#565 The Third and Final Continent- Jhumpa Lahiri

#565 The Third and Final Continent- Jhumpa Lahiri

Once again, Lahiri delivers a stunningly beautiful story. Reading these stories is like sitting by a lake, quietly watching the small ripples on the water. A man, single in his thirties travels back to Calcutta to be married before moving to America. 

“My wife’s name was Mala. The marriage had been arranged by my older brother and his wife. I regarded the proposition with neither objection nor enthusiasm. It was a duty expected of me, as it was expected of every man.”

After only a few days of knowing his new wife, he settles in Massachusetts for six weeks by himself, before his wife joins him. He gets a small room in an large house owned by a very elderly woman, Mrs. Croft; she is alone and bit addled, but finds him to be a perfect gentleman. He moves out when his wife finally comes. They are a bit uncomfortable with the strangeness of each other at first, but seeing themselves through the eyes of Mrs. Croft settles them down.

Soon, while they get comfortable with married life, they see a notice in the paper that, Mrs. Croft has died. He is moved to tears for the loss of this woman he barely knew.

“Mrs. Croft’s was the first death I mourned in America, for hers was the first life I had admired; she had left this world at last, ancient and alone, never to return.”

The beginning of this story happened while American astronauts had first landed on the moon. The world was suddenly new and full of possibility.

Notable Passage: “Still, there are times I am bewildered by each mile I have traveled, each meal I have eaten, each person I have known, each room in which I have slept. As ordinary as it all appears, there are times when it is beyond my imagination.”

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

#431 July Fourth- Anthony Doerr

#431 July Fourth- Anthony Doerr

This story was scheduled to come up in the rotation next week when I start a new stack of books, I didn’t look at the titles till I randomly opened this collection, The Shell Collector, this morning. It’d be foolish not to use this for this week. Having already read the title story, as well as one other last year, and his Pulitzer prize winning All The Light We Cannot See, I am already a big fan of Doerr’s writing.

A group of blowhard Americans get drunk with a group of blowhard Brits. Each group bragging of their amazing fishing prowess. So naturally a bet was born.

“There were the standard provocations: tequila, reminders of the Marshall Plan, rudely phrased questions about the queen’s gender and the president’s bedside fancies. It mounted to a challenge, as these things do, and a contest was born. Limeys vs. Yanks. Old World vs. New.”

The team that catches the biggest fish in each continent wins the bet. The losers have to parade naked through Times Square with signs announcing their inadequacies. They will spend a month on each continent, the first is Europe. We see the Americans traipsing around looking for fishing spots. It ends up in a baboonish trail through Belarusian Bison farms, a Slovakian slaughterhouse, Carpathian mountains, and a dried up Lithuanian canal.

Losing horribly and on the brink of embarrassment, the last day is July Fourth. Being mocked by school children as they fish, they finally hook a monster. It’s the largest carp they have ever seen, and it was there’s for the taking. But alas, their camera didn’t work. They would have to kill the fish for proof or let it go and lose the European leg of their bet.

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

#254 Aftermath- Mary Yukari Waters

#254 Aftermath- Mary Yukari Waters

Makiko is raising her son, Toshi, in occupied Japan after the war. Her husband died and she is struggling with the rapidly changing world. “These last few years, however, with the war and the surrender, the changes have come too fast, skimming her consciousness like pebbles over water.”

Toshi is seven and being taught and fed by American soldiers. Makiko bristles at the same force killing her son's father now giving him sustenance. She tries hard to instill in Toshi the importance of his own past.

“A man who forgets his past…stays at the level of an animal.”

However, she herself has bad memories of this past, of her imperfect husband. What happens to such unpleasant memories? “They get scattered, left behind. Over the past few years, more pleasant recollections have taken the lead, informing all the rest, like a flock of birds, heading as one body along an altered course of nostalgia.”

These aftermath stories are always somber to read, but important to recognize. We’ve seen two so far during this project, the first being Hiroshima by Nam Le. That story was so much about the overall destruction of the war, while this one was more personal and individual.

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

#227 Digging- Beth Lordan

#227 Digging- Beth Lordan

Repressed emotions, unrequited love, and digging in the plush green dirt, a trip to America to find a new hope, in Boston no less. What could be more Irish? This story is both tragic and touching, but like the Irish, always connected to the earth.

It begins with digging, an Irishman digging for something “ancient and splendid and connected to him.” That connection to the earth, to the rich past of the Irish runs a heavy thread throughout this story. Buried right under the surface, but still somehow undiscovered and out of reach. The tragedy of losing that connection, of forgetting or missing the stories of their, barely touching the grains of sand them as they slip through time. “No stories will be told tonight.”

History is solid and rugged like the earth, but our personal connection to it is delicate, especially during modern times as countrymen get scattered throughout the globe. The Irish migration to America is a perfect example of that. A generation removed from Ireland, two people might meet, and connect because of their shared lineage, but even if their pasts intertwine intimately, they might not know how. The beauty of that connection overshadowed by the tragedy of lost knowledge buried just beneath the surface.

I loved this story!

Notable Passage: “His only idea is to be out there, as far from the house as he can go without leaving his own bit of land, digging; what he wants is the heft and smell and slide of his own earth at his command. He doesn’t wonder if a man can own something like land; he owns this field and the dirt within it, and the field goes straight down to the center of the earth.”

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

#218 The Arrangers of Marriage- Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

#218 The Arrangers of Marriage- Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

A young Nigerian woman has just married. It was an arranged marriage to a Nigerian man who has lived in America for many years. When they arrive in her new Brooklyn home, she is surprised at the reality of her new life. And she is surprised at her husbands need to Americanize her.

“You don’t understand how it works in this country. If you want to get anywhere you have to be as mainstream as possible. If not, you will be left by the roadside.”

“Look at the people who shop here; they are the ones who immigrate and continue to act as if they are back in their countries…They will never move forward unless they adapt to America. They will always be doomed to supermarkets like this.”

Even their names are changed. Chinanza Okafor becomes Agatha Bell, and Ofodile Emeka Udenwa becomes Dave Bell. Although she finds it strange that in her building is a young woman that after visiting Tanzania decided to rename herself from her African roots: “A black American had chosen as African, name while my husband made me change mine to an English one.”

Culture shock, entitlement, independence, cultural value…all themes found in this entire collection.

Notable Passage: lacking in dignity, about this place, this open space of too many tables and too much food.”

Rating: 8-8-8-8 Total=32

#128 Hard Sell- T. Coraghessan Boyle

#128 Hard Sell- T. Coraghessan Boyle

An American PR man is hired by the Ayatollah to clean up his image. I remember a piece a few months ago I read by Jennifer Egan about a similar topic called Selling the General. Both kind of played on stereotypes and were a bit unbelievable, but I think this one was supposed to be a bit cartoonish. Thus I liked this one a bit better, it didn’t take itself so seriously.

To start with, this is the description of one of the Ayatollah’s body men: “…this guy with the face of a thousand fists.”

The problems start with an interpreter that warns the PR rep, Bob, about his tone. It seems that the interpreter was Harvard educated and sees right through the BS immediately and is generally offended by the American crassness. Bob, is the epitome of a loud mouthed, American had-talking, shit-slinging PR man. He is also completely tone-deaf when it comes to culture:

“What a joke, huh? They don’t have Tanqueray, Bob. Or rocks either. They don’t have Beefeater’s or Gordon’s—they don’t have a bar, for christsake. Can you believe it—the whole damn county, the cradle of civilization and it’s dry.”

He brings in his own interpreter to make sure what he says gets in the ear of the Ayatollah, and he believes he is making progress. However that is not likely, his advice to the Ayatollah is to take off his religious clothes, wear an Italian suit, shave his beard and remove his religious head garb.  Talk about not knowing your audience.

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

#123 Zombies- Jabari Asim

#123 Zombies- Jabari Asim

It’s summer in the neighborhood. We see little Crispus take a beating for leaving the safety of his stoop. We see the neighborhood kids play around and give each other crazy nicknames. They call Crispus 'Flip-Flop' because that’s what he got beat with this last time.

He and his brother walk together. His brother like to take him past the funeral home run by Mr. Burk, because he knows how much it freaks Crispus out. They talk to Mr. Burk about the dead bodies and then talk to each other about his grey, plastic, zombie eyes. They’re kids so the myths they tell are pretty fantastic:

“They like to buy black folks’ eyes because ours are so much bigger and better looking. You know how rich white folks are. When black folks die they pay for their eyes.”

Life is rough sometimes, but its also touching, especially through the eyes of children:

“I was always in a hurry to get to sleep because I got revenge in my dreams. I undid the day’s disasters and rewrote them to suit my most fervent desires. I had control. Everyone listened to me and there was no end to my handsomeness.”

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

#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

#115 The American Embassy- Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

#115 The American Embassy- Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

We are waiting in a line at the American Embassy. This line is for Visa applicants. The narrator is a woman, injured and distraught. She hurt herself jumping from her balcony to escape two armed government agents. They came to look for her husband , but not finding him ended up shooting her 4-year old son.

Now , she is waiting in this line to leave her home for good. Her husband is a pro-democracy journalist who feld a few weeks before. He writes for the New Nigeria, a progressive paper, who’s anti-government stance has caused his arrest many times.

“He fights repression with his pen, he gives a voice to the voiceless, he makes the world know.” A recent article about General Abacha’s history of abuse seems to have been the last straw, and the next arrest will likely be a permanent situation.

After burying her son, she is waiting on this line, but she doesn’t want to share her sons death with the American Embassy interviewer, afraid that when she does she will be called a liar. She is not ready to face that harsh rejection, she is not ready to leave the place where her son has died.

Notable Passage: “See how the people are pleading with the soldiers…Our people have become too used to pleading with soldiers.”

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