The Emerald – Donald Barthelme

Donald Barthelme April 7, 1931 – July 23, 1989

I wrote rather recently about Barthelme and the struggles I had with him as an author...I guess I should say with his particular story that was contained in BASS 1979.

Coming across “The Emerald” as the first story within this edition of the BASS, I figured it was a sign that I needed to give him a second chance. I’ll admit that I wasn’t looking forward to reading this selection, and about ½ through the reading, I became quite discouraged and upset either with myself or with Barthelme.

It wasn’t until I finished the entire story that I realized the importance of this man. Yes, this story is only the second story of his that I have read, but this story, the form that it is in, not necessarily the message it conveys, (if one is conveyed at all) is what I found to be important here.

And, I’m not even sure if the word “form” is the correct word to use when I refer to how this story is presented.

What I am attempting to say, is that it is important to ingest a little poison from time to time. In literature, and in life.

The poison you take, either willingly or by mistake will make you sick for a moment but ultimately it will render your organism stronger once you have broken through to the “other side” and find yourself “normal”. But, your position of “normal” has been reset. You will never again be what you were before you took that poison – you are forever changed – a change that my not be at first apparent, but may emerge later in life.

When I spoke of transcending the mind in my previous posts, I had no idea that this particular story would align itself with my idea of transcendence.

I would venture to say that this particular story, at least for me, is about as close as you could get to a literary psychedelic trip. Again, I should qualify this statement and say that this thought is from my perspective

– now –

which of course will be changed forever – and I may, very will ingest, some more poison in the future that will set me back to thinking about what I think to be a transcending event.

I am not concerned with the actual message Barthelme is trying to relate to the reader. I just am taking in the free structure, the nonsense, the diction, the choice of words...how it flows together, and then dis-joints.

I’m glad that I had the chance to take this little hit of literary acid. It opened my eyes and mind to a new frontier in writing – I don’t feel that I had recognized that I had confined myself in a cage of what I thought the short story should be structured as. I need to remember that the form is quite nebulous...and I need to explore and attempt to understand all the shapes, dimensions and forms that it can be delivered.

-Sidenote- but is it really nebulous? Is there a predefined structure to the short? Who sets the rules? Why must they be followed?

As much as I like to think that I am open minded, and as much as I train myself to look at every situation from the opposite side or at least from another angle, I am a little upset with myself that I failed to see that the position of this story was strategically placed in order to set the reader up for the following shorts in the volume.

Elkin has opened the door for me (or the reader) to walk down a path of literature that I may not have recognized in previous readings of short stories. More specifically, stories from my time – the early 2000’s- through today.

The funny thing is, he is opening this door in the past (1980) and I have been stuck in the future. (Present day)

So it has taken a dead author, acting as an editor, to introduce me to another dead author, to educate me in the expansiveness of writing – 29 years in the past.

Woah.

(P.S. - Hi JESSAMYN)

Score 8 out of 10.

The Introduction

While I struggled through BASS 1978, I came across a story, that in my mind, was the finest that I had read up to that point in the anthology. It was entitled “The Conventional Wisdom” by Stanley Elkin. I gave it my normal treatment in a review...meandering sentences, dodging the actual pint of the story, and attempting to relate to the message the author was trying to impart through his writing.

I Scored it 10 out of 10.

As I stated, it was a story that would stay with me forever.

I know that I will come across others that rate as high and will probably surpass it in my rankings.

Stanley Elkin is the guest editor for BASS 1980. I feel that I have done ample research on him as an author through readings of interviews in such publications as “The Paris Review”, and listening to a couple of his interviews on “Wired for Books”, which is the Don Swaim radio interview show.

I also ran across references to meetings that JCO had with Elkin in her Journal.

The problem with doing so much research on him was that I started to construct a character Elkin and determine the types of stories he was going to select before even reading the introduction.

I suppose the best message that I received from Elkin in his introduction, was that he flatly stated that he chose the stories based on his taste. That the stories may or may not have been the “Best” but they were the “Best” according to his taste.

Well- that’s about as honest as you can get I suppose. I wouldn’t think that any of the guest editors would base their selections on much more.

I think that Elkin was fortunate enough though to come along early in the “guest editor” position and was able to get by in the introduction with almost stating the obvious. I’m not going to fault him for that in the least. It needs to be said and the reader needs to keep this in mind.

I think I also need to put something right out here before I continue writing about the introduction and the BASS of 1980.

I am intimidated by this particular collection. I have a strange feeling about the combination assembled.

There

That’s all I need to say about that.

I just wanted to get that out there. I hope that this feeling doesn’t shade my feelings about the individual writers or their works.

How could it not though?

There was a word that Elkin uses in his introduction and sometimes all it takes is a word for the mind to start churning.

Transcendence

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about transcending my mind, my consciousness, my reality. I have been looking at my behavior – everything from my dreams, my inner dialogue, my conversations with M, my selected podcast subscriptions, my running and finally, how in interpret what I am reading.

I’ll address my running first because I feel that this action is what is taking me to a “different level” of consciousness.

Simply put:

When I run, I ascend to a different level of consciousness. I know that there are all sorts of chemicals being released into my body triggered by my brain to manage what I am physically putting it through.

I run without headphones because I feel that this allows me to focus deeper on everything that I am going through. The sounds, smells, temperatures, changes in perception, etc.

An interesting thing happens though while I run. I do not “zone out”. I am hyper aware of my surroundings. At the same time, I am deep into my mind. I am solving problems, creating and discovering, and on my longest runs, this is where the most interesting things happen. I am almost guaranteed that I will hit the “High” caused by running. What I do with that “High” is what counts.

I feel that my entire outlook on life, my life, our life, has changed since I have taken on the long miles. I feel that it adds to my reading life as well.

So, as I have taken the “long miles” route in this introduction, I hope that the tastes of Elkin allow me to transcend my mind and help me along my journey.

Contents

The Emerald / Donald Barthelme

Long Calls / Frederick Busch

The One-Star Jew / David Evanier

The Remission / Mavis Gallant

Speck's Idea / Mavis Gallant

The Old Folks / William H. Gass

In Case of Survival / T. Gertler

The Faithful / Elizabeth Hardwick

The First Clean Fact / Larry Heinemann

Into the Wind / Robert Henderson

Lemon Tree / Curt Johnson

Friends / Grace Paley

Home / James Robison

Mama Tuddi Done Over / Leon Rooke

At the Anarchists' Convention / John Sayles

The Safe Deposit / Isaac Bashevis Singer

Dr. Cahn's Visit / Richard Stern

The Rags of Time / Barry Targan

The Old Forest / Peter Taylor

Gesturing / John Updike

Markowitz and the Gypsies / Norman Waksler

Hog's Heart / Gordon Weaver

Because I am a Geek

I have created a spreadsheet that you can access in Google Documents through the link below.

BASS author count 1978-2008

Column “A’ has the title of the story. Column “B” has the name of the author with the year of publication in BASS . I have sorted the author names alphabetically in order to count the number of times the authors have appeared in the anthology (just the years in my collection).