Mori Ōgai (1862-1922) produced a wide range of works, from diaries, medical essays, aesthetics and literary criticism, to biographies, plays, Japanese and Chinese poetry, short stories, and novellas. He’s also a translator of contemporary European literature. In his final period of creative writing began in 1912, he turned to write almost exclusively in the genre of “historical literature”, which I guess what we often call now as historical fiction.

There are 10 short stories in the volume and after reading the short introduction for each story, I picked a piece called Gyogenki, a historical literature based on the Chinese Taoist nun and poetess Yü Hsüan-chi (I’m following the spelling in the book). Initially equally clueless about the great Chinese poetess as I was with Mori, I was intrigued by the brief summary of her life. She became a concubine of a wealthy man, got divorced, became a nun, had a lesbian relationship with another nun, then embraced a male lover, got insanely jealous over a maid, killed her, and was beheaded at the end. What a life!

Unfortunately the story felt pretty cut and dry, like reading a textbook. I can’t be sure if it’s the translation or not, but it didn’t make me want to continue reading the rest of the other stories in the book. Maybe I will eventually maybe I won’t, but I’m not rushing. I did enjoy reading the introduction about Mori at the beginning of the book and the short introductions for each of the short stories which honestly sound very interesting.

“Despite a lasting reputation in Japan, Mori Ōgai has yet to achieve any satisfactory reception in the West. Natsume Sōseki, the only writer of Ōgai’s generation to share his stature, has been widely translated and admired, but Ōgai remains a shadowy figure, austere, even obscure. It often happens, of course, that the work of certain writers cannot be sufficiently understood outside their own cultures. Some towering figures never earn anything like their rightful reputation through translation.” ~ The Historical Literature of Mori Ōgai: An Introduction

A bit sad. I guess there’s a reason why the book was withdrawn from Japanese Foundation Library. I know libraries usually withdraw books that have not been borrowed for a length of time. I’m glad I got to know a bit more about Mori-sensei and even tried his historical short fiction, even though I may not have “got it”. Who knows, maybe we’ll cross path again sometime in the future.

Check out the rest of the participants here. There are only a few of us this time!

When the Englishman Dickens wrote with his profound pity and understanding of the poor, there was yet a bit; of remoteness, perhaps, even, a bit of caricature, in his treatment of them. He showed their sufferings to the rest of the world with a “Behold how the other half lives!” The Russian writes of the poor, as it were, from within, as one of them, with no eye to theatrical effect upon the well-to-do. There is no insistence upon peculiar virtues or vices. The poor are portrayed just as they are, as human beings like the rest of us.

However at the end I settled on the story in DailyLit’s Classic Shorts: Eight Stories for the Summer because it came at a great timing and I love their format more. The Russian shorts featured in the collection are A Doctor’s Visit by Anton Chekhov and Ivan the Fool by Leo Tolstoy. So Tolstoy it is. I’m thinking it’s also good to dip my toe in the water before reading Anna Karenina next year.

Ivan the Fool is surprisingly simple story. It reads almost like a children folktale/fairy tale. Three brothers with different ideals go their own separate ways. One with an ambition to conquer, one to be wealthy, and the last one–the Fool–pursues nothing but happiness in simple life. The devils try their hardest to create troubles for the brothers as they’re not happy to see peace.

Curious about what was behind the story, I quickly googled it, to find University of Adelaide website (which looks great) that has the story available online. According to the unknown translator’s preface:

The story of “Ivan the Fool” portrays Tolstoi’s communistic ideas, involving the abolition of military forces, middlemen, despotism, and money. Instead of these he would establish on earth a kingdom in which each and every person would become a worker and producer. The author describes the various struggles through which three brothers passed, beset as they were by devils large and small, until they reached the ideal state of existence which he believes to be the only happy one attainable in this world.

Well that makes so much sense! Thank you Mr Unknown Translator.

If Anna Karenina is as easily readable as Ivan the Fool, I’d nothing to worry about!

1863

Complete Schedule for Imperial Russian Literature on Tour

“[Chang] tried , with little success, to break into the English-language fiction market… But the cultural and linguistic gaps were to wide to cross. As C. T. Hsia, one of her earliest and most perceptive advocates, remarked, mid-century American readers’ views of China were greatly influenced by writers like Pearl S. Buck, which left them unprepared for Chang’s melancholy incisiveness and insider’s perspective.”

Don’t you find it ironic that the real Chinese was less accepted? Once I started, I could sort of see why. While Buck concentrated on the poor rural life, Chang wrote about the middle to high class Chinese society. From Westerners perspective, the tale of misery from a third world country might be more exotic than the intricacies of ordinary Chinese life and relationships.

The first story, Aloeswood Incense: The First Brazier, quickly set an image in my head as Pride and Prejudice in Hong Kong. There are parties and courtships, and people are measuring someone’s worth from how much he/she owns or earns. But unlike P&P, it’s not a feel-good romantic story, a pattern that will follow throughout the rest of the book.

Chang’s stories may be about love, but it may be love you’re not familiar with. The stories are essentially–borrowing words from the Introduction–”anti-romance”. Every single character is calculative–a very Chinese trait I think. I likened it to watching a game of chess, or a game whose rules I’m not very familiar with, so it’s required of me to pay attention to details, to what is said between  the lines, to things they say and not say, to little gestures. I love the intricacies, the power play, and complexity of the relationships. This is almost unheard of for short story collection, but I loved all the stories in the book. The more I read the more I love Chang’s writing and the more I appreciate her skills in building these tales of life.

Chang wrote film scripts apart from short stories and novels, so it’s little wonder that her strength in this aspect shines through. Her writing is often cinematic, it’s almost like she wrote with a big screen in mind. Jasmine Tea, her second story in the book started with a cup of tea:

“This pot of jasmine tea that I’ve brewed for you may be somewhat bitter; this Hong Kong tale that I’m about to tall you may be, I’m afraid, just as bitter. Hong Kong is a splendid city, but a sad one too.

First pour yourself a cup of tea, but be careful–it’s hot! Blow on it gently. In the tea’s curling steam you can see… a Hong Kong public bus on a paved road, slowly driving down a hill. A passenger stands behind the driver, a big bunch of azaleas in his arms. The passenger leans against an open window, the azaleas stream out in a twiggy thicket, and the windowpane behind becomes a flat sheet of red.”

In Jasmine Tea, we follow a young man who grows up in family with little love. Frustrated with his own father and stepmother, he starts to contemplate having a different father. He indulges in possibilities if her dead mother had married another man. All leads to dire consequences. The story is probably my least favorite because it’s quite disturbing at the end.

Next is the title story, Love in a Fallen City, which was made into a movie with the same name in 1984, played by Chow Yun Fat (The King and I, Pirates of the Caribbean). I really wanted to see the movie, but it’s an old movie and it’s so hard to find with proper subtitle so I gave up looking. But I searched some clips on youtube and watched some to have a feel of the atmosphere during the time as I don’t think I’ve ever watched a Chinese or Hong Kong movie from this era. I was especially intrigued by the clothes. During the time of reading, I had a hard time imagining the clothes they were wearing, so it was nice to see the clips and learned what they actually might look like. The story itself is one that most resembles a love story, with a man and a woman who find love in each other in the middle of turbulence and chaos.

In The Golden Cangue, we are faced with the epitome of evil mother and mother-in-law. She’s a very strong character, but I almost couldn’t stand to read on. Several times I needed to close my eyes and take a deep breath before continuing. Do you know what cangue is? Google it and check it out. It often appears in Chinese movies and only now I know the name of it. The title has great meaning in connection with the story.

My favorite stories happened to be the last two: Sealed Off and Red Rose, White Rose. In Sealed Off, the city is sealed off for unexplained reason and everybody is stuck at where they are until city is “re-opened” again. Camera pans to a tram, to the people in it, then is focused to a man and a woman. Two people meet by chance, forced to interact by circumstances. From the footnote of Sealed Off:

The military situation that creates this interlude is presented very obliquely; all that we know is that the authorities have shut down, or condoned off, all or part of the city. The authorities, in this case, are probably the Japanese occupiers or (more likely) the Chinese puppet government that answered to them. Chang made a point of never directly referring to the political or military situation in Shanghai prior to the defeat of the Japanese, and thus she usually escaped censorship and was never thrown in prison (as did befall those of her associates who took a more aggressive stance).

Interesting insight into the political situation of that time. Chang left China when she was 32 and for the next three decades was a banned writer in her homeland, though still much loved by loyal readers in Hong Kong, Taiwan, and the overseas Chinese communities. Sealed Off is told to be one of the stories that impressed Hu Lancheng, an influential man of the time, that “he looked her up, swept her off her feet, and became her husband” (from the Introduction).

Last, another favorite of mine, is Red Rose, White Rose. It has such a great opening:

“There were two women in Zhenbao’s life: one he called his white rose, the other his red rose. One was a spotless wife, the other a passionate mistress. Isn’t that just how the average man describes a chaste widow’s devotion to her husband’s memory–as spotless, and passionate too?

Maybe every man has had two such women–at least two. Marry a red rose and eventually she’ll be a mosquito-blood streak smeared on the wall, while the white one is “moonlight in front of my bed.” Marry a white rose, and before long she’ll be a grain of sticky rice that’s gotten stuck to your clothes; the red one, by then, is a scarlet beauty mark just over your heart.”

Just brilliant.

This is the short story that was picked by Jeffrey Eugenides to be included in anthology he edited: My Mistress’s Sparrow is Dead, whose short stories I’ve been reading and talking about here several times before.

Like Hong Kong the city, the recurrent theme in the book is fusion or clash between the East and the West. There are many mixed blood people make appearances or Chinese people who have spent a lot of time overseas. That and the progressive nature of the place and time, there bounds to be confusion and tension between the old and the new ways.

“Yanli rarely spoke or raised her head and always walked a little behind him. She knew very well that according to modern etiquette she should walk in front, left him help her put on her coat and wait on her, but she was uncomfortable exercising her new rights. She hesitated, and this made her seem even slower and more awkward.” ~ Red Rose, White Rose, p294

Love in a Fallen City contains 6 short stories, 4 of which are sort of novella length, and I think they worked really well for me exactly because of that. The short stories are not too short, so there’s time to develop the characters and the plot and there’s time for you to get immersed in them. They’re not perfect, as I found the dialogues sound a bit odd at times, but it’s understandable as Chinese is a very sharp and short language (though sing-songy), so it must be hell to translate to a wordy language like English. Then the behaviours of the characters can sometimes be very abrupt which I didn’t quite get. But all in all, what a great find. Thanks to Claire for picking this up, otherwise I may not have found it by myself. I will definitely look for more Chang’s works in the future. She is a gem of the East.

Chinese (1940s), English (1990s), Penguin Modern Classic (2007), 321 pp

Quotes

“No matter how amazing a woman is, she won’t be respected by her own sex unless she’s loved by a member of the opposite one. Women are petty this way.” ~ Love in a Fallen City, p127

“Basically a woman who was tricked by a man deserved to die, while a woman who tricked a man was a whore. If a woman tried to trick a man but failed then was tricked by him, that was whoredom twice over. Kill her, and you’d only dirty the knife.” ~ Love in a Fallen City, p152

“Even though status wasn’t something you could eat, losing it would be a pity.” ~ Love in a Fallen City, p153

“We were way too busy falling in love–how could we have found time to really love each other?” ~ Love in a Fallen City, p166

Challenges/Projects
China Challenge (book #5), Women Unbound (fiction #9), Reading the World

Also reviewed by
kiss a cloud | A Guy’s Moleskin Notebook | A Striped Armchair

ps: We are going to read Confessions of a Mask by Yukio Mishima for our next group read in September. Would you join us?

I don’t normally read mystery novels, let alone short stories, but short seems to be a less suitable form for mystery. The suspects are too few, so obviously the least suspected would be the culprit, and the mystery is solved before you know it.

I have previously read Isaac Babel’s The Public Library and Jorge Luis Borges’s The Library of Babel from this collection, then left the book for a while. A post on QL 696.C9 by A Work in Progress made me pick up this short today, since she mentioned that it’s her favorite short story in the anthology. Check out her review for more comprehensive synopsis!

I’d never heard of Anthony Boucher before this. From the book:

Anthony Boucher (1911-1968). One of the most important figures in 20th century mystery and detective fiction, Boucher was a novelist, editor, and–perhaps most importantly–a critic who wrote the “Criminals at Large” column for the New York Times from 1951 until his death in 1968. He was a founder of the Mystery Writers of America and for nine years was the editor of the Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. The “Bouchercon“, the oldest and largest annual convention of mystery fans, is named in his honor.

Anyone of you familiar with his works?

Have a nice weekend you all!

Back in my high school days, I was so into mountain hiking and camping it drove my parents crazy. It wasn’t so much about the activities, more about how unsafe it was for a bunch of teenagers to hike faraway mountains considering how wild these places are in Indonesia. There isn’t much organization or safety net at all. Combine that with youth sense of adventure and carelessness, it’d make any parents squirm.

Anyway gone are the days when I needed to slip out in the dawn and faced all the dramas before and after each adventure. I have grown many more years and Australia is as safe as snug. My parents can breathe easily.

I haven’t gone camping or mountain-hiking for a long while, only some bush-walking (To clarify, mountain-hiking is sort of like bush-walking with much higher elevation and takes longer time. For me back then it ranged from 12 hours to 2 days (we had to camp midway)), so I got excited when we bought a small tent on sale. I built them on our backyard, threw in some quilts and pillow, and spent the rest of Saturday afternoon yesterday inside the tent, reading. Funnily it was actually warmer inside the tent under the mild sun than inside the house (we’re entering winter) so I was happy to stay there for hours. It was bliss.

I read one short story from Haruki Murakami‘s short sollection The Elephant Vanishes titled Sleep. It’s about a housewife who finds that she can’t sleep one day and starts to read a lot during the night when everybody is asleep. It’s recommended to me by Rob, you can read his review here. I thought the story was a typical Murakami, with dreams and weird things happening. I wasn’t fond of the ending (also my problem with most Murakami’s works), but it was a fun story. How good is it to not have to sleep, ever? I would love that and spend it reading! Just like the woman character in the story. We spend 1/3 of our life sleeping. Without that, we’d practically have our life extended by a third. That’s a lot!

In the story there are references to Anna Karenina, which the character spends the most time reading. I’ve been wanting to read that for a long time but have not so I was worried of spoilers throughout the story, but it wasn’t too bad. Any interest to for Anna Karenina read-along? Next year maybe?

Have you read any Murakami’s short story? Which one is your favorite?

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.

Read Sasha’s review on First Love and Other Sorrows.

I gathered from people’s reviews that Angela Carter’s works are often studied in schools. It’s quite obvious why from the get go. Her language is lyrical, her writing daring, and her story full of symbolism. Her vocabulary level is a bit higher than what is comfortable for me, but more often than not I could let myself lost in the beauty of her prose, prose that evokes vivid imagery and creates such mysterious atmosphere.

To call The Bloody Chamber a collection of fairy-tale retelling is rather diminutive. It’s more accurate to say that Carter ripped fairy tales apart, took some of the elements, sewed them back with her own imagination, and made them her own. I loved how dark and how different they were. Most of the setting is an odd mixed of old and modern world. There are beast and vampire in ancient castles, but there are also bicycle and telephone. (I can hear you say “Whaa?”)

What sets her apart for me is how her writing oozes sexuality. It’s almost like girl soft-porn for the literary minded (and uum I meant that as a compliment). There’s almost an obsession on innocence and virginity.

“She stands and moves within the invisible pentacle of her own virginity. She is an unbroken egg; she is a sealed vessel; she has inside her a magic space the entrance to which is shut tight with a plug of membrane; she is a closed system; she does not know how to shiver.” ~ from The Company of Wolves

There’s so much foreplay and built anticipation, while the “main action” is secondary, or almost non-existent. (girl porn, right?) I find many female writers shy away from the subject of sexuality, it’s water they don’t want to get near to. So I felt what Carter did was refreshing and liberating.

What didn’t sit right with me was the endings, which were often abrupt and confusing. I guess it goes back to the symbolism which probably just went over my head. Some elements are just plain bizarre, which were okay in the middle of the story because of the fairy-tale aspect to it, but bizarre ending left me dissatisfied.

Now I’m going to talk about each of the story. I’ll try to keep any spoiler as minimal as possible, but I can’t be completely sure of what you consider spoiler or not. So proceed with caution.

There are 10 stories in the collection. I’ll start with the longest, The Bloody Chamber, which gives the title of the collection, and is 42 pages long– almost 1/3 of the collection! Luckily it’s easily one of my favorites. Based on the Bluebeard tale, a young girl marries an older man and she is brought to his majestic castle. What she doesn’t know, within the few months of their courtship (doh!), is that he has a perverse, dangerous fetish. I loved how it was written, how believable everything was, how it kept the suspense very well, until the part where she finds out about his secret. Then it just went downhill for me.

The shortest in the collection is The Snow Child, which felt like a reminiscence of Snow, Glass, Apples by Neil Gaiman I read recently, is only 1.5 page long! Loved the beginning, confused about the ending. One question. What’s with Snow White and necrophilia? That’s second time in a row!

There are THREE stories based on The Little Red Riding Hood:

The Werewolf which is the shortest of the three (2.5 pages long) is the closest to the original story, with a simple twist: grandma is the also wolf.

The Company of Wolves takes a different twist. Wolf becomes a handsome man and flirts with Red on the way to grandma’s place. Once Red arrives, grandma has been eaten and Wolf is ready to eat Red too. It’s sexual awakening for Red when she realizes her attraction to the man/wolf (regardless whether he ate grandma or not) and they end up sleeping together (which I frowned upon… What about grandma? Did you forget?)

Wolf-Alice is the farthest away from The Little Red Riding Hood. In fact I’m not sure if they’re related at all apart from the wolf thing. It’s probably a hybrid with Alice in Wonderland seeing the title, but in what aspect I’m not sure either. This was where I learned the term feral child. It starts with a girl who is raised by a pack of wolves. Some nuns take her in then after a while somehow send her to live with a lonesome Duke in an ancient castle. Problem is, the duke is a vampire. (!) What an odd storyline.

The Lady of the House of Love is based on Sleeping Beauty, only Beauty is not sleeping. She’s a vampire, a lonely one at that because she just has to kill all these men that visit her castle and drink their blood. One time though her tarot card shows that there will come love instead of food death, so she waits anxiously for her prince, who finally comes on a bicycle. (lovely) This story is probably my next favourite. I love the description of the princess and her doomed fate.

There are TWO stories based on Beauty and the Beast.

In The Tiger’s Bride, Beauty is lost to Beast on her father’s game of cards. She is brought to Beast’s castle and not long after finds out that Beast really really wants to see her without clothes. (uhuh!) I liked how the story was kinda naughty and sexy, but again the ending baffled me. “What’s going on?” I moaned. “What does it mean?” (rinse and repeat for almost all the endings)

In The Courtship of Mr Lyon, Beauty is forced to visit Beast’s castle after her dad’s attempt to steal Beast’s white rose. With a little bit of trick, Beast manages to keep Beauty in the castle for longer, what with her dad busy taking care of his business at another city. Beast acts all gentleman-ly and sparks start to fly. One day Beauty finally leaves the castle and forgets all about Beast. This is probably one of the more “normal” stories–just a simple love story between Beauty and her Beast.

The last two stories I read were also my least favorites. Puss-in-Boots tells about a cunning cat and his master, trying to win over someone else’s wife. There were just too many weird unfamiliar words used in the story, I started skimming near the end. The writing just didn’t work for me.

The Erl-King is about a maiden who is seduced over by the forest king. Better than Puss, but it didn’t captivate me much, and again the ending confused me.

In conclusion, an interesting seductive introduction to Angela Carter’s work. I just wish I could discuss most of the stories in class and dissect all the meanings with the experts. But it also means I can see myself going back to re-read some of the stories in the future.

Thanks to Claire who has been such an awesome host to Angela Carter Month. I definitely look forward to reading more of Carter’s works in the future!

1979, 149 pp

Awards
1979 Cheltenham Prize for Literature

Challenges
Once Upon a Time IV (book #3), Book Awards IV (book #9), Women Unbound (fiction #7)

Also reviewed by
another cookie crumbles | Stainless Steel Droppings | A Striped Armchair | Estella’s Revenge

The evolution of trickster stories among the dogs of North Park after the Change is a short story by Kij Johnson, which I picked out of Nymeth‘s favorite short stories (check her sidebar).

Knowing that it’s about dogs, I thought I could well connect with it, because I’m nothing but fond of dogs. My family kept dogs since I was small. My brothers and I even picked up stray puppies as kids and kept them. We weren’t the types of kids that get excited temporarily then forget to take care of the animals. We were good loving kind-hearted kids that really cared (even though the puppies died eventually because our incompetence..)

In this short story there’s an unexplainable event that makes the dogs able to talk. And that scares people off. To the point that the dogs get kicked out of their lovely homes and most are stranded in parks all around the city. Linna is different. She feels for these dogs and she listens to their stories.

It’s not that I didn’t like the story. I liked how unique it was. But I finished it with the thought “and what’s the point?” I was never sure whether the dogs story is allegory to something deeper, or just story about dogs period.

The story is available online at Kij Johnson website. Read it online.

It won a couple of awards:
Final ballot, 2007: World Fantasy awards and Nebula awards.
Nominee, 2007: Hugo awards and Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award.

I did finish two more short stories from The Bloody Chamber by Angela Carter, but I’m still thinking if I should post them after I finish the collection or not, because unlike my usual style to pluck a short story here and there, I feel like finishing the entire collection this time.

If you haven’t heard, Claire at Paperback Reader is hosting Angela Carter month this April. We’re halfway through, but if you read even a tiny bit faster than me then you still have plenty of time!

And because the snake was so popular, I feel the urge to share more. And this time it’s all about the crocs!

Look at how high it can go!

Do you know that crocodile’s jaw is even stronger than shark? (And Australia has both in abundance…)

Crocodiles Overload

This is crocodile farm. So they’ll be send away for their skin and meat.

We could see the crocodile warning signs everywhere near water. Including the sea!

To balance all the nastiness, here’s baby ducks for you. (Taken at Sydney Easter Show.)

Hope they brighten your day!

]]> http://www.meexia.com/bookie/2010/04/the-evolution-of-trickster-stories-among-the-dogs-of-north-park-after-the-change-by-kij-johnson-short-and-misc/feed/ 10 http://www.meexia.com/bookie/2010/04/short-saturday-chicxulub-by-t-coraghessan-boyle/ http://www.meexia.com/bookie/2010/04/short-saturday-chicxulub-by-t-coraghessan-boyle/#comments Sat, 03 Apr 2010 13:32:06 +0000 mee http://www.meexia.com/bookie/?p=3637 Oh how do I begin? Chicxulub is such a simple story. A man and his wife has the phone ring one night. Their daughter has been in an accident. Everything in the story is like a thunderstorm, sweeping me, like a meteor, hitting with resonating impact. Like Chicxulub, an asteroid that collided with the earth 65 millions years ago and is believed to wipe out the Dinosaurs. Yes that’s what Chicxulub is. For some reason prior to reading I thought Chicxulub was in the same family as Cthulhu…

For such a simple story, I could not put it down. I know, you’re thinking “Why put it down, it’s only a short story, you can finish it in one sitting”. But not me, I put down short story and I don’t read anything in a single sitting. This time I walked from my station to my bus stop reading, then from my bus stop to my office, reading, while walking, with runny nose, because I get runny nose when I force myself not to cry. The tears run into my nose.

I was so surprised of how the story shook me so. I wasn’t ready for such an emotional piece. I was going into the story thinking it might be fantasy. How it got to me I don’t really know. I read a short by Raymond Carver a while back with a rather similar plot: husband and wife has their kid involved in an accident (titled A Small, Good Thing), and it wasn’t even close in giving me the same level of emotional impact. Boyle’s writing just got to me. Electrifying I say. Or could it be because the story is interleaved with comets and asteroids? (I’ll let you find out how it is so yourself).

This is my first T. C. Boyle and I would love to read more. But half of me worries that nothing else of his works will be as good. That’s what I thought every time I finished a fantastic mind-blowingly good book or short story. “Nothing else will ever be as good. This is it.” I would slump to my seat with overwhelming sadness.

And yet I find more. Not very often. But I do.

Ah.. such is the journey of a reader.

Chicxulub was published by The New Yorker in 2004. You can read it online.

It is indirectly recommended by Nymeth @ things mean a lot (check out her sidebar). It has also got raving reviews from The Book Mine Set, Lakeside Musing, and Teddy Rose.

Short Saturday is the time when I talk about awesome or not so awesome short stories I read during the week(s). Join me in my journey? Michelle does.

I’m not sure if you noticed, but I haven’t posted Short Saturday for a few weeks, what with the holiday and catching up. Lucky me, Michelle has been continuing and it encouraged me to continue too. We’ve been posting about short stories on Saturday for a couple of months now (not always continuously) and it’s great to have a bloggy friend to do it together!

Talking about bloggy friends, I have been recommended many short stories since my first Short Saturday was up and it’s been so much fun to try so many stories that I wouldn’t have heard of otherwise. For this week, I was intrigued by Claire‘s favorite short stories that are listed on her sidebar and I picked three to read.

Snow, Glass, Apples by Neil Gaiman

Neil Gaiman confused me. One day he wrote The Graveyard Book and Coraline, another day The Sandman. Is he a YA writer or a twisted adult writer? Maybe both and he can change skin anytime he likes. Now Snow, Glass, Apples is more in the vein of The Sandman rather than his YA books, and I… LOVED it! (Though 10 paragraphs in there’s a blood sucking scene and I groaned “Not another blood sucker!” because I’m not a fan of anything vampiric.)

As you can probably guess from the title, the story is a retelling of Snow White. Twisted fairytale retelling is really my thing so I just fell for it. It’s a little bit disturbing at times, but really, after reading The Sandman, nothing can surprise me out of Neil Gaiman. Do not expect the story to be anywhere near kiddy or fluffy!

Did I just find my third 5-star short story? I did!

Read the story online

The Lottery by Shirley Jackson

I first heard of The Lottery when tanabata made a brief comparison of it to Battle Royale. As the latter is one of my favorite books, she piqued my interest straight away. When I saw the short story made appearance on Claire’s list, I just knew I had to read it.

The Lottery started with the whole village gathering at the square for a yearly lottery that has become a custom since a long time ago, nobody knows since when. We don’t know what the lottery is about, so the build-up to it is just amazing, the anticipation gripped me like few else. Of course, I wouldn’t tell you what it is, but the ending shocked me. I just didn’t see it coming. I got chills down my spine and goosebumps for minutes. Felt a little angry even. “I don’t get it”, repeated myself in my head.

The Lottery was first published in 1948 issue of The New Yorker. To the surprise of Jackson and the magazine, they got a high number of negative responses and angry mails from the readers. I must say I kinda understand why. The ending was morbid. However, I’m impressed with Shirley Jackson’s skill to bring such strong reaction from people. Her novel We Have Always Lived in the Castle has been on my radar for a while and I would love to read it some time soon.

Read the story online

The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman

I first heard of Charlotte Perkins Gilman from Rebecca, when she reviewed Herland (which I’d love to read but not sure when). So when I saw her name on Claire’s list, I picked the short story.

The main character is a woman who is rather ill and advised to stay in her room resting and doing very little. However the wallpaper on the wall disturbs and distracts her restlessly.

I don’t know if it’s only the copy that I read, but I felt the writing a bit choppy. There’s often only one sentence in one paragraph, so it changes paragraph all the time. Also, I’m never fond of mad-man story, because it always gets too abstract and loose at the end, and not to mention confusing. I read a bit on the background of the story and it apparently was a backlash from Gilman after she was advised by her doctor for a rest cure (and followed the advise leading to her depression).

Read the story online

This story is included in the 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die (2006 list)

I had a good short story week! How about you? As always, I welcome any recommendation!

I have a very short list to share. I’m going to (try to) read Tender Morsels with Claire’s gang (no, the other Claire, and no, her other gang) and The Colour of Magic for Terry Pratchett challenge. I might continue with Fables series too. We’ll see.

Are you joining too?

Short Stories Read

1. The evolution of trickster stories among the dogs of North Park after the Change by Kij Johnson (4/5)

Books Read

1. The Rabbits by John Marsden and Shaun Tan (4/5)
2. Pride of Baghdad by Brian K. Vaughan and Niko Henrichon (5/5)
3. The Bloody Chamber by Angela Carter (4/5) — contains 10 short stories
4. Tender Morsels by Margo Lanagan (4/5)
5. Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll (5/5)
6. The Sandman Vol 3: Dream Country by Neil Gaiman (3.5/5)