Tag: The New Yorker

  • Short Story Review: “Narrowing Valley” by Jonathan Lethem

    (The short story “Narrowing Valley” by Jonathan Lethem appeared in the October 31st, 2022 issue of The New Yorker.)

    (I couldn’t Spoil this one if I tried.)

    Illustration by John Gall

    The short story is an art form that I love immensely. Basically, everyone tells short stories; “Funny thing happened to me at the grocery store…” “Let me tell you about this guy at work…” “So, I was out late last night…” Some people might be better at telling a story, history professors seem to be great at it, but we all tell “Beginning, Middle, End” stories to our friends and family all the time. As such, we know when a story works, if it’s entertaining or not. I’m not telling you anything you don’t already know, but it’s also not easy telling a good short story. There isn’t a lot of time to set up characters, situations, conflict, and a climax that has meaning. Not to mention setting tone and theme. This is why I have bottomless respect and admiration for writers that can create, craft and tell a great short story.

    But I also have bad boy fascination with those writers who take all the rules of short story writing, and throw them out the window and try to create something brand new. These experimental writers are like the kids that sit at the back of the classroom, or they’re the people who wear sunglasses to their writers group. I think of Jonathan Lethem that way after having read his story “Narrowing Valley.”

    It is a story told in seven sections, and from the section titles, it has the feel of a concept album, especially with the “reprise” at the end. The story is told in the 3rd person, and takes the angle of telling us about the story the writer wants to tell. The story that wants to be told, is actually based on another story told by a different writer, which lends to creating a feeling that this story is like a “cover song.” (Hence, why I use the album reference before.) What the story ends up settling on, is how to describe a character, and the personal history this character has to the writer.

    This is an experimental type of short story, and I would be hard pressed to identify if or where there was a climax. But Lethem does identify that the ending really isn’t an ending, and that the story might not have even started. And what were the characters hoping to accomplish? I’m not sure. Yet, the story did go someplace. It did take a journey, and maybe the only person who “learned” anything was the writer. I didn’t feel like my time was being wasted, or that this experimentation was to see how long a reader would put up with this form.

    I can admit that I would understand why some other person would read this, and not like the story. My opinion might be based more on personal bias, rather than a more logical critical interpretation, but I do like experimentation for the sake of experimenting. It’s the only way the art form evolves and moves forward.

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  • Short Story Review: “Tiny, Meaningless Things” by Marisa Silver

    (The short story “Tiny, Meaningless Things” by Marisa Silver appeared in the October 24th, 2022 issue of The New Yorker.)

    Photograph by Eliza Bourner for The New Yorker

    I think Paul Thomas Anderson said that when he starts to write about a character, he tries to imagine that character doing simple mundane tasks, as those actions truly reveal how that character honestly perceives the world they live in. (I think I got that right, but I won’t go and look it up because it was a Charlie Rose interview way back in the late 90’s.) As you can guess, Marisa Silver’s short story “Tiny, Meaningless Things” is not about tiny, meaningless things.

    Let me just cut to the chase here; I loved it, and you should go and read it. And let me tell you why…

    First of all, this is the type of story that I wish I could write. Silver finds drama in the simple acts of life – the melancholy beauty of everyday events, that when one steps back from them, we can see the profoundness. Or at least we hope they are profound when we look back on them.

    The story is about Evelyn, who is a widower and a divorcee, and lives alone in an apartment building. She has a nearly daily visitor of a seven-year-old boy named Scotty, who arrives and helps with Evelyn’s chores, though they rarely converse with each other. Scotty’s reward for helping is a piece of cinnamon toast, which he prepares for himself. Evelyn has grown daughters and grand children, who are present in the story, but stay on the periphery, except for her youngest daughter, Paula. Their relationship is strained, but they clearly still care and love each other.

    All of these pieces come into play, as we all know they would, and the end result is an interesting picture of who Evelyn is, and what she chooses to be involved in, and who she chooses to be honest with. It’s a great insight, as I asked myself why I am willing to confront some people in my life, and why for others I avoid any confrontation at all? Does the level of confrontation equal who I care more about?

    I was left very impressed with the degree of skill and honesty that Marisa Silver was able to pack in this story. (In the end, I felt rather ashamed that I didn’t know more about her, or her work.) And the completeness of the story, in a structural/theory sense, landed so succinctly with a question about the actions that happen to a person, and would those memories linger and still influence them later in life, even when that person isn’t sure where that memory came from?

    Just top-notch story telling.

    (So, friend; if you have made it here, might I impress on you a slight request? For my success, I am in need of certain acts of approval from you. Such as give a like, a comment, a share, or even following this blog. Your actions would do a great deal to move the needle of acceptance in my favor. I thank you for your time.)

  • Short Story Review: “Come Softly to Me” by David Gilbert

    (The short story “Come Softly to Me” by David Gilbert appeared in the October 17th, 2022 issue of The New Yorker.)

    Illustration by Millie von Platen

    Sometimes a story comes along, and calls me out on principle. Such as, a story will ask me, “If you were okay with this trick being used in that story, then you have to be okay with this same trick being used in this story, right?” That is what I feel “Come Softly to Me” by David Gilbert did. I mean, if I was okay with “Wood Sorrel House” not making much sense, then I should be okay with this story not adding up.

    Now, I’m not saying all of this to be derogatory to David Gilbert. I did like his story. I enjoyed the different elements of the family interacting with each other. The quick glimpses of issues family members had, and how they were either dealing with them or hiding them. I picked up easily on the blanket of death and mourning that was all tucked into this story, and not that this diminished the piece, as I felt it added a depth.

    Yet, I couldn’t shake the feeling that this story was an excerpt from a novel, or had once been a part of a novel. There were a great number of characters mentioned, and it felt like even more ran in and out of this story. Everybody had a backstory, and in a few cases, I wanted to know more about them, and not so much about feeding tubes. As the story came closer to the ending, I was expecting a payoff of all these tangents being pulled or tied in together. But that didn’t happen. What occurred was a ceremony, which did connect to the theme of the piece, but wasn’t really explained.

    Hence the feeling I was being called out on principle. I have pointed out and defended many short stories that have contained inconclusive endings with the reasoning being that a short story need only have a rise in action, and not a conclusive climax, like a novel, if theme or character or mood is the driving force of the piece. As such, I find “Come Softly to Me” is that type of short story.

    Yet, I still found myself wanting more from the story. That’s a compliment to the writer and the story, and perhaps that is the reason why I felt like there was a novel connection to the creation of the story. But wanting more can also create a feeling of frustration, though I was enjoying this ride.

    (Hello again! Ya, I see you. Look, if you are here, then I want to say thank you for reading. Not that this is a transactional relationship, but if you could help me out with giving a like, or comment, or sharing the post, or even following the blog, really would be appreciated. Just trying to build a following.)

  • Short Story Review: “Take Half, Leave Half” by Thomas McGuane

    (The short story “Take Half, Leave Half” by Thomas McGuane appeared in the October 10th, 2022 issue of The New Yorker.)

    Photograph by Kurt Markus

    (I might SPOIL IT. Just be aware.)

    I like a western. Maybe it’s because I grew up in Texas, or maybe it’s because a good western is like good sci-fi; it is a vehicle of metaphor. In the right hands, these genres can give sharp insights into human nature. We could go down an English lit route, bust out our I.A. Richards and discuss metaphor and symbolism, but I honestly think that would miss the point of “Take Half, Leave Half” by Thomas McGuane; The story is short, compact, and visceral.

    The story is about two childhood friends from Montana who, after graduating high school, work odd jobs every summer all over the west. This summer they landed in Oklahoma on an old ranch run by an even older man. That’s the plot anyway, but the story goes into these two friends’ lives and what has brought them to where they are in life. And it paints the world they live in with the smells of leather, and of horses, and the dust from the arid, hot summer. You can feel this story when you read it, which is an admirable feat by the writer. I was lulled into the world that these two characters lived in.

    And when the climax occurred, I was honestly disappointed that it had happened. Not that the climax was disappointing, but because I don’t get to be in the world of these two characters anymore, which sounds very cliché to say. What I enjoyed reading was about the friendship between these two very different guys, and also what was and wasn’t said between them. (The short is sparse on dialogue and heavy on narration.) Then, when the final paragraph rolls out, I saw it as identifying that this story contain two worlds; one was the world that these two friends occupied, and the other was everybody else looking in. But we, the reader, got to be on the inside, to see who they really were. That was a well-placed button for the story, that I admire McGuane for doing, because he let us be in on the secret.

    (Hey there. Just so you know, it’d be cool if you could help me out. What I’m looking for is to get the algorithm working on my side. You can do that by giving a like, share, or a comment on this blog, and following me would also be a huge help. Thanks for taking the time.)

  • Short Story Review: “Shelter” by Nicole Krauss

    (The short story “Shelter” by Nicole Krauss appeared in the October 3rd, 2022 issue of The New Yorker.)

    (Photograph by Elinor Carucci for The New Yorker)

    What are the two biggest cliché subjects in literature? Boys at boarding school, and middle aged men dealing with middle age. It once used to be like you couldn’t swing a dead cat without hitting one of these novels at a bookstore, but it now does feel like things are beginning to change. I mean, I get it. Long ago, the only people who would get published and did the publishing were middle aged men who all went to boarding school, so they produced what related to them.

    When I started reading “Shelter” by Nicole Krauss, and it dawned on me that our main character was a middle-aged man, dealing with being a middle aged man, I did get a little nervous. Was this about to be a story about a dopey, middle aged man that grasps for some meaning and purpose to his life, as per the cliché? The bad news is that the main character is that cliché, but the good news is that Nicole Krauss taps into an emotional base that gives an authenticity to that character.

    The story is that Cohen, our middle-aged man from New York, is in Tel Aviv for a business trip. There is a pregnant woman across the hall in the building where his AirBnB is, and we know that these two characters will become interconnected. For Cohen, who is dealing with his feelings of uselessness in his job and marriage, he has been self-medicating with different drugs, which have led to different levels of effectiveness, but end up costing him his bag which is stolen while on the beach during in a euphoric haze. Waiting back at the building for a new set of keys, the neighbor goes into labor, and Cohen helps out, thus finding a purpose. And then more stuff happens.

    While reading this story, I never had a doubt where it was going, and it did land where I thought it would. But, I found Krauss’ insights into Cohen’s motivations, thoughts, and his feelings while high, resonated with me. Even in a respect, I identified with Cohen a little. The feeling of being useless, and having lived enough of a life to know that you used to be useful, but somehow can’t figure out how to get back there. How being comfortable, which seemed to be the goal, actually is the thing that killed one’s ambition. The story stayed light, even comical, but still had an emotional weight to it. A nice feat of writing, I might add.

    I really like stories like this. It made me rethink that cliché that I had written off as meaningless.

    (Furthermore, if this blog spurred an inkling of enjoyment, even mirth, then if I may request that you reciprocate with a like, share, comment, or by-golly, start following it. That would bring a genuine smile to a face that might be mine.)