The Faithful – Elizabeth Hardwick

Elizabeth Hardwick (1916-2007)

What a wonderful author Elizabeth Hardwick was, and what wonderful things she did for the American literary community and its adherents.

It’s too bad though that this story did absolutely nothing for me. I was completely lost throughout it and I felt that I had my time wasted.

I wondered aloud what exactly I had read.

I will note that this was published in the New Yorker, and I feel that I can draw a similarity between this story and one of the stupid cartoons that the magazine publishes that no one understands but laugh about when in groups looking at it...just to seem “in the know”.

Really, honestly, what the hell was this?

I’ve got nothing here.

Score – 1 out of 10 (one point because it was published...probably just because you were part of the New York elite).

In case of survival – T. Gertler

Who is T. Gertler?

– Birth date and/or death date unknown...

I have a love hate relationship with the online world. In cases such as now, when I am attempting to discover more about an author, I find the resources on the net incredible.

For example, I cannot now seem to get enough of William H. Gass. Through the generosity of my public library, I have access online to The Review of Contemporary Fiction. This periodical over the past 15 years or so has devoted plenty of paper to Gass.

I can now get my Gass fix on! Interviews, papers by noted authors on Gass, studies on a variety of subjects by Gass himself...there is so much there.

Man...the guy really is a genius.

Concerning the current author I am researching – T. Gertler – really, there isn’t a whole lot out there on her. I did discover one treasure that offered a wealth of information.

Through the discovery of an interview Don Swaim conducted with Gertler , which is available online, I was able to learn her first name (Trudy) as well as get a rough estimate of her age. Age really isn’t that important, but I like to get a sense of where an author was in their life when they wrote a particular story.

Gertler gave her interview in 1984 – to discuss the recent publication of her first novel. In the interview, she states that she was 18 in 1965...the second and final year of undergraduate schooling. So – birth year could be around 1947 – she was 37 or so in 1984...my age now...

another one of those weird coincidences I seem to be running across with these readings.

Today – 2009 – would make her around 62.

Her interview, which is pleasant – nothing spectacular – is the full ½ hour interview that Swaim would later cut down to around 3 or 4 minutes for broadcast. I am so grateful that these raw interviews have been posted because without them, so many little details that I have questions about would never be answered.

I really enjoy just listening to the audio of these interviews rather than seeing a video. I think the videos are too distracting. Gertler has a great voice. Her command of English is what one could expect of a writer.

Another added benefit of these full unedited interviews is hearing the raw writer. For example, I never expected that Gertler would have only attended 2 years of college...and her reasons for doing so, and not especially wanting to return are wonderful.

Onto the story.

I can really feel the 1970s in this selection.

Clawing through the fog of memories of my 8 years in that decade...maybe 2 or 3 of those years with the ability to really form some vivid - lasting memories, which are memories of my life in Virginia Beach.

Long walks down abandoned train tracks with my father to fly a kite in what seemed to be a huge field of wheat.

Sunday morning walks through the woods to our little church on Virginia Beach Blvd. and finding turtles to carry home and poke at.

Listening to my mother sing Carley Simon and Boz Scaggs in the kitchen.

Playing on the jungle gym in our backyard.

Crawling around the kitchen island chasing my little sister and slicing my shin open on a hard-candy tin leading to 5 stitches and leaving a scar that I can glance at regularly these days...32 years later.

All wonderful times before our family disintegrated into a statistic.

Aside from those childhood memories, the 1970s in my mind today represent a decade in this country’s past that should be erased from our collective history. I find it hard to think of anything good that came of that decade. It was born from the spasms and upheavals of the 1960’s and buried by the progressive 1980s.

Repression.

Self-repression. This short story illustrates perfectly the black soul that lived within our society during the 70’s.

I can taste the acid of hate in my throat as I write this. God, that time makes me physically ill, and the pitiful man in this story makes me want to spit.

We wouldn’t talk to each other, we hid behind our work, our affairs, our money, our alcohol, our dysfunction.

We did not communicate. And look where that took us. Divorce, addiction and suicide just to pull out a few of society’s ills.

If there is a life lesson that I consider to be the most important that I have learned in my short 37 years on this earth, it would be the value of communication with others.

Just talk.

Don’t hide, don’t bury your problems, don’t lie...put everything out on the table and communicate with each other.

Now what you say, or what I say, may not be pleasing, but in the long run of life, feelings will be spared, emotions will not be damaged and consciences will be clean.

I loved the reminder of this important lesson.

Score : 9 out of 10.

The Old Folks - William H. Gass

William Howard Gass born July 30, 1924

First - check out that photo of Gass - How cool is that?

It took several minutes of reading, only a few short passages and then a pause, to rewind in my mind, what I had just read, to fully comprehend what my eyes had just passed over, and to settle into the style of William H. Gass.

This was my first exposure to Gass and being exposed to a genius such as this is a nice side-benefit to this reading/life project.

I think that the word genius has been abused and personally, I tend not to use it often. Gass definitely deserves to have this label applied to his work. There is plenty of information on the net about Gass, and a wonderful personal website devoted to the author which offers assistance to a reader which wishes to fully understanding what Gass has to offer.

I don’t think that I have the ability to heap any more praise on this man, nor could I do it in the ways that others have done before me. Their studies of the man and his work surpass anything that I could endeavor to produce.

In short, I think what won me over about Gass was the hidden complexity of his writing. There is a simplicity which exists, but behind, and within the simplicity, exists a rich depth of expression. The sentence construction combined with a rhythm, created what I can only describe as a movable photo...the words and sentences actually moved across the page...within my mind of course.

I know I’m not doing justice, and my attempt to describe what I felt seem to me to be falling terribly short.

Reading about Gass, it is said that many of his life experiences, especially having to do with his family, find their way into his writing. Well, I don’t think he spared his folks in this short.

While reading “The Old Folks”, it was all to easy for me to draw a line to the relationship I have with my parents.

Now, the relationship the main character in this story has to his family is waaaayyyy different than the situation I have with my family.

I have encountered a couple of stories in the BASS series that have caused me to look within and consider how I am handling things with the aging of my parents and how I am dealing with this progression of life.

With my father, it’s pretty simple. He has Alzheimer’s...pretty early...only 64. It’s tough to talk with him on the phone and have him ask questions which I had answered only a few minutes before. Witnessing his general confusion with his existence in this world is even tougher when we visit him up in PA. To see a man who was so sharp, who was considered to be a leader within his profession, confused and lost within his own mind is tough. Naturally, I turn selfish and start to think about myself, and how, or when and if this will hit me. We are pretty sure his father had it so there is a nice chance that it could hit me. Believe me, I’m doing everything I can now to prevent what could fall on me later in life.

Looking at my mother, well, she is just getting old. Honestly, she’s really not that old – 64. The problem is, that it seems like she is allowing herself to become old. I have trouble erasing the permanent image of her as a 50 year old woman. I don’t know why I have stuck her at that age, but that seems to be where she’ll forever be in my minds eye. Now to see her moving slower, knowing the medicines she is on, adjusting her diet, becoming easily fatigued...it’s just tough to see her – well, them growing old.

Most Monday nights we have dinner over at my mother’s house. Not once have I walked into that house, and not thought of my old life there. We moved in when I was 5, and I moved out when I was 18. M and I lived there for a couple of months after we returned from RO and she too has memories that revisit her from time to time on Monday evenings. Happily, they are fond memories.

So, Gass forced me to look at my folks again, and at myself, and to consider once again how I have treated them over the years and what I need to do to prepare for the tough days ahead in our relationship.

I thank him for this.

Score 10 out of 10.

Speck’s Idea – Mavis Gallant

Another long short story.

Elkin really needs to work at changing my opinion of him. (And I’m sure this tops his list of things to do in the afterlife).

I am seeing a clear pattern emerging and I am starting to feel that his selection is more about him than the stories themselves. I feel that I am learning more about him and his problems than being exposed to a varied cross section of American Short Stories. If the pattern proves, then I think there was clearly an abuse of his editorship and he committed a disservice to readers spoiling a great anthology only a few years after the death of Martha Foley.

I touched on Mavis Gallant in my last post so I feel no need to think about her in this post.

Concerning the “Speck’s Idea”.

When you sit back, and look at say...the last 15 years of your life, as I did after reading this story, you really begin to question the existence of external forces shaping your future days.

I consider myself as someone who generally likes to have a firm set of controls over what happens in my life. I am beyond the days of tripping through my life and taking things as they come. I left all of that behind back in 1998. I believe I became the “grown up” person – the adult that I am today early in that year. I realized that I had finished sowing my oats and it was time to start taking control.

I look back at the years before 1998 and I see some interesting events that lead me to the actions I took in 1998.

I saw that my life needed to be conducted in a way that received a more “hands on” approach from me.

So, as I applied pressure in certain situations, I felt that there were forces that exerted pressure back, and at times, there were forces outside of my control that dictated directions that I would take. It was an interesting dance I learned from these forces, and the lessons continue through to this day. Again, as touched on earlier I feel that the importance of conducting a critical assessment of one’s life, and questioning everything about it on a regular basis is vitally important.

I have learned, and this story reinforces my beliefs that it is important to play an active role in shaping your future but when a situation arises, you need to learn how to bend without breaking. To let the water slide off your back without getting too wet.

But...there must be - flexibility with a rigid core.

Score 7 out of 10.

Booo!!! Blogger is screwing up my entires - so until it's fixed...no posts. Still reading.

Reading Mavis Gallant in a rainy car.

The Remission - Mavis Gallant

Mavis Gallant Born, August 11, 1922

I have found that with my research into the author of this short – Mavis Gallant, that I developed and appreciation of the story much more after dashing through her life bundled together for me on the net.

With my years of searching, finding, distilling out the most useful parts of a requested subject, and delivering clean material - my ability to absorb important and meaningful information happens pretty rapidly.

One of the reasons why I need to slow down when I am reading these stories – to ingest them as I would pre-Google. There is something to be said for quick absorption but a slow digestion has its merits.

Discovering Gallant has been pleasurable. Once again, Elkin presents a “longer” story and I initially found it difficult to push through this one.

I actually wrote a post concerning my difficulties with this BASS volume but I am holding onto it a bit longer so that I may continue to gauge my problems.

When I assemble these posts, my first step is usually to find a picture of the author. This allows me to get slightly closer. Look into their eyes, to imagine what they were thinking when they wrote the story. Who are they? What have they done? What will they do?

I found several shots of Gallant and included my favorite with this post and my second in the next post. Both are of her when she was a few years younger. She remarked in an online article for Slate that a more recent photo of her looked like a boiled potato. A bit harsh on herself.

I was quite taken by the above photo. Where is she? What is she looking at? And, let’s be honest - she is in short – very pretty.

After I find a photo of the author, I do some back grounding of the author. Birth date, awards, quotes.

I then write a little piece about what the story gave to me and will offer my opinion and usually end up writing a bunch of nonsense.

Again, this whole project is for me. Talking to myself.

I have found that putting it online is convenient and will give those who stumble across it a little surprise or two. (Especially a living author who Googles themselves and happens across their name associated with an old story). I often think that my children will discover it someday and know a little more about their father. Children I don’t even have.

Below are some quotes that really stood out as I looked into Gallant.

Timothy Foote called Gallant "one of the prose masters of the age," and added that no modern writer "casts a colder eye on life, on death and all the angst and eccentricity in between."

Dictionary of Literary Biography essayist Ronald B. Hatch observed that the subject of children, "alone, frightened, or unloved," recurs often in Gallant's work.

Gallant told the New York Times: "I think it's true that in many, many of the things I write, someone has vanished. And it's often the father.

Foote (again) "Gallant rarely leaves helpful signs and messages that readers tend to expect of 'literature':

And it is this last observation that really stood out to me in retrospect as I assessed what “The Remission” gave me.

Within “The Remission” I found a lesson that has been presented to me in other forms in previous stories.

As much as we like to think that we are the center of the universe, the world keeps spinning... or stops spinning regardless of the influence we think we have over it. People around us, our family and loved ones, live their lives, lives that are both known to us and those that are secret. Changes occur within them that we can measure by alterations in their physical shape as well as their mental standing...but the most significant are usually the changes that occur within them that are only known to them.

We die and the world does not crumble as we disintegrate into the earth...days, weeks and years pass and finally, someday, we fail to exist even as a memory.

We have a short time on this earth. And then- we are gone forever.

Mavis gave me a needed gut-check with this story.

Score - 8 out of 10.