This year I am also taking the Decades Challenge, and I started books published before 1900. The two short stories are from a book collection, The American Tradition.
Jan *1 Book from TBR
The Yellow Wallpaper
Author: Charlotte Perkins Gilman
Genre: short story
Page number: 24
First published: 1892
Setting: US in late 19th century
Rating: 4 stars
First sentence: It is very seldom that mere ordinary people like John and myself
secure ancestral halls for the summer.
One sentence comment: It’s a creepy story that mixed with humor.
I
started with an author I had not read for 2024 challenges. Besides I haven’t
read short stories for a long time, and this time I like it. It’s hard to
imagine that a woman of mirth would bear so much stress to the point of
depression, but strangely, the hallucination saved her from feeling prisoned.
Jan *2 same genre/theme as *1 book
The Real Thing
Author: Henry James
Genre: short story
Page number: 68
First published: 1893
Setting: UK in the late nineteenth century
Rating: 5 stars
First sentence: When the porter’s wife, who used to answer the house-bell,
announced “ A gentleman and a lady, sir” I had, as I often had in those days –
the wish being father to the thought – an immediate vision of sitters.
One sentence comment: It is a heart wrenching story though I was not quite in the
narrator’s state ‘ my drawing was blurred for a moment.’
I
tried to read Henry James’ A Portrait of a Lady decades ago but gave up.
A few years ago, I read but didn’t like Turn of the Screw – too scary
and ambivalent. Then I was deeply touched by Washington Square. Now I
decided to start this year with his short story. James is famous for his subtle
writing with sublime beauty, and I truly felt the effect how he delivered the
story of a genteel couple now losing their livelihood. I could sympathize with
the narrator’s decision from the very beginning and sadness to the end.
Jan *3 similar style cover to *2 book
Tweak: Growing up on Methamphetamines
Author: Nic Sheff
Genre: memoir
Page number: 351
First published: 2008
Setting: San Francisco present time
Rating: 4 stars
First sentence: Day 1
I'd heard rumors about what happened to
Lauren
One sentence comment: The vivid journey on the street is surprisingly comic, and the
picture of how the rich people live is appalling.
It
is a book full of adventure and humor. The narrator started his wayward life as
early as when he was sent to Paris to learn French as a teenager, then he
squandered money from his father's credit card, thinking he could live like
that forever until the card were canceled. He had to go back to face his life,
a rich life without meaning. The book is a journey of a young man's struggling
with self value and finding salvation.
Jan *4 An author from the same country as
that of *3 book
The Novice’s Tale ( A Sister Frevisse
medieval mystery #1)
Author: Margaret Frazer
Genre: historical mystery
Page number: 229
First published: 1992
Setting: oxfordshire, UK in 1431
Rating: 5 stars
First sentence: Mid-September in the year of our Lord’s grace 1431 and perfect
weather, warm and dry.
First of all, I
enjoy the major trait of the book - treating scenes as characters. In the first
chapter, it described the priory in more than one page – bustling but serene.
In chapter four, the first paragraph gave a vivid view of the kitchen, an
important place for secular servants to work. I’m personally quite taken by
atmosphere of a priory, a place for regular schedules and rigorous research.
Secondly,
the book elaborated a character’s personality through events and other people’s
view like a penetrating picture or drama. When the pious and timid novice,
Thomasine first encountered an important man to the priory, she didn’t dare to
look but her curiosity propelled her to peek and to compare him with her
father. Later her obnoxious aunt, the
pompous and abusive Lady Ermentrude pronounced, “You become any meeker, you’ll
cease to breathe!”
Despite
of Margaret Frazer’s aesthetic prose, the plot is a page turner for the first
50 pages. The mentioning of the court scandal, the young king in France, the
witch Jon of Arc, all seemed evocative clues. After a quarter of the book, we
came to see the inner world of the major protagonist, Sister Frevisse. Then we
started to understand what sort of person she was besides her glamouring
opening scene as a confident and chatty niece of an important man who visited
the priory. It is a wonderful surprise to see how the book structured.
This
book is my favorite in January. If I need to criticize the book, that is the
murder victim’s vice and torture was too much exaggerated. Unfortunately, the
series seem to be out of print except the first two volumes.
