March 31 - "The Rememberer"

“The Rememberer”
by Aimee Bender
New Sudden Fiction (2007)

* * * (Good) Fantasy

A woman’s lover begins to devolve at an alarming rate. From man to ape to sea turtle and simpler creatures, her Ben slips away.

Bender writes some great and often fantastical fiction. However, in her stories the fantasy is always grounded firmly in reality. Sure, a man may change from human to ape, and ape to sea turtle, but the foundation of the story – the emotion – remains realistically true: the sadness in our world is a result of the lack of feeling and the reliance on thought. For a couple that believe this sentiment, Ben’s transformation comes as no surprise. The woman does what she can to keep her man as long as she can, but in the end understands his place in the world. That does not stop her from keeping her ears tuned to the news, and her phone number listed, in case of the sudden reappearance of her lover. This story makes me want to dig out that copy of Bender’s The Girl in the Flammable Skirt and dive back into a world of the strange and beautiful.

March 30 - "Something That Needs Nothing"

“Something That Needs Nothing”
by Miranda July
No One Belongs Here More Than You (2007)

* (Eh) Realistic

Two girls – one in love with the other – move away from home to find the world of jobs, rent, and love more difficult than either imagined.

So not in the mood for angsty, morose narrators. I actually enjoyed this same story when it was written as Diablo Cody’s memoir, Candy Girl - it was far less depressing. To be honest, they are nothing alike aside from the fact that each feature a stint in a peep show booth. I have a love/hate – more hate as I progress – relationship with this collection by July. These stories just aren’t for me. I must be too dissimilar to the characters and lives and feelings laid bare here to make the necessary connection. Which is unusual because I can easily find some connection with most stories I read. The banker, the assassin, the demon, the cops and robbers, etc. – there is always something to keep me entertained and engaged. In July, I am lost.

March 29 - "The Death of Jack Hamilton"

Sundays with Uncle Stevie“The Death of Jack Hamilton”
by Stephen King
Everything’s Eventual (2002)

* * * * * (Excellent) Realistic

Homer Van Meter, a member of the Dillinger Gang, shares the unknown tale behind the scar on John Dillinger’s lip. It’s a tale of robberies, firefights and speeding cars, lassoing flies, and the death of a friend, Jack “Red” Hamilton.

Now I really want to see Michael Mann’s Public Enemies starring Johnny Depp as John Dillinger. If Dillinger and his gang are anything like King portrays them in this “myth”, then the movie will be an enormous success. In this tale we learn the supposed “true story” about how Dillinger’s luck finally ran out. Narrated by Van Meter, you get a strong sense of the time through the dialogue, and of Dillinger’s charm in his interactions with each and every person he meets, be it a car-jack victim or close confidant. King perfectly captures his anti-heroic/outlaw appeal. This story teases a genre King could very easily branch out into: crime, or cops and robbers. (To be honest, I’m such a supporter that I believe King could write anything and it would succeed.) And the idea of lassoing flies creates an amazing image. That someone has the patience, skill, and dexterity to accomplish such of a feat is unbelievable, but the thought of those white threads attached to the flies floating in the air is just as funny and beautiful to me as it was to the dying Jack Hamilton.

March 29 - "The Ship with Three Decks"

A Week of Italo Calvino“The Ship with Three Decks”
by Italo Calvino
Italian Folktales (1980)

* * * * * (Excellent) Folktale

A boy tricked into servitude by a mangy man sets off on a quest to find the King of England’s missing daughter. Sailing a ship with three decks, the youth finds the missing princess, but must first complete three trials.

Sometimes the fun arrives not from knowing how the story will end, but in how the story gets there. A ship with three decks, each deck loaded with different cargos, each cargo delivered to a thankful island, and each island pledging future aid: we know the formula. The enjoyment comes in learning of the challenges facing the youth searching out the King’s kidnapped daughter. That the characters are no more than cookie-cutter copies of the inhabitants of any other folktale makes no difference to the story, and my enjoyment the tale.

A successful folktale can transport you back to your childhood, when times were magical, and stories – especially those folk and fairy tales – filled you with wonder. I still find that magic and fascination in the stories I read, but these folktales and fables I’ve been reading remind me of childhood, as I imagine they do for most – it is when we were first introduced. Sometimes a bit of nostalgia can brighten a day.

March 28 - "Good For Nothing"

A Week of Italo Calvino"Good For Nothing"
by Italo Calvino
Numbers in the Dark (1995)

* * * * (Great) Fable

A man's shoelace continues to come untied while he walks through town. The same, light-eyed man points out this frustrating fact to him, with increasing regularity.

There are days when no matter what you do, nothing goes right. And to have this fault pointed out to you repeatedly would make anyone upset. After the confrontation with the light-eyed man, we learn that the man never did learn how to tie his shoes. It was something that he didn't care to learn. When asked who would teach his kids to tie their shoes, he assumed someone else would teach them. The light-eyed man then asked what would happen if everyone only did the things they enjoyed? I think about this occasionally; for I am the man with untied shoelaces, relying on others to do the things I find, well, boring.

And beyond the moralizing, this is a story with some great descriptions. The setting and the man's feelings of growing frustration at the continued sight of this disapproving, light-eyed man are well realized in this short tale.

March 27 - "The Black Sheep"

A Week of Italo Calvino“The Black Sheep”
by Italo Calvino
Numbers in the Dark (1995)

* * * * (Great) Fable

There was a town in which everyone was a thief. In this town, from next-door neighbor to government official, everyone stole from one another. And then an honest man arrived.

They say man is an animal at heart, naturally evil. This story presents a bleak, but entirely logical, lesson about the nature of man and his tendencies. It presents a utopia formed from universal thieving. In the story’s scant two pages, this utopia is challenged, and we are forced to question our own ideals. I quite enjoyed it. I suppose that has to do with my own cynical tendencies, but I digress. What I found most fascinating were the progressively logical sentences, for example:

“So everybody lived happily together, nobody lost out, since each stole from the other, and that other from another gain, and so on and on until you got to a last person who stole from the first.”

Everyone is equal. (And now I wonder: Was Calvino a Socialist? I hate to think this deeply.)

March 26 - "The Man Wreathed in Seaweed"

A Week of Italo Calvino“The Man Wreathed in Seaweed”
by Italo Calvino
Italian Folktales (1980)

* * * (Good) Folktale

A king offers a reward to the person who finds his kidnapped daughter. The search for the princess moves from land to sea where a drunkard is abandoned on a small island and finds a surprise.

A fine story, if not overly predictable. The innocent are double-crossed, the wicked are punished, and the ending is happy – the same old story, told in a different way, and at times rather awkwardly translated from its original Italian. I did enjoy the imagery, from the shape-shifting creature to drunken, seaweed-clad Samphire Starboard emerging from the sea; there were many pretty pictures floating around. It is also nice to find the occasional happy ending to a story. Most of our fictions today aim to be realistic, strive for that accuracy of life, and end up reflecting back bleak but honest reality.

March 25 - "Dauntless Little John"

A Week of Italo Calvino“Dauntless Little John”
by Italo Calvino
Italian Folktales (1980)

* (Eh) Folktale

Dauntless Little John takes the only available room in town, a room in which no one has ever survived the night.

I’ll be honest: the magic of this story was lost on me. I didn’t understand the story in the least. Part of the problem may be my unfamiliarity with the culture – I know nothing of Italian folklore; I know little of any folklore outside what I have read in comic books and seen in cartoons. I do like the idea of an unafraid boy, but the mysteriously assembled giant and surprise ending made little sense. All the fancy sentences and styling can’t save a story you do not understand. In a collection of 200 folktales, I simply hope to find more I enjoy than not.

March 24 - "Solidarity"

A Week of Italo Calvino“Solidarity”
by Italo Calvino
Numbers in the Dark

* * * * (Great) Fable

A man moves seamlessly between robbers and cops during a break-in, equally co-conspirator and colleague.

The idea of being comfortable on opposite sides has a certain appeal, to be every man’s friend and no man’s enemy. The story plays out like one of those screwball comedies from the 1930’s in which an ordinary everyman finds himself stuck in an impossible – but hilarious to the viewer/reader – situation. The short, precise sentences help to convey the urgency of the situation along with the ease in which the man comfortably and effortlessly blends with each group. There is no question where this man belongs; he is simply part of the team.

March 24 - "Conscience"

A Week of Italo Calvino“Conscience”
by Italo Calvino
Numbers in the Dark (1995)

* * (Okay) Fable

Luigi joined the army believing he’d be able to kill Alberto, an enemy of his.

The problem with fables, or stories with morals, is that they can often come off sounding preachy. This story doesn’t quite go that far, but it comes close. There isn’t a lot of story here, just a few awkward sounding sentences strung together to hammer home a point about the reason we fight wars. In search of the one man he truly wants to kill, Luigi kills many other “innocent” people. For this killing he is awarded medal upon medal. When the war is over – his Alberto never found – it is his conscience he must reconcile. The reasons we fight are often our own, and it is those reasons we have to live and battle with once the war has ended. It’s not a terrible message; it’s just not well expressed in this brief tale.