The Metamorphosis

Every once in a while I will read something that leaves me blinking. “What the fuck did I just read?!”

Metamorphosis is one of those stories. I wasn’t prepared for it, either. Kafka’s “masterpiece” was smack dab in the middle of the short story collection I’m working through, and I got to it right before vacation.

If you haven’t read Kafka’s Metamorphosis yet–be prepared for wacky. I’m not sure if he was dreaming, or just stoned out of his ever loving mind. The main character is a guy that wakes up as a dung beetle.

Yes. You read that correctly.

A dung beetle.

His family basically closets him away, takes on boarders to cover the salary he made, and goes on feeding and caring for him. Um, hello? You have a giant cockroach living in your house, and you just go on assuming it is your brother. Okkkkkkkk……

 

As you can guess, I wasn’t a fan of this one. Yuck.

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Teaser Tuesday 11/11/2014

 

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

• Grab your current read
• Open to a random page
• Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
• BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
• Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

 

I can’t share a quote from the actual book I’m reading, because it’s an ARC, but here’s one from today’s short story. This is a pretty hard hitting one, especially after reading Gone with the Wind so recently.

 

“Now, don’t forget papa, what’s do be done to her. Her arms won’t work, and her legs won’t work, and she can’t hold her head up. Be sure and have her mended this afternoon, and bring her home when you come to supper; for she’s afraid of the dark, and always sleeps with me. I’ll meet you at the corner at half-past six–and don’t forget, whatever you do.”

–Charles W. Chesnutt, “The Doll”

Short Story

I just read the most interesting short story, and one that took me completely by surprise.

John Cheever’s “The Swimmer” starts off with a suburban man who, instead of driving or walking home, decides to swim home. Ok, not that abnormal…until you realize he’s going to frog hop through his neighbors’ pools!

Now, in modern day society, this would be absolutely crazy, right? We hardly know our next-door neighbors’ names anymore, let alone feel comfortable enough with them to just show up uninvited to swim. But, in the country club society that Neddy Merrill lived in, no one seemed to think this odd. They offered him drink after drink at their afternoon garden parties, hugged him, toasted to him, even acted offended as he hopped off to the next pool!

At least at first.

The farther across the county Neddy got, and the closer he got to home, the stranger things became. As long as he was distanced from his home, things were just dandy, joyous, fun. But life really started to circle the drain, so to speak, as he closed in on his own back yard.

This is one of those rare short stories that really reached out and grabbed me. It doesn’t happen often, but I wanted more. I want to know where his family is, I want to know what happened at the party the night before. So many questions!

If you get a chance, go read this story. I found it in Short Fiction:  Classic and Contemporary Sixth Edition by Charles Bohner and Lyman Grant.

 

For a real treat, you can even listen to Cheever’s read the work himself here. Thanks Catherine, for sharing this with me!

Short but Sweet

I’ve been reading a short story every afternoon. Most…I could do without. I’m not a huge fan of short stories, they are just too, well, short, to have enough of a plot to intrigue me.

But, every once in awhile I will hit a gem that is really beautiful, or important, or meaningful.

 

The most recent of these is “Cathedral” by Raymond Carver. He writes from the perspective of a husband whose wife invites an old friend of hers to come and stay with them–a blind man that she used to read to. The husband is NOT pleased about this. How is he supposed to interact with this person? Ugh. But, that interaction, as you would expect, turns out to be completely lovely, if a little awkward at first.

I’m finding these stories in a big textbook collection–Short Fiction:  Classic and Contemporary Sixth Edition by Charles Bohner and Lyman Grant

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

I had no idea that Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde was a novella. My book is a normal sized book, so I was expecting a normal sized novel! However, the actual story is only 82 pages long, and the rest is filled with little penny dreadfuls. Interesting!

My habit is to read a short story every afternoon, so I’ll save those for later. That way I can move on to other books and reviews and such.

Speaking of reviews, this was another gothic that was just ok for me. The writing was very simple compared to Le Fanu’s, but after hearing about this story all my life, I was expecting way more out of it. It was mostly lawyering and letters. Sure, there was one murder…but we heard about it second hand, and we hardly even saw the monster.

Some stories are best left to the theatrical versions, I suppose.