#512 I’m Pretty Comfortable, But I Could Be a Little More Comfortable- Lydia Davis

#512 I’m Pretty Comfortable, But I Could Be a Little More Comfortable- Lydia Davis

Ok, I’m stretching the definition of “Short Story” for this one, but hey—with a thousand days to play with, why not have some fun? This is a rambling list of everyday situations, occurrences, observations that we, as privileged members of twenty-first century America may think about during the course of the day—minor annoyances that, if rectified, might make the day go just a little bit smoother.

-The shower is too cold

-A man is coughing during the concert

-I’m a little tense

-I bought sour cream by mistake

-This apple has brown spots on it

-The clock is ticking very loudly

and a little self-awareness thrown in

-I cant decide whether to go on reading this book

As you can see by the title, these aren’t major problems but, c’mon you know how annoying they are! I guess the reader will have a variety of reactions to each individual item, but will probably go one of two ways on full reading—it will either make the reader tense and anxious about all the small things to think about, or it will calm the reader down and see exactly how small and petty these trifles actually are. Hopefully, most will see the latter.

Rating: 6-7-6-6 Total= 25

#312 Carnations- Luis Alberto Urrea

#312 Carnations- Luis Alberto Urrea

This was as short one, kind of like an intermezzo. It’s a family coming home from their mother’s funeral. Sometimes the more profound moments in life, the things that sum up our existence, things that put us in perspective, are short interactions like this.

It’s sweet, sad and a little bit amusing.

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

#150 Eveline- James Joyce

#150 Eveline- James Joyce

Joyce is the literary pride and shame of Ireland. He is also one of the main reasons I became an avid reader. Picking up a dusty copy of A Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man while I was myself was a young man, stoked a fire I was unaware burned inside me. I understood little of that book my first read through (and probably not much more now). But seeing that reading could be more than just an entertaining way to spend an afternoon, could be a tool for sharpening your brain, a key to unlocking parts of yourself that lay hidden to the pale light of mundane pursuits—was a revelation.

Eveline is not the dark, thick style of Portrait or Ulysses, but it is no less an important piece of art. While his novels are on the denser, cerebral side, his short stories like the ones found in The Dubliners, are fluid and soulful; The kind of sober, earth-born feel that can only come from the Emerald Isle.

This is a story about change, growth and about home. Eveline is a young lass, about to be married. Her mother has passed and her drunken father doesn’t seem geared towards raising her or her two brothers, so she becomes a surrogate mother, and the target of her father's anger. “Even now, though she was over nineteen, she sometimes felt herself in danger of her father’s violence.”

She longs for change, but she struggles with it as well: “It was hard work—a hard life—but now that she was about to leave it she did not find it a wholly undesirable life.”

Though they are pains, and hardships, and crosses to bear…they are her pains, hardships, and crosses.

Rating: 10-8-9-10 Total= 37

#136 A Little Ramble- Robert Walser

#136 A Little Ramble- Robert Walser

As we have already seen, the length of short stories can vary greatly. From a few page O. Henry tale that is like an after-dinner aperitif, to a 70-page, small-font missive by David Foster Wallace, each has their own value. To try to limit such definitions would be a disservice. I’m comfortable calling any short fiction less than a novel a short-story. Other distinctions can be made in the matter of form and development of characters or plot, but I have no need to parse these definitions here.

In any case, this piece by Robert Walser will certainly be the shortest of the short stories surveyed here. Personally I think he fails in whatever point he was trying to accomplish, but ends his story in a way that almost stubbornly defends his brevity:

“We don’t need to see anything out of the ordinary. We already see so much”

Rating: 7-5-5-3 Total= 20