Snares – Louise Erdrich

Minutes ago – just before writing this sentence, I explained to a co-worker how I was having difficulty getting through this edition of BASS. I blamed it on Helprin and said that I didn’t like his selection of stories.


And then I remembered what I was going to write about Snares -how I think it’s a beautiful story…and how I was going to praise Helprin for including it in this volume.


I’m in such a hole with this volume.


I’m in such a hole with most of my reading.


Snares – yes, such a beautiful tight story. The sentences are woven and bound together so well. Erdrich delivers once again and I’ve fallen for her writing.


In her contributor’s notes, Erdrich writes:


“About halfway through the story, I got stuck and took a long walk with my husband, Michael Dorris. He had just read a draft of the story and, in and inspired moment, suggested that instead of the piece of cloth I’d used, Margaret’s braids be used to tie Nanapush’s tongue back and ensure his silence. From then on, imagining the taste of hair in the old man’s mouth, the story became for me on of sexuality and vengeance.”


I’m glad she decided to speak on this portion of the story. It really is a powerful scene.


I have found that I am including more of these contributor’s notes in these little passages that I write about these stories. I think they are quite valuable…they shed some light into the creative process of the author…just as the above proves.


I always kicked around the idea of having M read my writing someday… and yes, I would need to summon some nerve to have her look it over…I’m strange like that.






What would she think of me! Such ideas springing from my head!

The Natural Father – Robert Lacy

The Natural Father is one of those stories that I really enjoy simply because it sheds a little more light on what it is to be a human in this strange/ world we live.
It presents a slice of life that has been repeated countless numbers of times and does what a good piece of literature should – it reminds us of the flaws and imperfections of humans – the difficult choices we all face, choices that may see harsh or wrong to others but could…might just be the right choice.
A compassionate presentation of a character – flaws included draws you in this story – and as much as you want to hate him for what he does – and you know that what he is doing is wrong, and you know that he knows what he is doing is wrong, you feel sympathy for him and this is achieved through the skill of the author.


Lacy explains in his contributors notes that he worked on this story for six years. Would I EVER have the patience to do something like that? Such drive and determination…that’s what makes a great author. The willingness to stick it out with a story and a character – one that you love…all those years.

Concerning the final decision made by the main character in this short. In the end, it probably benefited the child and Butters knew it…and some thought given to this by the reader is another endearing characteristic that Lacy gives his character.
At first it seems cruel – abandonment, shirking responsibility – but the life of the child could be better without the interference of this man – and those thoughts are free to form as you walk away from this story – another aspect, in my opinion of what makes a good short – a story that allows you to question yourself.

DeDe – Mavis Gallant

In past blog entries I have written several times about the trouble I have with Gallant. I have addressed it with honesty I believe and I don’t think I have shoved her aside with a short post on her story.


Below, you can find links to her other stories I addressed that were collected in the BASS.


Speck's Idea


Kingdom Come


The Assembly


Lena


The Remission




There are just some authors that I’ll never “get”. Unfortunately, Mavis is one. I tried with DeDe to read it in different settings…to attempt to appreciate what she is writing…the story she is telling…but DAMN! I just can’t get her. At least not today. I believe that someday there may be a time that I’ll happen across a story by her and perhaps it’ll click. For now..No..it’s just not happening.


It’s been suggested that I need to slow down when I read Gallant. Actually, I think I need to slow down when I read any of these authors. I need to appreciate that these authors worked hard on the word placement that creates the sentences and paragraphs and stories I ingest.


Their stories are not like these silly posts that are just dashed up on this site. No, they sometimes are created over years before they see being bound into a collection. My failure to recognize this leads to a lack of complete appreciation for the author and the story.

P.S.

I just finished The Hunger Diaries -in the latest issue of the New Yorker - here is their abstract:

Excerpts from Mavis Gallant’s diary. The entries are from March to June, 1952, when Gallant was living hand to mouth in Spain, giving English lessons and anxiously awaiting payment for her New Yorker stories to arrive via her literary agent.

It is a wonderful read and if you are a fan of Gallant - it's a must read.

The Water Faucet Vision – Gish Jen

My son is still too young to understand conversations that M and I have. I’m convinced that he understands the tone, and of course he does a wonderful job of reading facial expressions. M and I seldom have serious discussions in front of him, and of course we never argue in front of him. Our deep discussions are usually held after he is asleep.

One day, he will understand everything said and there will be times where the subjects we discuss could lead him to develop characteristics that define who he is.

Finances were always discussed openly around the dinner table and the difficulties that most middle-class families were discussed daily.

I didn’t like all the money talk and I hated the fact that so much of our lives depended so much upon either having it or not.

M and I both want to leave those discussions out of dinner table talk but I have a feeling that that it will creep in. W will want to have this or that…go places…and we’ll have to teach him the role that money plays in our life.

I wonder if W will have the time to wonder.

I remember that I spent what would seem to be hours just staring out my window.

I remember doing that more than I remember playing alone. I didn’t read as a child…what did I do with my time? I wasn’t allowed to watch much TV.

I seldom have time – or it feels that I never have time just to wonder.

I want W to have visions. I want him to see things spring from his mind. To create.

Police Dreams – Richard Bausch

Being a child of divorce, and now, being married (happily) and having a son, stories like Police Dreams resonate just a little more than it might have 15 years ago.

This was a strong offering by Bausch and I’m glad that Helprin included it.

It’s scary and it’s one of those stories that cause you to wonder if it prompted other readers to look a little harder at their relationship with their spouse.

I wonder sometimes how a partner in a marriage can miss certain signs from the other. I think that I am pretty attuned to M and I can read her quite well. We are in constant communication through the day, and she is very comfortable letting me know what’s on her mind.

But, I must admit, I have had the fear, and I wonder if it’s a fear of many men in stable relationships, that one day, something will just snap, and your significant other will just unload on you – ending it all.

I have a job where I can leave work at work and it isn’t necessary for me to bring it home in the evenings. We usually discuss the day on our way home and sometimes the events creep into discussions at dinner – rarely beyond that time.

Perhaps the husband in this story was too self-absorbed in his work to read the signs that his wife was giving.

The tone that the wife takes made me quite uncomfortable – and I couldn’t imagine being in a relationship that had deteriorated into the mess that unfolds through the story.

Still Life with Insects – Brian Kiteley

“…they are simply finger exercises, writing without knowing that it is writing.” – Brian Kiteley from his contributors’ notes – The Best American Short Stories 1988.

I believe that I may have mentioned that little nudges from the universe appear when I need them the most.  Of course, they may be happening all the time without me picking up on them…but then they wouldn’t be nudges…you know the whole tree in the forest thing.

What I’m getting at, is that this story – rather, this author came along at a time when I needed to read him – as have other stories and authors during this project.  

Kiteley is presently a Professor of English and Creative Writing at the University of Denver.  It appears that he has 3 longer works of Fiction and two of Non-Fiction and is included in Lit. mags and  anthologies.

His non-fiction focuses on writing exercises and he has been gracious enough to include some of those on his website.

I have written all of the above through clenched teeth knowing that there is a decent chance that Kiteley has a google alert on his name that will direct him here – and that’s fine I suppose.

I dig what this guy has to say on his website- Kiteley reproduces the introduction to his book “The 3 A.M. Epiphany” – and in it, he mentions Gass and his method for writing fiction also offering Madison Smartt Bell’s feeling on the writing workshop.

I’ve been reading and listening to selections on Gass recently and am slowly moving through The Art of Fiction by Gardner, (Kiteley gives a nod to this book too)  and now to find this resource by Kiteley…it all seems to be lining up.

Lining up towards what?   

Well, we’ll just have to see won’t we? 

I plan on experimenting with some of Kiteley’s exercises.  He said everything that I wanted to hear –and with his appearance at this time in my life, I think I need to take the hint.

And now for some reflection.

In the contributors notes in the back of BASS 1988 Kiteley said this about the development of his story:

“I was moving from Seattle to New York in 1982 with a rest stop at my grandparents’ in Montreal.  My grandfather had a lifelong hobby of collecting beetles, and his locality notebook lay on the workbench by the bed I tried to sleep on my first night back on the East Coast.  I stole four entries from this locality notebook, writing them down in my own journal.  They described where he caught batches of beetles and when with the barest of relevant background information.  Nine months later, in a girlfriend’s depressing Murray Hill kitchen (bathtub at my elbow), I saw these entries and decided to do an exercise with them.”

And this takes me back to what I consider my first exercise in creative writing.  My memory isn’t allowing me to hold a firm date on the incident but for some reason I believe that it occurred in the 2^nd grade. 

The 2^nd grade seems almost impossible to me because I can’t image that I would even be able to write after only learning to read in the 1^st grade.  Perhaps it was the 4^th grade. 

Our teacher gave us a magazine and told us to cut a picture from that magazine, glue it to an index card and write a few short sentences, developing those sentences into a story.  I picked out a picture of a small UFO toy and glued it to the bottom left corner of the index card and wrote my few sentences. 

Evidently, I did something right because I earned some praises from my teacher and mother( mom’s approval is always important).

And I think of this exercise often.

So, I need to do more of this - more often. 

Now.

Way to the Dump – E.S. Goldman

I’ve been there before.  In a place of restlessness caused by relocation - or a position without stimulation – or perhaps it was a certain stillness which forced my hand to be moved by forces of mischief.  Of course, these were in the days of my youth…long since passed.  I have since learned other forms of relieving the stifling grip of the foggy hand which chokes out sane decisions under stagnant living.  Gone are the reckless decisions made on too much testosterone, on lack of experience or perhaps an emboldened will reinforced by liquid courage.

I have learned to embrace the peace and stability of life but wonder if the days ahead, (many years from now) will cause me to seek out little disruptions in order to re-ignite…something.

Honestly, it scares me to think that I could move in that direction. 

As in this story, the main character, as he set out on his normal day, had no intention of theft, had no idea of the twists that his life would take as a result of his minor crime.  An unexpected result to what he considered an almost innocent procurement of someone else’s property (he knew it was wrong…but the stillness – the sameness – the routine forced his hands to commit the action).

The mind and its fragility – to be massively altered from one state to another by chemicals of its hosts own manufacture – or a simple physical breakdown in the tube(s ) supplying the life giving blood to a portion of the brain or body that sets off a chain reaction of destruction that alters us completely to a person seemingly unrecognizable from who we were moments before.

It’s as if we are constantly walking on that tightrope – never knowing when our mind will decide that the world needs to be a bit different and we misstep – and slip…