#542 The Rhett Butlers- Katherine Heiny

#542 The Rhett Butlers- Katherine Heiny

There is nothing more depressing than a story about a forty-year old teacher having a sexual relationship with one of his seventeen-year old students. But here it is. What starts out as an innocent crush, turns into this girl’s first real boyfriend, only it’s not real because she can’t tell anyone.

She, of course is naïve, but as it turns out she is the more mature of the two and she breaks it off as soon as she realizes that this can’t be a real relationship. He is naïve too, naïve to think that this is not a creepy thing to do. What’s more creepy is that he tells another teacher about the affair, and it seems to be a non-story between them.

This is just something that happened in her life, and she seems to have let it go, being more upset at her slipping grades than being taken advantage of by an older man. The readers of this story will probably be more outraged than the narrator, or maybe they’ll be more like the mother, and pretend she doesn’t see anything.

Rating: 8-6-6-6 Total= 26

#337 Solid Wood- Ann Beattie

#337 Solid Wood- Ann Beattie

A famous writer, Jacob Foxx Greer has died. An old friend and colleague comes to visit his daughter and wife. He brings his sister, a former student and lover of Greer’s.

It’s a quiet, contemplative piece that makes the reader steadily try to put the puzzle pieces together. It seems at times that all the other characters know something more than the narrator (and thus the reader). There are questions left unanswered and should probably stay that way.

The paragraph where the narrator is struggling to see the check, and has a flash memory caused by the pen-light is exceptionally written.

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

#243 The Student- Anton Chekhov

#243 The Student- Anton Chekhov

Winter is upon us once more, the cruel, bitter, cold and lonely darkness covers our lives and nothing can escape, not even truth.

“…in their time there had been the same savage poverty and hunger; the same leaky thatched roofs, ignorance and anguish, the same surrounding emptiness and darkness, the sense of oppression—all these horrors had been, and were, and would be no better. And he did not want to go home.”

But with such things, to endure, to survive, there must be hope. “…an inexpressibly sweet anticipation of happiness, an unknown, mysterious happiness, gradually came over him, and life seemed to him delightful, wondrous, and filled with lofty meaning.”

Rating: 8-7-7-6 Total= 28

#147 Private Tuition By Mr. Bose- Anita Desai

#147 Private Tuition By Mr. Bose- Anita Desai

Mr. Bose is a private tutor, teaching language and poetry from his home. Because of the small size of his apartment, and the heat, he conducts his lessons outside of the roof. From there he can see his wife cook and care for their child. Between lessons, he briefly visits with them and wished for more time:

“He wanted so much to touch her hair, the strand that lay over her shoulder in a black loop, and did not know how to—she was so busy.”

At times, the day gets hectic, the child gets unruly as children get, tensions grow and tempers flair. Mr. Bose wishes he did not have to teach these intemperate privileged children, wishes they did not see his meager home, he wishes, he wishes, he wishes…but the weight of his surrounding pile on:

“But the darkness was filled with hideous sounds of business and anger and command. The Radio news commentator barked, the baby wailed, the kitchen pots clashed. He even heard his wife’s voice raised, angrily, at the child like a threatening stick.”

We do what we must to get by. At the end of the day, the child goes to be, dinner is served and the tensions of the day alleviated. The anger—gone, the resentment—gone, all that remains is love and family.

Word of the Day: Tuition- I never knew this word had a second meaning. Besides meaning the cost of education, it can also be used to describe the actual “teaching or instruction, especially of individual pupils or small groups.” Don’t I feel uneducated? I guess I should have spend more tuition getting a tuition.

Notable Passage: “Immediately, at the very sight of the tip of her sandal peeping out beneath the flowering hem of her sari, he was a man broken to pieces, flung this way and that, rattling. Rattling.”

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

#129 The Teacher’s Story- Gita Mehta

#129 The Teacher’s Story- Gita Mehta

Master Mohan was a humble music teacher. He was once a promising young singer, but on the day he was to record his first record, his pure, young voice broke and he never recovered from that heartbreak. He is liked and respected by just about everyone except his own family. His wife is an angry judgmental woman who resents his failure.

“Everyday his wife reminded him how his voice had not mellowed in the years that followed.”

“Her taunts re-opened a wound which might have healed if only Master Mohan’s wife had left him alone.”

“Although he tried Master Mohan could not stop coughing. It was a nervous reaction to his family’s ability to silence the music he heard in his own head.”

Music was his only solace, his only love, his only reason for living. One day Quawwali singers from Nizamuddin were coming to perform for a weeks worth of concerts. Nizamuddin was where Quawwali music was invented 700 years ago. He went to each night, enjoying not only the music but the break from being judged and insulted by his family:

“The more the singers were carried away by their music the more Master Mohan felt the weight that burdened him lighten, as if the ecstasy of the song being relayed from one throat to another was lifting him into a long forgotten ecstasy himself.”

After one concert he stayed to hear a young boy sing. Imrat was being accompanied by his sister who could no longer take are of him. Imrat had a talent not seen in 500 years:

“Such a voice is not human. What will happen to music if this is the standard by which God Judges us.”

Master Mohan agreed to take the child to his home and become his music mentor. Because his family’s hatred of him, they mistreated the young phenom. So, the Master took his lessons to the park, where people began to gather in large numbers and pay tribute. All of the tribute went to the boy and his sister, and even when he signed a music contract Master Mohan wanted nothing for himself.

This story is a love letter to music, and to all those that love and teach music with passion. Music is religion and love and life. Everything else can be tuned out.

Notable Passage: “He only saw the power of the morning raga and dreaming visions of light he pushed his voice towards them, believing sight was only a half-tone away.”

Rating: 8-9-10-9 Total= 36