. Spinning .

This particular issue of the Best American Short Stories collection has been an overall delight.  Which leads me more and more to the notion of seeking out one of the guest editor, Michael Chabon’s own novels if these stories appealed to him.  There were only one or two out of the twenty that I felt were not particularly likeable or had such terrific writing excellence that would justify their inclusion over the hundreds of stories available.  There is a listing in the back of the book of 100 Other Distinguished Stories of 2004 as selected by the series editor, Katrina Kenison, and a listing of literary journals as a helpful guide to the aspiring writer.  So, a quick review of the final three stories:

Hart and Boot (p.339) by Tim Pratt:  Probably my most favorite, or at the least, in top place with J. Robert Lennon’s Eight Pieces for the Left Hand and Rishi Reddi’s Justice Shiva Ram Murthy.  How’s this for an opener:

The man’s head and torso emerged from a hole in the ground, just a few feet from the rock where Pearl Hart sat smoking her last cigarette.  His appearance surprised her and she cussed him at some length.

Yes, it’s true; a man pops out of a hole in the ground with no further explanation than that.  He’s also naked except for cowboy boots–hence, his name that Pearl bestows upon him:  John Boot.  Then the two pair up for some stagecoach robberies, end up in prison, and he, having the capabilities of smoke naturally becomes a terrific escape artist.  The two cook up schemes and the final method in which Pearl is set free is one that still has me smiling in its imaginative and practical thinking–once you’ve come to accept the magical realism in which the story is written.  This was just awesome in voice, style, narrative structure, story conflict, action and resolution.  Just about perfect.  I most definitely will be looking up Tim Pratt’s short story collection and novel on Amazon.

Justice Shiva Ram Murthy (p. 356) by Rishi Reddi is a brilliant story of an elderly judge from India who has arrived to live in Boston with his daughter and her family after his wife’s death.  The story covers a brief episode of Justice Murthy’s adventure with an old friend (who has been in America for a longer period of time) on a routine Thursday lunch meeting.  The resulting conflict served up by a fast food restaurant where he ends up eating beef (against his convictions) and his adamant insistence on the rude and insulting behavior of Americans hides within it the underlying pride, fear, and lost feelings of all those who face living within a different culture–especially the elderly.  The story is paced through dialogue between the two old friends, and it is touchingly poignant yet humorously well written.  Loved the story that stood well enough on its own, and yet allowed the deeper meanings come through.

The final story in the collection, The Bohemians by George Saunders (p. 374) is another great character changed by revelation of truth.  Written in the first person of a young boy, it tells of the cruelty of youth, the lies of adults, and the discovery of seeing people from different viewpoints to expose truth.  And, once that truth is exposed, the protagonist has changed, has learned something, and yet as children do, in the end goes on with life and the important things of childhood a bit wiser but without the heavy guilt and obsessive questioning as adults often tend to do.  A nice little story, but powerful in its presentation and meaning.

For now, for me, on to Faulkner.

David Means’ The Secret Goldfish (p. 288) is a tricky little story that can be read as a view into a family relationship, but with the metaphorical story within it of the resistance of the family goldfish to its environment and its struggle to survive.  As the family unit breaks down, it is coincidental that the family pet is neglected to the point of being miraculously able to overcome the  murky water caused by overfeeding and abandonment.  The wife remembers her own goldfish as a child, which was released into a stream and freedom.  Very interesting use of a simple, common neglected pet motif to illustrate human relationships. 

The Cousins by Joyce Carol Oates (p. 298) is a linear narrative told in letters between a lonely elderly woman (Rebecca) in a retirement home in Florida and her reaching out to a cousin she has found to be an author of a controversial book on her Jewish roots (Freyda) who is resistive to the communication.  Freyda slowly warms to Rebecca, as each woman seeks something within the other to better understand their own lives.  Not awe-inspiring, but well done in its showing of the secrets we bear, the secrets we share, and our views of ourselves.

I totally enjoyed David Bezmozgis’s Natasha (p. 318).  Written in first person pov, it is the story of a horny teenage boy whose uncle marries a Russian woman with a sexually active, street-smart fourteen year-old daughter, Natasha.  The typical scenario with the two forming a friendship and sexual relationship is unrolled, but the conflicts that arise in the marriage and the subsequent boy-girl relationship being discovered and Natasha’s running away ties in wonderfully well with the boy’s secret life of buying drugs from a friend and a betrayal.  It’s a well written unraveling of action and character, and the understanding of a boy’s glimpse into life.

Most of the stories in this collection are strongly geared toward the development of character, the protagonist facing conflict that does drive them to face decisions that are moral crossroads that may take them in a different direction than they had previously been heading into.

Simple Exercises For the Beginning Student by Alix Ohlin (p. 251) is similar in story to Nathaniel Bellows’ First Four Measures (p. 109):  A piano student’s relationship to his instructor brings out his deeper relationship to his family in creating a situation that determines decision and action. In this story, the eight-year old son of a pregnant mom and runaway dad takes lessons with a female teacher who has a seemingly disturbed fifteen-year old son who plays beautifully.  Kevin, the eight year-old is upset by the older boy’s playing.  With the loss of his father, the financial problems of his mother, and without a real piano at home to practice upon, Kevin compares his relationship with his mother to that of his teacher and her son, finally allowing some feeling to overcome him

Old Boys, Old Girls by Edward P. Jones (p. 265) opens with a protagonist in prison for murder.  Caesar’s relationships with his cellmates are dictated by a need to establish strength and superiority.  Once Caesar is released, he runs into an old girlfriend whom he had once loved and who has grown hard and slovenly, a far cry from the soft, loving and meticulous person she had been in their youth.  He is also tracked down by his brother and sister who insist on his coming over for dinner, despite his inclination to remain distant from them and their middle class lifestyles.  He does visit them, is warmly welcomed, and starts to accept an inclination to reunite with his family until he teases his young niece by touching her foot and notices his sister’s look of fear and mistrust.  This reveals to him their true feelings, and he leaves, knowing he will never be truly accepted for what he is, but rather for what they want him to be.  Back at his apartment building, he finds his old girlfriend has died in her bed and he carefully cleans the room, washes the body, dresses her in her best clothes, and leaves the apartment building.  Caesar has seen the changes in people as they mature, the differences in what they become and how they are seen by others.  It is a well-written story, an exposition of humanity at its most needy levels of desire.

I have just about finished the stories–only the last two to read–but have been absolutely uplifted by one in particular:  Tim Pratt’s Hart and Boot.  Totally caught up in it, I loved the characters, totally fell into the state of suspended belief, thrilled to the action, admired the planning, and when I got to the end, actually felt my mouth curve into a smile at the brilliance of the ending. 

Will dissect this and the others soon.  Overall, I’ve been immensely pleased with this collection and surprised that almost all of them are very good, and a few, such as Hart and Boot are just outstanding.  Very interesting as well to note that Hart and Boot is a fictional account of a couple of real-life characters around which legends swirled enough to fire Pratt’s imagination to bring the pair to life in a magical way.

I believe that’s what it’s called–braiding–and it is applied in Cory Doctorow’s Anda’s Game, by the reality of Anda and the online game she plays which is your pretty typical slash ’em and fight your way to points and status video.  The writing of the gameplay is excellent–although here I do have the advantage of having been killed myself by some pretty ugly thingies out there in Silent Hill 2.  And, while I questioned how the excitement of playing (and this takes place in the future, where voice communication adds to the camaraderie of team playing) could possibly be presented by text, Doctorow does it well. 

There is then, the story of the game:  Anda partners with Lucy to overcome their foes, but then a player who breaks rules by telling them about the game being a manipulation of big business at the cost to little girls being exploited in third world countries, playing and losing their livelihood if they lose, there is a conflict of morality involved that Anda and Lucy must face up to.

In the real world, Anda and many like her are becoming fat and indolent from lack of exercise because of the time spent at the computer, and while the reality pushes sports and sugar-free zones, once Anda makes real money on her victories, she naturally heads for the sweets. 

It is a look at the present expanded just a bit further into the possibilities of the future.  It is the worry of all parents, and the answer to the misfit child’s dream of acknowledgement.  But the theme comes down to moral decisions.  It faces the question of online friends and avatar presences replacing in-the-flesh connections, as well as the pain of reality in cruelty to others versus the non-harmful killing of game personas. 

Very interesting to think about, while keeping the arc and tension of the story at a high.  Nicely done.

I’m in the middle of Cory Doctorow’s Anda’s Game (p. 223) and am a little conflicted in my reaction.  It is the story of a young girl (Anda) playing a computer video game online at some future time not far from our own, so there is the added element of story (game) within the girl’s story.  I’m not sure it’s losing me because of the toughness in getting into an adventure game that someone else is playing–remember, there aren’t even the visuals here to watch–or my own inexperience with games and roleplaying.

"Shit!" Lucy said in her headphones as her avatar began to keel over.  Anda yanked her sword free–finally–and charged at the guard, screaming a ululating war cry.  He managed to get his avatar swung around and his sword up before she reached him, but it didn’t matter: she got in a lucky swing that took off one leg, then danced back before he could counterstrike.  Now she closed carefully, nicking at his sword hand until he dropped his weapon, then moving in for a fast kill."  (p. 230)

There is the character revealed by the character the girl (Anda) chooses to portray, but there is little filling in of the character in her reality (so far) aside from her high interest in the game and her interaction with her online friends.  But there is a hint of conflict ahead; Anda is making real money by playing this game, something that was not part of her roleplaying previously, and something that appears to be rare among players but acceptable within this elite group she is trying to earn admittance to.

Her da could bluster all he liked about paying the bills, but she had pocket money for the first time in her life; not book tokens and fruit tokens and milk tokens that could be exchanged for "healthy" snacks and literature.  She had real money, cash money that she could spend outside of the 500-meter sugar-free zone that surrounded her school.  (p. 233)

It is intriguing in its concept, and I’m anxious to see how Doctorow leads us through the stories.