#770 Reeling for the Empire- Karen Russell

#770 Reeling for the Empire- Karen Russell

What I have found over the last few years during this project, is that the entire genre of short story writing is filled with the fingerprints of Kafka, from mere references, respectful homages or outright theft of ideas. So far no other story has come close to reminding me of the depth and soul of Kafka until now. I am left breathless by this story. Where Kafka often goes dark and desolate, Russell infuses hope and human endurance. Imagine metamorphosis meets fight club!

We are in the Japanese Empire mid nineteenth century. Someone has found a tea that can turn a human into a silkworm hybrid. Girls are “recruited” to drink this tea and work in silk factories where they spend their lives in the same room spinning out the best silk the world has ever seen. But they will never see the outside again, never see their families, never truly be human.

We see these Kaiko-Joko (silkworm workers) in a place they have dubbed “Nowhere Mill”. One girl, for the first ever, has drunk the tea voluntarily and a little too fast. She survived the metamorphosis, but remains a little off inside. Eventually this boldness has made her aware of the potential of her new form, or the ability to turn bad to good, weakness to power. She will not be marginalized again, and neither will her co-workers.

“For the past several months, every time I’ve reminisced about the Agent coming to Gifu, bile has risen in my throat. It seems to be composed of every bitterness: grief and rage, the acid regrets. But then, in the middle of my weaving, obeying a queer impulse, I spit some onto my hands. This bile glues my fingers to my fur. Another of nature’s wonders. So even the nausea of regret can be converted to use.”

Wow…I love this!!!

Notable Passage: “These wings of ours are invisible to you.”

Rating: 10-10-10-10 Total= 40

#417 The Man Who Forgot Ray Bradbury- Neil Gaiman

#417 The Man Who Forgot Ray Bradbury- Neil Gaiman

This is a brilliant story.  Neil Gaiman can’t remember the name of a friend of his, presumably Ray Bradbury.

“I am losing words, although I am not losing concepts. I hope that I am not losing concepts. If I am losing concepts, I am not aware of it. If I am losing concepts, how would I know?”

So, this whole thing is mental game trying to get his mind to remember that name. Trying to trick his mind with hints, pictures, anything to open that path. He can remember a lot of other things, almost everything else about him, then why not the name of his friend.

“Icarus! It’s not as if I have forgotten all names. I remember Icarus. He flew too close to the sun. In the stories, though, it’s worth it. Always worth it to have tried, even if you fail, even if you fall like a meteor forever. Better to have flamed in the darkness, to have inspired others, to have lived, than to have sat in the darkness, cursing the people who borrowed, but did not return, your candle.”

The mind is a funny thing. In the introduction, Gaimen says that he wrote this piece and gave it to Bradbury for a ninetieth birthday gift. I’m so glad they decided to share it with us. Reading so many stories, I have come to appreciate truly unique styles an concepts. This is just great!

Rating: 9-10-10-9 Total= 38

#175 Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote- Jorge Luis Borges

#175 Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote- Jorge Luis Borges

Ok, I found this odd at first, but its genius quickly revealed itself. Writers writing about writer’s writing is always a touch-and-go technique that can fall prey to gimmick and hackishness. However, this was pretty amazing.

Borges imagines a fictional author, Pierre Menard penning a re-write of Cervantes’ Don Quixote. It wasn’t going to be a newly imagined or a polished version, or even a sequel. He was going to re-write it word for word…but as himself therefore giving it a fresh take.

“To be a popular novelist of the seventeenth century in the twentieth seemed to Menard to be a diminution. Being, somehow, Cervantes, and arriving thereby at the Quixote—that looked to Menard less challenging (and therefore less interesting) than continuing to be Pierre Menard and coming to the Quixote through the experience of Pierre Menard.”

This is great literary satire, poking fun at meta concepts and over-thought criticism and analysis. Such a great concept, it reads at first like an academic piece. That kind of threw me off center until I saw what he was doing. Then I wished it was longer. This passage I found laugh-out-loud funny. I can picture some dusty, bookish, professor that looks like he shits tweed say this at a pompous campus cocktail party:

“Menard has (perhaps unwittingly) enriched the slow and rudimentary art of reading by means of a new technique—the technique of deliberate anachronism and fallacious attribution. That technique, requiring infinite patience and concentration, encourages us to read the Odyssey as though it came after the Aeneid.”

Perhaps this is just funny to book nerds, but I found it hilariously brilliant.

Rating: 9-10-10-9 Total=38

#170- The Human Fly- T.C. Boyle

#170- The Human Fly- T.C. Boyle

With a name like the Human Fly, you’d expect Metamorphosis, and then when you get a Kafka quote at the head of the story, its from The Hunger Artist. Then you start reading it and it’s about a circus performer pushing the boundaries of his daring and you think about First Sorrow and the trapeze artist that wants to stay on his trapeze a all times. Cleary this is literary tribute to Franz Kafka.

This homage comes in the form of an inside look at the world of a low-level entertainment agent. At this moment, he had three clients: “A nasally infected twelve year-old with pushy parents…a comic with a harelip that did only harelip jokes; and a soft rock band called Mu, who believed they were reincarnated court musicians from the lost continent of Atlantis.”

That was until a man dressed in a red cape with a swim cap walked into his small back office. The man was Zoltan Mindszenty aka. La Mosca Humana, the Human Fly. He wanted to be famous. He had already gotten press for his public climbing stunts in Mexico, but wanted exposure here. He began by hanging himself 21 stories above the street in a sack.

“As it turned out he, stayed there, aloft for two weeks. And for some reason—because he was intractable, absurd, mad beyond hope or redemption—the press couldn’t get enough of it.”

Sounds like a familiar mix of modern reality TV and David Blaine. He survived the stunt, and a few more before taking one step too far. But he did become famous. Boyle, like many writers seem to have a love/hate thing for entertainment agencies. They can be

“…a mercenary, a huckster who’d watch a man die for ten percent of the action.”

While they always disdain the agency or the business, the agent themselves seem to be written with a more gentler pen, be it respect, empathy or just pity, who knows?

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

#138 Errand- Raymond Carver

#138 Errand- Raymond Carver

This is a story of homage to one of Carver’s favorite authors. Anton Chekhov is dying of Tuberculosis. He has little time left to live. He has been visited by Tolstoy and moved to a care house in Germany to be kept as comfortable as possible before he dies.

When his time comes, after one final sip of champagne, things are silent, people are respectful, and time has nearly stood still:

“There were no human voices, no everyday sounds…There was only beauty, peace, and the grandeur of death.”

A hospital worker set to attend the room, is give an Errand to run:

“She wanted him to go downstairs…to find the most respected mortician in the city. Someone reliable, who took great pains in his work and whose manner was appropriately reserved. A mortician, in short worthy of a great artist.”

Carver is meticulous and polished as always and this is a touching ode to a master of the short story.

Notable Passage: “And as far as [Chekhov’s] outlook on life and writing went, he once told someone that he lacked ‘a political, religious, and philosophical world view. I change it every month, so I’ll have to limit myself to the descriptions of how my heroes love, marry, give birth, die, and how they speak.”

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