Short Story Challenge - July Recap

 

If you missed signing up for the Short Story Challenge, it's not too late.  Each month I will post a recap to discuss what everyone has read for the challenge. Everyone who still wants to sign up, go back to original post (to which I will leave a link in every current post). Then leave comments in the current post.

Well, I've done a little more reading this month! That's what happens when you put aside the WOT saga for a little while. :) I've moved on to another series that looks like it's going to be extremely time consuming but I don't plan on reading them all back to back. I have learned my lesson with this WOT re-read!! 

Anyway, with short stories this month it was all audio. I'm just loving having an ipod!! I know, I was living in the Dark Ages before. Getting audiobooks on cd. Jeez, who does that anymore? hehehe. But the problem I've noticed with the ipod is that I can't swap these for other books. With the books on cds, I could list them on Paperback Swap and get another one for only the price of postage. Now I buy a new book and it just sits there taking up space on my computer. Not sure what to do about that. I'd like to share some of them with my friends or mom but how do you do that? I'm not going to delete them until I figure that out (anything short of burning 500 cds for one book). 

I listened to Pump Six and Other Stories  by Paolo Bacigalupi. I've never read anything by this author before so I know nothing about his writing style but I just couldn't finish this. You can read my review here. 

I also listened to Stories edited by Neil Gaiman and Al Sarrantonio. Actually I should say I am listening. I'm not quite finished with all the stories yet (really long book! More than 18 hours). I'll post a review as soon as I'm finished. This is a most entertaining book. The stories are a wide range of genres and styles. Take a moment to look at all the names listed around the edge of the cover (that's why I made the pic so big). Wonderful!! The book was broken into 3 parts for the audio and the first part had simply disturbing stories. Wonderful, horrible, I-hope-this-never-happens-to-me-but-I-can't-wait-to-hear-more stories. The second part has some truly funny stories. Like the frat boy who drops acid right before he's called to be a contestant on the Price Is Right. Oh Yeah, I was laughing so hard I probably shouldn't have been driving. I just finished this second part and am now signing off to go listen to the third part. Let you know...

Short Stories: The Guy Not Taken

I listened to the audio version of the The Guy Not Taken by Jennifer Weiner in my car last week. Honestly, I didn't realize it was short stories until I popped it in my cd player and heard the beginning: "The Guy Not Taken, a collection of short stories by Jennifer Weiner" (or something to that affect). Huh, I thought, how did I not realize that when I bought it. Maybe because I just saw a cheap audio book and since cheap ones are hard to find I just grabbed it!

I actually enjoyed these stories(for the most part). I think Weiner may be a better writer of short stories than full novels. The stories are complete and you're left feeling fulfilled but you don't feel like she cheated at the end to get the girl with the guy and make a happily ever after as I usually feel after listening (because I've never read one) to one of her novels . I'm not sure what the process is when short stories are placed together in a book to decide which comes first but I'm not sure the order in this case does Weiner any favors for 2 reasons: 1. The first three stories are actually all about the same character at different times in her life and could have, with a little more flushing, been a full length novel. 2. They are not even close to the best stories in the book. The main character/narrator is not all that interesting either. I get very annoyed by characters that are what I see as "weak." I mean girls who never tell their mothers to back off or let the man treat them like shit just because they want a boyfriend. This is the narrator and for some reason a common character trait of girls in these chick-lit novels. I would actually like to hear the same stories told from her sister Nikki's point of view. Now THAT would make a great novel. Here's an example of Nikki from the story Travels with Nikki

My sister's earliest childhood memories were of torture. She talked frequently, nostalgically, about the happy days of her youth when she'd give John his bath and pour alternating pitchers of hot and cold water over his back. Never hot enough to burn him, just hot enough to make him extremely uncomfortable.

Swim, the story following this trilogy, is one of her better stories and why I think Weiner is a talented writer, even if I don't normally like the genre she writes. It's the story of a Hollywood screen writer learning to be comfortable with who she is and her place in the world. It does not have a happily ever after ending but I felt hopeful at the end even so and felt it was good in the way a short story should be, a complete story with good ending that doesn't leave you feeling as if it was simply the outlines of her next novel.

Good Men is the only story in this collection told from a man's point of view and on the audio is voiced by a man. This was a little jarring. Maybe when you're reading it's not so strange to go from 4 stories told by a woman to 1 told by a man but when you're listening and you have a certain voice in your head, it's very distracting. Also, I wasn't impressed with the story itself. A bunch of boys out on the town during a bachelor's party trying to figure out why anyone gets married and then they decided the problem in the narrator's relationship is the dog. The dog is evil so they plan to go kidnap it. Huh?

Buyer's Market is actually a great story but I didn't think so at first. I didn't like Jess, the narrator, for the simple reason that she's selling her beloved NYC apartment just so she can get the attention of her realtor. It's obvious to everyone but Jess that this down-on-his-luck realtor is playing her so her can get the commission on her apartment ("a weak character again" is what I thought). I ended up liking the story as it has one of those rare moments when you can see the change in a character. The moment when you get to see how her whole life could have been very different if she had not had this moment. It kind of reminds me of Sliding Doors in that way, a movie I love.

The Guy Not Taken is a new look at a common theme both in movies and books: what would my life be like if I had done this ONE thing different. Our narrator is Marlie and one night while at home with her baby she stumbles onto her ex-boyfriend's wedding registry. On a lark she logs in as him, knowing his passwords are always the same, and changes the name of the bride to her own. The next moment the computer shuts down and she is not able to change it back. She wakes up the next day with no baby, in her old apartment, next to her ex and getting ready for their engagement party...
It was interesting if cliche. Though I thought it didn't feel complete at the end.

The Mother's Hour was, for me, the best story in this book. Unfortunately, being an "abridgement" there were three stories from the book not in this audio version so I can't say that for sure but it was well written and a beautiful story about the friendship between two very different women, Alice and Victoria, and their children that develops when they both go to a Mother's Hour group. The group sounds like a cross between baby's playtime and group counseling session for moms. Not sure exactly what kind of group it was supposed to be but the defining moment for the group comes when one of the mother's wrongly reports Victoria for child abuse.

Check this out. You will not be disappointed.

Short Stories: Dreams

Hey look, I got stories up two Saturdays in a row! Let's see if I can keep this up!

I am continuing the stories from Stephen King's Just After Sunset. I have really enjoyed these stories so I've read them fairly fast and want to share them all with you. Hopefully soon I'll get back to the Orson Scott Card book of stories.

This is from Harvey's Dream

As Janet makes deviled eggs one morning, she notices her husband Harvey sitting at the kitchen table, looking old and disheveled. He is not normally like this but it haunts her to see him this way every weekend, as if it foretells the future. Harvey begins to tell her of his dream, a nightmare really. As he talks, Janet becomes increasingly scared. He describes looking out the window to see a dent in the neighbor's car, which Janet noticed this morning. He describes opening the fridge to see a plate of deviled eggs made and ready to eat. He describes noticing his shadow in the bright sunlight, which "never looked so bright or thick," just the way Janet had thought of his shadow before he began talking. And then Harvey talks about what scared him in the dream...

From Rest Stop

John Dykstra is a famous writer but no one who knows him knows this. This is because he uses a pen name, Rick Hardin. He is contemplating just where he and his alter-ego separate as he pulls into a rest stop one night. He hears the unmistakable sounds of a woman being beat by her boyfriend in the bathroom. He is struck paralyzed by the indecision of what to do until he realizes he doesn't have to do anything as John Dykstra but he CAN do something as Rick Hardin.

I haven't made comments on these so far because to say over and over again that I liked them would be redundant. It's much more fun to describe them and let you decide, but I didn't like Rest Stop. I felt it was dull and pointless and I didn't like the "hero."

Short Stories: Willa

I know I promised short stories every Saturday and haven't delivered. I have no excuse, really, but work and simply not feeling like it! These are from Stephen King's book of stories, Just After Sunset. So far, I'm really enjoying the stories in it, except for one that I think fell far short of Stephen King's genius. With that said, I feel like a lot of these stories were actually the first few chapters of some possibly great books but I don't think he recaptured the magic of short story telling like he thought he did. They all felt cut off and short stories might be short but they should be complete. There really isn't much to say about each of these stories without completely giving away everything so I'll give you two today.

The first is Willa.

The story is told through the eyes of Willa's fiancee, David. He is looking for her and asking everyone around the train station where he is if they have seen her. It's obvious these people have gotten to know each other pretty well as he walks around the station and you begin to wonder just how long they have been waiting for their train. Nothing is immediately odd as he walks out of the station to find her except how anxious everyone seems that he stay and wait for the train even though Willa may miss it. Once he finds her, Willa convinces David to see the world as it really is, how it has been for a long time for them only and they go back to the train station to show everyone there too...

Next up is The Gingerbread Girl

This is the story of Emily, who has taken up running after the death of her baby. Not just everyday, simple jogging to clear your mind and get exercise, but full out, the monster is after me, running. And she does it several times a day. Her husband sees it as an obsession. This causes a rift in the already unstable marriage. Emily goes to her father's beach house in Florida get some space and freedom to run. While there she encounters the crazy neighbor....

Short Stories: Brainworms

I took so long getting this posted today because I 1) have a migraine that's going to kill me and 2) wanted to give you a little more than just more Oliver Sacks. First I'll start with the Sacks because it's actually interesting

This comes from Chapter 5 of Oliver Sacks' Musicophilia, Brainworms, Sticky Music, and Catchy Tunes. Maybe I should explain what Sacks means about Brainworms before I lose everyone! Here's the sentence that explains it best:

Many people are set off by the theme of music of a film or television show or an advertisement. This is not coincidental, for such music is designed, in the terms of the music industry, to "hook" the listener, to be "catchy" or "sticky," to bore its way, like an earwig, into the ear or mind; hence the term "earworms" - though one might be inclined to call them "brianworms" instead.

This one was fun to read because who hasn't had this happen? We have all at one point be driven insane by some snippet of music stuck in our heads, whether we even liked the song or not. But I'll bet you've never had it happen for 43 years straight and felt locked inside yourself by it. This is what happened to one of Sacks Parkinson's patients described in his more well known book Awakenings. He says, "seven pairs of notes (the fourteen notes of Povero Rigoletto)...would repeat themselves irresistibly in her mind. She also spoke of these forming "a musical quadrangle" who four sides she would have to perambulate, mentally, endlessly. This might go on for hours on end, and did so at intervals throughout the entire 43 years of her illness, prior to being "awakened" by L-dopa."

Sacks talks of some ways people have found for getting rid of this problem, such as singing the song to it's actual conclusion (which I've heard of but never seems to work for me, I just get another part of the same song stuck in my head) or singing another song purposefully (of course then THIS may become stuck too!).

He gives an interesting theory, which I'll leave you to ponder, of the possible evolutionary reason for this phenomenon.

It may be that brainworms, even if maladaptive in our own music-saturated culture, stem from an adaptation that was crucial in earlier hunter-gatherer days: replaying the sounds of animals moving or other significant sounds again and again, until their recognition was assured.

The next short story is a real short story. I'll leave Sacks where he belongs for now, in my head! hahaha. It comes from Orson Scott Card's Keeper of Dreams, which I bought a year ago at his book signing. Yes, it's signed! It says, "To Tonya, A fellow dreamer," probably a common statement but one I enjoyed nonetheless. This story The Elephants of Poznan.

It is set in the future, as most of his books and stories are. It is in Poland after a devastating plague has not only killed most of the human population but also left them sterile. I'll start with the opening paragraph because I think it conveys so much:

In the heart of old Poznan, the capital of Great Poland since ancient times, there is a public square called Rynek Glowny. The houses around it aren't as lovely as those of Krakow, but they have been charming painted and there is a faded graciousness that wins the heart. The plaza came through World War II more or less intact, but the Communist governement apparently could not bear the thought of so much wasted space. What use did it have? Public squares were for public demonstrations, and once the Communists had seized control on behalf of the people, people, public demonstrations would never be needed again. So out in the middle of the square they built a squat, ugly building in a brutally modern style. It sucked the life out of the place. You had to stand with your back to it in order to truly enjoy the square.

Now I'm not sure if he is exaggerating or if the pictures I found simply didn't show the building he's talking about, but I thought it was beautiful!
This is an interesting story. After the plague, the elephants come to Poznan. The have journeyed from Africa and everyone is a little confused as to what they are doing here. Shortly afterward, a family comes to Poznan. The mother, father, and daughter came through the plague together, though they lost their two sons. Miraculously, the daughter is fully healthy and the parents believe she may be able to conceive. Since she is the only hope of the human race to survive, she agrees to an experiment of sleeping with one man every three months (in order to know which man is fertile). The narrator of the story turns out to be that man. Shortly after his son is born, he begins focusing on the elephants and why they seem to be watching the people, almost as if they are conducting an experiment...

I would love to tell the whole story but it would be the same! Please read this wonderful story!

Short Stories: More from Sacks

This Saturday I am continuing with Oliver Sacks' Musicophilia. I'm doing chapters since they are arranged in short story like manner. Here's the first post if you want more info.

Chapters 2 and 3 both deal with music in relation to epilepsy. Chapter 2 titled A Strangley Familiar Feeling: Musical Seizures, relates how some people have musical auras, that is, they hear a certain type of music before going into a seizure. They get recognize that if they hear this piece of music, they are most likely only hearing in their heads and are going to have a seizure soon. Some people with this type of aura feel that the music is very familiar but can never quite place it. Others recognize immediately the song they are hearing. The most interesting of these stories was of a mother who diagnosed her son with seizures before the doctors. She heard him humming Pop Goes The Weasel one morning, the same tune she hears just before she has a seizure.

Chapter 3 is titled Fear of Music: Musicogenic Epilepsy. I found this one terribly sad. It tells of people who's seizures are brought on by music. Sometimes any kind of music and sometimes one particular style or piece of music. It seems to be related to the emotions; the more emotional the type of music the more likely it is to cause a seizure. The saddest case was of the 19th music critic Nokonov. At first it was itermitent but gradually any type of music would bring on a seizure. He had to give up his career and actually began to fear all types of music.

Short Story Saturdays: First Post

I'm beginning this Short Story Saturdays for me to share short stories and chapters of books that are like short stories. I decided to do this when I picked up Oliver Sacks' book Musicophilia this afternoon and noticed that it was written in a sort of short story format. I like the idea of sharing so much more of this book than I would in a normal review but over a longer period of time. Many of you may not know that I am a music therapist. I've been meaning to read this book for a long time and finally, while at the bookstore today, said to myself "What are you waiting for? Buy it already!"

If anyone would like to join me in sharing some of their favorite short stories, feel free to do so here or on your blog but there are so many daily memes out there already that I'm not really expecting it. I have been so happy (and surprised!) that so many people are participating in my Friday 56 that I couldn't imagine being greedy and starting another one! I simply want to do this to make myself read those books of short stories I have sitting around my house looking at me and to share this wonderful book by Oliver Sacks.


Oliver Sacks is the famous neurologist who wrote the book Awakenings which the movie of the same name was based on (Robin Williams played him). Sacks is also a huge advocate for music therapy. Often when you hear him speak, he spends most of his time talking about the profound affect music can have on the brain. I was very excited when this book came out. So now I will stop blabbering and tell you about the first chapter.

A Bolt From The Blue: Sudden Musicophilia
This chapter is mainly about Tony Cicoria, a surgeon who is one day hit by a bolt of lightning. After a brief two week recovery period in which he has a few memory problems, everything seems to go back to normal. Then he suddenly is struck by the profound need to listen to piano music, specifically Chopin. He then feels the need to learn to play the piano and while he is learning Chopin, he begins to hear his own music. It becomes almost a compulsion for him to learn how to write down this music he hears. He does not stop being a surgeon but all his free time is now consumed by playing and writing his own music. Before the lightning strike he did not know how to play and was never interested in learning, much less composing his own music.

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