Tag: Short Stories

  • Short Story Review: “The Face in the Mirror” by Mohsin Hamid

    (The short story “The Face in the Mirror” by Mohsin Hamid appeared in the May 16th, 2022 issue of The New Yorker.)

    (This story will be Spoiled!)

    I didn’t know I had been waiting for a story, but “The Face in the Mirror” by Mohsin Hamid was the story I had been waiting for. I thought I knew what I was getting, then I was surprised, then I felt ashamed that I had judged it, only to again think I knew where this story was going, only to arrive at an ending that was conclusive, but also left me pleasantly wondering what all of this meant. I love that feeling. It reminds me of being in a college English class, and we have just finished reading a story that we are all jazzed up about, and we can’t wait to discuss it, to see if someone else saw it the same way that I did.

    The story is about a white man, Anders, who wakes up one day to find that his skin color has changed to brown. Right off the bat, I thought I was about to get a modern retelling of Kafka’s “Metamorphosis.” Anders soon learns that this change is affecting other people in his city. Slowly, tensions start growing in this city. Anders goes to see his father, who has not changed and is still white. We learn that the father and Anders have a strained relationship, neither really coming to understand the other. Where the father was a construction foreman, a physically tough man, Anders never lived up to that standard. Though the father doesn’t understand or recognize his son, the father still loves and attempts to protect his child, by giving Anders a rifle to protect himself. Soon, society begins to break apart; militias form, people who have changed are now evicted, violence is everywhere. Anders has a confrontation at his apartment, an attempt to evict him, and though he stands his ground, he knows he has to leave. The only safe place is his father’s home, where he goes, and the two of them hole up together. Soon, it is clear that the father is dying, and Anders sees to it that he takes care of his father to the end. And at the funeral, the father is the only white person left, as all of the people attending are now brown skinned.

    First of all, much respect to Hamid for writing a story that was not easy to predict where it was going. Always a good sign. Second, there is so much to unpack. Was this a story about race? Clearly it was. Was this a story about how the paternal generation comes to not recognize and understand their children’s generation? Yes, that is also true. I think it was also about loving unconditionally. It was all of that, and it was great. I also like that after Anders goes through this change, society comes out on the other side, and everything starts to return back to normal. There was a menace in this story, a tension that I felt was going to explode, but the fact that it didn’t played well into the theme of the story. There were all of these things happening, which was bringing up questions in my mind, asking if this is how society would react to a change like that, or is our current society reacting this way because a great change is under way?

    I don’t know, but it is fun and challenging to ask and ponder these questions.

    But all of it was pulled together and held tightly by Hamid’s writing. His word choice, the flow of the sentences, and the use of repetition of a phrase in a sentence; it was enjoyable just to read this prose. I am now a fan of Mohsin Hamid. I feel like he was a friend, gently nudging me to ask questions, and look a little closer at the world around me.

    (Say, don’t forget to like this post, or share it, or leave a comment. I got bills to pay, you know.)

  • Read the Guidelines!

    I don’t think it’s a secret that I am trying to get one of my stories published in a lit magazine. I don’t know if this is the right way to start a career writing fiction, or if there is a better way to go about it, or if there is no right way and you just got to figure it out. (I think it’s the last option.) Either way, I write and then I send the stories out to magazines, then wait to see what sticks to the wall.

    Almost every magazine says two things; please read an issue of their magazine before you submit, and please follow the submission guidelines. I have started reading some of these magazines, and I have enjoyed discovering new writers and new ideas on how to tell a story. As for following the guidelines… yeah, I still suck at that.

    In fact, I was rejected yesterday for that exact reason, even though the form letter that was sent to me never mentioned that I had failed to follow their guidelines. I thought that it was very polite of them not to mention my complete inability to follow the most basic rule they set forth. I know I was rejected for not following the guidelines because the magazine stated that it could take three months for them to respond, and they rejected me in three days. I went back to read the submission post, and that’s when I reread the rules, and realized that I didn’t follow them. Oops…

    And I know what happened. I found this magazine, and got impatient, and wanted to send out right away as it was on my mind right now!

    I feel a little silly. I should have known better. I should have slowed down, taken my time.

    Remember people, read the guidelines.

    (Say, don’t forget to like this post, or share it, or leave a comment. I got bills to pay, you know.)

  • Short Story Review: “Nondisclosure Agreement” by Said Sayrafiezadeh

    (The short story “Nondisclosure Agreement” by Said Sayrafiezadeh appeared in the May 9th, 2022 issue of The New Yorker.)

    (I see dead people and SPOILERS ahead!)

    (Note: This review was updated on 5/8/22)

    I don’t like being a grownup; it sucks. I’m not saying that I want to be a kid, because that also sucked. What I am saying is that adulthood is not all that it’s cracked up to be. The narrator in Said Sayrafiezadeh’s story “Nondisclosure Agreement” seems to be discovering this as well.

    The narrator is a relatively recent grad school graduate in literature, who misses being in school, and has been finding dissatisfaction in post grad school life by meandering through a string a meaningless low paying service jobs. That is until he lands a position doing data entry at a mail-order catalog company. From the get-go, the story lets you know that this job does not work out, though the narrator is offered double the salary than he was expecting. The narrator enjoys his large paycheck, and gets a larger apartment, a new car, and better clothes. Then one day the narrator and his boss have a moment where they discover that they both have a love of poetry and literature. Turns out the boss originaly wanted to publish a lit journal, but his bankrolling parents wouldn’t allow it, so the boss was forced to create the mail-order catalog company. The narrator suggests to his boss that he should read his work, including his grad thesis. The boss loves the work and decides to publish them, which starts a process of editing and reediting with no end in sight, as the boss keeps moving the publication date off further and further into the future.

    I started off liking this story, and then I just became confused by it. The story felt like it couldn’t decide what style or form it should take, like it was at odds with itself. From the beginning, the story seems rooted in realism. Yet, these slightly Kafka-esk elements are dropped in, like how the narrator is the only full-time employee, doing data entry for a company in a dying industry, the never-ending edits, the delaying of publication, and how money just comes out of nowhere.

    Then there is the narrator. For the hero of the story, he does nothing heroic. He just puts up with everything. The character is shallow, selfish, and gullible when someone shows the slightest interest in his work. I don’t think those are disqualifying traits to have for the main character, but the character still has to confront something, or at least make a choice. Unfortunately, the narrator makes no choices, which leaves the story feeling unfulfilled.

    Which brings me to my final point, as this story executes a trick that I have been seeing in several other short stories of late; the foreshadowing of a climax that never materializes. (I’m sure there is a succinct one-word term for this that I am not aware of, most likely in German.) It works like this; the story tells us from the beginning how it will end, then the reader is reminded two more times in the story how it will end. When the ending of the story arrives (and it’s an ending not a climax) it’s not the ending that was foreshadowed, but a different one, but it should lead to the foreshadowed ending. It’s a literary bait and switch, as in the climax doesn’t happen in the story, but sometime after the story ends. We are told there will be a lawsuit between the boss and the narrator, and we are also told the boss is crazy. The lawsuit is meant to function as the climax, and the craziness of the boss, which is his inability to publish the journal, is never given any evidence as to why he would behave this way. Yet, the story is being presented in such a manner that the reader needs to accept these two criteria for the story to reach its conclusion. Sadly, this trick doesn’t work.

    What we are presented with is a story and a narrator who straddling between the two worlds of child and adulthood. Both worlds may suck, but inevitably, you have to make a choice to live in one. Maybe that was the point of “Nondisclosure Agreement,” but it’s not clear, because no one made a decision.

    (Say, don’t forget to like this post, or share it, or leave a comment. I got bills to pay, you know.)

  • Short Story Review: “The Repugnant Conclusion” by Elif Batuman

    (The short story “The Repugnant Conclusion” by Elif Batuman appeared in the April 25th & May 2nd issue of The New Yorker.)

    Kierkegaard!

    It’s just fun to say it! Kierkegaard!

    I know he was Danish, but I like to say his name in a heavy German accent, like I’m acknowledging a rival has bested me.

    Kierkegaard!

    Personally, I like any short story that openly tackles anything philosophical. (Bonus points if you mention KIERKEGAARD!) “The Repugnant Conclusion,” by Elif Batuman, is such a story. The piece revolves around three friends who are sophomores at Harvard; Selin (the narrator), Svetlana, and Lakshmi. Summer vacation is over and they are all returning back to school, and they do what college kids do; they study, they talk, they think about sex, they have sex, they think about life in and out of school, and try to take what they are learning and use it, or at least discuss it. But they are not the old “normal” Ivy League college kids. They are Turkish, Russian and Indian respectively. It is a factor in their experience at college, and how they will go forth in the world when they leave. They are aware also of their Americanness, as well. All factors that weigh on them.

    I enjoyed how this story introduced me to characters I had not experienced before, and I also enjoyed how they reminded me of my college experience with my friends. I found the story truthful in the perspectives each character had. Nothing seemed forced or put on. Yet, I knew full well that each character was staking a different philosophical position in a narrative structure. (Kierkegaard!) It’s a trick, and one that if played wrong could come across as heavy handed and shallow. I thought Batuman hit the right note. Maybe these characters will be like this for the rest of their lives, maybe it’s a phase, maybe they will evolve into something else. Maybe it’s just sophomore year.

    And maybe it’s just life.

    (Say, don’t forget to like this post, or share it, or leave a comment. I got bills to pay, you know.)

  • Shorty Story Review: “Untranslatability” by James Yeh

    (The short story “Untranslatability” by James Yeh, appeared in the January 6th, 2022, Issue 6 of The Drift.)

    In a love story, really, there are only two outcomes; they get together, or they don’t. If they get together, it’s because the characters had to struggle to get there, and they learned something along the way which will lead to why they deserve to be together. If they don’t get together, then at least they learned something about themselves which will make them better people, and thus, the relationship was necessary. In “Untranslatability” by James Yeh, the author tells us near the start of the story, that the characters, Charles and Emily, are doomed, which puts them in the “don’t get together” category.

    The story follows as such; Emily, who is a translator, gets a grant to go to Germany and translate the work of one of her favorite writers. Charles, who is a struggling writer working at a media company, supports this decision, but Yeh makes us know that Charles agrees to this because it reflects well on Charles to have his girlfriend this talented, not because he believes in Emily. Since we know the outcome, Emily meets someone else, breaks up with Charles over a video chat, and he is left wondering what to do next. Charles decides to make a grand gesture of going to Germany to try to win her back, which plays out not as awkward as you would think, but is still doomed, as we know it will be. Charles returns home, and starts to get his life in order. A year later, Emily’s book, on the writer she translated, is published, and Charles writes a blog about it. Then she invites him to the book launch party, where they see they have come to a place of understanding.

    I struggled with this story, not sure how I felt about it. In fact, I wasn’t even sure how James Yeh felt about it either. Yeh seemed to be very disappointed in the character of Charles, which makes you unsympathetic toward the character. At the same time, Emily does come across as a neo-Magic Pixie Girl; smart, confidant, driven, and successful without a fault in sight. Yet, I also felt like Yeh made this decision to try and buck the stereotype of these types of stories. Maybe they were doomed, not because they were star-crossed lovers, but because they weren’t good for each other, and no amount of change or internal growth was going to garner a different result. Maybe. But I’m still not sure. Yeh did touch and some very authentic moments, such as when Charles was torn between concern for Emily’s sick father, and his contemplation if he could use that situation to his advantage. (Very shallow, but a brutal honesty.) And the final paragraph was especially on the nose; maybe you can learn something, but still not change who you are. Maybe.