Why I Decided to Kill Myself and Other Jokes – Douglas Glover

I paused as I read this short story and breathed a sigh of relief.  With this story – I felt that I am finally moving out of the 80s.  It’s the first short that gave me the feeling that I’m moving into a new sphere of writing. 

 

Now I don’t know exactly when this story came to Glover (perhaps it was in ’85)…but it has the feel of the 90s. 

 

I’m not trying to disrespect Carver, Gardner and that crew…my favorites from the 80s, but I have been itching for the comfort of a good story from the 90s. 

 

I’m not schooled in the styles of writing, I can only classify by feeling –

And the 90s were good for and to me.

 

I’ve written about the lives that I’ve lived and in August 1990, a huge line was drawn between two segments of my lives.

I can still taste those days – my undergraduate years - and this story slides in perfectly with those times.

I don’t know what stories will line up behind this story in the rest of the anthology, but a line has finally been crossed. 

Worlds have shifted and it’s good.

I thought about placing some selected sentences from the story in this little write-up to try and paint why I have the connection to the story that I do – but going over it again, I can’t pull just once sentence, one paragraph – one section.

The story needs to be read and appreciated in its entirety. 

 

And why am I feeling this way about this story now?

Over the last year, I have read, perhaps I have just noticed more, writers and critics placing importance on the “present time” when reading a story.

I have made plenty of references to it especially with stories that deal with young children and how that they impact me differently now that I am a father.

Perhaps I am longing for the easy days of being 18.  I’m middle aged now, with quite a bit of responsibilities.  But where I am in my life now, I wouldn’t change for the world. 

 

Now, if I had the ability to return to those days and correct a few mistakes…sure, I’d welcome that opportunity. 

But I am reading this story with the mind of today…and it takes me back, and this is a good thing and I appreciate Glover for providing the words to allow this little bit of time travel.

The Concert Party – Mavis Gallant

Let me first apologize to all the Mavis Gallant fans out there.

 

I’m sorry.  I’m sorry that I just can’t get into Mavis.

No matter how hard I’ve tried.  No matter how hard I’ve tried - not to try - and to just let the story flow into me…I just can’t get her.

And with that, it’s probably best that I say nothing more.

Edie: A Life – Harriet Doerr

More interested in the author than the story.  Happy to find that Harriet published her first novel at the age of 73 in 1983 and with that novel, she went on to win a national Book Award.

 

It’s never too late!

I found this particular story a bit dry – I didn’t really connect with it but what I took away from the experience was learning about Doerr – the author.

   

There is a rich interview with the author on the Stanford University website (she finished her degree at the age of 67) and it seems that she simply wrote about what she knew…and with that, she was discovered.

In the Contributor’s Notes section in the back of this edition of BASS, she simply states that Edie was an actual person – someone she “knew when she was young”. 

Flowers of Boredom – Rick DeMarinis

Sometimes it isn't the complete story but just a paragraph, maybe a sentence or two, that sticks in your head.

I found that with this particular story.  I didn't see one overall idea or message that I could readily pull from it (of course one could always surface later) but a nice passage below as well as part of the Contributor’s Notes will do for this entry.

“Nobody knows jack-shit,” Voss is saying to Lamar.  “If you are going to stay in this business, you’ve got to remember that.  Something else, something besides men and machines gets all this fancy work done.”

…

“I see what you mean,” Lamar says.

“No you don’t. You really don’t,” Voss says.  “What I am telling you is that there is a great dark…consensus…that sweeps things along to their inevitable conclusion.  There is an intelligence behind it, but, believe me, it’s not human.  It is the intelligence of soil, the thing that lifts trees and flowers out of the ground.  I am too astonished and thrilled to be frightened by it.”

And then in the Contributor’s notes section Demarinis writes:

“I believe thought processes are primitive.  Logic and reason mask a dark topography rutted by glaciers of superstition.  We prefer intuition over analysis.  Reason tells me smart men with blueprints and serious purpose create ICBMs.  My limited experience and my intuition tell me something else.  One of the results of this conviction is “The Flowers of Boredom.” All this happened decades ago.  It still astonishes me.”

And thinking further on this, I can take the above personally as I work in my life and in the life of my family to move away from the “dark consensus”. 

I think about it quite a bit actually and I believe that it is even more prevalent and powerful in our lives than it was when this story was written in the late 80s.