FFB: THE STORIED LIFE OF A.J. FIKRY Gabrielle Zevin

This was a most enjoyable book that I listened to rather than read. The narrator did a good job although his reading was a bit too formal for my taste. It is the story of a recent widower who owns a book store on an island and is fast becoming the town misanthrope. And then a baby is left on his doorstep and the little girl quickly changes him, allowing him to live a much fuller life. The romance in the book, which occupies a large space early on, is given short shrift once they are together. Which I guess explains why so many TV shows keep their central love interest separated for so long. But all of the characters are nicely developed. I especially enjoyed A. J.s best friend, the local police chief.

Short Story Wednesday: THE COLLECTED STORIES OF ERNEST HEMINGWAY

 (reviewed by Ed Gorman)

 

 

The Collected Stories of Ernest Hemingway

If you grew up in the Forties or Fifties it was impossible to imagine that the literary luster of Ernest Hemingway would ever dim. I've never known of a writer as imitated (usually badly) as ole Papa.

He loved it. He carefully crafted the public persona of adventurer and man's man the press and the people loved. Novels such as A Farewell To Arms and For Whom The Bell Tolls outsold the books of his contemporaries.

But time and taste caught up with him and we now see that Hemingway's novels weren't quite as good as we once thought. He certainly had no Gatsby to brag of nor even a Grapes of Wrath by the despised Steinbeck; Papa believed he was a terrible writer. For me the only novel of his worth reading now is The Sun Also Rises. It's not a great novel but it's fascinating one and much truer to the real Hemingway than the novels he wrote afterward.

But then there are the short stories. Back in the day his collected stories were referred to with great reverence as The First Forty-Nine.
Many of them were reprinted dozens if not hundreds of times around the world, textbooks included. They still deserve the reverence paid them back then.

From his story of death and dying ("A Clean, Well-Lighted Place") to his sad and ironic tale of a soldier who came back from the First World War too late for the parades ("Soldier's Home:) to the stories set in Upper Michigan this is American literature at its finest. This was Hemingway before he became Papa--the confused boy-man who went to war and then set himself up in Paris to write.

In numerous stories here he proves himself the equal of Faulkner (whom he saw as his main competition--he'd already arrogantly written off his old friend (and the guy who got him his Scribner contract) Fitzgerald) in experimenting with point of view. The line, as several critics
mentioned at the time, went from Stephen Crane to Mark Twain to Hemingway, that pure American voice. If you read Crane's "The Blue Hotel"
before you reading Hemingway's Collected Stories you'll hear the echoes throughout start the book.

For readers and writers alike, this is one book that should be in every serious collection. There was no more vital and powerful voice than
Hemingway's in his early stories (and I don't include The Old Man And The Sea, which I never much liked: way too self-consciously Important). Today they're just as pure and perfect as they were when first published. All hail Hemingway.

George Kelley

Jerry House

Kevin Tipple/Earl Staggs review 

Monday, Monday

 

WIDOW CLIQUOT is the story of the first female champagne -maker in France. It was pretty to look at but concentrated too heavily on her husband's opium addiction when it should have been more about her court case to claim ownership of the vineyards. Too bad. I am trying to support a local theater that is taking a chance on foreign and indy films but some of them aren't great either.

Finishing up JAMES by Percival Everett and THE STORIED LIFE OF A.J. FIKRIE, which Tracy talked about last week. Enjoying both.

On TV, started CRACKERS (again). I saw it the first time when we were living in Manchester so it is bringing back a lot of memories from 1994-95. And even '97 when we watched another season in Amsterdam. I wish it was a better copy of the series. We forget how much better TV shows look now. Also watching PRESUMED INNOCENT. Great acting but the plot is all over the place. One left.

A lot of nice weather this last stretch. Mid-eighties mostly, which is summer. 

Went down to see the restoration of Michigan Central-which as they said was Michigan's Ellis Island. They did a great job, but it looks like an office building and not a train station (which is what it now it. Ford did a great job on detailing the story for visitors. They decided to keep some of the graffiti that was everywhere for many years. It's part of its history too. 

What about you?

FFB: FLIGHT TO DARKNESS, Gil Brewer

 

  https://billcrider.blogspot.com/2009/12/forgotten-books-flight-to-darkness-gil.html

"This is How It Begins" DARK YONDER

 

Short Story Wednesday: "Alaska" from POTATO TREE by James Sallis

 A collection of all of James Sallis fiction (BRIGHT SEGMENTS) is coming out in November. I have always greatly admired his writing-and there is much of it to admire. His Lew Griffin detective series is one of my favorites. So too his John Turner trilogy. But his short stories are something even more special to me. He understands perfectly what the reader needs to know and he gives them exactly that. He captures both the horror and beauty of the world. There is never a boring sentence and his characters come alive in so few words.

"Alaska" takes place in a medical unit where a woman Tony (our protagonist) has known is brought in with a bird's beak sunk into her cheek. While a surgeon is brought into do a surgical procedure to remove it, Tony and Susan mete out the sparse details that led to their earlier breakup. Details of the medical unit are interspersed with their love story, along with the removal of the bird's beak, how does he get it so right? Multiple pain fills the page. Not a wasted word. Brilliant. 

Todd Mason

George Kelley 

TracyK 

Jerry House 

Casual Debris