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Studies in the Short Story
Short Story Anthology/textbook featuring stories by Ray Bradbury, Caroline Gordon, Carson McCullers, D. H. Lawrence, James Joyce, Sherwood Anderson, W. Somerset Maugham, William Faulkner, Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Wright Morris, Walter Van Tilburg Clark, Flannery O'Connor, Katherine Anne Porter, John Collier,Frank O'Connor, J. F. Powers, Donald Barthelme, A. E. Coppard, Meg Campbell, Warner Law, Grahame Green, Guy de Maupassant, Jorge Luis Borges, John Barth, Ronald Sukenick, Edgar Allan Poe, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Anton Chekhov, Stephen Crane, Eudora Welty, John Cheever, Robert Penn Warren, Bernard Malamud, John Updike, James Baldwin, Joyce Carol Oates, James Alan McPherson, Raymond Barrio, David Madden and Ann Petry
- GenresWriting
615 pages, Paperback
First published November 17, 1949
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November 21, 2023
One of my rescued books. Looks to be a college textbook with a massive lineup of all-timers and a few never-heard-of's. By my count I've already read ten of these. Typical ... The lineup of stories and writers must have changed in editions published since the original in 1949. Joyce Carol Oates(for one) couldn't have been included that far back.
1 - And the Rock Cried Out by Ray Bradbury. A post-ap story with typical RB histrionics, but he gets the job done vis-a-vis making one think a bit. My take = why not choose life? Be a little flexible ... .
2 - The Last Day in the Field by Caroline Gordon. This one has a great naturalistic feel to it as the author describes two young friends out hunting(killing wild birds for fun). It may be part of a larger work. Don't think I've ever heard of the author. The time frame is a mystery too.
3 - A Tree, a Rock, a Cloud by Carson McCullers. Read once before ... a very famous very short story.
4 - The Blind Man by D. H. Lawrence. More heavy lifting by Mr. L. The three characters are all meant to be archetypes, I suppose, especially the two men. The instinctive, mysterious, emotional man of the land being ultimately more appealing to the woman than the love-less man of the intellect. Or something like that ...
5 - A Little Cloud by James Joyce. (From "The Dubliners") - About those who get up and out(Gallaher) and those that stay safe behind(Little Chandler) and get nowhere.
6 - The Egg by Sherwood Anderson. Famous, much anthologized story. Read once or twice before by me.
7 - Rain by W. Somerset Maugham. Movie-ized at least three times I do believe even though it's not that good a story(IMHO). About the imperilment of piety by sexual craving and the imperilment of life and sanity by excess piety. All that rain symbolizes ... something. I take it that the author was not a fan of religious fervor.
8 - That Evening Sun by William Faulkner. I've read this twice already, but why not read it again? And so read again. An early "Compson" story. Faulkner is Quentin(sort of - I think). No Benjy as yet.
9 - In Another Country by Ernest Hemingway - the Hemingway style is all in this short short tale. The title is likely from Christopher Marlowe.
10 - Absolution by F. Scott Fitzgerald. Some crazy Catholic bleep = outside of my experience. Pretty interesting to read, as FSF usually is. Kind of cryptic ...
11 - The Ram in the Thicket by Wright Morris. Second time read. Semi-experimental prose style ... modernist? The title refers to a biblical story. Not sure what it has to do with the story.
12 - The Portable Phonograph by Walter van Tilburg Clark. A post-ap story. Short and bleak.
13 - Good Country People by Flannery O'Connor. Read once before. As usual Ms. O'Connor writes great but to what particular point is a mystery. A LOT of these stories are a bit mystifying.
14 - Flowering Judas by Katherine Anne Porter. Another well-wrought but enigmatic(to me) tale. read once before.
15 - Bottle Party by John Collier. This as close to sci-fi/fantasy as any story so far. Might well have turned up in a sci-fi anthology or two back in the day. Very typically ironic. Never heard of the author ...
16 - First Confession by Frank O'Connor. A neat memoir-like tale from the second O'Connor in this collection. Read once before.
17 - The Forks by J. F. Powers. Another "Catholic" tale and read before. I THINK I read this one and "First Confession" in the same anthology(though not THIS anthology) about 5+ years ago.
18 - Report by Donald Barthelme. DB was a purveyor of experimental prose and you either love him or ... well, I go both ways, I suppose. This one was pretty good.
19 - Adam and Eve Pinch Me by A. E. Coppard. Fantasy time with this excellent "story" with a what the bleep's going on feel to it.
20 - Just Saying You Love Me Doesn't Make it so by Meg Campbell. Meh. Never heard of the author.
21 - The Harry Hastings Method by Warner Law. Another author I don't recall, though I might well have read this story when it appeared in Playboy back in 1971. Whimsical L. A. stuff ...
- Back in 1971 VW buses weren't that much smaller than a lot of other cars, bigger than some. Just sayin'
22 - Brother by Graham Greene. Short and bitter with an enigmatic ending. I had to look up the meaning of cochon ...
23 - The Jewelry by Guy de Maupassant. So ... where DID she get the money. And, what was the point of the story? I guess I'll look it up on Wiki!
24 - Paste by Henry James. HJ is always easier to take in smaller doses. He's like Faulkner, only different. This makes three straight stores in which jewelry plays an important(probably symbolic) role. I can barely remember what it's about. No surprise there. Mr. James and I aren't a good fit.
25 - The Garden of Forking Paths by Jorge Luis Borges. Read once before. A very neat tale with a definite air of psychic mystery about it.
26 - Title by John Barth - I read this one aloud inside my head - the only way to go, in my opinion. At first glance it seems like meaningless babble. Same deal on second and third look, but it was fun to imagine myself reading this to an audience. According to the editors' questions at the end there may be some content there, but if so it was beyond my understanding or caring.
27 - The Birds by Ronald Sukenick. More meta-fiction/experimental writing in roughly the same semi-gibberish vein as the previous story. Fun enough to read, but once again I have no idea what the point might be, if any.
The rest of this collection contains no school-work kinds of questions at the end of each story. It's just a collection of "More Stories."
28 - The Man That Was Used Up: a Tale of the Late Bugaboo and Kickapoo Campaign by Edgar Allan Poe. Seems to ring a vague bell. If I read it before it must've been a long time ago. Rather amusing, in a Poe-tic sort of way.
29 - My Kinsman, Major Molineux by Nathaniel Hawthorne. Read twice already ... and now read for a third time. Still a great story.
30 - The Lament by Anton Chekhov. A brief mournful sketch by the master. I might've read it before.
31 - The Open Boat by Stephen Crane. My second(maybe third) read. One of the all-time GREAT short stories. S. Crane was an early Nabokov. Died young, his early death possibly attributable at least in part to the stress from having survived the ordeal described in this story. Yup ... all true, but "fictionalized." The author is "the correspondent." Right from the famous opening line the author hauls the reader right into the boat with the rest of the survivors. Read it! A very strong take on one (modern)way of looking at life.
32 - Petrified Man by Eudora Welty. Didn't take too long before I realized I'd read this before. The local flavor is all with this sour gem from another American master.
33 - Goodbye, My Brother by John Cheever. What a great lineup of writers and stories, one after another. This one's the story of a family misfit who suffers from being unable to buy into the family rituals of backgammon, tennis and drinking. Set on the south shore of Martha's Vineyard. Cheever and Nabokov write transcendent prose.
34 - The Patented Gate and the Mean Hamburger by Robert Penn Warren. Classic short story structure: a mostly straightforward and colorful narration with an nasty, abrupt ending.
35 - The Magic Barrel by Bernard Malamud. Another classic and another re-read. There are likely depths to this story that I don't get but still, a great story.
36 - Who Made Yellow Roses Yellow by John Updike. Any early story from a youthful Updike. The early stories have a distinctly sort-of prissy style too them. Kind of tight ... This one tells the tale of the privileged vs. the striver post college. The rich boy has to ask a favor from the striver. The striver doesn't "get it" and is on the outside socially despite his post-college achievement. In his eagerness to get ahead, he didn't serve in the military - a mark against him which he can never erase. On the other hand, the rich boy must act like he doesn't care whether he gets help or not. Though he might have written it a bit differently later in life, when he was a better writer, this one's still spot on: tense and ironic. Updike himself was a striver at Harvard. Definitely NOT from privilege.
37 - This Morning, this Evening, So Soon by James Baldwin. Read this much-anthologized piece once before. A pretty direct indication of what America looks like to a non-white person. If I'd been the guy in the story I wouldn't have wanted to go back either!
38 - How I Contemplated the World from the Detroit House of Correction and Began My Life Over Again by Joyce Carol Oates. This story seems to have been based on the author's experience as an adult education teacher in the Detroit area during some of her young adulthood. The novel "Them" springs from the same well and the two stories are connected. As usual the author goes from zero to hysterics in no time flat.
39 - Gold Coast by James Alan MacPherson. Haven't heard of this author that I can recall. Interesting story ...
40 - Campesinos by Raymond Barrio. An in-the-moment look at the life of a migrant worker in California, perhaps a bit before all the turmoil and Cesar Chavez and the National Farm Workers.
41 - No Trace by David Madden. The author is one of the editors of this book. This is a story very much of the times: Vietnam War, campus turmoil, a strong hint of homo-eroticism. Emotionally it's right out there with Joyce Carol Oates.
- "The Loving Spoonful" s.b. "The Lovin' Spoonful"
42 - Witness by Ann Petry. The final story is a bit of nasty and mournful as a semi-retired bookish African-American man with no axes to grind finds what he thinks is sanctuary in a small "white" town up north. Things don't work out in a very ugly way. Never heard of the author.
For the whole collection ... 4.5* rounds down to 4*
1 - And the Rock Cried Out by Ray Bradbury. A post-ap story with typical RB histrionics, but he gets the job done vis-a-vis making one think a bit. My take = why not choose life? Be a little flexible ... .
2 - The Last Day in the Field by Caroline Gordon. This one has a great naturalistic feel to it as the author describes two young friends out hunting(killing wild birds for fun). It may be part of a larger work. Don't think I've ever heard of the author. The time frame is a mystery too.
3 - A Tree, a Rock, a Cloud by Carson McCullers. Read once before ... a very famous very short story.
4 - The Blind Man by D. H. Lawrence. More heavy lifting by Mr. L. The three characters are all meant to be archetypes, I suppose, especially the two men. The instinctive, mysterious, emotional man of the land being ultimately more appealing to the woman than the love-less man of the intellect. Or something like that ...
5 - A Little Cloud by James Joyce. (From "The Dubliners") - About those who get up and out(Gallaher) and those that stay safe behind(Little Chandler) and get nowhere.
6 - The Egg by Sherwood Anderson. Famous, much anthologized story. Read once or twice before by me.
7 - Rain by W. Somerset Maugham. Movie-ized at least three times I do believe even though it's not that good a story(IMHO). About the imperilment of piety by sexual craving and the imperilment of life and sanity by excess piety. All that rain symbolizes ... something. I take it that the author was not a fan of religious fervor.
8 - That Evening Sun by William Faulkner. I've read this twice already, but why not read it again? And so read again. An early "Compson" story. Faulkner is Quentin(sort of - I think). No Benjy as yet.
9 - In Another Country by Ernest Hemingway - the Hemingway style is all in this short short tale. The title is likely from Christopher Marlowe.
10 - Absolution by F. Scott Fitzgerald. Some crazy Catholic bleep = outside of my experience. Pretty interesting to read, as FSF usually is. Kind of cryptic ...
11 - The Ram in the Thicket by Wright Morris. Second time read. Semi-experimental prose style ... modernist? The title refers to a biblical story. Not sure what it has to do with the story.
12 - The Portable Phonograph by Walter van Tilburg Clark. A post-ap story. Short and bleak.
13 - Good Country People by Flannery O'Connor. Read once before. As usual Ms. O'Connor writes great but to what particular point is a mystery. A LOT of these stories are a bit mystifying.
14 - Flowering Judas by Katherine Anne Porter. Another well-wrought but enigmatic(to me) tale. read once before.
15 - Bottle Party by John Collier. This as close to sci-fi/fantasy as any story so far. Might well have turned up in a sci-fi anthology or two back in the day. Very typically ironic. Never heard of the author ...
16 - First Confession by Frank O'Connor. A neat memoir-like tale from the second O'Connor in this collection. Read once before.
17 - The Forks by J. F. Powers. Another "Catholic" tale and read before. I THINK I read this one and "First Confession" in the same anthology(though not THIS anthology) about 5+ years ago.
18 - Report by Donald Barthelme. DB was a purveyor of experimental prose and you either love him or ... well, I go both ways, I suppose. This one was pretty good.
19 - Adam and Eve Pinch Me by A. E. Coppard. Fantasy time with this excellent "story" with a what the bleep's going on feel to it.
20 - Just Saying You Love Me Doesn't Make it so by Meg Campbell. Meh. Never heard of the author.
21 - The Harry Hastings Method by Warner Law. Another author I don't recall, though I might well have read this story when it appeared in Playboy back in 1971. Whimsical L. A. stuff ...
- Back in 1971 VW buses weren't that much smaller than a lot of other cars, bigger than some. Just sayin'
22 - Brother by Graham Greene. Short and bitter with an enigmatic ending. I had to look up the meaning of cochon ...
23 - The Jewelry by Guy de Maupassant. So ... where DID she get the money. And, what was the point of the story? I guess I'll look it up on Wiki!
24 - Paste by Henry James. HJ is always easier to take in smaller doses. He's like Faulkner, only different. This makes three straight stores in which jewelry plays an important(probably symbolic) role. I can barely remember what it's about. No surprise there. Mr. James and I aren't a good fit.
25 - The Garden of Forking Paths by Jorge Luis Borges. Read once before. A very neat tale with a definite air of psychic mystery about it.
26 - Title by John Barth - I read this one aloud inside my head - the only way to go, in my opinion. At first glance it seems like meaningless babble. Same deal on second and third look, but it was fun to imagine myself reading this to an audience. According to the editors' questions at the end there may be some content there, but if so it was beyond my understanding or caring.
27 - The Birds by Ronald Sukenick. More meta-fiction/experimental writing in roughly the same semi-gibberish vein as the previous story. Fun enough to read, but once again I have no idea what the point might be, if any.
The rest of this collection contains no school-work kinds of questions at the end of each story. It's just a collection of "More Stories."
28 - The Man That Was Used Up: a Tale of the Late Bugaboo and Kickapoo Campaign by Edgar Allan Poe. Seems to ring a vague bell. If I read it before it must've been a long time ago. Rather amusing, in a Poe-tic sort of way.
29 - My Kinsman, Major Molineux by Nathaniel Hawthorne. Read twice already ... and now read for a third time. Still a great story.
30 - The Lament by Anton Chekhov. A brief mournful sketch by the master. I might've read it before.
31 - The Open Boat by Stephen Crane. My second(maybe third) read. One of the all-time GREAT short stories. S. Crane was an early Nabokov. Died young, his early death possibly attributable at least in part to the stress from having survived the ordeal described in this story. Yup ... all true, but "fictionalized." The author is "the correspondent." Right from the famous opening line the author hauls the reader right into the boat with the rest of the survivors. Read it! A very strong take on one (modern)way of looking at life.
32 - Petrified Man by Eudora Welty. Didn't take too long before I realized I'd read this before. The local flavor is all with this sour gem from another American master.
33 - Goodbye, My Brother by John Cheever. What a great lineup of writers and stories, one after another. This one's the story of a family misfit who suffers from being unable to buy into the family rituals of backgammon, tennis and drinking. Set on the south shore of Martha's Vineyard. Cheever and Nabokov write transcendent prose.
34 - The Patented Gate and the Mean Hamburger by Robert Penn Warren. Classic short story structure: a mostly straightforward and colorful narration with an nasty, abrupt ending.
35 - The Magic Barrel by Bernard Malamud. Another classic and another re-read. There are likely depths to this story that I don't get but still, a great story.
36 - Who Made Yellow Roses Yellow by John Updike. Any early story from a youthful Updike. The early stories have a distinctly sort-of prissy style too them. Kind of tight ... This one tells the tale of the privileged vs. the striver post college. The rich boy has to ask a favor from the striver. The striver doesn't "get it" and is on the outside socially despite his post-college achievement. In his eagerness to get ahead, he didn't serve in the military - a mark against him which he can never erase. On the other hand, the rich boy must act like he doesn't care whether he gets help or not. Though he might have written it a bit differently later in life, when he was a better writer, this one's still spot on: tense and ironic. Updike himself was a striver at Harvard. Definitely NOT from privilege.
37 - This Morning, this Evening, So Soon by James Baldwin. Read this much-anthologized piece once before. A pretty direct indication of what America looks like to a non-white person. If I'd been the guy in the story I wouldn't have wanted to go back either!
38 - How I Contemplated the World from the Detroit House of Correction and Began My Life Over Again by Joyce Carol Oates. This story seems to have been based on the author's experience as an adult education teacher in the Detroit area during some of her young adulthood. The novel "Them" springs from the same well and the two stories are connected. As usual the author goes from zero to hysterics in no time flat.
39 - Gold Coast by James Alan MacPherson. Haven't heard of this author that I can recall. Interesting story ...
40 - Campesinos by Raymond Barrio. An in-the-moment look at the life of a migrant worker in California, perhaps a bit before all the turmoil and Cesar Chavez and the National Farm Workers.
41 - No Trace by David Madden. The author is one of the editors of this book. This is a story very much of the times: Vietnam War, campus turmoil, a strong hint of homo-eroticism. Emotionally it's right out there with Joyce Carol Oates.
- "The Loving Spoonful" s.b. "The Lovin' Spoonful"
42 - Witness by Ann Petry. The final story is a bit of nasty and mournful as a semi-retired bookish African-American man with no axes to grind finds what he thinks is sanctuary in a small "white" town up north. Things don't work out in a very ugly way. Never heard of the author.
For the whole collection ... 4.5* rounds down to 4*
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