On Writing Short Stories by Tom Bailey

 (Book Review)

Short stories aren't really my cup of tea. I'm more of a novel/epic type guy. And I especially don’t usually like the kind of short stories that are typically assigned in a high school English class. They always seem to be about nothing, and full of pretentious literary prose.

Maybe this is just the philistine in me talking, but I tend to think that the best prose writer is one that gets out of the way so you forget that they’re even there as you read the story. What I really hate is when you get the impression the author is saying to you: “Look at that! Did you see that beautiful sentence I just wrote? And here comes another one. Look at me write!”

There were definitely some short stories in this collection, which gave me bad flashbacks to 10th grade English class. On the other hand, there were some I really enjoyed. Which makes it really hard to review an anthology without reviewing every story in it.

Among the stories I enjoyed were:
“Everything that Rises Must Converge” by Flannery O’Connor (Complete text online here)
“Bullet in the Brain” by Tobias Wolff (on line here)
“Sonny’s Blues” by James Baldwin
and “A & P” by John Updike

Of these, the last one, “A&P”, I especially enjoyed. If you come across this story in an anthology somewhere, I recommend it. I really thought it was funny. (Or, actually, the whole thing is online here.) Amazing what you can find online these days isn't it?

There were also a few stories that I enjoyed inspite of the pretentious prose just because I thought the subject matter, the story itself, held my attention. In this category I would put:
“Heat” by Joyce Carol Oates (online here)
and
“Hills Like White Elephants” by Ernest Hemingway (again, online).

(I've always hated Hemingway’s style. I know that the fault is probably mine and not his. One of these days I’m going to sit down and try and read a lot of Hemingway and see if I can’t gain an appreciation for him.)

The front half of the book contains essays analyzing the short stories, and the second half contains the stories themselves. You’re supposed to read the back half first, but the editor doesn't tell you that. I was almost finished with the first half before I realized that all of these essays were written on the assumption I had already read the stories.

Link of the Day
Media Mouse has an article on "Racist Quotes by Ann Coulter Draw Attention in Advance of Speech in Grand Rapids". Ann Coulter is scheduled to give a keynote address to Kent County Republicans on March 16, and apparently there is a protest planned.

Generally I do NOT agree with protesting ideologues like Coulter. I figure they have a right to say whatever they want to say. You can debate them if you like, but it's kind of stupid to protest them.

If, for example, a government figure with blood on his hands was to give a speech at a Grand Rapids institution (like, I don't know, Bush speaking at Calvin for example), that would be a protest I could get behind.

Nevertheless, the fact that Kent County Republicans have invited someone as extreme as Ann Coulter to speak is not to their credit, and I hope people will take note of this.

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