One of the great delights of reading is inhaling a well-crafted short story. It may have a great significance to a small portion of the meaning of life. Or it may be a quirky tale that pinpoints a moment in time that takes on long-lasting significance. Or maybe it's just a slice of life not meant to be anything more.
One author who writes short stories of all three types in Haruki Murakami. Although he also is a master of novels, his short stories are special. His latest collection, First Person Singular, features only stories written in first person. They demonstrate just how wide a range that can encompass.
There is the opening short story, for example. Cream is about an incident that the adult narrator recounts of a time when he was 18 and invited to a recital that didn't actually exist. While taking refuge in a small park to gather his wits, a much older man appears before him, asks him to imagine a circle with many centers and no circumference, and later disappears after admonishing him to seek out the creme de la creme of life.
The point? The narrator has realized that seeking out the best of the best, the creme de la creme, in whatever life throws at him is what keeps him grounded.
Like many Murakami pieces, there is mysteriousness, there are events that may not make sense to the characters in them at the time, and there is reconciliation to carrying on by the character most affected. His prior collection, Men Without Women, resembles a collection of his beloved jazz pieces. There are passages that bring back to mind earlier passages, that recall earlier characters, that echo earlier emotions. One story in particular, Kino, is bursting with these passages.
"It struck (the story's titular character) at times that there was something about him that stirred up the dark side in other people." Now that's a character who would have been at home in Kafka on the Shore.
Another recent short story collection, The Souvenir Museum, has a completely different tone. Elizabeth McCracken is as masterful at writing short stories as she is at crafting novels. The opening offering, The Irish Wedding, introduces Jack and Sadie. They will pop up throughout the stories, and they are characters worth considering.
Jack is English, although he was born in America and, as the author states, couldn't pass for English. Sadie is an American doctor. They travel to Ireland for the wedding of one of Jack's sisters. Sadie is bombarded by a family that would be eccentric if its members were more wealthy. But even the sister who doesn't tell Sadie much of anything reliable, and who seems fearsome, does not come across as malignant. When their father says something at the wedding toast that Sadie thinks is a joke, but which is a joke only in American vernacular and not English, her laughter is contagious.
Indeed, the scene and its aftermath are so well played that even though the saying never did much for me, its humor shines in this story.
Short story collection recommendations have been coming across my timeline recently, and many great suggestions were made. At Lithub, for example, the entire decade is covered. Any list that includes George Saunders, Alice Munro, Adam Johnson and Claire Vaye Watkins is a list worth checking out.
Another compilation by Esquire includes several I've been thinking about reading, and some older beloved editions. I know Hemingway had issues, big issues, but the Nick Adams stories are gems. Also, I love Raymond Carver's work. And I get to think about it whenever I drive up the road to Costco, as he once lived in the town where it is.
Last year, Buzzfeed recommended The World Doesn't Require You by Rion Amilcar Scott and A Lucky Man by Jamel Brinkley (as do I). Also, Flannery. Always, read Flannery.
Every year, as the shelves above show, I look forward to a new Best American Short Stories edition.
The short stories that stay with me seem to be those that pack a punch at the end, when the protagonist makes a profound decision (or it has been made for him). Revealing the titles of any like that in these collections would constitute being a spoiler, so I won't. But I can say that the opportunity to read one of these stories, set the book down and let it stay in the back of my memory for a few hours, is an opportunity too enriching to pass up. With May being short story month, it also becomes an opportunity to celebrate this form of storytelling.
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