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Archive for the ‘Short Story’ Category

Randy Boyagoda–“Little Sanctuary” [The 2022 Short Story Advent Calendar #2] (2021)

Posted in Canadian Content, Christmas, Hingston & Olsen, Randy Boyagoda, Short Story, The Short Story Advent Calendar on December 2, 2022| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK:

[READ: December 2, 2022] “Little Sanctuary”

This year, S. ordered me The Short Story Advent Calendar.  This is my fifth time reading the Calendar.  I didn’t know about the first one until it was long out of print (sigh), but each year since has been very enjoyable.  Here’s what they say this year

Like we always do at this time: the Short Story Advent Calendar is back for 2022. We had such a great time last year working with our first-ever guest editor, the one and only Alberto Manguel. This year, however, we’re bringing things back to basics. No overarching theme or format, just 25 top-class short stories, selected in-house, by some of the best writers in North America and beyond. It’s December 2. Randy Boyagoda, author of Dante’s Indiana, is shifting to a minor key.

Usually, when I read the Advent Calendar I find a couple stories that I’ve read elsewhere.  I haven’t really been reading many short stories in the last year or so, so i wasn’t sure if I’d find stories I’d already read.  But here was one.

I read this in July of last year, when it was in the summer fiction Walrus issue.  I wrote then

This story, about many things, but focusing on the moment children are taken from their parents, is a tough read.

The story is also not set at a specific time or place.  Some clues are given.  The parents are called Amma and Appa but those words are used in both Korean and Tamil.  The opening line asks, How do you find sweet syrup at the end of the world?

Things were bad.  The family would soon head into the basement and then “see if there was still an upstairs.” (more…)

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Caroline Kim–“Bread of Lifers” [The 2022 Short Story Advent Calendar #1] (2020)

Posted in Canadian Content, Caroline Kim, Christmas, Hingston & Olsen, Short Story, The Short Story Advent Calendar on December 1, 2022| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK:

[READ: December 1, 2022] “Bread of Lifers”

This year, S. ordered me The Short Story Advent Calendar.  This is my fifth time reading the Calendar.  I didn’t know about the first one until it was long out of print (sigh), but each year since has been very enjoyable.  Here’s what they say this year

Like we always do at this time: the Short Story Advent Calendar is back for 2022. We had such a great time last year working with our first-ever guest editor, the one and only Alberto Manguel. This year, however, we’re bringing things back to basics. No overarching theme or format, just 25 top-class short stories, selected in-house, by some of the best writers in North America and beyond. It’s December 1. To officially kick off the 2022 Short Story Advent Calendar, here is a story about faith and carbs from the author of The Prince of Mournful Thoughts.

This story was dark and twisted and quite funny.

The narrator is thinking back about a kid she used to babysit called Ruth, a plain, blocky sort of girl.  The narrator was brutally honest with her–to teach her how to survive.  Ruth was eleven but acted eight.

This was tough for Ruth because her family were Bread of Lifers–a religious group that was very strict and emphasized having no fun.  They never tried to convert the narrator’s family (don’t shit where you eat, I guess).

So when the narrator told her things like “Most people will hate you.  On sight.  For no reason,” Ruth, whose face was almost always hopeful, would fall and harden.  But Ruth was perpetually full of love for everyone. Especially her babysitter.  “I love you,” Ruth would say.  “I sometimes like you” is as far as I was willing to go. (more…)

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Collectibles–edited by Lawrence Block (2021)

Posted in Alex Segura, Books about writers, Bookstores, Cars, David Rachels, Dennis Lehane, Dip-in Books, Elaine Kagan, Fleetwood Mac, Funny (ha ha), Funny (strange), Janice Eidus, Joe R. Lansdale, Joyce Carol Oates, Judas Priest, Kasey Lansdale, Kristine Kathryn Rusch, Lawrence Block, Lee Goldberg, Murder, Otto Penzler, Revenge, Rob Hart, S.A. Cosby, S.J. Rozan, Sex, Short Story, Supernatural, Superstitions, Surreal, Violence, Yuck! on November 30, 2022| Leave a Comment »

 

SOUNDTRACK: FLEETWOOD MAC-“The Green Manalishi (With the Two Pronged Crown)” (1969).

I know this song from Judas Priest, who made a killer cover that they played for years.  Rob Halford’s voice on the song (in their live version from 1976) is incredible.

I didn’t even know there was an “original” until a decade or so ago.  It seemed out of character that Judas Priest would cover a trippy Fleetwood Mac song (of course they also covered Joan Baez, so…).  But wow, this song is a trip.

I mean, the lyrics alone are the stuff of legend at this point.  There’s dozens of places where you can read about the song.  Here’s a few paragraphs from Uncle Stylus.

Peter Green said it’s a song about the corrupting influence of money, which he equated with the devil. In 1969, the huge success of Fleetwood Mac had brought them a considerable income and Green had agreed with the band that they would would give it all to charity. One can imagine that “morning after” moment when he demanded they made good on their idealistic rush of blood. A massive quarrel ensued, and Green never forgave the other bandmembers for reneging on the idea and claimed that this was what inspired the song.

Manalishi is a word that Peter Green made up for the song. The sound of it rolling around the tongue is exotic and menacing, suffused with the mystery of demons and gremlins from a medieval Italian dark night.

Listening now it’s clear that he was really, whether consciously or unconsciously, telling us about his depressive schizophrenia and even the dark persona unleashed within him when he took certain drugs, the “green” of the manalishi being Green himself. It reads like the beginning of a story by Edgar Allan Poe.

The Judas Priest cover doesn’t really follow the original all that much (the ending wailing is so much cooler the way Halford does it).  But the riff here is pretty spectacular (understandable why they’d want to cover it).  Also, it was a big hit in England when it came out, so it’s not like the band was crate-digging for rarities.  I had just never heard of it.

There is something some sinister about the slow menace of the Fleetwood Mac version.  It’s incredible to think that this is the same band who put out Rumours (although really it isn’t, but whatever).

Check out the live from Boston version for some real heaviness.  And marvel that this weird song was a hit.

[READ: November 2022] Collectibles

Evidently Lawrence Block has created several of these anthologies all loosely based around a theme.  This is the first one I’ve read, although I see another one called Playing Games is on the horizon.

This collection is about collectibles.  Most but not all of the stories are crime or mystery based.  A couple have a touch of the supernatural as well.  The term “collectible” is pretty broadly defined from one story to the next, but it’s a decent prompt to let you know what you’re getting.

Lawrence Block – The Elephant in the Living Room (An Introduction)
This is an essay about the book which includes an amusing story about Lawrence’s Uncle Jerry who ha a collection of giraffes.  There were presently none in the collection because he hadn’t found one up to his standards. (more…)

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Marguerite Yourcenar–“How Wang-Fo Was Saved” [Belgium] (translated by Alberto Manguel) [The 2021 Short Story Advent Calendar #25] (1963/translation 1983)

Posted in Alberto Manguel, Artists, Belgium, Canadian Content, Christmas, Death, Hingston & Olsen, Marguerite Yourcenar, Short Story, The Short Story Advent Calendar, Violence on December 25, 2021| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK:  hiatus

[READ: December 25, 2021] “How Wang-Fo Was Saved”

This year, S. ordered me The Short Story Advent Calendar.  This is my seventh time reading the Calendar.  The 2021 Short Story Advent Calendar is a deluxe box set of individually bound short stories.

As always, each story is a surprise, so you won’t know what you’re getting until you crack the seal every morning starting December 1. Once you’ve read that day’s story, check this link where editor Alberto Manguel is providing daily commentary on each of the stories he selected for this year’s calendar.

So here’s yet another story translated by Manguel.

The last few stories in this collection just left me feeling unhappy.  I didn’t really enjoy them, and found them mostly tedious.  A lot of them felt like stories that took an idea and kept building on it with more an more examples. Rather than advancing the story, it just reiterated the story.

Yourcenar evidently wrote many

Oriental Tales, stories set in the Near and Far East, a few based on traditional legends and folktales. According to Yourcenar, the story of the painter Wang-Fo and his disciple is her own invention, though inspired by a Chinese Taoist classic. Scholars, however, have pointed out that Yourcenar seems to have taken her inspiration from a collection of Japanese tales collected and retold by the nineteenth-century Greek-Irish scholar Lafcadio Hearn.

So, yes, another old story, which is what this reads like.

First we meet Wang-Fo’s disciple, who gave up his life to follow the amazing painter Wang-Fo.  He was very wealthy and slowly gave up everything so that Wang-Fo could continue to do his work. Everything he painted felt better than life–more vivid, more real. (more…)

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Oscar Wilde–“The Young King” (Ireland) [The 2021 Short Story Advent Calendar #24] (1891)

Posted in Alberto Manguel, Canadian Content, Children's Books, Children's Fable, Christmas, Hingston & Olsen, Ireland, Morality, Oscar Wilde, Religion, Short Story, The Short Story Advent Calendar on December 24, 2021| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK:  hiatus

[READ: December 24, 2021] “The Young King”

This year, S. ordered me The Short Story Advent Calendar.  This is my seventh time reading the Calendar.  The 2021 Short Story Advent Calendar is a deluxe box set of individually bound short stories.

As always, each story is a surprise, so you won’t know what you’re getting until you crack the seal every morning starting December 1. Once you’ve read that day’s story, check this link where editor Alberto Manguel is providing daily commentary on each of the stories he selected for this year’s calendar.

I was pretty delighted that Oscar Wilde was selected for this short story (with the caveat that there are hundreds of more recent Irish short story writers to choose from of course).  And it started off with Wilde’s wit with the king’s courtiers needing Etiquette lessons because most of them still had natural manners–a very grave offense.

But then, good lord, this story dragged on so torturously.

A 16 year old lad is named to be the next king.  He was raised by goatherds so he is blown away by the sumptuousness of the castle.  But, as is the case with children’s stories, of which this is apparently one, he has three bad dreams.

Long dreams.  Elaborately detailed and yet rather tedious dreams. (more…)

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José Saramago–“Reflux” [Portugal] (translated by Giovanni Pontiero) [The 2021 Short Story Advent Calendar #23] (1978/translation 2012)

Posted in Alberto Manguel, Canadian Content, Christmas, Death, Giovanni Pontiero, Hingston & Olsen, José Saramago, Portugal, Short Story, The Short Story Advent Calendar, Translation on December 23, 2021| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK:  hiatus

[READ: December 23, 2021] “The Fire Balloons”

This year, S. ordered me The Short Story Advent Calendar.  This is my seventh time reading the Calendar.  The 2021 Short Story Advent Calendar is a deluxe box set of individually bound short stories.

As always, each story is a surprise, so you won’t know what you’re getting until you crack the seal every morning starting December 1. Once you’ve read that day’s story, check this link where editor Alberto Manguel is providing daily commentary on each of the stories he selected for this year’s calendar.

This is the kind of story that unfolds itself, proving to be too big for itself.

It is about a king who feared death.  So he ordered a cemetery to be built in the center of the kingdom with very high walls.  Everyone currently buried would be dg up and moved to the new cemetery.

This takes extensive time and involves many years of building a digging (often with one piece sufficing as an entire body). (more…)

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Hassouna Mosbahi–“Truman Capote” [Tunisia] (translated by William H. Hutchins) [The 2021 Short Story Advent Calendar #22] (2015/translation 2015)

Posted in Alberto Manguel, Breakfast at Tiffany's, Canadian Content, Christmas, Hassouna Mosbahi, Hingston & Olsen, Prostitution, Short Story, The Short Story Advent Calendar, Tunisia, William M. Hutchins on December 22, 2021| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK:  hiatus

[READ: December 22, 2021] “Truman Capote”

This year, S. ordered me The Short Story Advent Calendar.  This is my seventh time reading the Calendar.  The 2021 Short Story Advent Calendar is a deluxe box set of individually bound short stories.

As always, each story is a surprise, so you won’t know what you’re getting until you crack the seal every morning starting December 1. Once you’ve read that day’s story, check this link where editor Alberto Manguel is providing daily commentary on each of the stories he selected for this year’s calendar.

I read this whole story believing it was written by Truman Capote and believing that perhaps (as with many of the other authors in this collection) he originated from a place I didn’t realize.  And that Hassouna Mosbahi was a person or perhaps a place that I’d never heard of.

And I thought it was really weird and meta that Truman Capote was writing about himself and that he was writing about himself as if he were dead.  It seemed like a pretty crazy conceit.

Whoops.

This story is introduced by a narrator who relates his forgetfulness.  He has arrived home in Tunisia, but he’s not sure why.  Eventually he discovers a telegram that informs him his grandmother has died.  While he is in the center city he sees Truman Capote in his white suit and hat. (more…)

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Leo Tolstoy–“The Three Hermits” [Russia] (translated by Leo Wiener) [The 2021 Short Story Advent Calendar #21] (1886/translation between 1862 & 1939)

Posted in Alberto Manguel, Canadian Content, Christmas, Hingston & Olsen, Leo Tolstoy, Leo Wiener, Religion, Russia, Short Story, Supernatural, The Short Story Advent Calendar, Translation on December 21, 2021| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK:  hiatus

[READ: December 21, 2021] “The Three Hermits”

This year, S. ordered me The Short Story Advent Calendar.  This is my seventh time reading the Calendar.  The 2021 Short Story Advent Calendar is a deluxe box set of individually bound short stories.

As always, each story is a surprise, so you won’t know what you’re getting until you crack the seal every morning starting December 1. Once you’ve read that day’s story, check this link where editor Alberto Manguel is providing daily commentary on each of the stories he selected for this year’s calendar.

By the time I saw Leo Tolstoy I was getting a little annoyed by the end of this collection.  Nothing against Tolstoy at all–we should all read him more, but again, I wanted a contemporary writer to get excited by.

And then this story turned out to be exactly the same as Ray Bradbury’s story (obviously Tolstoy was first), but it was less satisfying.

Basically, a bishop is aboard a ship and is told by the pilgrims on board that there’s an island nearby with three very holy hermits.  Naturally the busybody bishop needs to see them to make sure they are praying correctly. So he disrupts the entire voyage, making everyone else delay their travels for at least a full day, so he can be a pain in the ass to these poor hermits.

He tries to teach them about god, but they don’t understand him. (more…)

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Chen Xuanyou–“Ch’ien-niang” [China] (translated by Wayne Schlepp) [The 2021 Short Story Advent Calendar #20] (fl. 779/translation 1990)

Posted in Alberto Manguel, Canadian Content, Chen Xuanyou, China, Christmas, Fairy Tales, Hingston & Olsen, Romance, Short Story, Supernatural, The Short Story Advent Calendar, Wayne Schlepp on December 20, 2021| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK:  hiatus

[READ: December 20, 2021] “Ch’ien-niang”

This year, S. ordered me The Short Story Advent Calendar.  This is my seventh time reading the Calendar.  The 2021 Short Story Advent Calendar is a deluxe box set of individually bound short stories.

As always, each story is a surprise, so you won’t know what you’re getting until you crack the seal every morning starting December 1. Once you’ve read that day’s story, check this link where editor Alberto Manguel is providing daily commentary on each of the stories he selected for this year’s calendar.

As with Homer and Hans Christian Andersen, I am fairly surprised that Manguel went back to the Tang Dynasty (even if it the Golden Age of Chinese literature) to find a story.  Especially since “’Ch’ien-niang’ is a Chinese version of Sleeping Beauty with a twist.”

Ch’ien-niang is a legend that the narrator had often heard of.

Ch’ien-niang was designed to marry Wang Chou.  But Chou was to be sent away instead. (more…)

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Muriel Spark–“A Member of the Family” (Scotland) [The 2021 Short Story Advent Calendar #19] (1985)

Posted in Alberto Manguel, Canadian Content, Christmas, Hingston & Olsen, Muriel Spark, Romance, Short Story, The Short Story Advent Calendar on December 19, 2021| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK:  hiatus

[READ: December 19, 2021] “The Fire Balloons”

This year, S. ordered me The Short Story Advent Calendar.  This is my seventh time reading the Calendar.  The 2021 Short Story Advent Calendar is a deluxe box set of individually bound short stories.

As always, each story is a surprise, so you won’t know what you’re getting until you crack the seal every morning starting December 1. Once you’ve read that day’s story, check this link where editor Alberto Manguel is providing daily commentary on each of the stories he selected for this year’s calendar.

This is the story of Trudy, a young woman who pretends to be much younger in order to win a suitor.

Trudy met the man, Richard, on vacation.  She and her friend Gwen had gone to Austria and after a couple of days they ran into Richard, who had known Gwen for years.  (more…)

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