Tag Archives: Short Stories

August 28, 2011 · 3:26 pm

Missed Her: Or, What is a Story?

     My first introduction to Ivan E. Coyote came in the form of a Christmas gift from K. when she gave me Bow Grip and Closer to Spiderman (see post of ages ago). I loved Ivan E. then and I love her now.

I love that after finishing an Ivan E. collection I’m left considering not just the subjects of the stories – familial bonds, those expectations about identity and behaviour we carry into any encounter with other people, the obligations we hold to one another, the limits we set, define or negotiate about our own identities – but the quality of “story” as a form. That Coyote’s stories read not as fictional tales with made-up protagonists in invented circumstances, but as stories we might hear and share at the pub, make reading a collection feel like a conversation, like I have been invited into an intimate exchange and have been trusted to hear the stories and do with them what I will (hopefully something good).

K. sent me this story last week, and when I got to it in the collection I was outraged, thinking someone had plagarized Coyote on a website, not putting together (sigh) that K. had sent me the very much attributed Coyote story: http://www.xtra.ca/public/National/Ten_steps_to_getting_over_the_ex_who_just_walked_out_on_you-8095.aspx

I liked this one because it made me laugh, and diverged in tone from the rest of the collection that otherwise keeps close to first person narration and generally defines plot around small scale person-to-person interactions. (Also because it offers reasonable advice.)

No favourite story in this collection, just a general sense of appreciation for a writer who creates stories that read as personal and particular, and yet all the same widely understood and shared.

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April 25, 2011 · 9:51 pm

Animal: Sad Aborted Puppies

     I think Alexandra Leggat’s Animal is about more than abortions and puppies. In fact, I know it’s also about uneven expectations in relationships, compromises, and the lies that appearances belie, but when I think of my overall impression what comes to mind are abortions and dogs. I don’t even think the short story collection has a single story with an abortion in it (miscarriages, yes) but somehow many of them contain the same kind of sadness: aborted love, aborted futures, aborted choices. As for dogs, characters routinely long for particular dogs. Not in the way a teenage girl longs for a prom date, but in the way older women long to return to their younger bodies so as to live in them with pride and confidence: that is, a frustrated, anxious and sad kind of longing. I’m not sure why it’s dogs they long for, and not, say, other people. Perhaps because the collection as a whole suggests other people ought not to be trusted, ought not to be relied upon, because they will inevitably be selfish.

I preferred stories in the middle section of the collection – no good reason why. On the whole I felt too many of the stories ended with a “This is a very symbolic ending!” kind of wrap-up, and that characters received uneven development. All the same, the rich thematic scope and some brilliant descriptions of suffering women makes the collection a worthwhile read if you’re into depressing scenes in bathtubs.

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January 15, 2011 · 10:19 pm

Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage: Too many ships; so much brilliance

                                    So it’s something of an admission to confess I’d never read a full collection of Alice Munro’s stories before now. The thing is – as faithful readers will know – I dislike short stories, even (or maybe especially?) short stories by brilliant authors. Before this collection I’d read one of Munro’s stories (“Boys and Girls”) for a class I taught, and really enjoyed it, but all the same resisted reading a full collection because, as with all short story collections, I feel (violently) opposed to the brief introduction to characters, which must inevitably end too early. I appreciate the short story as a compressed form, one which achieves great thematic feats in a short space, and yet all the same, I can’t help feel cheated by what I’ll never find out about characters (this from someone who writes her own – shoddy – short stories).

In any case, this collection (poorly named, I think – far too many ships) almost makes up for the failings of the form by introducing brilliant characters and having some long (novella length?) stories. I even took the new e-reader into the tub because I couldn’t wait to finish a story (new splash bag for the reader comes this week, have no fear).

I will say that amid the triumph of rendering nuanced and hopelessly believable characters in heart-breaking situations, I loved the collection, but didn’t always like it. I felt that after another hopeless ending where things don’t quite work out, or people aren’t reunited, or are miserable, or find their lives are not the lives they ought to be, that I could do with an ending where things work out. And maybe Munro’s talent is in capturing the reality of lives – the impossibility, the failure, the absence, the missed connections – and perhaps I ought to turn to another author if I want to read stories were things feel resolved, but all the same, I wouldn’t have minded a couple of stories to pick me up along the way, to restore some faint sense of hope in humanity. L. suggested that I might read one Munro story a month rather than a whole collection at once, and perhaps she’s right (but there’s no time for that kind of spacing in a year of 100 books…). Maybe I can only handle a confrontation with what is true in small, once a month doses. A complaint about me then, I suppose. Me and my desire – my commitment? my faith? my hope? – for a happy ending needs monthly dosing with Munro. Maybe all of us need monthly Munro to help us find out about others and to remind us that we are, all of us, after all, always in some kind of ‘ship,’ always colliding with others. 

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January 6, 2010 · 12:42 am

Ivan E. Coyote: Bow Grip, Close to Spider Man – I fall in love

I didn’t want to read Bow River. It had a tough spine, and I hate books with a tough spine. But it was a Christmas gift from my brother, and I like to read books that are given to me so I can thank the person and mean it. So I read it. And I owe my brother. Owe him something awesome, because Ivan E. Coyote hooked me from page one and held me the whole way through, and has me still I think.

Bow River, Coyote’s first novel, introduces the reader to Joey a year after his wife has left him for another woman. He is forced to take a vacation because his mother is threatening him with Prozac and he has a car that belongs to another man and he needs to return it. The novel covers a week in Joey’s life, and a week is not – not nearly – enough. He is a character so endearing and so honest that I’ve spent the last few days wondering whether by moving to a small town in Alberta I might find my own Joey. And it’s not just him! The characters that surround him are delightful and so perfectly drawn that I could imagine both exactly who they are and somehow still think of a dozen people they remind me of.

Let me now say something about short stories. I don’t read short stories. Not unless I have to. But I put down Bow River and immediately picked up Coyote’s 2000 collection, Close to Spider Man. My problem with short stories is that you just get a snippet. Just a little tease of a character or a plot, and then you’re cut off. I fall in love in that I really and truly care about well written characters, but with short stories I’m constantly being separated from the characters I have been introduced to. Happily, Coyote’s collection follows one woman and uses one (more or less) consistent narrative voice. I have every intention of going to the library tomorrow to check out the remaining three collections. Those I suppose I’d be wise to ration them, as there’s a good chance I’ll be sulky and sad when my available Coyote stock disappears. Or maybe I’ll take a break, read something else, and just let these two stunning works roll around in my head for awhile. In any event, let’s hope my string of excellent reads continues.

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