#417 The Man Who Forgot Ray Bradbury- Neil Gaiman

#417 The Man Who Forgot Ray Bradbury- Neil Gaiman

This is a brilliant story.  Neil Gaiman can’t remember the name of a friend of his, presumably Ray Bradbury.

“I am losing words, although I am not losing concepts. I hope that I am not losing concepts. If I am losing concepts, I am not aware of it. If I am losing concepts, how would I know?”

So, this whole thing is mental game trying to get his mind to remember that name. Trying to trick his mind with hints, pictures, anything to open that path. He can remember a lot of other things, almost everything else about him, then why not the name of his friend.

“Icarus! It’s not as if I have forgotten all names. I remember Icarus. He flew too close to the sun. In the stories, though, it’s worth it. Always worth it to have tried, even if you fail, even if you fall like a meteor forever. Better to have flamed in the darkness, to have inspired others, to have lived, than to have sat in the darkness, cursing the people who borrowed, but did not return, your candle.”

The mind is a funny thing. In the introduction, Gaimen says that he wrote this piece and gave it to Bradbury for a ninetieth birthday gift. I’m so glad they decided to share it with us. Reading so many stories, I have come to appreciate truly unique styles an concepts. This is just great!

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

#416 Marla- Jerome Charyn

#416 Marla- Jerome Charyn

Marla recently found out her sister, long since removed from her life, was still alive. She had been sent away by her family because of some disturbing tendencies and never spoke of her again. Now with her father dead, she found Irene and has welcomed her back to her family’s 15-room apartment on Central Park West.

As an attorney, Marla has gained a reputation as a viscous opponent, and outside the courtroom, she and her two shadowy body men, she is known as an old-school Bronx enforcer.

“Marla shouldn’t have been so cruel. She lived a monstrous life, shielding murderers and swindlers, defying prosecutors and ripping out the threads of their elaborate tales.”

Now with her sister in her life, and the law practice she has always fought for, she is at the height of her power, but at what cost? She defends the city’s worst criminals, and when one of them has eyes on her sister, perhaps the chickens have come home to roost. It was her after all that kept them out of jail.

“She was the criminal, not Marcellus Bloom. Marla had created the monster, allowed him to flourish. He should have been locked away a long time ago, with Marla in the next cell.”

She also, got her sister out of her institution living. Irene also had criminal tendencies. It’s hard to see who to root for in some of thee stories, and I’m not sure we’re supposed to feel good about any of them. The Mother is shallow, and will think good of anyone as long as they give her presents, Marla is a mob boss type amoral criminal attorney, Irene is a psychopath. I don’t suppose there is any hope for the children if these are the three role models.

What makes for a lousy family sometimes makes for a good story at least.

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

#415 Lusus Naturae- Margaret Atwood

#415 Lusus Naturae- Margaret Atwood

This is a much different story than the first few in the collection. The narrator is going through a change, a Kafka-esque metamorphosis, turning slowly into a werewolf. They call it a disease, but they also think of it as a curse. The town is steps away from pitch-forks and torches, so the family stages her death, for their own sake, especially to protect their other daughter.

Now she lives hidden, but with anonymity comes a little more freedom to roam about at night. A funny moment is when she comes stumbles across a couple having sex in the woods, she thinks they are of her kind because they have fits and scream like she does. But when she approaches to give them a friendly kiss, all she knows how to do it bite.

Like the Kafka tale this is a worthy homage to, it’s about alienation, and being isolated and ostracized because of ones differences; being made to feel like a burden and the cause of other’s feeling of resentment.

“However she tried to hide it, she resented me, of course. There’s only so long you can feel sorry for a person before you come to feel that their affliction is an act of malice committed by them against you.”

Lusus Naturae is Latin meaning: freak of nature.

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

#414 The Princess and the Plumber- Sheila Heti

#414 The Princess and the Plumber- Sheila Heti

This was another week of all new collections. This one is the odd and quirky book, The Middle Stories of Sheila Heti. It’s an odd, but fun mix of fairy-tale and dream where modern life seeps into a Disney film.

The plumber is in love with the princess, and must have her. She doesn’t love him and rebuffs his proposals.

“That evening he went home and, using a hammer and some wood, built the most marvelous marriage contraption the world has ever seen. It takes a special kind of man to invent something new, something never before thought of, and that night, inspired by her rejection, he did just that.”

We never find out exactly what the contraption is, nor does the princess. She refuses to see him and the castle is under quarantine with a disease. He is to blame, a meddlesome frog tells him, but we don’t know why. We do know that world is changing and people will soon live to be two hundred years old, and with nothing but leisure tike, because everyone will love in the new welfare state. But the plumber cries filling the world with his sadness like snow covers the hills.

Rating: 7-8-8-7 Total= 30

#413 That Colour- Jon McGregor

#413 That Colour- Jon McGregor

This Isn’t the Sort of Thing That Happens to Someone Like You is a collection that has been on The-Best-Of lists since it was published a few years ago. This first salvo is, as we have seen in several collections, a short mood setter, an "amuse bouche" to announce the intention of the overall work

A woman stares out the window ruminating on the shortness of the years and the changing of the season. She is awed by it, as if it is the first time she has thought these things. Her husband, more pragmatic:

“I asked her why she was so surprised. I told her it was autumn, it was what happened…I told her she went through this every year…I dried my hands and went through the front room and stood beside her. I felt for her hand and held it. I said, But tell me again.”

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

#412 Superstar- Susan Steinberg

#412 Superstar- Susan Steinberg

Now this is something different. This is a story written in statements only. Each sentence is its own line, its own paragraph. At times it can look like poetry, but for the most part, it is not poetic (exception: the notable passage below). We are getting the inner thoughts of a woman riding in the crowded back seat of her friends car after she has stolen a car radio. It was a revenge theft of a guy she hooked up with.

This is thick with male-female power dynamics. She steals the radio because she wants to own this man completely. Then when she gets into a small fender bender with a guy, he treats her like shit calling her names like only a man can call a woman.  Then comes guy #2 who comes to her rescue and is condescending like only a man can be condescending to a woman.

It’s not something I want to explain.

If you have the parts you understand.

As for the rest of you.

Just know I knew it was good to be a woman.

Meaning it was very bad to be a woman.

This is a very good, powerful start for this collection, Spectacle.

Notable Passage: “A sound I can’t describe.

                                    A Sound that was more like a color.

                                    A Color that was more like a pain.

                                    A pain that was more like an answer.”

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

#411 Rust and Bone- Craig Davidson

#411 Rust and Bone- Craig Davidson

This is the title story of Davidson’s award winning short story collection. Eddie is a fighter, a boxer. This is who he is.

“Fighting becomes a job, stepping into the ring punching a clock. It’s a pragmatic pursuit, opponent’s equations to be solved using the chimerical physics of reach, height, spacing, leverage, heart. You’d no more fight outside the ropes than a factory lineman would work a shift for no pay.”

However, he does fight outside the ring, just not with his fists. The story starts with an explanation about the 28 bones in each hand, the intricacies of them and their fragility. You can teach a boxer footwork, build his abs to take body blows, but if you break the bones in your hand, that is a weakness that will stay with you for your whole career.

“You fight, you lose, you fight, you win, you fight.”

Rating: 8-8-8-8 Total= 32