#229 In Case We’re Separated- Alice Mattison

#229 In Case We’re Separated- Alice Mattison

This is a simple one. Bobbie is dating Edwin, a married man, but she doesn’t know it. One day, her mixer breaks and Edwin takes it home to fix. Instead of fixing it, he replaces it with his wife’s identical mixer. At that moment, with the hubris of him thinking both his wife and girlfriend are somehow interchangeable, she sees the deceit.

“But Bobbie was experiencing one of those moments when one discovers the speed of thought by having several in an instant. First she felt ashamed of being so stupid. Of course there had been plenty of hints that Edwin was married. Once she allowed herself to consider the possibility, she was sure it was so.”

Notable Passage: “Maybe life required secrets.”

Rating: 7-6-6-5 Total=24

#172 The Diary of an African Nun- Alice Walker

#172 The Diary of an African Nun- Alice Walker

 “How to teach a barren world to dance? It is a contradiction that divides the world”

A young Ugandan nun struggles with the hypocrisy she sees in her chosen life. As she practices devoutly this stilted, rigid discipline, she is surrounded by her old rich culture.

“Through the window I hear the drums…feel the rhythm of the festival chants. And I sing my own [Christian] chants in response to theirs…My chant is less old than theirs. They do not know this—they do not even care.”

She does not have faith in her chosen life, she feels the true spirituality from her community and her land, but she knows it is doomed. She knows that Christian missionaries are the only hope of her people surviving, so she has made a choice.

“For the drums will soon, one day, be silent. I will help muffle them forever. To assure life for my people in this world I must be among the lying ones and teach them how to die. I will turn their dances into prayers to an empty sky, and their lovers into dead men, and their babies into unsung chants that choke their throats each spring.”

This is a scathing commentary on Western relations in Africa. It’s all too true and hard to hear, and harder to know that very little has changed or likely will chance. Conform to our social and religious believes or perish.

Notable Passage: “I am perhaps, as I should be”

Rating: 8-9-10-9 Total= 36

#116 The Revenge of Hannah Hemhuff- Alice Walker

#116 The Revenge of Hannah Hemhuff- Alice Walker

This story has been dedicated: In grateful  memory of Zora Neale Hurston. This story uses the common curse-prayer that was printed in Hurston’s Mules and Men.

Hannah was a proud woman, and like most proud people that lived through the great depression, her pride, dignity and humanity were challenged greatly. Her children starving and on the brink of death, Hannah went against her strong beliefs and went down to the food line to beg for assistance. Unlike the other black families that wore their worst and dirtiest clothing to garner sympathy, Hannah dressed in her finest dress, albeit still ragity compared to those in the white-only line, and was refused. Not only was she denied assistance, she was laughed at by the “the little moppet” of a woman judging her case.

Her children soon died, her husband left her and her will was steadily worn away.

“My spirit never recovered from that insult, just like my heart never recovered from my husband’s desertion, juts like my body never recovered from being almost starved to death. I started to wither in that winter and each year found me more hacked and worn down that the year before.”

All that was left, was the will for revenge.

Notable Passage: “As for happiness, it is something that deserts you once you know it can be bought and sold.”

Rating: 7-7-8-9 Total= 31

#65 Trespasses- Alice Munro

#65 Trespasses- Alice Munro

This story grew on me as it developed.  I didn’t get the flow at first, and although it came together nicely by the end, I think the story’s exposition was a bit scattered. As always Munro’s characters are thoughtfully rendered, especially Lauren.

Lauren is a 10-year-old precocious and lonely child. “She had been brought up to believe that children and adults could be on equal terms with each other, though she had noticed that many adults did not understand this…”

Her parents are newspapers writers and have a very open style of parenting: “we are not your average family. We like to move around. Try things, be flexible.” This leads to Lauren’s loneliness. She can’t find a place among her new classmates, and has no interest in having the adult-to-adult relationship with her parents who insist that she call them by their names instead of Mom and Dad.

While her parents are out observing the world for stories: “He was hoping that one day Mr. Palagian would thaw out and tell the story of his life,” Lauren befriends an older Woman working at the Hotel Coffee Shop.  Delphine is eager for this friendship, a little too eager. While it never crosses the line to be inappropriate, it’s certainly a bit creepy. We learn later why.

The title references The Lord’s Prayer and the sins of the 3 adults in the story.

Notable Passage: “Everything might still be cheerful but the cheerfulness was hard as knives.”

Rating: 8-7-7-8 Total= 30

#52 Soon- Alice Munro

#52 Soon- Alice Munro

Returning to your childhood home as an adult can be tricky, the emotions confusing, the disconnect infuriating. It evokes feelings of resentment against unsaid expectations, embarrassment for past failures, and shame about unfulfilled promises. What we are as children will always define us in that place.

These are the same characters as in the previous Munro story, Chance. Juliet returns to her parent’s house as a young unwed mother. This fact has preceded her and caused chatter and conflict between her parents and the town folk.  Her place in the house has been taken by a care-taker, Irene.

Irene seems intent of being miserable. “[Her] wariness seemed hardened and deliberate.” When being asked about her husband’s fatal accident she makes Juliet feel bad by telling her: “’Yeah. Right in time for my twenty-first birthday.’ As is if misfortunes were something to accumulate, like charms on a bracelet.”

Irene’s indifferent, and uncompromising countenance seem cold and judgmental to Juliet and makes her feel inadequate. Irene seems to make the whole family feel that way. Juliet’s father removed the print she had given them, I and the Village, because it was modern and might upset Irene. 

These feelings turn from passive shame to aggressive resentment. “Just what is so wonderful about all this misery, does it make her feel like a saint.” Juliet “felt no real sympathy. She felt herself rebelling, deep down, against this retched litany.”

There’s quite a bit of Oedipal relationships developing in the house.  Juliet sees Irene as a sibling rival.  Juliet also gets jealous of the attention her father gives her mother. Her father has a crush on Irene, and that feeds further into Juliet’s jealousy of her. It’s quite a Freudian case study going on in there, too i guess. 

Faith vs. fact is also a theme.  Juliet has a drag-out argument with a minister about the existence of God, which ends with the minister nearly having a diabetic seizure. Fact literally wins out when Juliet is able to use reason to deduce the cause and cure of the ailment and save the ministers life.

Life goes on, and “home” eventually shifts from childhood house to adult house.

Word of the day: Thaumaturgy- The working of wonder or miracles, magic.

Notable Passage: (not meaningful but I found it funny) “Chagall, I like Chagall…Picasso was a bastard.”

Rating: 9-8-7-7 Total= 31