#240 Bulldog- Arthur Miller

#240 Bulldog- Arthur Miller

I would imagine that someone so adapt at being a dramatist would also master the art of short story telling. Which is why I’m surprised that I’ve seen very little of Miller’s short stories.

This one, I guess, is a coming of age story. A thirteen year old Jewish boy from the Midwood neighborhood of Brooklyn wants to buy a puppy. What ends up happing is a rapid lesson in adulthood.

“He played feeling as though something inside him had sort of shaken loose or collapsed altogether. He was different than he had ever been, not empty and clear anymore but weighted with secrets and his lies, some told and some untold, but all of it disgusting enough to set him slightly outside his family, in a place where he could watch them now, and watch themselves with them.”

Besides the obvious dark, disturbing moment in here, a lot of this is a touching nostalgic look at Brooklyn as a child. The old rickety wooden subways, the kids playing in empty lots on hot weekend days, old baseballs hit over their fence from the amateur league games played in their neighborhood.

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

#238 Tomorrow is Too Far- Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

#238 Tomorrow is Too Far- Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Childhood tragedy brought on by resentment, favoritism and fate; tragedy that looms over life never to fully clear. Children are very sensitive to knowing they are not loved. When children try to assert themselves in ways that end in accidents, the lesson they learn comes too late.

“His spirit would always hover here. He belonged to this hard earth that had failed to absorb the shock of his fall. He belonged to the trees here, one of which had let go of him.”

After the death of her cousin caused by her prodding, the narrator’s life would never be that innocent, but perhaps that was for the best. “…something had to happen to Nonso, so that you could survive. Even as ten you knew that some people can take up too much space by simply being, that by existing, some people can stifle others.”

The truth about the cause of death was never apparent, and in the aftermath, this ambiguity tore the family apart. Once children played together at grandma’s house, as a family. Now, nobody is close. That’s the ultimate heartbreak, one that can only be lived with alone.

Notable Passage: “The snake she had in her yard was called the ‘echi eteka,’ Tomorrow Is Too Far. One bite…and it’s all over in ten minutes.”

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

#186 The Flowers- Alice Walker

#186 The Flowers- Alice Walker

This is a stunningly beautiful story. It’s very short and it’s kind of a prayer, or more like a dream. Myop is dreaming of herself as a 9 year-old girl full of happiness and wonder.

“It seemed to Myop’s she skipped lightly from her house to pigpen to smokehouse that the days had never been  as beautiful as these.”

But as she travels further away from her home, this peacefulness, this comfort fades.

“…She was a mile of more from home. She had often ben as far before, but the strangeness of the land made it not as pleasant as her usual haunts. It seemed gloomy in the little cove in which she found herself.”

So, she tries to go back home, where things were more pleasant, more peaceful…

“Myop began to circle back to the house, back to the peacefulness of the morning.”

But you can never go back. Once lost, that innocence is gone forever. Myop comes across a tall man with jagged white teeth, and she finds broken limb with a old noose. The further you get from home, the more you learn about things outside your comfort, the harder it becomes to find that “peacefulness of the morning.”

“And the summer was over.”

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