frumiousb

I have read most of the big Hemingway novels-- For Whom the Bell Tolls, The Sun Also Rises (my favorite), The Old Man and the Sea. I had limited exposure to the short stories, having only read "The Short Happy Life of Frances Macomber" and "The Snows of Kilimanjaro". Honestly, I didn't like those two very much-- they seemed to distill the elements of Hemingway's prose of which I am least fond. I decided to buy this book since I have been spending more time lately on the structure of the short story-- and Hemingway is a master of prose.

I am actually glad that I read the whole collection. It is a pretty big pill to swallow, and there were moments when I got a little bit tired of it. But to read all of his short stories gives a much more nuanced sense of his approach to topics like blood sports, war, and masculinity then you get from just reading the handful of famous stories. I liked him and his narrative voice much better for reading the whole thing. My favorites were some of the smaller pieces midway through the volume: "The Killers" and "A Day's Wait" were personal favorites, for example.

If you have an interest in Hemingway and would like to read further in his work than just the major novels, then I would certainly recommend the collection.

This is the second book that I have read by Busch. The first was Girls, and that was a while ago. (I'm actually a little curious to reread it now, since I have the feeling that the plot would speak to me more strongly these days.)

Don't Tell Anyone reminded me, in a way, of A Multitude of Sins, by Richard Ford. The thematic connection between the stories in Busch's book are not so obvious, but it still had the feeling for me of a meditation on a theme.

My trouble is that I'm not exactly sure what the theme is-- something about love and missed connections. Something about the things that you see and don't see in family members. There is something specific about parents and their children and the way the madness and guilt eat into the relationships, although that makes it sound more overt than it actually is written. There is a lot about infidelity and alienation of affection, although this mostly seems to be the result of missed connections and broken moments than the subject as such.

Busch writes a mean short story. Personally, I got much more out of the stories than I did from the novella at the end ("A Handbook for Spies"). I don't think that this is because the novella is particularly weak, more that I had the feeling that his strengths as a writer are most vividly highlighted in the shorter works. "Joy of Cooking" was probably my favorite, for reasons that I certainly subjective. For me, Busch's main strength is the ability to strike a glancing blow on very big topics. He doesn't go after his subjects with an elephant gun, knowing that a needle will do more than well enough.

Any suggestions as to where I should read next in his body of work?

I don't understand at all why the bulk of Zenna Henderson's work is no longer in print. If I could choose five speculative fiction authors that I believe should be sitting on everyone's shelf, then her name would be in the top three. I discovered her work as a child, with The Anything Box and quickly went on to read everything that I could find that she had written. Sadly, most of those books passed out of my hands in my young adult years, so I have been slowly finding and collecting them again as I can.

Holding Wonder is a collection of short stories. There is one story of The People (Henderson's most famous group of characters). The rest follow themes that are very typical for her work-- complex ideas of survival, acceptance and disaster worked out through the eyes of a school teacher and her charges-- allowing room for miracles: the effectiveness of prayer, for instance-- the sheer strength of people, particularly children, when faced with extreme situations. Oz fans will get a particular bonus in the story "The Believing Kind" about a little girl who figures out how to pronounce the word PYRZQXGL.

What I like so much about Henderson has something to do with her diction, and her eye for wonder in the commonplace. Her voice is quite humble, and she presents you with her work as though it were a tray of cookies. But for all her homey style, I'd stack her up against the big bombastic early scifi/fantasy writers any day. I think that I'd most compare her work to Theodore Sturgeon (particularly his short stories) or Clifford D. Simak.

Since this volume is out of print, I'm providing a list of the stories. I've starred my personal favorites:

The Indelible Kind (*)
J-Line to Nowhere
You Know What, Teacher? (*)
The Effectives
Loo Ree (*)
The Closest School
Three-Cornered and Secure
The Taste of Aunt Sophronia
The Believing Child (*)
Through a Glass- Darkly
As Simple As That (*)
Swept and Garnished
One of Them
Sharing Time
Ad Astra
Incident After
The Walls
Crowning Glory
Boona on Scancia
Love Every Third Stir

In the Shade of Spring Leaves
The Life of Higuchi Ichiyō with Nine of her Best Short Stories
Higuchi Ichiyō
Danly, Robert Lyons
WW Norton & Company
1981
0393309134

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