Poll

"The Piano Tuner's Wives," gets my vote this time. Bierce's story is a good read, but doesn't go much further.

I hate to vote against Bierce, but, nevertheless, it is easy to do so in this match.

Well, it's clear to me which is better - "The Piano Tuner's Wives". It also looks like this won't be a close one, but "An Occurrence At Owl Creek Bridge" is nevertheless pretty good. I discussed both stories in the previous round of voting. They both got my vote in round one, but this time it's "The Piano Tuner's Wives" getting the vote.

Two consecutive stories or rounds with
shrimp and avocado for dinner
hyenas in the first paragraph
detested yellow wallpaper in a bedroom
blind piano tuners

Easily choosing Owl.

Holding a grudge most against these bits:
"And the unseeing husband they shared, softly playing his violin in one room or another, did not know that his first wife had dressed badly, did not know she had thickened and become sloppy, did not know she had been an unclean cook."

"The wife he had first chosen had dressed drably: from silence and inflexions - more than from words - he learned that now. Her grey hair straggled to her shoulders, her back was a little humped."

Ctb, I'm assuming you left those quotes there to suggest a bit of misogyny on Trevor's part, or at least on the story's part?

I certainly don't read it that way, and I'm curious how others feel.

Those lines are not, after all, coming from the omniscient narrator but rather from the consciousness or sub-consciousness of Belle, who cannot help but compare herself to Violet and who thinks if only her husband had been able to see the physical world he wouldn't have chosen Violet in the first place , or, at least, wouldn't be so satisfied by Violet.

Worse yet, the husband is now learning these things from Belle herself, in that subtle way we have of communicating disapproval and disdain without saying anything at all.

Belle's bitterness is the kind that injures the soul, transcending time as it does so. But it's all so nicely done because we get it, we recognize Belle and, I think, have compassion for her, even while we see her quietly ruin the happiness she and the piano tuner could have at this late stage in life.

No, not misogyny; those excerpts bother because they are things Owen would have known, so I can't understand if Belle is merely thinking them, making them true in her mind, which is ever at work making Violet her inferior, or if they are more lies she is implying/telling Owen to cause him to doubt even his touch, his sense of smell, his hearing.

Ah, I see -- thanks!

I do think it is a degree of him not knowing/not caring until Belle came in and silently started to suggest it was bad. And it might not have been bad, after all. Belle is judging from her own standards, which, in this case, are biased.

I don't dislike Piano, but I can't, yet, embrace it holistically because I perceive errors in logic - unless Belle is trying to destroy Owen's other sensory memories.

I think so, Ctb. She has a warped and limited perspective. She is the pretty one, after all, so if only he could see. But we are not led to believe that the piano tuner cared about those things at all. Belle sees all of Violet’s failings, or, rather, she has searched for and found failings and assumes that her husband simply didn’t know. It’s a way for her to excuse the fact she didn’t win him in the first place. If he had eyes to see…

But for all we know, he knew all about Violet and completely accepted her, didn’t even see these as failings. Their relationship probably wasn’t based on his conception of what she was like in the physical world, and Belle can not understand that, and, now, is in danger of not having an even deeper connection with the man. I don’t think he was ignorant of the qualities but rather was ignorant of the value some place on them.

I think he could also know exactly what’s up, and perhaps he isn’t regretting his life with Violet or even with Belle but is regretting what happened to Belle.

In all of my talk about "The Piano Tuner's Wives" I might be coming off as contra-"An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge," which is not true. I think it's a fine story with more than a twisty ending going for it.

For one, the evocation of the physical world, which our man is about the leave, is tangible. The longing to remain a part of it. The story rather quickly lets us know something strange is going on. How many people, escaping from the noose and then swimming for life, stop to pay that much attention to the little things? And the nightmarish run to home is beautifully portrayed as well.

And it's proto-stream of consciousness!

Still, my vote is squarely for William Trevor's tale that also plays with time and our dreams, though in a significantly different manner.

Reread Owl Creek Bridge for the first time in decades. and though I liked it well enough, no reading of it will ever compare to the thrill i got the first time I came across it in the form of the short film (which I'm sure everyone has seen) when I was eleven or twelve years old.
A nice story but it can't compare to a master like William Trevor. I listened to a reading he gave of "The Piano Tuner's Wives" at the 92nd St. Y in NYC available on YouTube. Fine writer, fine reader. He gets my vote.