Good Short Fiction: The Pedestrian (by Ray Bradbury)

Title: The Pedestrian
Author: Ray Bradbury
Where I read it: Brave New Worlds: Dystopian Stories (ed. John Joseph Adams)

Imagine living in a society where going for a walk alone at night can land you in a mental hospital. Not a far-fetched idea. Walking alone is a subversive act. Your mind is going in any direction you want it to take. You don't always have a destination or a clear purpose for your walk, so your actions aren't easily accounted for. And you aren't going along with the majority of people, who drive, stick together in groups, share similar tastes, and spend their spare time plugged into mass entertainment. The pedestrian of Bradbury's story, Leonard Mead, is also a writer and unmarried, so his deviancy is off the charts. Who knows what he'll do, roaming the neighborhoods after dark?

He listened to the faint push of his soft shoes through autumn leaves with satisfaction, and whistled a cold quiet whistle between his teeth, occasionally picking up a leaf as he passed, examining its skeletal pattern in the infrequent lamplights as he went on, smelling its rusty smell.

The Pedestrian isn't a story with an involved plot, but a snapshot of a society where every harmless aberration from the norm is treated as a dangerous mental illness. It's written effectively and hits close to home. It's also exactly what you'd expect from such a story: an artistic individual gently violating the unspoken rules of society while his faceless neighbors stare at T.V. shows. The authorities, when they swoop in, are also faceless. If there's some heavy-handedness in how the story's told I can overlook it, because it's a short piece and the image of the solitary walker pinned by the light of a patrol car is chilling.

Good Short Fiction: 3 Tales from Great American Short Stories

Collection: Great American Short Stories: From Hawthorne to Hemingway
Editor: Corinne Demas

Title: The Birthmark
Author: Nathaniel Hawthorne
After a scientist marries a woman of beautiful character and appearance, he becomes obsessed with the birthmark on her cheek, her one apparent flaw. He's convinced that as a scientist he has the means to rid her of this imperfection.

The birthmark, shaped like a small hand, is a symbol of his wife's humanity and mortality. Most men wouldn't have considered it a flaw but instead would have seen it as a distinct feature, perfectly imperfect and uniquely hers; the reason it becomes a flaw here is because the scientist can't stop fixating on it. His wife loves him deeply and permits him to proceed with his experimentation, but after reading through a journal of his previous work she wisely grasps his limitations:

Much as he had accomplished, she could not but observe that his most splendid successes were almost invariably failures, if compared with the ideal at which he aimed. His brightest diamonds were the merest pebbles, and felt to be so by himself, in comparison with the inestimable gems which lay hidden beyond his reach.

With heavy symbolism Hawthorne illustrates the arrogance and idealism of scientists who think they have the capacity to undo anything in nature. Like other quests for impossible perfection this one ends in disaster. Hawthorne's cautionary tale addresses people's conviction that science can and should be used to eradicate anything regarded as a flaw.

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Title: The Flight of Betsey Lane
Author: Sarah Orne Jewett
Betsey Lane, Lavina Dow, and Peggy Bond are three old ladies living on a poor-farm in New England. Betsey is the youngest and still dreams of traveling; when she hears about the Philadelphia Centennial, she's determined to attend. She's seen very little of the world and isn't going to miss out on this chance.

Jewett writes fresh, vivid characters. Their lives aren't whitewashed; they're forgotten by the community and spend most of the day in a cluttered room carrying out small chores. At the same time they're comfortable with themselves and, in a quiet way, full of life; they aren't pitiful.

They were close together, knee to knee, picking over a bushel of beans, and commanding a view of the dandelion-starred, green yard below, and of the winding, sandy road that led to the village, two miles away. Some captive bees were scolding among the cobwebs of the rafters overhead, or thumping against the upper panes of glass... There was a cheerful feeling of activity, and even an air of comfort, about the Byfleet Poor-house. Almost every one was possessed of a most interesting past, though there was less to be said about the future.

Betsey does get to go to the Centennial, and who knows what will come next. She's open to possibilities and doesn't let age, lack of money, or other people's expectations kill her spirit of curiosity and exploration.

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Title: Paul's Case
Author: Willa Cather
Paul is young, impatient, sensitive and impractical. He has a love of beauty and refinement, a taste for flowers, champagne and theater. If he could, he'd escape from his lower-middle-class neighborhood, where everything feels dull and flat to him. Paul wants the lifestyle that only lots of money could give him but hates the thought of the decades' worth of drudgery required to even have a shot at wealth. The one job he loves is working as an usher at a music hall, because it brings him closer to brilliance and color; he doesn't realize that art itself demands years of patient work. It seems he wants only to feel, to revel in elegance and sensuousness. But life can't be lived that way, and Paul knows it; only he keeps hoping that somehow he can lose himself in his dreams and step into the world of illustrious hotels, perfume, silk, hothouse flowers and delicate luxuries.

Paul eventually shows the extent of his desperation. His vivid imagination is in some ways greatly limited, and at a crucial point in the story he fails to imagine that life can ever be better for him. There's also no one he can talk to about his struggle. His need for escape is not just a lazy ploy to avoid work. He feels out of place in his family and community and has a tendency to be high-strung. He doesn't fit in anywhere except for the rarefied places that he craves but that are denied to him. It's as if he was born into the wrong world, and he refuses to adapt to it in any way. By the end of the story he's given himself a taste of a dream life, while knowing it can't last; after that he denies himself a return to his everyday life, with its complexities, sordidness, and (he realizes too late) possibilities. Cather's complex portrait shows a boy who, by choice and by his nature, fails to negotiate with reality.

When Paul went down to dinner the music of the orchestra came floating up the elevator shaft to greet him. His head whirled as he stepped into the thronged corridor, and he sank back into one of the chairs against the wall to get his breath. The lights, the chatter, the perfumes, the bewildering medley of color--he had, for a moment, the feeling of not being able to stand it. But only for a moment; these were his own people, he told himself. He went slowly about the corridors, through the writing-rooms, smoking-rooms, reception-rooms, as though he were exploring the chambers of an enchanted palace, built and peopled for him alone.

I wonder if Paul's appreciation of this grand hotel and the way of life it represents was deepened by the fact that he didn't have a long time to stay in it. Had he constantly lived in this world, in "the bewildering medley of color," he might have grown used to it and not been as moved by it. Then again, he might have been able to enjoy its beautiful variety. That's something we don't get to find out.

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Other stories from this volume include: The Cask of Amontillado (by Edgar Allan Poe) and A New England Nun (by Mary E. Wilkins Freeman).

"Paul's Case" also appears in this anthology.

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This post (and this one) have been linked to at Short Stories on Wednesday #19 at the Breadcrumb Reads blog.

Week in Seven Words #8

assortment
We're the ones who don't fit neatly anywhere. Off the main room with the bright lights and song and long tables, we're in the semi-dark, five or six of us, whoever wants to drift in and talk about anything, from holiday plans to obscure historical details, and whether it's possible to both be cynical and hold onto cherished ideals. We're in the side room with the books, leftover crackers, and the windows facing sunset; in key ways we're beautifully different from one another, but seeking similar things - the pleasure of good conversation, along with room to slouch and stretch out our legs.

budding
The darling buds of March. They're set, in shades of light pink, against backdrops of gray sky or drab brick; they're framed by windows, where they seem to be looking in with rapt attention. Some trees have already flowered open, but on others the buds hold tight to themselves as long as possible; I'm expecting them to be especially spectacular when they finally yield to the season.

pantomime
To help someone out with a project, I agree to be photographed carrying out a number of different actions - playing cards, getting chased, sipping from a cup, reclining in a chair. I also need to mimic angry and violent actions - punching and kicking. I find it difficult to act those out, because I keep cracking up; I don't look angry enough. Finally I manage it but even then it feels like a comic sort of anger, as if I'm a cartoon character with steam coming out of my ears.

signal
He wants me to give him a signal if he's getting to be too long-winded in front of the guests. The signals we discuss range from the relatively subtle - three taps to the side of my nose, a beseeching stare - to the more obvious, like throwing my head back and letting out a huge groan.

steeped
The short thin raincoat isn't enough against the downpour. The rain soaks into my jeans and sweatshirt sleeves. I wear the rain on my skin for hours, cool against my thighs and wrists and the slope of my shoulders.

terrace
A light dinner beneath a peach and gray sky; the breeze for the most part is mild and pleasant. I sit alone and eat slowly. I stop often to sip my root beer and lean back in my chair.

underestimated
Very young infants are often underestimated. But there's so much that they can do, and many things that they're primed to learn. They have certain cognitive structures in place. They can pick up contingencies about the properties of the world and its objects. As the weeks fly by after birth, they show an ability to reason (in their own elusive, nonverbal way) about events in the world. The glimpses we get into their minds reveal amazing processes.

"It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream."

Here's the text of the "I Have a Dream" speech.

And posted on the same site, a video excerpt:



I'd like to highlight these lines in particular:

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

There's more than one way to understand the words "judged by the color of their skin", especially these days. There's the salient meaning - that of a vicious racist judgment; there's still racism today of course, and this racism is verbalized and perpetrated by individuals all over, from different racial and ethnic groups in our society.

There's also another meaning to those words. One where the judgment doesn't have to be negative, or at least overtly negative. It just has to be a judgment, based on skin color alone. A decision, based on skin color alone. Forget looking at the individual in a well-rounded sense - as a complex person. The individual is instead seen in a superficial sense, a member of a group, like all the other members.

It's a laziness of thought, a degradation of the individual, a diminishing commitment to regard each person as his or her own unique self and help people develop to the fullest extent of their potential. It promotes divisions among people. It promotes a superficial sense of "diversity" - not a diversity of intellect, of ability and talent and temperament - but a kind of diversity that looks good in photo ops. And race is only one dimension in which this superficial and more subtly pernicious form of thinking crops up.

And so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.

Let's work towards and fight for a love of the individual - of individual merits and substance, individual complexity, each person judged on character, on competency, on word and deed.