#533 Bewildered Decisions In Times of Mercantile Terror-Jim Gavin

#533 Bewildered Decisions In Times of Mercantile Terror-Jim Gavin

Nora and Bobby have been friends since before college. She went to a junior college, is an over achiever and now makes six figures in a job she can't stand. Bobby went to Cal-Berkley, dropped out ten years ago, is a classic underachiever that floats through life and relies on other people being friendly.

Their friendship is complicated, partly because of their life choices. When Bobby ends up broke and needy, he not only asks Nora for help but he expects it. For her part, she straddles the line between being really good at corporate life and wanting to live happier.

“He envied Nora’s ability to turn herself on and off, to indulge in vial misanthropy one minute and false pleasantry the next.”

Bobby comes from a working class family but doesn’t really keep to working class ideals. He now has a big idea for a product that he hopes to get rich with via infomercials.  “He was broke and the walls were closing in, but in this moment of darkness he had found inspiration.”

It’s called the Man-Handle. It’s a contraption that helps make executives hands stronger so they don’t feel un-manly when they shake the hand of a plumber. Yeah…I’m sure he’ll make a ton of money with that one. It’s unclear where their friendship is going but it seems that as she cuts the cord of her job, she tries to get Bobby to clean himself up a bit, so maybe they’ll meet each other somewhere in the middle.

Rating: 7-6-7-6 Total= 26

#511 Thoughts of a Bridesmaid- Katherine Heiny

#511 Thoughts of a Bridesmaid- Katherine Heiny

The title of this one pretty much explains it. The thoughts of this bridesmaid, Fern, are broken down into easy to read topics. These are snapshots of all the little moments that happen between the bride and the bridesmaid during the wedding weekend.

Fern and Haley have been friends since college, Fern being the less popular, less outgoing, less beautiful—at least according to her account. Touching at times, funny at others—never being a bridesmaid myself, I can only guess this is a typical experience. I did laugh pretty hard at her description of herself in the bridesmaid dress:

“I look at myself in the mirror. I look like an unsuccessful prostitute.”

Rating: 8-7-8-6 Total= 29

#510 Nausea 1979- Haruki Murakami

#510 Nausea 1979- Haruki Murakami

Haruki Murakami is talking to a friend with an odd story. This friend has a very unique philosophy on life and friendship. He likes to sleep with his friend's wives and girlfriends. He doesn’t have relationships with them, and doesn’t want them to break up, but he finds no moral issue with it either. In fact he thinks it helps their friendship.

“It was the act of sleeping with his friends’ girlfriends and wives that really turned him on…[he] had absolutely no interest in tricking [his] friends—in turning them into cuckolds, that sort of thing. Sleeping with their woman makes [him] feel closer to them. It’s a family thing.”

The problems he is having don’t seem to revolve around the infidelities of friendship. Once for forty straight days, he vomited every day. He could only hold down enough food so he wouldn't starve. Strange phone calls accompanied the sickness. No matter where he went or tried to hide, both the phone calls and the vomiting continued. Then just like that it stopped.

The vomiting could have been a prank, or could have been retribution from one of his friends, or it could have been his own guilt. Since it only happened when he was alone, maybe he was sick of being alone. It is never revealed.

Because Murakami inserted himself into this one, I’d like for minute to think that this was a story about him talking to a potential character in one of his books. When discussing what all this meant he says:

“Anyway it’s a just a theory. I can give you hundreds of those. The problem is which theory you’re willing to accept. And what you learn from it.”

Murakami has often written shorter pieces that go on to evolve into larger things. I think he’s telling this character to think about this idea and predicament I put you in, and lets see if it goes anywhere. Very Meta.

Notable Passage: “Things that start for no reason end for no reason. And the opposite can be true.”

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

#375 How to Give the Wrong Impression- Katherine Heiny

#375 How to Give the Wrong Impression- Katherine Heiny

If a modern phenomenon can be considered an age-old tale, then this is it: urban apartment living with unrequited love. This goes beyond the “friend zone,” this is “friend purgatory.”

Gwen and Boris live together, but not in that way. They are apartment mates. To the outside world they look like much more, and in their own minds they each secretly wish to be. They don’t deny rumors or insinuations that they are in a relationship, but they won’t outright imply it either. To each other, they try their hardest to hide their feelings to the point that:

“you worry you’re becoming a pathological liar.”

They get jealous of each other’s romantic lives, but even that gets more scarce with time. “You don’t have boyfriends anymore, and these days you don’t even have dates.” It’s a game of relationship chicken; how many hints can you drop and hope that the other finally makes the first move?

Rating: 8-7-9-9 Total= 33

#345 Amapola- Luis Alberto-Urrea

#345 Amapola- Luis Alberto-Urrea

An eighteen year old boy falls in love with his best friend's sister. The two friends are high school outcasts, Goth kids and inseparable. Popo, aka The Pope is Mexican and lives with his Uncle, they are rich and probably drug cartel connected. The narrator is a poor American and comes from a broken home.

When he falls for Popo’s sister, it doesn’t go over well, but like most forbidden love, it persists and will not be denied. Popo comes around, but his Uncle, and worse his father who visits to check on this “gringo” after his precious daughter, have other ideas. In the end love will be tested, lives changed, and innocence lost. Isn’t that how these all end?

Urrea has a great, natural, story telling pace, reminds me of David Eggers a little. Many of the authors I read for this project I will probably not read past this blog, but I will certainly try to pick up Urrea’s longer fiction works. I can see why this collection was a Pulitzer finalist.

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

#198 The Little Chill- T.C. Boyle

#198 The Little Chill- T.C. Boyle

7 forty year-olds, friends from elementary school meet up for a birthday gathering. Hal, Rob, Irene, Jill, Harvey, Tootle and Pesky haven’t seen each other in six years and a lot of water has flown under the bridge. Each character is given a fun, noir-esque description like this one:

"Jill had a certain fragile beauty about her. She’d gone into a Carmelite nunnery after the obloquy of high school and the unrequited love she bore for Harvey, who at the time was hot for Tootle. She lived up the sreet from Rob and Irene, in her late mother’s house and she’d given up the nun’s life twelve years earlier to have carnal relations with a Safeway butcher named Eugene, who left her with a blind spot in one eye, a permanent limp, and triplets."

I guess we’re supposed to identify with having outgrown our high school clique but understand that we will always be attached to them at the same time. That we will always measure ourselves through their eyes and will always seek their approval. However, this rings somewhat false here. They all hate each other, bitterly and without a tinge of respect or nostalgic fondness. I have a hard time believing that these 7 people wanted to get together with each other…dancing or not.

Note: seeing TC Boyle speak this past year he said that the usual reaction to a short story collection is that people will hate half of them and love half of them, just nobody agrees on which half is which. Pretty funny, and probably accurate.

Rating: 7-7-5-4 Total= 23