Tag: short fiction

Review 2304: Midwinter Murder

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Even though I don’t always get on with mystery short stories, I’ve observed Midwinter Murder going around and thought it sounded like good winter reading. And so it proved to be.

For one thing, with Christie’s stories I didn’t feel that lack of characterization that I often feel with other mystery short stories, since Christie is so deft at depicting characters with just a few strokes. Not all of these stories involved murders, and some are quite benign. Poirot appears in several, Miss Marple in one, Tommy and Tuppence in one, and in two, a Mr. Satterthwaite and his mysterious friend, Mr. Quin.

“The Clergyman’s Daughter,” about a woman who inherits a house only to find odd things happening in it, was unfortunately already included in Partners in Crime, which I read last year. Similarly, the Miss Marple story, “A Christmas Tragedy,” was included in The Tuesday Club Murders.

Just for a change, I believe I preferred some of the more benign stories. For example, in “The Problem at Pollensa Bay,” Mr. Parker Pine receives a plea from an overprotective mother to find a way to get her poor son Basil away from a girl she deems unsuitable. But Mr. Pine doesn’t see anything wrong with the girl.

I also liked “The World’s End,” in which the mysterious Mr. Quin appears in a desolate location in Corsica to right a wrong.

And in “The Manhood of Edward Robinson,” Edward is a clerk who yearns for romance but his too-practical fianceé Maud thinks he’s a spendthrift and chides him when he tries to make a romantic gesture. Edward wins £500 in a contest and decides to spend it all on a sportscar then take it away for a day before Maud ruins his fun. And he has an unexpected adventure.

There are lots of stories with clever puzzles, for example, “Christmas Adventure,” in which Poirot figures out why there is a jewel in the plum pudding. But I thought I’d point out some of the more unusual stories.

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Review 2300: So Late in the Day

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So Late in the Day is a collection of three of Claire Keegan’s short stories. Unfortunately for me, I had already read one of them, “Antarctica,” in her collection Antarctica. All three stories focus on relationships between men and women.

In “So Late in the Day,” we get to know Cathal. We follow him in the course of what was to be an important day for him, as he considers his relationship with his fiancée, referred to only as “she.”

In “The Long and Painful Death,” an unnamed writer starts a residency in the home once owned by a revered Nobel-Prize-winning author. On her first day, however, she has to deal with a visit from a man who claims he has permission to view the house but turns out to have a different agenda.

The story “Antarctica” was a reread for me. It’s about what happens when a married woman decides one time to have a fling.

As always with Keegan, the stories are written in lucid, precise prose. They reflect a good deal of cynicism about relations between the sexes.

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Review 2296: Lament for Julia

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I tried to read Lament for Julia several times, but I just couldn’t do it. Taubes’s father was a psychoanalyst who believed writing is a disease and her husband disapproved of it for religious reasons, so it’s no wonder it’s quite bizarre.

Lament for Julia is a novella that takes up more than half of the NYRB edition. It is narrated by a disembodied spirit that seems to be part of and not part of a girl named Julia Klopps. Since Taubes believed that each person is a multiplicity of selves, I took it more as another self. Nothing much seemed to be happening in the novella except Julia growing up and the second self obsessing about her, but I didn’t really find any of it interesting. The writing is beautiful, and the second self’s obsessions are akin to those of Humbert Humbert in Lolita. But while I found that novel fascinating, I found the novella too sexualized, too perverse, too Freudian, and too interested in dreams for my taste.

I tried reading some of the short stories, but “The Patient,” about a mental patient who lacks an identity, is told by her psychotherapist that her name is Judy Kopitz, and we seemed to be in for a rehash of Lament for Julia.

The next one was “The Sharks,” about a boy who keeps dreaming he is being eaten by sharks. (Julia also dreams of being eaten.) Nope, couldn’t do it.

I received this book from the publishers in exchange for a free and fair review.

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Review 2291: Stories for Winter and Nights by the Fire

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Here’s an appropriate book for the first day of the new year!

Stories for Winter is British Library Women Writers’ seasonal collection of 14 stories set in winter. They are arranged chronologically (sort of), starting with a story from 1902 by Edith Wharton and ending with one by Angela Carter for which a date is not given but may have been published in 1974. Most of them deal in some way with changes to society that affect women.

In “The Reckoning” (1902) by Edith Wharton, Mrs. Clement Westall has noticed a disturbing change in her husband’s behavior. He has begun lecturing on his radical views of marriage—views the couple agreed on when they married—when before he preferred not to discuss them. The problem is that Jula no longer thinks the same way—that if one of a couple finds they no longer are happy together, they should part.

In “My Fellow Travellers” (1906) by Mary Angela Dickens, Miss Lanyon tells a girl a story about why she believes in spiritual things. This story fits right into the Christmas tradition begun by Dickens’s grandfather, Charles.

In “The Woman Who Was So Tired” (1906) by Elizabeth Banks, “the little reporter” writes an article about a poor woman supporting a large family and then becomes embarrassed when it becomes very popular. Her boss thinks she made the situation up, but that’s not exactly what’s going on.

In “A Cup of Tea” (1923) by Katherine Mansfield, Rosemary Fell thinks she’s doing a charitable act by inviting a poor woman to tea. But she soon decides she’s made a mistake, highlighting the divide between rich and poor.

In “A Motor” (1922) by Elizabeth Bibesco, Eve spots her ex-lover’s car on the street and knows he is visiting his current lover.

In “Ann Lee’s” (1926) by Elizabeth Bowen, two women visit an expensive hat store only to have a slightly disreputable man insistently interrupt their shopping.

I couldn’t really get on the same wavelength with Elizabeth in “The Snowstorm” (1935) by Violet M. McDonald. A stranger talks her into a dubious adventure even though she has only met him once and found him irritating. I couldn’t really understand what he wanted to confide in her or why he wanted to handle it the way he did or why she even agreed to go, much less what happens afterward.

“November Four/Ffair Goeaf” (1937) by Kate Roberts follows a group of Welsh workers to town for the fair, and two women also try to buy a hat, with less success than the women in “Ann Lee’s.”

“My Life with R. H. Macy” (1941) shows a different side of New York than Wharton’s story—a satiric look at Shirley Jackson’s brief employment at Macys, where the workers are so degraded that they’re known by their employee numbers rather than their names.

“The Cold” (1945) by Sylvia Townsend Warner shows how different the staff who are ill are treated from the family.

As Simon Thomas points out in the Introduction, tea is very important to the British, and it is the offer of a cup of tea that begins an acquaintance in “The Prisoner” (1947) by Elizabeth Berridge. Miss Everton offers tea to a German prisoner of war, a young man who is part of a crew digging ditches near her house.

In “The Cut Finger” (1948) by Frances Bellerby, five-year-old Julia makes an upsetting discovery when she seeks help from her mother for her cut finger.

In “The Thames Spread Out” (1959) by Elizabeth Taylor, a mistress has an adventure that leads her to reconsider her relationship with her married lover while her house is flooded by the Thames.

Frankly, I had no idea what was going on with “The Smile of Winter” (1974?) by Angela Carter except someone is depressed.

Except really for one story, I very much enjoyed this collection. I received it from the publishers in exchange for a free and fair review.

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:Let Me Tell You

Review 2243: Antarctica

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Looking for more to read by Claire Keegan, I came across this collection of short stories written in the late 1990s.

In the title story, a happily married woman decides to try a one-night stand, with disastrous results.

In “Men and Women” a girl still young enough to believe in Santa gains some insight into her parents’ relationship.

“Where the Water’s Deepest” contrasts the care an au pair has for a boy with her employer’s disdain of her.

“Love in the Tall Grass” tells what happens after Cordelia’s married lover asks her to wait for him for ten years.

“Storms” is about a young girl’s memories of her mother, who has been put away in an asylum.

These are summaries of the first few stories, but there are several others. Many of them are about the mistreatment of women by their partners. Keegan’s writing is always beautifully lucid and her stories contemplative.

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Review 2212: Crimes of Cymru: Classic Mystery Tales of Wales

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This latest British Library Crime Classics collection features mystery and crime short stories written by Welsh authors or located in Wales. The stories were written from 1908 to the mid-1980s, and some of them are quite eerie in nature.

For example, in the 1936 story “Change” by Arthur Macken, holiday makers scoff when Vincent Rimmer tells them lights are on all night in the cottages of Tremant to keep the fairies away. Yet later a child is apparently exchanged by the fairies. Or is he?

In “The Way Up to Heaven,” Roald Dahl (born in Wales) tells the story of Mrs. Foster, whose husband purposefully torments her by being late even on the way to her flight to Paris to see her grandchildren for the first time. She figures out a way to take care of that problem.

In “No More A-Maying” by Christina Stead, the lies of two children with a guilty secret create an injustice in rural Wales.

Although most of the earlier stores are more traditional, “Water Running Out” by Ethel Lina White explains how Harvey deals with his aunt, who has been preventing his marriage to Annie for years by blackmail.

And another attempt to prevent marriage is perpetrated in “The Chosen One” by Rhys Davies. Rufus, whose family has occupied his cottage for hundreds of years, gets a note from his eccentric landlady, Audrey P. Vines, telling him his lease is up and she’s throwing him out.

This was one of the more entertaining and atmospheric of these collections that I have read. I usually like them, but prefer getting into a longer work.

I received this book from the publishers in exchange for a free and fair review.

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Review 2179: A Shock

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If I hadn’t been reading A Shock for my James Tait Black project, I certainly would not have picked it out based on its description on the back cover: “a rondel of interlocking stories . . . both deracinated and potent with place, druggy but shot through with a terrifying penetration of reality.” How pretentious.

The stories are unusually linked, by characters but also by stories told in a pub. Although I found some of them interesting, I did not find them emotionally engaging, and the explicit sex in some of them is not my thing.

Notice that I haven’t said what they are about. That’s because it’s hard to describe, and a short recap of each story wouldn’t help. Although not exactly magical realism, some of the stories, while apparently set in reality, become a little fantastical.

And that’s what I have to say about that.

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Review 2171: Stories for Christmas and the Festive Season

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Although May is an odd time to review a collection of Christmas stories, I didn’t receive a copy of this book until much after the season. This entertaining collection is ordered by when the story occurs during the festive season and includes works by women published during the 20th century. Some of the authors are well known and others are only remembered now for a specific work. The introduction by Simon Thomas discusses each story in turn and tells something interesting about it.

The first story, “The Turkey Season” by Alice Munro, provides insight into a side of the holidays we may not have considered, factory workers processing turkeys. As usual, Munro is a masterly storyteller.

Some of the stories are amusing, such as “This Year It Will Be Different” by Maeve Binchey, about a housewife who goes on strike during the holidays, or “Skating” by Cornelia Otis Skinner, about a woman’s attempt to learn ice-skating. Others start out amusing but have a deeper meaning, for example, “The Christmas Pageant” by Barbara Robinson, about what happens when “the worst children in the world” get involved in the pageant or “Christmas in a Bavarian Village,” which subtly foreshadows World War II.

I especially liked “The Little Christmas Tree” by Stella Gibbons, about how a solitary woman’s Christmas plans are changed with the arrival of some children and “The Christmas Present” by Richmal Crompton, about an unusual gift passed down in the family from mother to daughter. The book finishes with a sprightly monologue by a black maid in “On Leavin’ Notes” by Alice Childers.

I received this book from the publishers in exchange for a free and fair review.

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Review 2167: Weir of Hermiston. Some Unfinished Stories

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I wasn’t aware when I picked up Weir of Hermiston that it was Robert Louis Stevenson’s last and unfinished novel. But unlike The Mystery of Edwin Drood, only nine chapters of it exist. It has been packaged in the slim volume I found, dated 1925, with several other unfinished novels or stories, but of the others only one or two chapters or partial chapters exist. Between most of the fragments is a note from the editor containing what is known about the fragment and Stevenson’s intentions.

Weir of Hermiston tells the story of Archie Weir, whose mother brought him up to fear and distrust his father, the Lord Justice-Clerk. As a young man, Archie reacts in a disgraceful way, possibly treasonous, to a hanging, so his father sends him to his estate in Hermiston to learn to run it. Archie is ashamed and is not socially adept, so he becomes a bit of a recluse. However, he meets Christina, a cousin, and begins to fall in love with her. He is joined by Frank, a financially embarrassed friend, who decides to give him some competition for Christina. Things aren’t looking good when the fragment ends.

The next fragment is Heathercat, about a young boy whose mother keeps disobeying the law in regard to religion—I didn’t really understand the details—to the point where his father is being ruined by fines. She is using her son, whose nickname is Heathercat, to run illegal errands and keep guard on illegal services of worship. The notes explain that this novel was going to be based on a true story about a young boy who was married to an older girl to prevent her being forced to marry someone else.

Other stories are about a beautiful wife of a wine seller who falls in love with an aristocratic customer, a prince, presumably Prince Charlie, who tires of waiting around and decides to act; a man who takes over the household of a friend who has fled the country; and so on. The fragments are set in Scotland, England, or France during the 15th to 17th centuries, except Weir of Hermiston, which is set in the 19th.

I forgot to add that my copy begins with a description of Stevenson’s death and funeral, written by his stepson, Lloyd Osbourne, who was apparently very fond of him.

I found a book composed of fragments to be frustrating, but it made me want to read more of Stevenson’s adult novels.

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Review 2153: #1940 Club! Three Early Stories

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For the 1940 Club, I picked J. D. Salinger’s Three Early Stories because I hadn’t read any Salinger in so long. My memories of Salinger’s stories, which were a favorite in college, was of funny yet striking tales about a family of brilliant children written in sterling prose. The stories in this volume are not like that.

In “The Young Folks,” two strangers size each other up at a college party. Salinger tries to reproduce their sloppy speech patterns.

In “Go See Eddie,” a brother tries to talk his sister into taking a chorus line job and lets her know she’s getting a reputation for playing around.

In “Once a Week Won’t Kill You,” a man leaving for the war asks his wife to take his beloved aunt to the movies while he is gone.

These three stories seem a little immature, although they were picked up by various publications in 1940. I’m not sure if they were published together until much later, though, which might mean they aren’t appropriate for this club.

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