#631 The Trimmed Lamp- O.Henry

#631 The Trimmed Lamp- O.Henry

It’s been a while since we’ve done an O.Henry story, so here we go. It’s O.Henry Friday! In my collection of 100 of his short stories, I randomly opened to this one, The Trimmed Lamp. Like most of his stories this one seems old fashioned and outdated, but quaint.

Lou and Nancy are two young woman just moved to the big city. They have two different ideals about life and love and go about securing their future. Lou gets a job working at a garment shop ironing clothes. It’s not glamorous but she makes good money and gets to keep some of the nice clothes that are left behind. She is seeing a working class man, but does not take him too seriously; she is having fun. 

Nancy on the other hand gets a job working in a high-end boutique. She makes only half of what Lou does, but she believes being around high-end people, she will meet a millionaire husband. She turns down some offers, waiting for perfection. She doesn’t find it, but she does find love. What does Lou find?

Like I said, the sensibilities of 100 years ago are different from today; a story about woman who’s life mission is to work menial jobs so they can find a suitable husband wouldn’t fly today, or shouldn’t at least. But we judge art from the times they were written, and this is vintage O.Henry.

Notable Passage: “She was surrounded by beautiful things that breathed of taste and refinement. If you live in an atmosphere of luxury, luxury is yours whether your money pays for it, or another’s.”

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

#463 Hearts & Crosses- O. Henry

#463 Hearts & Crosses- O. Henry

Intrigue on a western ranch. Webb Yeager was the foreman of McAllister’s ranch. He was a stern and respected cow-punch and his men liked him. McCallister liked how his foreman ran the ranch, but didn’t like that his daughter and him were getting too close. But love will endure, the two developed a secret code to talk with each.

I found this story a little out of O.Henry’s wheelhouse. You expect a little dating in language and tone, but even for O.Henry’s time the attempts at lingo and dialect fall a little flat. This is not O.Henry’s New York City. It’s inauthentic and as story telling goes, not of the caliber of O.Henry’s best.

Rating: 6-6-5-5 Total= 22

#366 The Brief Debut of Tildy

#366 The Brief Debut of Tildy- O.Henry

Wow, 366! We’ve finished one whole year of short stories.

I’d like to end the year, where it began: O. Henry, the inspiration for this project and its most frequently read author. This story is another New York City atmosphere piece. The atmosphere is a greasy spoon diner called Bogle’s Chop House and Family Restaurant. The food is tasteless, and the owner is cold.

“At the cashier’s desk sits Bogel, cold, sordid, slow, smouldering, and takes your money. Behind a mountain of toothpicks he makes your change, files your check, and ejects at you, like a toad, a word about the weather.”

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

BLOG UPDATE: Thanks to everyone who read the blog and followed along this year. I’m not sure exactly how much longer I will continue. It was supposed to be only 1 year, but ended up reading over 1,000 series, so i plan on posting one a day for at least that long.

#245 The Furnished Room- O. Henry

#245 The Furnished Room- O. Henry

We end this calendar year where this project began, with an O. Henry Story. I hope this past year treated you well, and I hope your New Year is prosperous, and happy. I urge you, as you celebrate with family in warmth and comfort, to spare a thought to those less fortunate souls that suffer in the cold; hungry, needy and just steps outside our doors.

This is an apt tale to tell in such times. “Homeless, they have a hundred homes. They flit from furnished room to furnished room—transients in abode, transients in heart and mind.”

Of course this story is more than just about that. It’s about change, and loss, and loneliness, and longing. This encompasses all the emotions one can feel being alone in an apartment in New York City. The impermanence of apartment living, wondering who lived there before, can make you feel insignificant, meaningless, and cold.

I sincerely hope your New Year’s is happier and less ominous than this story.

Word of the Day: Fugacious –tending to disappear, fleeting. (google)

#190 From the Cabby’s Seat- O. Henry

#190 From the Cabby’s Seat- O. Henry

Welcome back to a true O. Henry Friday! For the past few months I switched to authors winning the O.Henry prize, but like they say, there’s nothing like the original.

As usual, O. Henry paints a picture of late 19^th century New York that no one else could. There are certain things in life that we all experience the same, no matter rich, poor, big, small, woman, child. This story relates the doings of a Hansom Cab driver making his way through the Urban Jungle.

“The cock-of-the-roost sits aloft like Jupiter on an unsharable seat, holding your fate between two thongs of inconstant leather. Helpless, ridiculous, confined, bobbing liker a toy mandarin, you sit like a rat in a trap—you, before whom butlers cringe on solid land—and must squeak upward through a slit in your peripatetic sarcophagus to make your feeble wished known…Then, in a cab, you are not even an occupant; you are contents.”

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

#183 The Chimpanzees of Wyoming Territory- Don Zancanella

#183 The Chimpanzees of Wyoming Territory- Don Zancanella

This is a road/trail journal from the frontier during the post civil war 1860’s. Two veterans travel to meet a partner and mine their gold claim. They are entertainers who have acquired two performing Chimpanzees.

“I pity mankind. We have contracted a disease of the spirit. IT robs us of our compassion. It is contagious madness. It is worse than typhoid. It compels us to murder the innocent. We bleed the grace from the everlasting souls.”

Notable Passage: “Miners are like poker players. They continue because all their hardships can be redeemed by a single run of luck.”

Rating: 7-7-7-6 Total= 27

#176 Satan: Hijacker of a Planet- Louise Erdrich

#176 Satan: Hijacker of a Planet- Louise Erdrich

“The Antichrist is among us.”

Indeed he is, if you believe in that sort of thing.  A luring, attractive evangelist comes calling to recruit worshipers for a tent revival. The mother, who would have been fine buying anything from a door-to-door man--except salvation--had no interest. Her daughter however, juts learning about her womanly maturation, learning how to flirt and understanding the power of attractive men, but not fully understanding what that means.

The daughter goes to the revival and has her first contact with the power of evangelical speech and is invited to attend a healing session after the service by the young preacher. She believes that she has the power of envisioning pictures, and places with precise accuracy, so when others are having (or feigning) religious fervor she silently envisions her pictures.

The preacher takes advantage of her naivety, her sincere wonderment of the moment and in the ways of the Antichrist himself, stains the purity of the young woman.

Note: I love buying and reading used books. I still remember my first trip to a used book store where I picked up Leaves of Grass and The Iliad, not because I thought I would like those books (LOG did become my favorite book), but because the aesthetics of the old dog-eared, dusty, powerful things they were. However, I should have learned by now that you should NEVER buy a used book that has underlining. My copy of the 1998 O.Henry prize stories that this short story came from was clean right up to this story. Whoever read this story before me was a deranged, serial under-liner who went apeshit crazy on these pages…4 colors and no apparent method. Made reading this a bit schizophrenic.

Notable Passage: “The stars are the eyes of God, and they’ve been watching us from the beginning of the world.”

Rating: 7-6-7-7 Total= 27