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Apparently May Is Short Story Month
May. 4th, 2023 11:45 amTo celebrate, the Literary Hub (lithub) will post recommendation of a short story free to read online every work day in May.
The stories so far:
1st May: Alice Munro’s “Wenlock Edge”
2nd May: García Márquez’s “The Handsomest Drowned Man in the World.”
3rd May: Edward P. Jones’s “Bad Neighbors.”
Alice Munro’s “Wenlock Edge” reminds me of Sir Gawain and the Green Knigh, but it's a dark and cynical modern story, with betrayal, sexual menace and tension, and exploitation. The narrator isn't a nice nor good person, but somehow the writer makes her sympathetic.
I like the magical realism in García Márquez’s “The Handsomest Drowned Man in the World.”. The women first saw him as "the most supreme example of a man they have ever seen—the tallest, strongest, most virile, and best built." Their projection of dream, hope and desire eventually brought the village together in solidarity and future transformation.
Edward P. Jones’s “Bad Neighbors.” is about a working class Black family moving into a middle class Black neighborhood. Classism has brought them into an eventual clash. I really like this line:
The stories so far:
1st May: Alice Munro’s “Wenlock Edge”
2nd May: García Márquez’s “The Handsomest Drowned Man in the World.”
3rd May: Edward P. Jones’s “Bad Neighbors.”
Alice Munro’s “Wenlock Edge” reminds me of Sir Gawain and the Green Knigh, but it's a dark and cynical modern story, with betrayal, sexual menace and tension, and exploitation. The narrator isn't a nice nor good person, but somehow the writer makes her sympathetic.
I like the magical realism in García Márquez’s “The Handsomest Drowned Man in the World.”. The women first saw him as "the most supreme example of a man they have ever seen—the tallest, strongest, most virile, and best built." Their projection of dream, hope and desire eventually brought the village together in solidarity and future transformation.
Edward P. Jones’s “Bad Neighbors.” is about a working class Black family moving into a middle class Black neighborhood. Classism has brought them into an eventual clash. I really like this line:
And Sharon, coming rather late to this awareness of her womanhood, had begun to take some delight in seeing boys wither as they stood close enough to her to smell the mystery that had nothing to do with perfume and look into the twinkling brown eyes she had inherited from a grandmother who had seen only the morning, afternoon, and evening of a cotton field.
