Six Short Stories for a Chilly Evening

These probably won't warm you up. There's something bleak about them.

Title: Death of a Professor

Author: William Trevor

Where I Read It: The Hill Bachelors

A little vipers' pit of academia, where a prank obituary gets published about a professor, and he eventually finds out. Supposedly high-minded people mired in pettiness. From what I remember, any moments of grace in the story come from the professor's marriage, where it seems there's a genuine kindness, a sincere wish to protect feelings and cover up embarrassment.

Title: Gravel 

Author: Alice Munro

Where I Read It: Dear Life

She may have thought she could manage well enough. And I may indeed have thought that she could do anything she wanted to.

Two siblings live with their pregnant mom and her boyfriend by a gravel pit. The pit is just there, waiting to become the site of tragedy. The attempt to make sense of the events around the pit involves what-ifs that are haunting but impossible to resolve. Could the surviving sibling have rushed for help sooner? Did their mom's boyfriend know how to swim? Given how unreliable memory can be, the answers may be completely inaccessible. But the narrator's mind is still caught up in the questions, particularly, Why, why did it have to happen at all. Even if the narrator could somehow travel back in time and into another person's mind, what answers would there be?

Title: The Hospice

Author: Robert Aickman

Where I Read It: The Weird: A Compendium of Strange and Dark Stories

This story wraps you up in dread and eeriness. An unhealthy, creepy, stifling atmosphere.

The main character, Maybury, takes a shortcut and gets lost in a neighborhood of hedges and poor lighting where he's attacked by a cat-like creature. (Possibly a cat, but it's hard to tell. There's much that's hard to explain about this captivating story.) He comes across what may be some lodging for travelers:

THE HOSPICE
GOOD FOOD
SOME ACCOMMODATION

Even though it doesn't appear to be a medical establishment, there's a cloud of sickness over everything. The inhabitants live a kind of regimented, unwholesome existence that isn't fully explained. They gorge themselves at dinner, as if they're getting plumped up for someone else to feed on. The room Maybury is given is hot and has no windows. He's pressed into strange, uncomfortable interactions.

It's unclear what's real. But Maybury seems trapped, as do the others, physically and mentally. Maybury's entrapment begins even before he enters the hospice; it wasn't his idea to take the shortcut. Maybe the residents (prisoners?) of the hospice represent people caught in their own appetites and struggling like flies against sticky paper. That's only one possibility.

Title: Mrs. Manstey's View

Author: Edith Wharton

Where I Read It: Manhattan Noir 2

Perhaps at heart Mrs. Manstey was an artist; at all events she was sensible of many changes of color unnoticed by the average eye, and dear to her as the green of early spring was the black lattice of branches against a cold sulphur sky at the close of a snowy day. She enjoyed, also, the sunny thaws of March, when patches of earth showed through the snow, like inkspots spreading on a sheet of white blotting-paper; and, better still, the haze of boughs, leafless but swollen, which replaced the clear-cut tracery of winter.

Mrs. Manstey is a widow who lives in the back room of a boarding house. The view from her window is her world really, and Wharton captures all the interest and variety the character experiences even from this limited vantage. Then, in a neighboring property, a tall wall goes up...

Title: Some Letters for Ove Lindström

Author: Karin Tidbeck

Where I Read It: Jagannath

This story comes from an anthology that's like a small, odd but lovely tree in the corner of a yard. Each story is a fruit, and some are lush and full with a complex flavor. Others you hesitate to bite into. You push aside some of the fragile branches and find a pair of eyes blinking at you.

In this story, the main character's estranged father has passed away. She had cut off contact with him because of his excessive drinking. Years ago, when the character (whose name is Viveka) was a small child, her mother left the family. There had always been a touch of otherworldly mystery about the mother.

Viveka, who is in between jobs, returns to the place out in the country where she was born. She settles there, cuts herself of – or is being cut off, because what happens in this story feels like a mix of personal crisis with a pressure from some external force. Like a fantasy, as if someone hitting rock bottom will be recalled to another world or another type of existence, instead of just sinking into unglamorous isolation.

Title: Tough Men

Author: Edna O'Brien

Where I Read It: The Love Object

The story portrays a blighted adulthood and a promise of manhood (and its stature or rewards) that hasn't materialized. A shopkeeper waits with two other men for someone else to come by with what seems to be a good investment opportunity. The shabbiness of the scam, the frustration and anger boiling up to no effect are what stood out most for me.

Worth Watching: Stage Door (1937)

Title: Stage Door
Director: Gregory La Cava
Language: English
Rating: Unrated

I had a feeling I'd like this movie, and I was right.

Much of it is set in The Footlights Club, a boarding-house for aspiring actresses and other stage performers trying to make it big (or at least find work) in New York City. Jean Maitland (Ginger Rogers) is a smart-alecky blonde who butts heads with her new roommate, Terry Randall (Katharine Hepburn), a bright Midwesterner who seems to have an enviable amount of money and more booksmarts than real experience. Linda Shaw (Gail Patrick) is enjoying jewels, furs, and fine dining paid for by her sugar daddy, while Kay Hamilton (Andrea Leeds) has failed to find any new work after she made her successful debut on the stage a year earlier. The other boarding house inmates - played by the likes of Lucille Ball, Eve Arden, Constance Collier, and Ann Miller – keep each other's spirits up by hanging out together and cracking jokes.

Worth Watching: Dinner at Eight (1933)

Title: Dinner at Eight
Director: George Cukor
Language: English
Rating: Unrated

Dinner at Eight is set among upper class Manhattanites during the Great Depression and ends with a dinner party that's not as important as it's made out to be. The substance of the movie is the build-up to the party: the people on the guest list and the comedy and drama of their lives. As the movie unfolds, you wonder who will show up at the end, and in what state (disillusioned, heartbroken, morose, contented). Who will live and who will die? In the movie some characters suffer setbacks, others double-cross their rivals, and a few make peace with their lives. Private, sordid tragedies are gilded with witty remarks and sharp humor.

Most of the characters in this ensemble movie are memorable, in part because of the well-written screenplay but also because of the quality of the actors. Even the ones in the smaller roles shine, like the maid, Tina, played by Hilda Vaughn, who maintains an appearance of regal boredom while blackmailing her equally sneaky employer, Kitty Packard (Jean Harlow).

Jean Harlow alone is a great reason to watch Dinner at Eight, as she plays the kittenish Kitty, who conducts her day-to-day affairs from her bed. Harlow is funny and makes an art form out of lounging around in satin. Though Kitty is an ignorant person in some ways, she's not to be underestimated, as her husband, Dan (Wallace Beery), finds out. Dan isn't such a stellar guy himself - a coarse and unscrupulous businessman who steamrolls people in pursuit of his ambitions. The Packards' antagonistic marriage is one of the most entertaining parts of the movie, mostly because they deserve each other. Their spats are ridiculous and ugly as each tries to get the upper hand over the other.

Both Lionel Barrymore and his younger brother, John, are in this movie, with Lionel playing a more gray and enervated character, Oliver Jordan, whose business is failing along with his heart. John's character, the washed-up film star, Larry Renault, is a more striking figure. Renault used to be famous, more for his handsome profile than for his acting talent, and in the darkest scene in Dinner at Eight he hits rock bottom. It's one of the most brutal depictions of self-sabotage, despair and self-loathing I've seen so far in movies (the brief helpless sobbing noise John Barrymore makes is haunting). But even at the end of that scene there's a faint touch of humor, as he adjusts himself so that his beautiful profile is facing the door.

In a way those who make it to the dinner at the end are survivors. The character who's probably best at surviving is Carlotta Vance (Marie Dressler), an esteemed stage actress who has weathered fame, shifting fortunes, and numerous male admirers and reached an advanced age where her looks have faded but her strength of mind has not; she's not as self-deluded as some of the other characters. Dressler has a fascinating face, especially her eyes, which sometimes seem to be staring at horrors only she can see. Carlotta's charm and sense of humor keep her afloat, and I love how Dressler delivers her lines, which are among the funniest in the movie; the last word in Dinner at Eight belongs to her.

Carlotta is also a good example of how the characters' lives are interwoven in the movie. She's Oliver Jordan's former love interest and current friend, welcomed by him with sweet happiness no matter what else is going on in his life. She's friendly with his snobbish wife, Millicent (Billie Burke - "Glinda the Good" in The Wizard of Oz), who's throwing the big dinner party. And at one point she becomes the confidante and advisor of his daughter, Paula (Madge Evans), when the young woman desperately needs some guidance.

Dinner parties are great scenarios because of everything that lurks beneath the polite formalities. Appearances must be maintained, and people who despise each other shake hands, embrace and pretend they're friends. People who are crushed have to swallow their pain and look untroubled. In this wonderful movie there isn't a single personal secret that's fully a secret; however none of the guests knows everything about the others. Like all people, they act on a mix of imperfect knowledge and obliviousness.

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.

Good Short Fiction: Nuns at Luncheon (Aldous Huxley)

Title: Nuns at Luncheon
Author: Aldous Huxley
Where I read it: The Oxford Book of English Short Stories (edited by A.S. Byatt)

Synopsis
A fiction writer and a journalist meet for lunch. The journalist, Miss Penny, has just returned from a trip to Germany where she had to have her appendix removed; she spent her time recuperating in a hospital staffed with nuns. Over lunch she shares the story of a condemned nun who had run off with a patient.

Some reasons to read it

• The story-within-a-story structure works well. There's the dramatic tale of the nun and her fate. And then there's Miss Penny and the fiction writer eating lunch. Not much happens between them other than their discussion of the nun and her story, but that's fitting; such stories are their life and livelihood.
  
  
• The writers try to figure out the nun's motives; what would make her abandon her vows and risk deepest condemnation? But they seem to have little feeling for her as a person, even when they discuss her gruesome punishment; their main concern is how to write about her, fashion her in words and get into her head. The fiction writer regards Miss Penny with the same attitude, not only using her for her anecdotes but also searching for the most striking way to describe her. She's someone to be pitied and secretly mocked; though she may be entertaining, she doesn't inspire passion or love in others.
  

  Miss Penny threw back her head and laughed. Her long earrings swung and rattled - corpses hanging in chains: an agreeably literary simile. And her laughter was like brass, but that had been said before.

  
  The story raises interesting questions about how writers relate to the people they write about; though it's not always the case that a story is lifted straight from real life, writers generally draw on the people around them and on various life circumstances for inspiration. When does a writer's attitude become too manipulative or unfeeling? Does such an attitude take away from the merit of a story and make it less beautiful or illuminating? At one point Miss Penny considers this aspect of writing:
  

  "... two professionals gloating, with an absolute lack of sympathy, over a seduced nun, and speculating on the best method of turning her misfortunes into cash. It's all very curious, isn't it? - when one begins to think about it dispassionately."

  
  And earlier she asks:
  

  "Do you really - honestly, I mean - do you seriously believe in literature?"

  
  The fiction writer dismisses the question, which isn't even very clear, and doesn't seem interested in discussing her passing doubts. He just wants to get back to the nun.
  
  
• The writers try to understand the nun and craft her story in such a way as to stir emotion in others, without feeling much themselves except for the great satisfaction of a story well told. And it is a story well told - you feel the suspense of it, the passion and tragedy.
  

  "Why, it's ready-made literature, this scene. In the morning... two woodcutters on their way to work noticed that the door of the hut was ajar. They approached the hut cautiously, their axes raised and ready for a blow if there should be need of it. Peeping in, they saw a woman in a black dress lying face downwards in the straw. Dead? No; she moved, she moaned..."

  
  These lines are from Miss Penny, who is enthusiastic about stories and possesses admirable skill in the craft of story-telling; she also has a pensive moment of her own, when she stops to consider whether anyone would ever attempt to seduce her. Some of her personal feelings are touched, if only briefly. With a sense of humor that's sharp and not at all warm, the fiction writer studies her from across the table:
  

  No, decidedly, Miss Penny was not beautiful; you could not even honestly say that she had charm or was attractive. That high Scotch colouring, those hare's eyes, the voice, the terrifying laugh, and the size of her, the general formidableness of the woman. No, no, no.

  
  Of everyone in the story the fiction writer is most elusive. We get the sense of someone remote, urbane, and not especially kind or charitable; otherwise in appearance and character the fiction writer is formless, inhabiting the shadows of the story while the nun and Miss Penny get trotted out for scrutiny.
  
  
• There are significant parts of the nun's story, and her life, that are unknown to the writers. They attempt to reconstruct these private moments, and they don't always succeed; their words and explanations are inadequate. When the writers fail to give a satisfactory account of her character, it feels almost as if the nun is retaining some of her dignity and privacy. Still, as a reader you want all the details. Everyone is complicit in using the nun - not only the man who seduced her, but also the readers who crave the story and the writers who wish to tell it for the sake of their craft and for the profit they'll make off of it.
  

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Other recommended stories from this collection include these three and At Hiruharama (by Penelope Fitzgerald).

Some thoughts on the Tucson massacre

Earlier I posted an excerpt from Lincoln's First Inaugural Address.

And now I find myself linking to Jon Stewart (from President to Jester). I haven't watched a full episode of The Daily Show in years, though occasionally I'll view some clips on the internet.

I'm glad I came across this one. He presents here probably one of the sanest reactions I've heard from a media commentator/pundit after the Tucson massacre. He also articulates some thoughts I've had while reading through the updates on the aftermath.

Even before anything meaningful was known about the killer and his state of mind and possible motivations (which are still quite muddled and all over the place, to say the least), various media commentators and politicians were already insisting on the narrative of their choice and using it for their own ends, trying to see if they could tie the shooter and his off-the-wall ramblings to any one party. Casting blame and deflecting and defending against it. Some earnest conviction here, but also no shortage of hypocrisy, grandstanding and dishonesty.

The details that have been coming out increasingly show a man who is deranged, with a history of deranged and disturbed behavior, and who is not politically active and has so far not been found to be a member of any extremist group (he was identified as a registered independent who didn't vote in the 2010 elections; that's the most definitive statement that has been made of his politics so far) - in fact his thoughts about government and people and life and the universe, if you have the heart and patience to sift through them, are like something out of scribbled science fiction; being registered for one party or another probably would have been minimally relevant to how he processes the world. According to friends (and some stuff found in his house) he also had some sort of weird fixation on Congresswoman Giffords for a few years now, after meeting her at a similar sort of event where he disliked her answer to a question he posed. (That, and added just now, he really liked movies on conspiracies, mind control, and altered states of consciousness - the article at the link talks about some of his life and also about his parents, who are going through their own personal hell, which I hope they can get through.) For the time being, this is the information we have.

Back to Jon Stewart. The monologue begins at 2:28 (the clip starts with some back-and-forth between him and a colleague, which is amusing but skippable). I really encourage you all to take several minutes to watch it:

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Arizona Shootings Reaction
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor & Satire Blog< The Daily Show on Facebook

Prayers for Gabrielle Giffords and her family and friends; I hope her recovery is steady and sure. Prayers also for the people who were wounded and the six who died (Christina Green, Dorothy Morris, John Roll, Phyllis Schneck, Dorwin Stoddard, and Gabe Zimmerman), and for their families and friends, who are going through hellish times; I hope they find strength, support, love and healing.

Some other brave, decent people: Daniel Hernandez, a college student at the University of Arizona, who had been working as an intern for Giffords for only five days. When he heard gunshots he ran towards the crowd, getting there in the immediate aftermath. He might have saved his boss's life; he held Gifford's head and applied pressure to the head wound. He then stayed with her and kept holding her hand when the medics took over. Patricia Maisch, who wrestled ammo away from the shooter and prevented him from reloading his gun, and Retired Colonel Bill Badger, Roger Sulzgeber, and Joseph Zimudie who tackled and held down the shooter.

I'm tired of hearing that society is in a hopeless state - worse than it's ever been. (Study history, including the history of political rhetoric, and that assertion falls apart.) I also don't want to see a further breakdown in political discourse or acts of political opportunism and demagoguery because of a lone deranged killer (with his blank smirking mugshot, nihilism, and scrambled thought processes). Right now everything about this tragedy is especially raw, everyone's talking about it, but it's also possible to pause, take a breath, and think.

Stewart's monologue was a breath of fresh air for this reason. I found it thoughtful and decent.