The Best American Short Stories 1982 - Completed!

I've been waiting a long time to write this.

I have had a real strange relationship with “The Best American Short Stories” 1982.

First, I should start of and admit that I had more than just a casual interest in John Gardner.

Before I even picked up 1982, Gardner interested me.

His introduction pulled me in. The fact that he was going to exclude “New Yorker” type of stories and give me some real meat – excited me.

What caused me some worry was his admission that the selection was made by several people – not just him, and that he had done it in haste. I was worried because sometimes when people are on a deadline, they get sloppy...or lazy.

Well, I think there was some sloppiness here. There were 20 stories in this anthology. Five of those stories were “Gardner People” – and I think that Oates could be considered number 6 because of their friendship.

Here is where he stacked them – and if you are interested in seeing the relationship the author and Gardner shared, I invite you to read the posts I made on each.

Raymond Carver – First position

Joanna Higgins – Third position

Charles Johnson – Sixth position

Joyce Renwick – Eighth position

Roberta Gupta – Tenth position

Oates??? – Twentith position

So, we see that the first half of the book – ½ of the ten stories – have a pretty clear connection to Gardner. Not one of the authors (excluding Oates) after Gupta had any relationship with Gardner that I could discover.

I’d also like to point out again that the order of the stories is not alphabetical. I would assume that Gardner “requested” that the stories be placed in this order. Perhaps he felt that readers would at least make it through the first half of the book before abandoning it therefore guaranteeing that his people would be read.

So – is there something “wrong” with a literary heavyweight like Gardner stacking his “people” towards the front of the book?

The casual reader in 1982 would have no idea of the relationship that Gardner had with these 6 authors. It is only now, today, that I was able to draw the connections that I did.

I wouldn’t doubt that there were others in the American/New York literary community that knew of the relationships. I’m sure Ravenel knew of the relationships.

Did Ravenel abandon any sort of conflict with Gardner due to deadline? Did she not fight him because she knew that engaging him would be a bloody battle?

I do wish to find out the answer to this...someday.

Personally, I get a dirty feeling knowing that Gardner put his people up front.

If I were an author and I had a relationship with another author who had the reputation and influence as Gardner had, would I want him to place my work just as he did for these authors?

-Yes.

-Simple enough.

So, why do I feel bad about what he did?

Well, I fall back again on that feeling of sloppiness and laziness that I mentioned above.

I just wish that he invested the time and energy that he put into his other efforts – into this book.

Gardner was always looking to help out his friends.

It looks like he did just that before he died.

I have no doubt the authors that were “Gardner People” included in this anthology would have been successful without being included here.

At least that what I tell myself. At least that’s what I hope.

It would be giving Gardner a bit too much power.

Gardener died in September of 1982. He laid his Harley down on a familiar road in Pennsylvania.

The first reviews of “The Best American Short Stories” 1982 were published in November and October of that same year. It was said that the selections he made was one of the last literary works he “produced”.

I like Gardner – but I don’t like what he did in BASS 1982. I do like the stories he picked...but I don’t like knowing the back story behind the authors.

Overall, I really enjoyed this anthology. If you look at the time I have spent with it, it is clear that I don’t want to part with him.

I won’t have the same relationship I’ve had with him over these weeks.

Here are some numbers.

I posted my first entry about the collection on February 25.

I am post my last on April 16.

That works out to the following:

1 month 22 days

or

7 weeks 1 day

or

50 days

or

1,200 hours.

There were 20 stories and that works out to one story every 2.5 days.

Gender split was 10 male and 10 female – hummm...suspicious.

Magazine representation – completely opposite from the last BASS – Only one story from The New Yorker - Two selections from MSS (Gardner’s Magazine) and the rest of the stories are from a nice wide variety of little magazines.

My favorite – “Dancing Ducks”

Least Favorite – tough because I really liked them all - but if forced to choose, “Exchange Value”.

I’ll hold on to John Gardner a little longer.

I borrowed the book “The Art of Fiction” and am currently reading “Conversations with John Gardner” (yea!!! Inter-library loan).

Well- so long – I'll miss you.

Theft – Joyce Carol Oates

Joyce Carol Oates - June 16, 1938

Oates delivers once again. From my online searching, it seems that this particular story is pretty popular with educators.

So, knowing that – if you are a student looking for an essay discussing “Theft”, I’m sorry, I can’t help you here.

I’d like to comment on the photo I decided to include with this post. The photos I like to include on my posts tend to be in black and white. When I find an image of an author, and I decide to include it and it’s in color, I will purposely change it to black and white. I don’t like the distraction that the color photo has at the beginning of the entry. There are only a few color photos, and of course, the whole entry I devoted to JCO, had a color photo of her.

I decided on the above photo for several reasons.

I think that this photo is about as close as I can get to the age that JCO was as the main character in “Theft”. I also notice a few things that seem to me uncharacteristic of Oates in the photo.

Her hair has obviously been colored. If not, that is the shiniest natural black hair I have ever seen.

She has paid close attention to the tweezing of her eyebrows – her already large eyes are even more accentuated – she appears to have even applied eyeliner to her top lid.

She has decided on a vivid red color of lipstick which really draws out her lips against what has to be a solid cover of foundation over her entire face. We know the underlying reasons why bright RED, WET, SHINY lips look good to men.

*(side note – I’m married, my wife uses cosmetics and as a man, I was curious as to what each did for the wearer and what sort of usefulness they have in accentuating the beauty of a woman – this is the only explanation I can offer as to why I know about the makeup.)

A silver bracelet on her left wrist, silver and pearl (rather large) earrings and finally a gold ring with what appears to be a red stone.

A rather bland yellowish sweater is the only piece of clothing visible and does a fine job of not being too distracting.

I wonder how she felt for this photo shoot. I wonder how she felt about her beauty. She was educated enough to know the power she had as a woman, and I wonder how well she chose to use it navigating though the landscape she was on- in her life.

As a young woman, I think Oates was rather pretty. She really must have turned some heads in the literary world – her looks, her genius.

She married young and was off the market. – Did she have affairs? Did she secretly long for another man? I think she must have. It’s only natural as a human. I know she was fond of Updike...

If any other author had been included in this edition of BASS with a story as long as “Theft”, I think I would have absolutely lost my mind. Oates is the only one that could have, and did hold my interest throughout this entire story. Of course, it didn’t hurt to see parallels between the main character and the author herself.

Gardner was a fan of Oates from the beginning. He recognized her talent early. The two had a friendship and it extended to her having him over for meals on a couple of occasions.

She had the same reaction towards Gardner’s “Moral Fiction” book, and was sad to see him say such things about her friends and fellow authors.

I think Gardner’s inclusion of her in this collection was to honor her. He wanted her and others to know how high he held her.

Gardner placed her story in the last position in the collection. As far as I can tell, he stacked those authors that he wished to promote at the front of the book – in a place I would assume most readers would find them – and then the other authors followed. He knew that readers would seek out Oates and in placing her in the last position, he wasn’t hurting her exposure.

------------------------------------------

Upon finishing this story, I had reached the end of the BASS 1982. My next post will cover my opinion of this collection.

-So, “Theft” –

Again, the rawness and reality of Oates shines through. You have two young college aged girls sitting in a room at one point with one of them discussing the graphic details of her sexual life. Oates is great at presenting this scene – frank and explicit enough to make you feel mildly uncomfortable but at the same time allowing you, pushing you- no pulling you into a position to peek behind the curtain a little more.

The psychological study Oates presents keeps you captivated and also questions your past and any sort of similarities you may have with the characters.

It’s a long story but reads fast. Details, details, details – pull you through the pages.

Oates rounds out this collection and I’m pleased Gardner fished off with her. It made the conclusion of the anthology much more pleasant.

Lamb Says - Roseanne Coggeshall

Roseanne Coggeshall - ????

I really enjoyed this story.

The thought of a young boy reading all of the great authors and really not finding the point to speak because there really isn’t anything important enough in this world to cause him to waste his time on speaking...until he feels the need to utter the word “No”.

“No” is such a powerful word.

I have felt at times, in my life, that there have been too many people speaking too much, and now, in this day and age, more than ever.

There is so much noise in this world, everyone feels that they have something to say, and about 90% of it is crap!

Look at what I’m doing.

None of this really can benefit you the reader in any way.

I’m reading some of America’s greatest authors, and they have a lot to say, a lot to teach, and I at times have something to say about it.

From the start, I stated that this whole exercise is for me – a way to get my feelings in order also I’d like to give myself an education through these stories. These authors have a lot to offer, and I would like to learn from them.

Why do I have it here on this public platform rather than in a journal?

Well, I have both.

Here is a shot of my journal.

I’d also like to leave something behind that is secure for my children to read someday. Leaving this digital trail for them will do just that. I’ll do my best to preserve the paper and ink...but I’d like to offer them this as well.

So, here I am spouting off a bunch of crap, pushing out a bunch of letters into the electronic world, adding to the noise.

And to those who know me... лучше молчать !!

Proud Monster – Ian MacMillan

Ian MacMillan March 23, 1941- 18 December 2008

With ‘Schindler’s List”, I think North American audiences received a wonderful education on the horrors of the Holocaust. We were faced with history and it was done in a way that for those of us who saw it...will never forget it.

In 1981, when MacMillan wrote Proud Monster, there of course were other pieces of literature about the Holocaust but MacMillan delivers his in such a disturbing way as to sear his sketches into your memory.

Is it dangerous to speculate as to the motivations behind authors who continue to write about this event? Is there a line that the artist must walk along where on one side, he is educating and on the other, he is exploiting?

This question was batted around with the works of MacMillan who focused some of his writing on the Holocaust.

In the Boston Phoenix, Adam Kirsch noted that MacMillan is not himself a Holocaust survivor and thus had to rely on the knowledge of others for his fiction. Calling the Holocaust "an impossible subject for fiction," Kirsch added, "fiction, like any art, enjoys an essential irresponsibility, a freedom that comes from being aesthetically rather than ethically committed. And when a writer tries to create aesthetic pleasure out of the ethically atrocious, he comes close to blasphemy." Kirsch professed, "I cannot help but feel that, in this case, MacMillan has tried to do something that fiction cannot, and should not, do." Another critic strongly supported the opposite position, however. In answer to the question of why one should use fiction to portray the Holocaust when the actual events were so memorable, Smardz explained, "It is the experience only of those who saw and remembered and came back to tell us. But to understand completely, we must go beyond all this to the rest of the story, to the truth and the experience of the millions who died." "The only way to get at that truth is to imagine it. And the only way to imagine it is through art," concluded Smardz.

"Ian MacMillan." Contemporary Authors Online. Detroit: Gale, 2008. Literature Resource Center.

I have come to the point in my reading, where I cannot help but to feel that there is simply too much literature out there about the Holocaust. I am in no way meaning to diminish what happened – what I mean to convey, is that there are too many people who think they can produce worthy fiction centered on the Holocaust.

This is another case where I am looking at a genre of writing from 1981 through the eyes of a 2010 reader.

Prize Tomatoes - Anne F. Rosner

Anne F. Rosner -????

A story that hits about as close to home as you can get. I think I subliminally waited to write about this story until after the visit to my father’s.

We visited him this weekend to give him the news, and it seems that with each visit, I’m able to discover a little more about his state of mind.

My father lost his permission to drive. The state as well as my step mother have taken it away. His old car was sold several months ago. He slipped once and told me that he would sneak out with it from time to time. A trip to Home Depot, the bagel store or the market.

Years ago – actually, as recently as 5 years ago, my father drove like a bat out of hell. Music pounding through the speakers, squealing tires around corners – passing on two lane roads, excessive speeds...but, what seemed to be a dance with death, was actually a game of control with reality.

Well, he finally lost his game of control when those around him told him that because of his disease, he was no longer safe on the roads.

Sadly, I have to agree with the decision to stop him from driving.

The world is moving too fast for him to process now.

His speed is walking speed – and boy can he walk.

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You know, I’m having a bunch of trouble writing now. I just can’t get into it. I don’t have the motivation. You can see that I am obviously writing now and I think that what I am doing at this very moment is in a way helping me work through the difficult patch of motivation that I am swimming in now.

I really wanted to write something special about this story and how I saw so many similarities between the father in this story and my father.

My dad has lost his independence due to Alzheimer’s. It sucks and I’m still attempting to process a lot of things surrounding it.

A couple of times this weekend, I caught him just walking around the house – and when I asked him what he was doing or where he was going, he admitted that he had forgotten.

Over the past several months, I have questioned what he does with himself all day.

Now I know. I have a feeling that he starts the day off with some tasks or chores in mind or on a list, and he just wanders from one to another. He may start cleaning a room, carry something to another and become distracted by what is in that room and remain there for minutes or an hour – totally forgetting what it was that he was doing before he came into that room.

He walks outside to check on something and forgets what it was that he was going to check on as he is walking there and ends up in a place where he has wandered for no apparent reason – at least to him.

Sometimes things in the house get a little too heated for him. He can no longer escape as he did in the past.

He’s lost. It is sad.

That’s all I have to say about that.