#225 Sisters of the Golden Circle- O. Henry

#225 Sisters of the Golden Circle- O. Henry

We are aboard a Glaring-at-Gotham tour car. There is a Newlywed couple in the back. We have a case of mistaken identity and a fun vintage O. Henry twist. I’m not sure which adage fits more aptly here: Behind every man is a good woman-woman are crazy- you never know what you’re going to see in New York, etc. Take your pick.

As usual, the writing here is fun and theatrical. I particularly liked this gem about NYC people watching:

“The sidewalk was blockaded by sightseers who had gathered to stare at sightseers, justifying the natural law that every creature on earth is preyed upon by some other creature.”

Notable Passage: “The scent of flowers, the booty of the bee, the primal dip of spring waters, the overture of the lark, the twist of lemon peel on the cocktail of creation—such is the bride. Holy is the wife; revered the mother; galliptious is the summer girl—but the bride is the certifies cheque among the wedding presents that the gods send in when man is married to mortality.”

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

#204 An Unfinished Story- O. Henry

#204 An Unfinished Story- O. Henry

This O. Henry story has a darker lean than most. I could tell you that ths one was about dreams, or self-worth, etc. but these are all so short, you should just read them yourself. Here are a few of my favorite passages:

“There are but two subjects upon which one may discourse with a free imagination, and without the possibility of being controverted. You may talk of your dreams; and you may tell what you heard a parrot say. Both Morpheus and the bird are incompetent witnesses; and your listener dare not attack your recital.”

“Piggy needs but a word. When the girls named him, an undeserving stigma was cast upon the noble family of swine.”

“The liquorice was an extravagance—almost a carouse—but what is life without pleasures?”

Rating: 7-7-7-7 Total= 28

#99 Me and My Enemy- Karen Heuler

#99 Me and My Enemy- Karen Heuler

For O.Henry Friday I read Karen Heuler’s prize story Me and My Enemy. Heuler herself says the story can be read on two levels “…on the literal level the story illustrates the triumph of good over evil, while on the symbolic level it cunningly confirms the victory of evil over good.” Well, now that she’s covered all her basis, lets judge for ourselves.

The narrator is a woman who has an easy welcoming demeanor and a look that makes people want to confess to. She is constantly listening to strangers most intimate problems, mostly she doesn’t mind:

“[people are] treated unkindly and that’s where the cycle must be broken: by those who can be kind. That’s all I intended—to be kind.”

When her Boss becomes overwhelming with his attachment to her it gets serious:

 “Within two weeks of our first conversation he had taken over my life.”

Then in a typical aggressive stalker cycle of jealousy and rational and abuse, she realized she has a problem:

“Where had I gone wrong? I believed, I truly believed, that I had a gift for listening—and yet it had gone wrong, terribly wrong.”

In the end a bad, delusional, confused man dies, but I don’t believe, like Heuler says, that good triumphs over evil. One evil dies, but her innocence dies with it, and all those other evils still follow her around.

“Well damn their sins.

And Damn their sorrows.

Damn them all.”

Notable Passage: “It’s amazing how misfortune sometimes chooses one special person, so the burdens pile on top of burdens, until a last small scrap brings it all crashing to a halt.”

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

#64 People Like That are the Only People Here- Lorrie Moore

#64 People Like That are the Only People Here- Lorrie Moore

For the first two months of this project, I’ve used Friday’s as a showcase for O. Henry. Not wanting to get too repetitive or to use one author for such a high percentage of my reading, I’d like to change things up a bit.  For the next few months, O. Henry Friday’s will highlight winners and finalists of the O. Henry Awards, thus changing up gears a but, but keeping to the spirit of the original idea.

For starters, we have the 1^st prize story for the 1998 O. Henry awards, written by American Author, Lorrie Moore. Besides being one of the best titles for a story I’ve ever seen, this story is a beast.  It’s a tough topic, the worst topic actually—a child with cancer. “Baby and chemo, she thinks: they should never even appear in the same sentence together, let alone the same life.”

The Mother (Capitalized like you would God) is a writer and struggles with trying to take notes about this impossible experience to write pieces to raise money to pay for the treatment. But she’s having trouble

-“This is the Hieronymus Bosch of facts and figures and blood and graphs. This is a nightmare of narrative slop. This cannot be designed.”

-“I write fiction. This isn’t fiction.”

-“A Beginning, an end: there seems to be neither. The whole thing is like a cloud that just lands, and everywhere inside it is full of rain.”

The whole note-taking adds a Meta-level that increases the tension of the story. It’s emotional, frantic, ironic, humorous—in the way that jokes can relieve unbearable tension when things are awful, the kind of jokes that make you chuckle dryly but never actually laugh. The writing is real and not at all indulgent or derivative as such stories can often develop.

Notable Passage: “What makes humans human is precisely that they do not know the future. That is why they do the fateful and amusing things they do.”

Rating: 9-8-9-8 Total= 34