Short Stories on Wednesdays #25

Welcome to the 2012 edition of Short Stories on Wednesdays!

For those of you who are new to this, a few things:

• This weekly meme was first begun to encourage myself and others to read at least one short story a week. So, if you feel like you would like to give this oft neglected genre (form?) a chance just hop right in!
• All links to short story posts are to be added to the comments section. I don’t use a link-up button.
• You don’thave to have a write up on the short stories you have read. You can just mention them in the comments section.
• Hop along and check out what others might be reading. You never know, you might be inspired to try writers you’ve never tried. I know I have!

To old and new participants alike I have a couple of new features included:

• Every fourth Wednesday we’ll be having a theme-read. This means, on the third Wednesday of every month I will announce a theme for the following week. The idea is to pick up a short story that revolves around that theme, and share what you’ve been reading with the rest of us. I figured it would be a fun way to discover what different kinds of writers can do with one theme!  Following the theme is not compulsory, though. So don’t panic.
• Every second Wednesday I plan on having a guest post by fellow bloggers or a giveaway by short story writers (should any be interested). If any of you are interested in  contributing an article regarding short stories or a short story itself, please do fill in this form.

Note: Next week’s guest post is by Mel U from The Reading Life. Stay tuned! ^_^

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 I’m really excited about starting this new year off with our very first post! For those of you who have been waiting to link up, I apologise for this delay. I woke up extremely early this morning, and having gone to bed very late last night, I wasn’t in a fit state to read or do anything except browse. Now that I’ve managed to get in an hour’s sleep while my little one was napping, I feel completely refreshed!

So, what have I been reading?

I got back to Murakami’s short stories about half an hour back. (Yes, I was reading for this post!) And I feel like I should be neglecting this collection any more. I really enjoy his short stories. Hopefully I’ll be able to finish Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman by the end of this year.

“The Mirror” by Haruki Murakami
Every time read one of these short stories I can’t help but have the entire story run through my imagination in the for of Japanese anime! I’m not sure how many of you here watch anime, but there are some very strange series out there that I am beginning to suspect is a very Japanese trait. Their ghost and supernatural stories are just plain weird. And fascinating!

“The Mirror” is written in the first person. The narrator is actually part of a group that you can imagine, is sitting in a circle, in a darkened room, each friend talking about the ghosts they have heard of or have seen/felt. Our narrator, however, has never seen a ghost he says. But then he recounts an incident that happened to him when he was a teenager. Absolutely creepy! I like how Murakami ends it:

…the most frightening thing in the world is our own self.

“The Birthday Girl” by Haruki Murakami
I wonder if any of you who read my review of Murakami’s “Birthday Girl” remembers that I hadn’t a clue what the ‘wish’ was? If you look at the comments section of that post, someone pointed out to me that the girl’s wish was that she would never have a wish. I went back to reading it and realised that that could be it!

“The Brothers” by Louisa May Alcott
Yep! I’m still reading Alcott short stories. I’ve yet to complete the four-story collection I began with “A Modern Cinderella” and “Debby’s Debut”.

This particular story was completely different from the first two. It is narrated by a young Yankee woman who was a nurse during the Civil War. She recounts a particular incident of a patient who was dying and she had to attend to. Sent in to help her was a ‘contraband’. I’ve put that word in quotes because I’d never heard it before. For those, like me, who don’t know — a contraband is a person with mixed blood in them (by mixed blood I mean a mixture of races/colour). So, this young lady has a contraband to help her with her white patient, and she soon learns that her helper is really out to kill her patient. Apparently, he has strong reason to want to seek revenge, but our narrator convinces him not to commit murder. Months later she comes across him again and learns about his final confrontation with the object of his hatred.

I don’t think I care much for this story. While the story itself was interesting, Alcott’s tone seemed to me a bit condescending. I don’t think she means to sound so. But I suspect the fact that the Yankees were fighting for the freedom of the blacks lends a sense of self-righteousness to her tone of writing. It marred the tale for me. Of course, it was interesting to see a wee bit of the otherside of the Civil War after having read Gone with the Wind last year. Yet, over-all, this story did not affect as much as it could have had Alcott written it better.

So, what short stories have you managed to read this past week?