08.May.2010 Short Saturday: First Love and Other Sorrows by Harold Brodkey
Mom’s flowers last spring
I didn’t think I’d be able to read a short story and write about it this Saturday, but I stole some time reading outside at our backyard, trying desperately to enjoy the last bit of sun before we officially enter winter. Hubby worked on his bike from our round trip of garage sale today, such a happy boy he was. For myself, among other things I got Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck for a buck, such a happy girl I was!
After the first Brodkey’s that I read a few months ago, I’ve decided to give him another go, especially after Sasha‘s raving reviews of his works recently. And what a great short to read under the sun. First Love and Other Sorrows is about young love in the spring, about understanding what it means, and about growing up, growing out of your idealistic love. The narrator is an awkward 16 year old boy living with his beautiful popular sweet sister and their widowed mother. I loved the point of view of a younger brother, talking about his older sister. It reminded me of my younger brothers.
“From my room across the hall I would hear my sister chattering about the men she knew–the ones she dated, the ones she wanted to date, the ones she wouldn’t touch with a ten-foot pole. My mother would interrupt with accounts of her own cleverness, her sorties and successes when young, sometimes laughingly, but sometimes gloomily, because she regretted a lot of things. Then she and my sister would label my sister’s suitors: one or two had family, one had money, one–a poor boy–had a brilliant future, and there were a few docile, sweet ones who were simply fillers, who represented the additional number of dates that raised my sister to the rank of a very popular girl.”
It’s a quiet melancholy story. Short and warm, just like that tiny window of sunshine in the fall.
Though I’m still unsure why Jeffrey Eugenides would pick two of Harold Brodkey’s stories for My Mistress’s Sparrow is Dead (the only author given the space), at least he has redeemed himself for me and I will happily read more of his works in the future.
mee 
