Wednesday, February 20, 2013

detour




Sweet pea love continues.


Painting by Patrice Lorenz, a friend from the Catskills.




I started reading Gulag, but don't think I can continue. Too much sadness, horror, inhumanity. I've read and enjoyed plenty of grim books, but can't finish this one now, so I've detoured from Russia to Ireland, started a collection of stories by Maeve Brennen, which I first read about here on Jane Flanagan's blog. They are charming, and remind me how much I love short stories.


Here are some of my favorite collections. Also, Ship Fever, by Andrea Barrett, and Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahari. Those and all of the books pictured are wonderful, and continue to resonate with me long after I read them, but the ones I am most eager to re-read are Julie Hecht's, Do the Window's Open? followed by Ship Fever. According to the New York Times (so it must be true) short stories are experiencing a resurgence. I'm looking forward to reading St. Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves, by Karen Russell.

Do you ever read short stories? Once I had a job reading slush (unsolicited) stories for a women's magazine. I lived in Brooklyn then and took the subway to the magazine office in Manhattan and picked up a carton of stories, which I carried back to the subway and home. I got paid 50 cents a story and rarely found one worth passing on to the editors. Sometimes I got frustrated that everyone thought they could be a writer, but other times found poignant the image of women across the country at their own kitchen tables, writing their stories, knowing they had something to say.

19 comments:

  1. The sweet peas are....sweet, so gentle and delicate. I'm not much for short stories, reading or writing them. They've never been something I can enjoy.

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    1. You Might Like Do the Windows Open--the main character in the stories is a wonderfully neurotic photographer, and the stories are very funny.

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  2. While some authors need a larger space to work in, others have a special flair for short stories, such as Edgar Allen Poe, A. Conan Doyle, Eudora Welty, etc. Perhaps some beginning writers try to be too "writerly", to the consternation of those who have to read their efforts by the carton.
    --Road to Parnassus

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    1. Flannery O'Connor too! John Cheever. Grace Paley. Alice Munro. I seem to remember you mentioning short stories you were enjoying by Edith Wharton and someone else. Ford Madox Ford?

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  3. What a fascinating job description that would have been. I love how you can see both sides of that particular 'story', no pun intended! Thanks for reminding me about short stories. I adore Katherine Mansfields and never tire of re-reading them.

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  4. I LOVE Ship Fever. Did you ever read Voyage of the Narwal? I lent it to someone and they never returned it, I was so upset. Please don't tell me that the job you describe was for Macfadden Publishing... because if it was we have a lot more in common than we think.

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    1. I loved Voyage!

      It was McCalls magazine which is no longer. And it wasn't a real job. Just freelancing. At least they published stories. I doubt if any women's mags do now.

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  5. Love the first photo!
    www.rsrue.blogspot.com

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  6. I love the multicolored-water like painting. And of course I like to read some short stories. Sometimes so many details are described in them and I wonder which is important for the story...

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    1. I think the title of the painting is The Pond, so you are right--it's water and reflections. You recommended an Ishiguro collection of stories that I enjoyed. As soon as I made my list above, I started thinking of others.

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  7. I never got over "The Lottery" by Shirley Jackson. I read her biography and I think she wrote it in a room next to a dinner party she was giving, and was rather tipsy, and completed it in one evening. The reviewer for The New York Times Review of Books loved most of St. Lucy's Home for Girls . . . You must give us your review. Why not start with the one you're reading now.

    Lovely painting -- rather in the same vein as your photos of your stream.

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    1. I don't think I ever read it--will look for it today!

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  8. Hello Jen:
    We are huge fans of the short story which, when successful, we believe to be one of the most difficult of all forms of fiction writing. In support of your interest in Irish writers, may we recommend William Trevor [whose short stories are truly brilliant]and Jennifer Johnston, both of whom we greatly admire. For a taste of Hungarian life, in the form of the short story, then you might like to try 'Homecoming and Other Stories' by Árpád Góncz. In the way of non fiction, and to give an insight into Hungary over the past fifty or so years, we should point you in the direction of 'A Good Comrade - János Kádár, Communism and Hungary' by Roger Gough.

    We are so often reminded here of the terrible atrocities which have been committed to secure political ends that we can readily understand your feelings about 'Gulag'.

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  9. I love William Trevor's stories. Also Reynolds Price. I always think of them together for some reason.

    Thank you for the recommendations--I look forward to reading them.

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  10. I'm not much for short stories, but i'm not sure why. I'll have to check the ones you mentioned. Really liking Dog Stars btw.

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  11. Hi Jen, I'm not a short story lover either, I find they just get interesting and then finish, I prefer a longer read with more of a build up.
    Are those sweet peas real? I can almost smell them!

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  12. I'm not a huge fan of short stories. I like to get lost in a story, and with short stories there just never seems to be enough of them. that said, I love Tove Jansson. and her stories are as short as it gets. have you read anything by her?

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