"Brownstone" by Reneta Adler

"Brownstone" by Reneta Adler (1978, 28 pages)

1978 O Henry Prize Winner 

Best American Short Story

Reneta Adler was born in Milan Italy in 1938.   Her parents fled Europe to escape the Nazis and she grew up in Danbury Connecticut.    She attended Ivy League schools and  the Sorbonne in Paris where she studies Linguistics and Structuralism.   She also graduated from Yale Law School.  She worked as a staff writer for The New Yorker for a  number of years.    She has written several highly regarded novels.   Her short story "Brownstone" won the 1978 O Henry Award for best short story by an American.

I read "Brownstone" in A Wonderful Town:   New York Stories from the New Yorker and enjoyed it a lot.   For those not from New York City, a brownstone is a row house constructed from  brownstone, often a multistory building building.   The story is told in the first person by a woman living in the building.   It is kind of a running commentary on her life and the lives of her neighbors and her observations on the neighbors.   It is very much a New York City slice of life in the big city story.   I enjoyed reading it a lot.    I would read another short story by Adler but probably will not seek out her longer fiction at this time.   Just too much else out there.

Please share your experience with Adler with us.   Reading suggestions are always greatly appreciated.

Mel u

"Philomela" by Emma Tennant

"Philomela" by Emma Tennant (1975, 15 pages)


"Philomela" by Emma Tennant (1937, UK) is based on the ancient Greek myth of Philomela, a princess of Athens who was raped and had her tongue torn out by her brother-in-law.  


Tennant comes from a well connected and distinguished family.   Her father was a baron.  She began her writing career as a travel writer for Queen Magazine and was the editor of the British edition of Vogue.   She has published novels that are sequels to Pride and Prejudice as well as Jane Eyre.   She also wrote a novel based on her affair with Ted Hughes, Burnt Desires.   (There is more information about her life and work here.)




"Philomela" is set in ancient Athens and is told in the first person by a woman of Nobel rank who was given in marriage for the sake of political alliances.    She sees herself more or less as a glorified slave when she talks to her beloved sister  Philomela about whether or not she should accept her future role as a wife of a war loving political leader.   They agree that the sister has no choice but to accept the marriage.   As she travels to her new home she and Philomela make plans for Philomela to join them.   The rest of the story is pretty much a retelling of the myth.   


I enjoyed this story a lot, especially the ending where the sister of Philomela takes terrible revenge on her husband for his rape and mutilation of her sister.


I read this story in The Penquin Book of Modern British Short Stories edited by Malcolm Bradbury.   The story originally appeared in Banana, a literary magazine edited by Tennant, in 1975.   


Mel u

"The Invisible Japanese Gentlemen" by Graham Greene

"The Invisible Japanese Gentlemen"   by Graham Greene (1987, 8 pages)


The  work of Graham Greene is often seen as  sort of at the boundary line between popular and literary fiction.    Greene (1904 to 1991) was a very prolific and successful author.   Several of his novels were made into movies.   Among the most read of his novels are The Third Man, Our Man in Heaven, and The Power and the Glory.   (There is a good article about his interesting life and career here).   


"The Invisible Japanese Gentlemen" is a funny clever well story written in a pleasant style.   An engaged couple are in a restaurant celebrating the acceptance of the woman's first novel for publication.    She is trying to pressure the man into marriage right away, saying they can live from the proceeds of her book sales.   Her publisher has given her a nice advance and told her she is one of the most perceptive new writers whose work he has read in years.  The woman is very thrilled by this remark and keeps telling her finance what the publisher said about how perceptive she was over and over.  Seating right next to them is a loud party of ten or so Japanese men.   There is a well done ironic and sharply undercutting ending that puts the publishers observation on her very much in doubt.   You cannot help but think maybe everything the woman hope for  is based on the shaky predictions of the publisher.   


""The Invisible Japanese Gentlemen"  is included in The Penguin Book of Modern British Short Stories edited by Malcolm Bradbury.   It is an interesting well written twist ending short story.   


Please share your experience with Graham Greene with us.


Mel u

Family Matters by Rohinton Mistry

Family Matters by Rohinton Mistry  (2002, 448 pages)


Before I begin my post on this very powerful novel about family life in Mumbai, once called Bombay, I wish to thank Prashant C. Trikannad of Chess, Comics, Crosswords, Books, Music, Cinema for suggesting I expand my meagre readings in Indian Literature to include a novel by Rohinton Mistry, known for writing about the lives of people who live in Bombay.  (Call me old fashioned but I prefer "Bombay" to "Mumbai" and if Mistry is right so do most of the people who live there.)


Mystry was born in India in 1952 and emigrated to Toronto Canada in 1975 with his wife.  He studied at The University of Toronto, writes in English and is a Canadian citizen.   All of his novels are about life in India in the second half of the 20th century.   He has won numerous literary awards including the Governor General's Prize for Canadian works and has been short listed two times for the Booker prize.   Thanks to Oprah Winfrey selecting it for her book club, his second novel,  A Fine Balance, sold several hundred thousand copies.


Family Matters is set in Bombay in the 1990s.     It focuses on the lives of the extended family of  a former professor, now very elderly and dependent on his relatives for care due to his numerous health problems.   After a long romance with  woman he truly loved, at the aggressive suggestion of his parents, he married a woman that was, like he and his family as far back as anyone knows, Parsi.   Parsis in India are descended from immigrants from Persia in the 10th century who left Persia for India  so they could practice their religion, Zoroastrianism (a religion six centuries older than Christianity).   As I learned in the novel, the Parsi are declining in numbers due to a low birthrate so there is a lot of pressure not to marry outside your religion.   


The drama in the story comes from the impact taking care of their step father has on his step-daughter and son and their families.    The families are beautifully done and I really felt like I was listening in on real conversations.   One of the dominant forces in the novel is Bombay (it is almost always called that in the novel).   There are so simply great descriptions of life in the city.   Mistry does not in any way hide the corruption, crowding and huge amount of religious and caste discord that can make the city a miserable place but you can tell the city is very much loved for its deep history and its powerful ambiance.   


I was emotionally involved with the characters and felt their joy and pain and the tedium of their lives when the book began to focus on the medical needs of the step father.


Family Matters is a very good novel.    The dialogues are great.   The relationships are totally perfect.    There is more or less a happy ending after lots of troubles.   I really liked the epilogue that flashed five years forward to show how the people were all doing.    There is also a lot to be learned about the culture of the Parsi and the religion of Zoroastrianism from this great book.   I hope to read his A Fine Balance in the not too distant future as it is considered his best work and the definitive Mumbiai/Bombay novel.


Be sure to check out Chess, Comics, Crosswords, Books, Music, Cinema by Prashant C. Trikannad  for some great posts on a wide range of topics.




Please share your experience with Mistry with us-


Mel u

"Smart Money" by Philip Roth

"Smart Money" by Philip Roth (1977, 22 pages)

Philip Roth (1933, Newark, New Jersey, USA) is a very prolific much awarded writer with over thirty novels published plus numerous short stories and essays.   He has won two very prestigious American literary awards, The National Book Award and The Pulitzer Price.   The last work I read by him was way back when the novel that made him famous Portnoy's Complaint was first published to public outcry for its explicit account, told through  a monologue, of the sex life of a Jewish bachelor obsessed with his mother.   


Roth also wrote several novels, loosely autobiographical, centering on a novelist, Nathan Zuckerman.     "Smart Money" is  a short story based on this same novelist (0r perhaps it is a prior topublication extract from a novel).    




"Smart Money" is a very interesting, entertaining story that held my attention throughout.    As the story opens in New York City where he now lives, Zuckerman has just published a hugely popular best seller based on the life of Jewish people in New York City.   Most people love it but there are a vocal majority who feel his sexually explicit novel shames the people it depicts as well as their heritage.   


Zuckerman likes to go out and about in New City but where ever he goes now people recognize him and approach him.     People want to thank him for his book and tell him what it means to them.    There is one other major character in the story.   It is a man who was involved in the infamous quiz show scandals in which contestants were given the answers in advance.   The man in the story lost to another contestant who was given the answers.   This was a long time ago but he has been an embittered and obsessed with telling his story ever since then.   He more or less traps Zuckerman into a long and hilarious conversation which is really just his monologue.


This story is included in Wonderful Town:  New York Stories from the New Yorker (2007)


Please share your experience with Philip Roth with us.   




Mel u

"A Star Trap" by Bram Stoker

"A Star Trap" by Bram Stoker (1908, 5214 words, 14 pages)

Please Consider Joining Us For Irish Short Story Week Year Two March 12 to March 22


List of Bram Stoker short stories-nearly 100

When we hear Bram Stoker (1847 to 1912-Dublin, Ireland) Dracula at once comes to mind, as well it should.   However, Bram Stoker wrote in addition to Dracula over 100 short stories, all of which can be found online.    Most of his short stories are in the Gothic horror genre (I have posted on two of them as well as Dracula and there is more background information on him in these posts.)  

Professionally Stoker spent most of his life as a theatrical manager.   He was director for twenty seven years of the Lyceum Theatre, in London, started in 1765,  with a seating capacity of 2000.   It was a very high prestige venue.   I was very happy to find a short story by Stoker that was based on his experience working in the theater.

"A Star Trap" is a simple murder mystery about the killing of an actor.   It is an interesting story for the behind the scenes look it gives us of life in the theater seen not from the point of view of  the actors or playwrights but that of the stage hands who do all the behind the scenes work.   The story is narrated by a young man just starting out as a stage hand specializing in building sets, called a "theatrical carpenter".   The master carpenter is married to a very pretty much younger woman.   The life of the theatrical people are very much wrapped up with others in the same world.   There is always lots of gossip about who is cheating on who and which women are infatuated with the handsome actors.

  This is a fun story though not a big mystery.   It is for sure worth reading.


I downloaded a Kindle version of it from Manybooks, you can find a lot of Stoker's works there.

There are lots of horror and Gothic stories to pick from for Irish Short Stories Week Year Two.

Mel u

A January Reading and Blogging Look Back and a Look ahead to February

January Reading Review

Novels

January was a good reading month for me.   Here are the highlights from the eleven novels I read.

• A Tale of Two Cities and Great Expectations by Charles Dickens -read in honor of Dickens forthcoming 200th Birthday on Feb 7.   
• The Untouchable by   Mulk Arand-simply a great book about one day in the life of a Dalit in India in the 1930s-
• Things Fall Apart  by  Chinua Achebe  also a very good book-pretty much a must read for those interested in post- colonial literature
• Back by Henry Green-quirky and strange and wonderful
• I also read the very popular young adult Mockingjay series by Suzanne Collins.   I got all three books free.  I got bored with it once I understood the basic concept.  I would have liked to see the world of the story better developed.
• The Changeling by Kenzaburo Oe-a must for Oe readers

I have also joined a year long read along on Clarissa by Samuel Richardson.  

Short Stories

Short stories are no longer a side line in my reading life or my blog.   Of the ten most popular posts of the month for January every one was about short stories.    

In January I a Simple Clockwork and I began what we hope will be a long term project in which we post once or twice a month on short stories by authors from the Philippines.    We will start out focusing on older stories and as much as we can we will pick stories that can be read online in English.   

I also read a collection of the short stories of Issac Babel which is really a world class cultural treasure.   I read on in collections of the complete short stories of Guy de Maupassant and Flannery O'Connor.

All of the novels and short stories I read in January can be found here.

February Blogging Plans

I will be doing a number of posts related to Irish Short Story Week Year II scheduled to take place March 12 to March 22.   I will do several posts on resources for the event.   I will do a small post of some kind on Feb 7, 2012 in honor of Dickens 200 day.   I also plan to post on Mongolian short stories from the 1930s based on a great suggestion from a Mongolian book blogger.

January Blogging Look Back

I ended the month with 646 GFC followers and 1597 Twitter Followers.   My page views and visits increased over one year ago about 135percent.  

February Reading Plans

1. Memories of a Geisha by Arthur Golden-8 percent completed
2. Family Matters by Rohinton Mistery 75 percent completed  
3. Cousin Betty by Honore Balzac-15 percent completed

Beyond this I have no rigid plans.

In short stories I will continue reading on in the complete short stories of Flannery O'Connor and Guy de Maupassant.   I hope to read more stories by George Moore, Ivan Turgenev, and a diverse collection of short stories from a wide range of authors.   

I as always offer my thanks to my quite brilliant cousin from Texas for editing suggestions.    I am terrible as a proof reader of my own work.




As always I thank the readers and above all the commentators on my blog.


I am very open to reading suggestions, joint projects, participating in events and suggestions for improving my blog.


Mel u