#112 Emergency- Denis Johnson

#112 Emergency- Denis Johnson

A few years ago somebody left Tree of Smoke at my bar. The book was on the Pulitzer short list. It was never claimed from the lost and found so I took it home and read it, loved it, passed it on to the next person in a fun read-it-forward string of events. I am very happy to be reading one of his short stories.

Just like his book, everything here is completely off kilter, bonkers, fubar. There is a bunch of craziness going on in an Emergency room. The orderly has been mopping up the same blood from the O.R. floor for hours. Its like the blood spot from Macbeth.

A man comes in with a knife sticking out of one eye, the other eye is plastic, but he can still see.

“[The doctor] peeked into the trauma room and saw the situation: the clerk- that is, me- standing next to the orderly, George, both of us on drugs, looking down at a patient with a knife sticking up out of his face.

‘What seems to be the problem?’ he said”

When asked by the hospital staff what happened:

“My wife did it, I was asleep”

“Do you want the police?”

“Not unless I die.”

Everyone in the story is messed up, or on drugs, it’s the theatre of the absurd, or something out of the LSD crazed mind of Ken Kesey.

Rating: 8-7-7-7 Total= 29

#59 The Nose- Nikolai Gogol

#59 The Nose- Nikolai Gogol

This is kind of a ridiculous tale, although not without its merit.  Ivan the barber finds the nose of an acquaintance has been baked in his wife’s freshly baked bread. It’s the cut-off appendage of Kavaloff, a member of the Municipal Committee. No explanation is offered as to how it was cut off, or how it came to be baked in a loaf of bread.

Apparently the nose can dress up in official garb, go about town, converse with his former face and even use a stolen passport! In fact it “can be seen walking everyday at three o’clock on the Neffsky Avenue.”

Kovaloff is eventually reacquainted with his nose but cannot reattach it. He must live with the embarrassment.  Perhaps he cut off his nose to spite his face, or maybe he’s not himself anymore, nobody (k)nose.  If you are tsk-tsking my puns, get over it, even Gogol made light of his silliness:

“But the most incomprehensible thing of all is, how authors can choose such subjects for their stories. That really surpasses my understanding. In the first place, no advantage results from it for the contrary; and in the second place, no harm results either.”

Notable Passage: “But nothing is permanent in this world. Joy in the second moment of its arrival is already less keen than in the first, is still fainter in the third, and finishes by coalescing with our normal mental state, just as it circles which the fall of a pebble forms on the surface of water, gradually die away.”

Rating:7-6-6-6 Total= 25

#28 Peg- Sam Shaw

#28 Peg (2006)- Sam Shaw

OK, this is an odd one.  At first it seems like a melancholy story about a young couple failing at marriage after 3 years. “Peg” is a made up fling he creates to make his wife jealous and hopefully kick start a passionate renewal of their relationship. He’s dis-illusioned, she’s closed off, etc. Sure, we’ve seen this before, but then it takes a wild turn to the bizarre and gory.

While out for a walk deciding whether to actually pursue cheating on his wife instead of just pretending to, he comes across a car accident that left the driver decapitated. Feeling helpless himself to do anything useful at such a scene, he couldn’t stop himself from staring at the severed head.  Approaching the head, he looked at its face for a sign of what to do:  “its as if the head had something to impart to him.”

So he takes the head with him…yup.  Suddenly it seems that our protagonist is a psychopath.  I realized it might be time to start reading with a different mindset.  I’m sure I can come up with some parallel or link to what the head represents…his failed relationship, the disappointment in himself. But really I think he’s just carrying around a severed head. 

Well, Mr. Shaw…you have my attention, this wasn’t exactly a home run, but it was memorable. I’ll look for more to read from you.

Notable Passage: I didn’t find anything to post here…but did I tell you that the main character carried around a severed head?!

Rating: 7-7-6-7 Total =27

#6 Pirate Station- Rick Moody

#6 Pirate Station (2006) Rick Moody

Before reading this short story, I’ve only read two novels by Rick Moody.  I absolutely loved Garden State, and absolutely hated Purple America, so it could’ve gone either way here.  What makes Moody both salient and sometimes hard to read is he takes the most uncomfortable or unstomachable situation you can think of and magnifies it for 300 pages…not here thankfully.

Pirate Station is a very short, running description about what is being broadcast on a particular Pirate Radio Station.  Its funny, creative, satirical and bafoonish.  I loved it.  If read as a monologue, it is actually something you might hear on an alternative pirate radio station.  Although not strictly speaking a short story, I’m allowing some works like this into this project to explore exactly where the lines of that definition stretch.  My only complaint, It could have been longer.

Notable Passage: The whole thing is a notable passage but here are a few examples:

“The sounds of southwestern cacti are broadcast for several weeks until, by general assent, it is agreed that cacti make no sounds”

“A contest is announced on the pirate station to find the person who has the best radio voice. This person is then tickled mercilessly on air and driven blindfolded to a distant metropolis”

Rating: 8-8-7-10 Total =33

#5 Room 12- Naguib Mahfouz

#5 Room #12 (2005) –Naguib Mahfouz

Mafouz is an Egyptian author that won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1988.  This is my first time reading his work. 

Room #12 is a comedic work that takes place in a hotel.  A mysterious, eccentric woman checks in and is immediately the target of wild imaginations by the hotel staff.  The intrigue multiplies by large magnitudes as parades of visitors pile into her room throughout her stay.

“Mad depravity is running wild in there”

She is visited by all manner of folk, all being allowed admittance except an increasingly frustrated “Corpse Washer” named Sayid.   As the staff’s mood turns from curiosity to worry to anger, rain literally comes down on their heads as leaks form in ceilings throughout their charge.  Exasperation reigns supreme:

“This hotel is no longer a hotel, and I’m no longer the manager, and today is not a day and lunacy is laughing at us in the shape of meat and wine!”

As the mundane but pressing responsibilities of their jobs outweigh the distracting imaginings in Room #12, the tension washes away.  Remember, what happens in somebody else’s hotel room is none of your damn business…so why let it anger you?

Notable Passage: “Cosmic ire was smiting the night outside”

Rating: 8-9-8-8 Total =33