Short Stories - May
New month, new set of stories. From Lispector to Stiegler, from Shaw to Philip K. Dick and from O'Brien to Tagore, there were a myriad of themes to explore. If you're tucked in, let's do a recap of the 15 stories I finished this month:
Amor - Clarice Lispector
⭐⭐⭐⭐
The protagonist, Anna, is a homemaker whose days are busy tending to her young son, her husband and taking care of the house. She takes joy in it and feels fulfilled filling out this role of a stay-at-home mom to whom her former days of bachelorhood feel so foreign now. She is used to living in this cocoon that revolves around her family until one day, while commuting in the tram, something happens that jolts her out of her happy bubble and forces her to acknowledge the world outside that bubble.
I quite enjoyed the prose in this one and think that this story is a good candidate for a relaxed, languorous read on a weekend in the park.
One line summary: Some days it's one small occurrence that throws you off for the rest of the day
Year Published: 1960
Recommend? Yes
The Lottery - Shirley Jackson
⭐⭐⭐⭐
W.T.A.F????? I was totally caught off guard with the ending of this story. Absolutely did not see it coming. I don't want to spoil it for you but it grapples with mob psychology and how easy it is for people to turn on others if they think their group is doing it and that there won't be repercussions if they do something together rather than alone.
One line summary: My honest reaction to this tale.
Year Published: 1948
Recommend? Yes
The Scarlet Ibis - James Hurst
⭐⭐⭐⭐
I, for one, am always devastated by stories like these where there is an elder sibling who decides to be mean to the younger sibling for no reason and suddenly all hell breaks loose.
One line summary: You decide to mess with your younger brother but fate wants to teach you a lesson.
Year Published: 1960
Recommend? Yes
Gentle Seduction - Marc Stiegler
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Sorry to disappoint the perpetually horny but this is not smut despite what the title implies. The protagonist is an unnamed 25 year old young woman who meets Jack, a 33 yr old engineer, working on singularity. He tells her that one day she will see all the things he is working on but he won't be there then. Time passes and one day the woman, now 82, has to rely on some smart technology to aid in her chores and realizes the depth of how technology makes lives so much easier.
You realize that she is finally allowing the latest technology to permeate through her life rather than being vaguely familiar with it from a distance. She embarks on interplanetary travel to visit her children and grandchildren, gets involved in the new environment until one day she finally remembers Jack.
This one felt like a breath of fresh air, especially after the some of the foreboding sci-fi I've read recently. Some of the futuristic tech in it may not be entirely new to many of you anymore. Despite that it's a beautifully crafted story and, on that merit alone, is worth reading.
One line summary: A sci-fi that is not gloom-core or commenting on the cons of man?? Sign me up!
Year Published: 1990
Recommend? Yes
The Adjustment Team - Philip K. Dick
⭐⭐⭐
First time when I watched "The Adjustment Bureau" (a romance movie with some fantasy/sci-fi elements), I made a mental note to read the short story it was loosely based on. This is me following through on that promise. The story's got themes of paranoid incomprehension mixed with questioning the nature of reality.
Ed Fletcher wakes up on an otherwise ordinary day ready to get to his office but little does he know that there's a mysterious team at work in his office whose job is to subtly nudge people to continue along a predestined path. He was never meant to witness these subtle "adjustments" performed on humans but he inadvertently does. The rest of the story revolves around how Fletcher grapples with the notion of peeking behind the fabric of time, and dealing with the adjustment team who now deem him as dangerous.
One line summary: If you're into the whole your-existence-is-somewhat-a-product-of-unseen-manipulators trope, you'd like this one.
Year Published: 1954
Recommend? Yes
The Embassy of Cambodia - Zadie Smith
⭐⭐⭐⭐
Smith is a contentious one among my bookish friends so I was curious about what my impression of her would be. For a first time reader, I really enjoyed her work. In some odd way, this story reminded me of Saunders's Semplica Girl Diaries.
The protagonist, Fatou, is a live-in maid and babysitter for a wealthy family in North-West London. She hails from Ivory Coast, goes to swimming lessons once a week on Monday mornings without the homeowners knowing and has one friend in the city she can confide in. Smith touches on several themes in this novella including modern day slavery, religion, being away from your family, illegal immigration, social class and the mistreatment of house maids by their masters.
What holds together the story is her writing style which is quite lovely despite the themes she is commenting on. One of my major gripe with this story is that she never ever elaborates on what is going on in the damn embassy so it feels like some questions were left unanswered.
One line summary: You are a live-in maid in a first world country with limited freedom and we get to experience what your day-to-day is like.
Year Published: 2013
Recommend? Yes
A Colder War - Charles Stross
⭐⭐
No, I'm sorry. I do not see it. I do not get the raving about a novella that mixes Cthulhu mythos with cold war era. A story where the Soviets and Iranians have developed a portal to alternate worlds and are threatening to use it against the US; a story where the CIA analyst, Jorgenson, is portrayed as a regular guy who cares about his wife and son and does not wants to get enmeshed in all the funny business that he has been tasked to summarize for his superiors? Sounds familiar.
There's nothing wrong with all-too-familiar plots except it felt like the novelette could've spent MORE time exploring what lied behind the gates and how other countries planned to exploit it rather than spending time spelling out the bureaucratic puttering. Alas!
One line summary: A cold war, alt-history novella with slightly different weapons, a weakly fleshed-out main character and an even weaker plot.
Year Published: 2000
Recommend? No
Blit - David Langford
⭐⭐
I didn't understand it very well and I don't care enough to go back and re-read it again. It's hard to follow and the plot is inconsistent several times.
One line summary: ??
Year Published: 1988
Recommend? No
Light of Other Days - Bob Shaw
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
What a wonderful story with an unexpected ending. I was all braced for a conclusion that borrowed from horror or some voodoo element but it never went in that direction. The narrator and his pregnant wife are on a trip and are in a bad mood. Things haven't been going well for them. He spots a man selling window panes called "slow glass" that take a bit of time (from a few years to a decade) to refract the light back so people can preserve memories of good days - sunny days, spring days or time spent with family or a loved one - and enjoy it later.
This was the first time that when I finished a sci-fi story I was like "This is how you write a short story."
One line summary: It's time travel with a gut punch.
Year Published: 1966
Recommend? YES
Men Without Bones - Gerald Kersh
⭐⭐⭐
Alright I haven't thought about the limited series The River in a loooong time but this one definitely reminded me of that (iirc the series was really good). Dr. Goodbody is a zoologist who embarks on an expedition to investigate a series of Indian folk tales about mysterious beings somewhere in deep Alabama. The crew gets lost during the exploration and Dr. Goodbody is the only surviving member. What follows is him explaining what went down during his fateful journey. I'm pretty sure I'd have been spooked out by this had I read it as a 12 yr old but for my current self it was a bit too predictable.
One line summary: 99% of the time it's a bad idea to go down deep in the forest searching for something that is none of your business.
Year Published: 1954
Recommend? Yes
The Man Who Lost The Sea - Theodore Sturgeon
⭐⭐⭐
This is one of those stories where you have to read it twice to understand what just went down. Structurally, the narrative fragments are a bit complicated to follow at first but the writing style makes up for it. For example, one thread follows a child as he presents increasingly complex space toys to a man trapped in sand trying not to puke. Another one is about a near-death experience during a snorkeling episode. All threads converge in the end. I feel like those of you who are partial to space sci-fi would enjoy it.
One line summary: Space sci-fi written in a dream-like-narrative-fragment style where the fragments coalesce into one but in the very end.
Year Published: 1959
Recommend? Yes
The Things They Carried - Tim O'Brien
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I did not expect to become this much invested in a story about American soldiers' emotions, relationships and moral ambiguities of war. I guess this is what happens when you write a memorable long, first paragraph of the story that immediately draws the reader in. The writer deftly explains the history behind the items of sentimental or practical value that the soldiers are carrying and also explains what the soldiers were like before they got conscripted and when/how they die. This is not a story about the politics of war or who benefits but more about what it's like when you're in the thick of things.
One line summary: The writer WILL make you care about the physical and emotional burdens carried by American soldiers in Vietnam War.
Year Published: 1990
Recommend? Yes
Akhri Koshish (Last Attempt) - Hayat Ullah Ansari
⭐⭐⭐⭐
Yeah I'm gonna be honest chief, this was a tough read and I had to look away 2-3 times while reading this because it was all a bit too much. The protagonist is a 40 yr old man who ran away from his village in search of a better life to Culcutta at the age of 20. He had no contact with his family during this time and is now returning to find out if any of his loved ones are alive. The writing is as evocative as ever and the author does not leaves any punches in describing how demeaning poverty can be. I'm glad I read it but I probably couldn't stomach it for a re-read.
One line summary: Abject poverty is a dangerous thing for not only it leads you away from basic decency and your faith but also your humanity.
Year Published: ??
Recommend? You gotta be strong to read this one.
Kabuliwala - Rabindernath Tagore
⭐⭐⭐⭐
Ok big awwww on finishing this one! For those of you who don't know, Tagore was a prolific Bangladeshi author who won the Nobel prize in literature in 1913. This story follows an Afghan fruit seller in Bangladesh and the unusual but innocent friendship he strikes up with a little girl to whose family he sometimes sells the fruits to. The seller chit chats with the girl on the daily for a few minutes while he crosses her street and also refuses to take money from the girl's family for the fruit he gives her. You'll definitely like this one if you wanna read something that is a tad sentimental and touches on paternal love.
One line summary: Friends are the family we choose and many of the best friends in life are not from the same age group.
Year Published: 1892
Recommend? Yes
Computers Don't Argue - Gordon R. Dickson
⭐⭐⭐⭐
It's a dark sci-fi about a man in Michigan in the mid 1960s trying to request a replacement of a book that was mistakenly sent to him by his book club in Chicago. This leads to a series of unfortunate events culminating in a fate of ridiculous proportions. A sort of cautionary tale of what happens when you rely on the computers a bit too much. It's the kind of story where you'd exclaim "oh c'mon" a few times.
One line summary: All this man wanted was a correct copy of the book to be sent to him.
Year Published: 1965
Recommend? Yes
Musings
I've now read a bit over 25% of the original reading goal and can't help but notice that stories published before the 60s have a noticeable primeval quality to them. This becomes even more apparent when you read a story published in 1920s and immediately pick up another one from the 1990s. I enjoy stories that are only a few decades old; partly because I am a person of my time and partly because extremely ancient linguistic style is always a bit amusing to me. I can appreciate when ancient stories feel modern in their prose (for example, Herman Melville) and relevant in their message but I've also come to accept that it's probably unfair to hold the authors from a century ago to modern standards.
Until next time!