As I mentioned last Monday, I’m reading 2-3 stories from this book per week as part of the Short Story Challenge. This will enable me to complete it before July 1 and count it for the Canadian Challenge.
The three stories I read this past week were “Accidents,” “Sailors Lost at Sea,” and “Purple Blooms.”
Accidents – A Canadian couple in France find that accidents while on vacation are common.
Sailors Lost at Sea – A poet and her daughter are spending the year in France. Here, another ‘accident’ happens, but the resolution of it is unclear. I’d really like to know what happened!
Purple Blooms – A woman gives out copies of one of her favorite poetry books to family and friends who don’t seem to appreciate it. Or do they?
I enjoyed all three of these, but it seems to me that many stories I’ve read over the past few months (not just from Shields) feel unfinished. I want closure, and most of the time that is not forthcoming. I wonder if that’s a relatively recent trend in short story-telling. Has that been anyone else’s experience as well?
I don’t read many short stories but I know I’ve felt that way a lot after I finish a short story. It’s not that I don’t want everything to be perfectly explained and all that but the ones I’ve read usually feel so open-ended. I like the few Carol Shields books I’ve read a lot so I’d be interested in giving this collection a go.
I love short stories and I’ve been very distressed at the state of the art form lately. It seems like authors have forgotten how to put a proper ending on their stories.
The modern short story…an interesting character has something interesting happen to him or her, they muse about it for a while, smoke a cigarette or have some coffee…the end.
Am I right?
I’d say it’s a trend in writing in general, or at least in Canadian books. I see the philosophical argument: that true beginnings and endings don’t exist, but if a tale can’t have some sort of lifespan I also wonder what’s the point of telling it?