#381 Souvenir- Kurt Vonnegut

#381 Souvenir- Kurt Vonnegut

One of the great things about Vonnegut stories is the simplicity of his form. The first paragraph usually tells you exactly what the story is about. This story is no different:

“Joe Bane was a pawnbroker, a fat, lazy, bald man, whose features seemed pulled to the left by his lifetime of looking at the world through a jeweler’s glass. He was a lonely, untalented man and would not have wanted to go on living had he been prevented from playing every day…the one game he played brilliantly—the acquiring of objects for very little, and the selling of them for a great deal more.”

Another common theme in Vonnegut works is WW II, himself being a veteran and survivor of the Dresden bombing. One day a man walks into Joe’s pawn shop and wants to sell a very expensive watch. Of course, Joe tries to undercut the man. Then we hear an amazing tale about how the watch was acquired in the Sudetenland after the German surrender.

The man walks out after the story, unwilling to be taken advantage of, and Joe, in his greed losses out on a great and historic find. The tale itself was enough for a short story, but putting it in context of a flashback surrounding this war-prize, makes it more interesting, and vintage Vonnegut.

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

#113 Eating Dirt- Carolyn Cooke

#113 Eating Dirt- Carolyn Cooke

This story appeared in the 1998 O. Henry Prize Stories collection. This is my first time reading Cooke.

There isn’t much I find in this story to like. We find ourselves at summer family picnic with two distinct sides of the family. They appear to be poor, very poor, dirt eating poor. The visiting family is catty, petty, judgmental, especially the grandma.

Grand has a new grandson, Troy, she hasn’t seen, noticed, or cares to know about. When she finds out about him, she goes into a drunken rage, having to be held back. She even goes so far as threatening to shoot people. Her rant is so convincing people hide the frightened Troy, not sure what kind of damage Grand is actually capable of.

Even to the very end, these characters are superficial and the ones we know the most about become loathsome. There is no redemption or moment of familial warmth. I’m not exactly sure why we needed to read about these people.

Notable Passage: “I think my life was more real to me when I was six than it is now.”

Rating: 6-3-4-3 Total= 16

#39 The Deep- Anthony Doerr

#39 The Deep- Anthony Doerr

I recently read Doerr’s new Pulitzer Prize winning debut novel, All the Light We Cannot See.  Inspired by that, I looked for some of his earlier short works, and found that I already had one sitting on my desk as part of the That Glimpse of Truth short story compendium. 

Tom is a 14-year old boy with a weak heart and an over-protective single mother. They live in his mother’s boarding house down the road from the salt mines in the years leading to the Great Depression.

The world is very small to Tom, his experience limited to whoever stays at the house. “Every six months a miner gets laid off, gets drafted, or dies, and is replaced by another, so that very early in his life Tom comes to see how the world continually drains itself of young men, leaving behind only objects—empty tobacco pouches, bladeless jackknifes, salt caked trousers—mute, incapable of memory.”

Tom’s world suddenly widens when a charmingly shy girl, Ruby, brings in a picture book of deep-sea creatures to school.  The deep vastness of the ocean excites him and he isn’t sure it’s real.  His weekly excursions to the marsh with Ruby become the enduring joy of his life.

The salt theme could represent the corrosion that eats at his fragile body, or it could represent the working class struggles, but I think it actually represents life in general. Life is an un-halting force that Tom says lives on.  And like life…“every day all day the salt finds its way in.”

This is a near perfect short story. Its charming, soulful, and exceedingly well written. Doerr’s prose has a wonderfully natural musical cadence that makes you want to read it aloud. “Ruby has flames for hair, Christmas for a birthday, and a drunk for a daddy. She’s one of two girls to make it to fourth grade.”  Between the Novel and this story, I’m hooked.  I cant wait for more Doerr.

 Notable Passage: “Images of her climb the undersides of his eyelids, and he rubs them away.”

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