"The White Heron" by Sarah Orne Jewett

"The White Heron" by Sarah Orne Jewett (1886, 5 pages)

Sarah Orne Jewett (1849 to 1909-Maine, USA) was a very prolific novelist and short story writer.    Wikipedia has a good article on her.     I think she is not read as much now as she once was.    Like Eudora Welty,  her work is set in an isolated part of the USA,  her native Maine.  

One of the things I love about short stories is they allow us to try out new to us writers.     "The White Heron" is the first work of Jewett I have read.    It is a simple work that reads almost as if it were meant for children.   I read it on a very interesting web page designed for adults learning English for the first time.    All of the stories on the web page are chosen for relative simplicity of vocabulary and clarity of expression.

The central character of "The White Heron" is a  girl in her early teens.    She has recently moved from parents house to her grandparents farm.   She feels a great joy in the beauty of the farm land versus what she calls "the filthy,  dirty city".      She has one main duty.    That is to go get the family cow which is allowed to roam during the day.     One day she encounters and is first frightened by a young man with  a gun.    It turns out he is a scientist who shoots and stuffs birds for study.   There is a beautiful white heron he is in search of for his collection.   At first the girl thinks he is cruel.    She does not understand how he can seek to kill the birds he loves.   She begins to feel the first stirrings of love for the handsome young man.  

The story takes an interesting turn here and I do not want to give away more of the plot.    There is a deep appreciation of the beauty of nature in this story.   I could feel Jewett's love for Maine in this work.   I would be willing to try more of her short stories.  

You can both read and at the same time listen to this story HERE.    This does make it good for learners of English as a second language.

This was an enjoyable read and I am glad I tried a Jewett work.  

Mel u

Cranford by Elizabeth Gaskell

Cranford by Elizabeth Gaskell (1853, 160 pages)

I am reading this as part of my participation in The Elizabeth Gaskell Reading Challenge

Cranford was a total delight for me.     The author, Elizabeth Gaskell (1810-1865-UK) wrote five novels and a number of short stories.    Charles Dickens greatly admired her work and published some of her short stories in magazines he controlled.

Cranford  is set in the imaginary town of Cranford, England.    Cranford is a town very much dominated by women.    If a man and wife moves there, the man seems to somehow pass out of the picture.   Many of the women are widows left with enough funds to live comfortably, some are spinsters,  and some are still in search of a husband.    There are a few single men living in Cranford and they come in for a lot of scrutiny.    The book is by and large about members of the lower gentry.    There is very little use of rural or country dialogue in the book, a plus for me.

In one very touching episode, one of the women, who was the adult daughter of the owner of a local bank that has gone into default taking all of the woman's money and badly hurting many in the town,  fears she will be reduced to total poverty and have to live as a boarder on the small money she has left.    The women in the town all band together to set up an arrangement to support the woman through their contributions.   While this is going on one of the maid's and her boyfriend offer to let her stay with them in a flat out hilarious scene.   Gaskell does a great job with relationships.   I loved it  when the lady set up a tea shop in her parlor.

Cranford is a joy to read.    The prose is beautiful, the characters for sure are sympathetic and believable.
There is a good bit of gentle satire and I loved all of the conversations about Samuel Johnson!

I recommend this canon status work without any reservations.   It is not a difficult or hard to read book.   It is very entertaining and I feel OK saying it was heartwarming.

If others have any suggestions as to my next Gaskell, please leave a comment.


You can listen to all of her novels and a number of her shorter works HERE

Mel u

"Vermolai and the Miller's Wife" by Ivan Turgenev

"Vermolai and the Miller's Wife"  by Ivan Turgenev (1865, 10 pages, translated by Constance Garnett)

Last June I read and posted on Ivan Turgenev's Diary of a Superfluous Man, a work I greatly enjoyed.   Lately I have been getting very into short stories.    Frank O'Connor is his classic work on the short story, The Lonely Voice speaks in the most rhapsodic terms of the short stories of Turgenev (1818 to 1883).    Ford Madox Ford in his magisterial survey The March Literature mentions as early as page five the short stories of Turgenev as among the most beautiful literature of all time.


"Vermolai and the Miller's Wife" is a wonderful straight forward story about a Russian noble on a hunting trip with one of his men.    It is a celebration of nature, of hunting, of friendship,  of the pleasures of friendship, of the enjoyment of being outside in the Russian winter and in bonding with other men in conversations about women.

This is a great story and I cannot imagine anyone disliking it.

It was a bit shocking at first when the narrator of the story casually mentioned the serfs he owned as if to own another person was perfectly ordinary, and I guess it was at the time.  

Turgenev came from an incredibly wealthy Russian Family that owned over 5000 serfs over whom they had the power of life and death.

The story can be read online here.

I will be reading through the stories of Turgenev this year and posting on some of them-If you have a favorite please let me know.


Mel u

"Harrison Bergeron" by Kurt Vonnegut

"Harrison Bergeron" by Kurt Vonnegut (1961, 10 pages)

Kurt Vonnegut (1922 to 2007-USA) was one of the most popular post WWII novelists.    He wrote such highly regarded best selling works as The Breakfast of Champions, Slaughter House Five, and Cat's Cradle.    Long ago, I read all his major novels.  

I was very happy to recently find a short story by Vonnegut online.    "Harrison Bergeron" is a science fiction a  story about the future of  the USA.    It is written in a very simple kind of matter of fact style.    I think it could be read by and used as class room material for children 12 and above but it is by no means a children's story.

"Harrison Bergeron" is set in a future American where everyone by law is equal to every one else, not just equal in theory or in law but in fact equal.    If  woman has the unfair advantage of being beautiful, she must wear a bag over her head.    If someone is above average in intelligence an implant is placed in their brain which can detect advanced beyond the normal  processes.    This implant  can cause severe pain if one tries to think above the average level.

We never learn how or why this came about.    We do not learn who is running things.     We do know that whoever figured out how to do the brain implants was themselves using way above average intelligence in pursuit of social goals.    

There is a big action scene at the end and I will not spoil it.    

You can read it online here.

Mel u

Eudora Welty-Two Short Stories -"A Curtain of Green" and "The Hitch-Hikers"

"A Curtain of Green"  (1941, pages)  and "The Hitch-Hikers" (1941, 6 pages) both by Eudora Welty


I have already posted on four short stories by Eudora Welty (Mississippi, USA 1909 to 2001).   In my post on her wonderful story "Why I Live at the P. O."  I have given some background information on Welty.

I recently learned from Amateur Reader that Welty maintained a long term correspondence with Henry Green.  She was also good friends with Elizabeth Bowen.   I do not yet have it verified but I think she must have met them when she was travelling on a fellow ship in England.   She also lectured at Oxford and Cambridge.   Bowen lived in Oxford for a while and if Welty met her then she could have met Green through Bowen.   If anyone has more details on this please leave a comment.

All of the six stories I have read by Welty are very different from each other while having similarities.    Each is  set in a small town in the American south.    Each does deal with people on the edge, those who do not quite fit into society.  

"A Curtain of Green" is a fascinating story about a woman trying to cope with her grief over the death of her husband by working in her garden.   The woman becomes more and more withdrawn while her garden becomes wilder and wilder.    It is really brilliant and took me into the mind of the woman.   I also see the reaction of others in her community to her.  

You can read it online.

They tell you it is never a a good idea to pick up hitch-hikers and "The Hitch-Hikers"  sure showed me why!   A business man sees two hitch-hikers  by the side of the road and he decides to pick them up.    The business man is a confusing character.   He ends up at a very strange party.    This is a puzzling kind of story but I think it will stick with me.  

You can read it online

I like all the six stories I have read or heard by Welty.   Each person in her stories seem real.    I for sure will be rereading more Welty-if anyone has any suggestions, please leave a comment.

If anyone has any short story suggestions please leave a comment


Mel u

Welcome to all Book Blog Hoppers-April 1 to April 3

"Welcome to all Bloggers"-Charles    

Every week Jennifer of Crazy for Books hosts the Book Blogger Hop.    This is a great event that allows book bloggers around the world to connect.    I have discovered lots of great blogs this way and gained  wonderful readers.  

I return all follows.

Every week Jennifer poses a question for us-this week she asks us to say what is the best April's Fools Day prank we have ever played or had played on us?    In truth I really do not play April fool pranks and have been happily prank free.  

My blog is about 60 percent on Short Stories, 20 percent on classics and 20 percent on Asian Fiction.  

If you stop by my blog , please leave a comment so I can return the visit or follow.  

Mel u

March 2011 Reading Life Review

Blog Review

March for my blog was dominated by Irish Short Story Week.    I ended up extending the week to ten days.  I read and posted on 28 stories, (I started working on the week about five days before it began).    I discovered a number of new to me authors I will read more of in the future.    It was a great reading and learning experience for me.    I also had a lot of wonderful participants who posted about their own experiences with Irish Short Stories.    The Irish Short Story is a super rich field whose authors are among the very best writers of all time.   I plan to read more Irish short stories on a regular basis and hope, providence willing, that Irish Short Story Week Two will begin March 11, 2012.    

A few months ago an anonymous commentator began to repeatedly send me comments asking a member of  The Reading Life staff to place online for him to download various books I had posted on that are under copyright still.   I do not post or respond to anonymous comments but after five requests they stopped.   I decided I do need a staff and during Irish Short Story week I recruited Rory O'Hallaran,   Carmilla, and Ruprecht.   Rory was born in a wonderful short story by Stephen Vincent Benet,  Carmilla was created by James Le Fanu,  and Ruprecht (a shape shifter who wandered in one night) also joined the staff.    They will be appearing once and a while in posts from now on.

Novels Read

1.   In the Heat of the Day by Elizabeth Bowen.   This novel really did bring the Blitz in London in WWII to life for me.

2.  The Turn of the Screw by Henry James-worthy of its reputation.

3.  Party Going by Henry Green-just loved it-a wonderful new to me writer discovery.

4.  Living by Henry Green -wonderful prose and conversations

5.  Loving  by Henry Green-3, 4, and 5 can be bought in one book

6.   Infinities by John Banville-a lot of smart people like this book but it did not work for me

Short Stories

I read 70 short stories, including 18 by Elizabeth Bowen.   I read or listed to pod casts on 12 stories I did not post on.    There were many wonderful works.   A year ago like the vast majority of readers, I was not really much into short stories. Now I totally love the genre.    I also discovered, I know I am only a decade or so late on this, pod casts of short stories.   I have found tons of wonderful recording of short stories and I will be getting more  into pod casts of short stories.   The negative is a big slow down in reading speed versus the printed page.   What I found really works best for a short story I want to experience deeply, is to read it first then listen to a podcast.   I listed to a podcast of Elizabeth Bowen's "The Jungle" three times.    I discovered a number of new to me authors during Irish Short Story Week that I will return to often.

I wish to again thank the participants in Irish Short Story Week and all who take the time to comment on my posts.    

I have a plan for a fun no stress event for April I will post about soon.    

Mel u