Short Story Collection Community Read-a-Long January 2014
ForumShort Stories
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2Polaris-
A Universal History of Infamy by Jorge Luis Borges
Unfortunately I have to say that I found this rather disappointing...
I read it mostly in the days leading up to Christmas, and even though it's a very short book - only some 130-odd pages - it took me a while to read. It just didn't excite me that much and I couldn't see the point of some of it.
I've probably missed something here, but I was hoping that this much praised collection of Borges' early short stories, fictionalised accounts "chronicling the lives of such famous villains as Billy the Kid and the Tichborne Claimant" would be a bit more fun than it was. I did though like the stand alone story 'Streetcorner Man' which was a spicy tale of knife fights and dance halls told in a sort of noirish way (is that a word?):
'All dying takes is being alive,' one of the girls in the crowd said. And another said, 'A man's so full of pride, and now look - all he's good for is gathering flies.'
3 stars.
3Cait86
Thanks to Paul for letting me know about this group! I have read two short story collections so far this month:
Something I've Been Meaning to Tell You by Alice Munro - 4.5 Stars
Something I've Been Meaning to Tell You, Alice Munro's third book, is a collection of thirteen short stories, most of which deal with a female protagonist with a seemingly ordinary life. Some are wives, some are sisters, some are old women looking back on their lives, and some are young girls with years ahead of them. Many are wrestling with some sort of lie, and all are described in Munro's honest, straightforward, beautiful prose.
I love Munro, and I was thrilled when she won the Nobel Prize in October. Her stories are little pieces of everyday lives; nothing here is out of the ordinary, and the people she describes feel like the people I know in my own world. That said, her characters have their own little dramas, and they deal with them - at least in this collection - through avoidance and secrecy. Here I read stories of adultery, murder, and deception, and yet those terrible things are not at all what these stories are about. Rather, they are about the characters' thought processes, their hopes and dreams, and their ability to contend with the decisions they've made. Munro writes about normal people, in an extraordinary way.
Two odd points: First, of these thirteen stories, only one has a male protagonist. About half of the stories are first person narrative, and half are third, but twelve out of the thirteen concern women. I wonder at this inclusion of the male protagonist - did Munro notice this gender-imbalance? Was it intentional? Personally, I think the story about a man, "Walking on Water," is the weakest in the book. It lacks the insight Munro tends to have into her characters, almost as if there is a distance or barrier between her and the character. Thinking back, I can't remember reading another Munro story that centres around a man - they must exist, but they don't stand out in my mind.
Second, I always wonder about the title of short story collections. They tend to be the title of one of the stories in the book, but why are they chosen? The titular story here is the first one, and in my opinion it is not the strongest story, nor is it the one that best represents the themes of the collection (that would be "How I Met My Husband" or "The Found Boat" or "Marrakesh"). Did Munro see it as her best work? Why place it first in the collection, and not last, where it can best stay with the reader? Did I miss something in that story - something key to reading the rest? I may need to reread this collection to find out.
Other books I have read by Munro:
Lives of Girls and Women
Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage
Too Much Happiness
--------------------
Stones by Timothy Findley - 4 Stars?
Reading two short story collections back-to-back has been an interesting experience. Munro's collection was comprised of thirteen stories, and all of them were fantastic - the weakest in the bunch was still a 4-star reading experience. Findley's collection, on the other hand, is much less consistent in quality. Some stories, like "Stones," "Dreams," and the pair dealing with the end and beginning of a romantic relationship, were amazing. Short story telling at its best, even. Others, however, were downright dull. I'm giving the collection 4 stars, because that is probably what the stories would average out to, but I'm not really happy with that. In fact, in recommending this book it would be with the advice to skip two stories - "Foxes" and "The Skies." Short story collections inevitably have their ups and downs, but Findley's collection is a writing roller coaster.
Other books I have read by Findley:
None! I own Pilgrim though, and will try to read it this year. I also really want to read The Wars for the WW1 Centennial.
Something I've Been Meaning to Tell You by Alice Munro - 4.5 Stars
Something I've Been Meaning to Tell You, Alice Munro's third book, is a collection of thirteen short stories, most of which deal with a female protagonist with a seemingly ordinary life. Some are wives, some are sisters, some are old women looking back on their lives, and some are young girls with years ahead of them. Many are wrestling with some sort of lie, and all are described in Munro's honest, straightforward, beautiful prose.
I love Munro, and I was thrilled when she won the Nobel Prize in October. Her stories are little pieces of everyday lives; nothing here is out of the ordinary, and the people she describes feel like the people I know in my own world. That said, her characters have their own little dramas, and they deal with them - at least in this collection - through avoidance and secrecy. Here I read stories of adultery, murder, and deception, and yet those terrible things are not at all what these stories are about. Rather, they are about the characters' thought processes, their hopes and dreams, and their ability to contend with the decisions they've made. Munro writes about normal people, in an extraordinary way.
Two odd points: First, of these thirteen stories, only one has a male protagonist. About half of the stories are first person narrative, and half are third, but twelve out of the thirteen concern women. I wonder at this inclusion of the male protagonist - did Munro notice this gender-imbalance? Was it intentional? Personally, I think the story about a man, "Walking on Water," is the weakest in the book. It lacks the insight Munro tends to have into her characters, almost as if there is a distance or barrier between her and the character. Thinking back, I can't remember reading another Munro story that centres around a man - they must exist, but they don't stand out in my mind.
Second, I always wonder about the title of short story collections. They tend to be the title of one of the stories in the book, but why are they chosen? The titular story here is the first one, and in my opinion it is not the strongest story, nor is it the one that best represents the themes of the collection (that would be "How I Met My Husband" or "The Found Boat" or "Marrakesh"). Did Munro see it as her best work? Why place it first in the collection, and not last, where it can best stay with the reader? Did I miss something in that story - something key to reading the rest? I may need to reread this collection to find out.
Other books I have read by Munro:
Lives of Girls and Women
Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage
Too Much Happiness
--------------------
Stones by Timothy Findley - 4 Stars?
Reading two short story collections back-to-back has been an interesting experience. Munro's collection was comprised of thirteen stories, and all of them were fantastic - the weakest in the bunch was still a 4-star reading experience. Findley's collection, on the other hand, is much less consistent in quality. Some stories, like "Stones," "Dreams," and the pair dealing with the end and beginning of a romantic relationship, were amazing. Short story telling at its best, even. Others, however, were downright dull. I'm giving the collection 4 stars, because that is probably what the stories would average out to, but I'm not really happy with that. In fact, in recommending this book it would be with the advice to skip two stories - "Foxes" and "The Skies." Short story collections inevitably have their ups and downs, but Findley's collection is a writing roller coaster.
Other books I have read by Findley:
None! I own Pilgrim though, and will try to read it this year. I also really want to read The Wars for the WW1 Centennial.
5rocketjk
I have a stack of oldish magazines in my office, and in order to finally (if gradually) get rid of them, I make myself read articles from the magazine at the top of the stack between each book I read. Then I recycle the magazine. The magazine I just finished was the 1999 New Yorker summer fiction issue, more or less a short story anthology. As this was the final summer fiction edition of the 20th century for the magazine, the theme of the issue was "20 Writers for the 21st Century." The editors found 20 young writers they thought were going to make a splash in the New Millennium. They were pretty much on target, too, as the issue includes stories from Sherman Alexie, Ethan Canin, Michael Chabon, Junot Diaz, Jeffrey Eugenides, Jonathan Franzen, Allegra Goodman, Jhumpa Lahiri, Rich Moody, William T. Vollmann and David Foster Wallace, among others. The stories were generally very good, with particularly effective tales from Alexie, Lahiri and Eugenides.
