed themselves."

And in the end,

"Mankind marches on. Durandeau will be blessed by future generations because he created a market for a hitherto unsaleable commodity and invented a fashion article which makes love easier. "

One again, Zola provides another startling look at human nature, warts and all. "Rentafoil"maybe not a pleasant read, but it is remarkably perceptive.

This story appears in Dead Men Tell No Tales and Other Stories by Emile Zola (1840-1902).  It may also be read online.
Short Story Monday is hosted by John Mutford at The Book Mine Set.

Short Story Monday: "After the Ball" by Leo Tolstoy

"So you say that man cannot understand what's good and what's bad on his own, that it's all a matter of the environment, that he's a prey to the environment. But I think it's all a matter of chance. Here, I'll tell you about myself."

Those opening lines to Leo Tolstoy's short story "After the Ball"  had me rolling my eyes and thinking I wasn't going to get very far with the story, but I was wrong.  Ivan Vassilievich's description of a ball, the exquisitely beautiful woman he fell in love with, and her father, the colonel, drew me in immediately.

I did not look up until ten pages later when, at dawn after the ball, Ivan witnesses a brutal military act involving the colonel. He claims this chance incident changed the course of his life.

"So, do you think I decided then that what I had seen was a bad thing? Not a bit of it. 'If it was done with such assurance and was acknowledged by everyone as necessary, it means they know something that I don't know,' I thought and tried to find it out.  And not having found it out, I could not enter military service, as I had wanted before, and not only did not serve in the military, but did not serve anywhere and, as you see, have been good for nothing."

Ivan's love for the beautiful girl also dwindled away, because thoughts of her invariably lead to recollections of the colonel.  This story will cause you to stop and think.

Anna Karenina is my only previous experience with Tolstoy. I read it around the time Oprah selected it for her book club, and can remember sitting in the bookstore comparing two translations before finally choosing Pevear & Volokhonsky. Prior to that day, translation never really seemed important to me.

Pevear and Volokhonsky have now translated The Death of Ivan Ilyich & Other Stories. It was recently released in paperback by Vintage Classics, and I was lucky to receive the extra review copy sent to my daughter's college newspaper. It seems perfect for winter reading.

"After the Ball" can be read online, but in an older translation.
Short Story Monday is hosted by John Mutford at The Book Mine Set.

Short Story Monday: "Afterward" by Edith Wharton

Hello, Short Story Monday.... meet the TBR Dare.
Nearly fifty bloggers have accepted C.B. James' dare to read only from our shelves until April 1.  Since my shelves hold plenty of short stories, Short Story Monday posts will focus on collections and anthologies I've purchased over the last couple of years, as well as back issues of The New Yorker piled on my coffee table, for the entire first quarter of 2011.

Last Monday I started F. Scott Fitzgerald's Tales From the Jazz Age, but this week I was in the mood for a ghost story and turned to "Afterward" from The Ghost Stories of Edith Wharton.   It begins:

"Oh, there is one, of course, but you'll never know it." 

These portentous words are spoken to Mary and Ned Boyne,  a newly wealthy American couple escaping "the soul-deadening ugliness" of the midwest for an English country home, when Ned, believing a ghost to be an absolute necessity for such a property, quite bluntly asks:

"I don't want to have to drive ten miles to see somebody else's ghost.  I want one of my own on the premises. Is there a ghost at Lyng?"

Ned is somewhat disappointed at the prospect of a ghost that nobody knows is a ghost and, upon pressing further, learns legend says the ghost is only recognized "afterward".  Ned then asks how it can be called a ghost if it is not immediately perceived as one, while Mary puzzles the question with their friend Alida,

"But if it's once been identified as an unearthly visitant, why hasn't its signalment been handed down in the family? How has it managed to preserve its incognito?... Suddenly, long afterward, one says to one's self 'That was it'?"

Alida can only offer the words, "One just has to wait."

"Oh, hang waiting!" Ned broke in. "Life's too short for a ghost who can only be enjoyed in retrospect. Can't we do better than that, Mary?"

The fun, and creepiness, comes with the unfolding story and discovery of the ghost... afterward. "Afterward" was less ambiguous and, ultimately, more satisfying than "The Lady's Maid's Bell" (reviewed here), also included in this eleven story collection. "Afterward" may also be read online.

Short Story Monday is hosted by John Mutford at The Book Mine Set.

Short Story Monday: "The Jelly-Bean" by F. Scott Fitzgerald

Jim Powell was a Jelly-bean.  Much as I desire to make him an appealing character, I feel it would be unscrupulous to deceive you on that point.  He was a bred-in-the bone, dyed-in-the wool, ninety-nine three-quarters per cent Jelly-bean and he grew lazily all during Jelly-bean season, which is every season, down in the land of the Jelly-beans well below the Mason-Dixon line.

So begins F. Scott Fitzgerald's 24 page story, "The Jelly-Bean".  I was immediately captivated by the language and tone, but also slightly confused.  Thankfully, Fitzgerald provided the answer to my question just two paragraphs later:

"Jelly-bean is the name throughout the undissolved Confederacy for one who spends his life conjugating the verb to idle in the first person singular - I am idling, I have idled, I will idle.

The first chapter introduces Jim Powell.  He never liked parties much, was mostly scared of girls, and, at twenty-one, has returned from the war (he served in a navy-yard in Brooklyn) to live above Tilly's Garage, where he occasionally works. He also happens to be a champion crap-shooter.

The second chapter is written mostly in dialogue. An old friend invites Jim to a party at the country club. On impulse he accepts, but feels woefully out of place.

So ten o'clock found the Jelly-bean with his legs crossed and his arms conservatively folded, trying to look casually at home and politely uninterested in the dancers.  At heart he was torn between overwhelming self-consciousness and an intense curiosity as to all that went on around him.

At the party, Jim is dazzled by the popular Nancy Lamar, also reputed to be a fine crap-shooter, but one who often gets into trouble after too much "good old corn". Remember, this is during prohibition.

An after hours crap shoot follows the dance. Jim watches as Nancy has an amazing winning streak, however her luck turns as the alcohol flows. He steps in to "save" her, and is rewarded.  As morning breaks, Fitzgerald writes poetically of Jim's change in attitude, his desire to better himself, and finally, a realization.

In this heat nothing mattered. All life was weather, a waiting through the hot where events had no significance for the cool that was soft and caressing like a woman's hand on a tired forehead.

This story originally appeared in The Metropolitan periodical, and was included in Fitzgerald's Tales of the Jazz Age in 1922. This is a wonderful story, and I look forward to reading more from the collection.  You can read "The Jelly-Bean" here.

Short Story Monday is hosted by John Mutford at The Book Mine Set.

"A Christmas Memory" by Truman Capote (reprise)

A month of Christmas Short Story Mondays was planned for December, but my copy of The Virago Book of Christmas has yet to arrive from The Book Depository. Over the weekend, I reread Truman Capote's "A Christmas Memory". It's my favorite Christmas story, and this post is a rerun from last December.


Originally posted 12/6/09:

After a couple of decidedly untraditional stories, Truman Capote's "A Christmas Memory", set in the depression-era rural south, had me sighing with relief at the end of the first paragraph.

"Imagine a morning in late November. A coming of winter morning more than twenty years ago. Consider the kitchen of a spreading old house in a country town. A great black stove is its main feature; but there is also a big round table and a fireplace with two rocking chairs placed in front of it. Just today the fireplace commenced its seasonal roar."

This house is home to several members of a family, including an old woman and a young boy (our narrator) she calls Buddy. The two friends obviously have a very special bond.

"It's always the same: a morning arrives in November, and my friend, as though officially inaugurating the Christmas time of year that exhilarates her imagination and fuels the blaze of her heart, announces: 'It's fruitcake weather! Fetch our buggy. Help me find my hat.' "

The boy's memories of the season follow. On the first day of "fruitcake weather", the two gather 'windfall pecans'. The second day finds them buying the rest of the necessary ingredients, with money that has been carefully saved all year. On the third day, the baking commences.

The fruitcakes (as many as 31) are given to people that matter to the old woman and boy. Some are people the two barely know - like the bus driver that waves as he passes by every other day. One is even sent to President Roosevelt at the White House, and the old woman imagines him enjoying it on Christmas morning.

The boy shares the adventure of cutting down the Christmas tree:

" 'It should be, muses my friend, 'twice as tall as a boy. So a boy can't steal the star.' The one we pick is twice as tall as me. A brave handsome brute that survives thirty hatchet strokes before it keels with a creaking rending cry. Lugging it like a kill, we commence the long trek out. Every few yards we abandon the struggle, sit down and pant. But we have the strength of triumphant huntsmen; that and the tree's virile, icy perfume revive us, goad us on."

The making and giving of homespun gifts is also described. The entire story is beautifully written and a joy to read.

Truman Capote wrote this autobiographical story in 1956. It was first published in Madamoiselle and, later, as a book. It was also made into a movie in 1997 starring Patty Duke and Piper Laurie.

An internet search turned up this You Tube video that has Capote reading the story himself. Enjoy!

Short Story Monday: "A City of Churches" by Donald Barthelme

Prester is one strange town. It is made up entirely of churches. Donald Barthelme's story "A City of Churches" appeared in The New Yorker in 1973, but I came across it in The Best American Short Stories of the Century, edited by John Updike.
The story opens:

"Yes," Mr. Phillips said, "ours is a city of churches all right."

Cecelia nodded, following his pointing hand. Both sides of the street were solidly lined with churches, standing shoulder to shoulder in a variety of architectural styles. ... "Everyone here takes a great interest in church matters," Mr. Phillips said.

Cecelia, who has come to town with plans of opening a car rental company, immediately wonders if she will fit in - especially since she is not very religious. Mr. Phillips replies that she may not be very religious yet,

"But we have many fine young people here. You'll get integrated into the community soon enough. The immediate problem is where are you to live? Most people," he said, "live in the church of their choice. All of our churches have many extra rooms. I have a few belfry apartments that I can show you."

He also questions the viability of her business proposal:

"Renting a car implies that you want to go somewhere. Most people are pretty content right here. We have a lot of activities. I don't think I'd pick the car-rental business if I was just starting out in Prester. But you'll do fine."

Although the town seems wholesome at first glance, the reader is left with a distinctly uneasy feeling that borders on creepy. I was reminded of The Stepford Wives. This was my first experience with Barthelme, and I plan to seek out more of his stories. Is there one you can recommend?

An abstract of this four page story can be found on The New Yorker website (subscribers have access to the entire text), but I also found it reprinted here.

Short Story Monday is hosted by John Mutford at The Book Mine Set.

Short Story Monday: "The Confession" by Guy de Maupassant

Paris is July may be over, but my interest in Guy de Maupassant's short stories continues. Mel at The Reading Life wrote about "The Confession" a couple of weeks ago, and I had to read it for myself. It introduces two sisters who have spent their entire lives together. The younger, at 56, is on her death-bed. First, du Maupassant sets the scene:

"The apartment had that sinister aspect, that air of hopeless farewells, which belongs to the chambers of the dying. Medicine bottles stood about on the furniture, linen lay in the corners, pushed aside by foot or broom. The disordered chairs themselves seemed affrighted, as if they had run, in all the senses of the word. Death, the formidable, was there, hidden, waiting."

Then, the details emerge. Many years earlier, the older sister was engaged, but her true love died very suddenly just days before the wedding. The younger sister, only twelve at the time, vowed she would never marry and stay with her sister forever.

"They lived together all the days of their life, without ever being separated a single time. They went side by side, inseparably united. But Marguerite seemed always sad, oppressed, more melancholy than the elder, as though perhaps her sublime sacrifice had broken her spirit. She aged more quickly, had white hair from the age of thirty, and often suffering, seemed afflicted by some secret, gnawing trouble."

Finally, the reason behind that 'gnawing trouble' is revealed during the death-bed confession. All this in three pages! It packs quite a punch and will leave a lasting impression... which is what I have come to expect from a Guy de Maupassant story. You may read it here.

Short Story Monday is hosted by John at The Book Mine Set.