Alice Munro's "The Bear Came Over the Mountain" (novelette, senility, non-genre, free)

It's a decently readable story, but I find the subject of senility depressing.

Story summary.

An old woman who's losing her wits is put in some kind of old age care home by her husband of 50 years. It's mostly about his depressing visits to see her periodically, her growing fondness for another man at the place, & the complicated relations that develop between the two couples.

Fact sheet.

First published: The New Yorker, 27 December 1999.
Download full text from publisher's site.
Rating: B.
Related: Stories of Alice Munro.

Alice Munro's "The Moons of Jupiter" (short story, non-genre)

I'd not heard the name of the author until a few days back - when the announcement that she'd won this year's Literature Nobel Prize came. When I looked around for her works, a short story collection with the title "The Moons of Jupiter" sounded like sf - so I picked it up. But at least this title story is not sf.

Story summary.

Story is mostly about a woman's relationship with her father & her two grown up daughters, but mostly father who's about to undergo heart surgery. Nice language & some very interesting observations on everyday life.

Title comes from some small talk she's having with her father in hospital about her visit to a local planetarium, a game where dad is going to name the moons of Jupiter.

Fact sheet.

First published: The New Yorker, 22 May 1978?
Rating: A.

Lara Vapnyar's "Katania" (short story, non-genre, free): A woman cannot let go of her childhood longings

I think I liked it because it's both mundane & absurd. And nice language.

I'm not sure how accurate the political aspects of Soviet Union are: a neighborhood in Moscow of mostly women, men either dead, defected to West, or in labor camps of Siberia. But political aspects are just background; main story is simple enough.

Story summary.

It's the story of two girls - friends, neighbors & classmates, one envious of what the other has. And what the envious one grows up into in adulthood.

Title, "Katania" is an imaginary country thought up for their dolls, combing their own names - Katya & Tania.

Fact sheet.

First published: The New Yorker, 14 October 2013.
Download full text from publisher's site.
Rating: A.

Zadie Smith's "Meet the President!" (short story, augmented reality, free)

While the story didn't do anything for me, I'm noting it mostly because I haven't read many stories involving widespread use of mobile augmented reality gadgets.

Story summary.

A world divided into rich elite having access to latest electronics, & provincials with only ordinary human senses. A world where an agency (government?) casually kills people.

This is the story of a teenage boy from electronic elite & his total disconnect from normal reality.

Fact sheet.

First published: The New Yorker, 12 August 2013.
Download full text from publisher's site.
Rating: B.

Thomas Pierce's "Shirley Temple Three" (short story, mammoths, free)

Tommy runs a TV show on prehistoric beasts. His team somehow brings to life a prehistoric beast, & he does the show with that.

A mess at the show, & he's left with a "Bread Island Dwarf Mammoth", a cousin of wooly mammoth, to hide. And he hides it at the home of his "Mawmaw". Title is the name Tommy & his mawmaw have given to the mammoth.

Story is mostly troubles & emotions of mawmaw keeping the animal out of its time happy, & of her relationship with her difficult son.

Fact sheet.

First published: The New Yorker, 24 December 2012.
Download full text from publisher's site. [via QuasarDragon]
Author elaborates on the story background in this talk with Cressida Leyshon.
Rating: B. 

Margaret Atwood's "Stone Mattress" (short story, non-genre, free): A woman abused as a teenager gets her revenge

Verna Pritchard, 14 year old, was raped by 2 teenage boys, an event that set the tone for rest of her life. Now, 50+ years later, she has her chance for revenge...

Fact sheet.

First published: The New Yorker, 19 December 2011.
Download full text from publisher's site.
Author's talk with publisher's fiction editor on genesis of this story.
Rating: A.
Added to my "best of 2011" list.
Related: Stories of Margaret Atwood.

Daniel Alarcón's "Second Lives" (short story, non-genre, free): Portraits of some "typical" people from Mexico of 1980s

Actually, I'm not sure it's Mexico; it's some Spanish-speaking country of South America, probably Mexico.

Story is from the point of view of a 10 year old boy - personalities in his family & neighborhood. Some of his concerns near the end sounded like those of adults - at least I didn't think like that at 10; but may be kids grow up at different rates in different places?

Notes.

Thing that caught my attention & made me write this post was this quote near end: "The new President privatized everything, selling the state off piece by piece and dividing the profits among his friends." Something that has been recently happening in India.

A naive me of an earlier time believed selling public companies could only bring good:

1. They would pay part of government's fund requirements - so we will have less debt & lower taxes.
2. They would bring in responsible management, & should become tax payers instead of receivers of subsidies.

What we are actually seeing is nothing of the first, & only partially of the second. Government overspending way beyond its means, gobbling up all the money generated by selling public companies, & still raising both taxes & deficit even more! And, naturally, most of the money meant for the piously benevolent social service programs with supermassive outlays introduced in recent years goes into the pockets of cronies of the those in power.

Question: Anyone knows why government deficit is stated as a percentage of national GDP rather than as a percentage of government's annual receipts? My naive guess would be: to mislead the public - 7% looks like a smaller number than 35% ! But I'm no economist. Anyone would care to clarify?

Fact sheet.

First published: The New Yorker, 16 August 2010.
Download full text from publisher's site.
Rating: B.

Junot Díaz's "The Pura Principle" (short story, non-genre, free): Mother's pain from a sick irresponsible grown son

It actually started off bad - too much swearing & liberal use of words from a language I don't recognize, but than it picked up.

A totally irresponsible & mean man is suffering from a serious case of cancer. Lives with his mother & younger brother. Narrated by brother. What I saw here was mother's suffering - I know of similar real cases (without cancer).

Fact sheet.

First published: The New Yorker, 22 March 2010.
Download full text from publisher's site.
Rating: B.

Jonathan Franzen's "Agreeable" (short story, non-genre, free): A teenager's alienation from parents

While the themes are universal, specifics are too US centric, making this story far less interesting outside of that country.

Includes an incident of a teenager's rape, & of her parents' practical difficulties pressing the charges - an event that will even more alienate her from them than she already is.

Notes.

1.  The Darkwood Review notes this is a novel excerpt that The New Yorker has mislabeled as short story, something they seen to be doing rather often: 'It's an excerpt. Not just that. It's the SECOND excerpt of Franzen's new novel that the New Yorker has published in the last year. In the 5/8/2009 issue they ran "Good Neighbors"'.

Fact sheet.

First published: The New Yorker, 31 May 2010.
Download full text from publisher's site.
Rating: B.

For those looking for a story about recent volcanic eruption in Iceland that disrupted European air traffic

Today's story in The New Yorker, Roddy Doyle's "Ash" (download).

Not much to the story, but it's the first one I've seen on the subject.

Some recent B-fiction (16 May 2010)

I've dropped very crappy stuff, but there is nothing excellent here either; all B-stories, & on the lower side of my B-pile. Better reads tend to come early in list below.

1. Dagoberto Gilb's "Uncle Rock"; download; The New Yorker, 10 May 2010; non-genre: A poor Mexican woman in US receives passes from all kinds of men. Told from the perspective of her 11 year old son.
2. Denise McCune's "Shuffle Up and Deal"; download; JBU, #23 (February 2010); humor: This plot probably has been done 10,000 times in various garbs.
   
   Aliens have landed & one of them requested the government to let him play an about to begin
   
   Poker tournament. Someone overhears an alien delegate as saying the winner takes Earth! So panic sets in, & everyone must ensure the alien loses the tournament!
3. [ff] Duncan Shields' "Shuffler"; download; 365tomorrows, 10 May 2010: Using a teleporting device to make humanity more tolerant of interracial differences!
4. Steven Popkes' "Crocodiles"; download (online only for a couple of months); F&SF, May/June 2010; zombie: Germans, during World War II, have created zombie soldiers that can turn enemy into zombies by biting.
   
   Very nasty & dark story. European & US readers might identify with it in ways I cannot.
   
   Also included are standard prejudices of many US sources: Americans are smart, Germans are evil, Russians couldn't care less for their own.
5. Jacqueline Rochow's "The Truth Will Out"; download; 365tomorrows, 5 May 2010; fanfic: Effectively retells an episode from Pierre Poulle's "Planet of the Apes", but without explicitly naming the original: A few scientists have evidence that their ancestors were merely lab animals of humans, & are debating the social implications of making the information public.

Related: Fiction from 2010.

Nathan Englander's "Free Fruit for Young Widows" (short story, non-genre, free): Turning a man into a monster

It's a very dark story, & a familiar one too:

1. Innumerable Partition stories in India. There have been a lot of movies on the subject too.
2. Tobias Wolff's "A Mature Student" rationalizes sometimes barbarous behavior of US soldiers in Afganistan & Iraq.
3. Paolo Bacigalupi's "The Yellow Card Man" has some beastly human behavior on display in Thailand in situations where survival is all that matters.

This is the story of a survivor of World War II concentration camps - one who wasn't quite human again: "they killed him. After the war, we still lost people. They killed what was left of him in the end."

Fact sheet.

First published: The New Yorker, 17 May 2010.
Download full text from publisher's site.
Rating: A.
Added to my "best of 2010" list.
Related: Author interview that includes information on the origins of this story [via Digital Dunes].

Humor: Recycling stuff (cartoon)

In The New Yorker.

Related: Vegetable SF.

E L Doctorow's "Edgemont Drive" (short story, non-genre, free): History repeats!

For several days, an old stranger has been parking his battered car outside a house - comes in when the husband leaves, goes away when he returns. Concerned husband confronts him, & a chain of events unfold, events that foretell what the the future has in store for the couple...

Related.

1. A much longer discussion of this story at TCBoyle Message Board.
   

Fact sheet.

First published: The New Yorker, 26 April 2010.
Download full text from publisher's site.
Rating: A.

Humor: ebook Readers (cartoon)

In The New Yorker.

Humor: Robot-operated sales kiosks (cartoon)

In The New Yorker.

Janet Frame's "Gavin Highly" (short story, non-genre, free): Children's myth-building about a neighbor

Not exactly original - there are any number of stories about children's imagination creating fantastic stories about a recluse neighbor. But still a good read, & beautiful language. Set apparently somewhere in UK.

Fact sheet.

First published: The New Yorker, 5 April 2010.
Download full text from publisher's site.
Rating: A.

David Means' "The Knocking" (short story, non-genre, humor, free): The art of driving your neighbor nuts

Readers in closely packed urban apartments will likely appreciate this story better than others.

Author is almost describing a milder version of my neighbor - one I share a wall with, rather than roof the narrator of the story shares with the neighbor - a neighbor who's driving him nuts by making all kinds of irritating noises at all hours of day & night.

Notes.

1. Day before yesterday, Bombay saw two killings related to this kind of "knocking" - a man enraged by it gunned down an innocent who just happened to be available, & gunman himself was killed by cops.

Fact sheet.

First published: The New Yorker, 15 March 2010.
Download full text from publisher's site.
Rating: B.

Claire Keegan's "Foster" (novelette, non-genre, free)

A story about a completely different culture, & yet I find so much familiar here! Last para escaped me, but rest was a very good read.

It's mostly a character portrait. A little girl from an impoverished family is left in the care of related & wealthier family for some months while her mother is pregnant. Through her eyes, we see many typical people.

Fact sheet.

First published: The New Yorker, 15 February 2010.
Download full text from publisher's site.
Rating: A.
Added to my "best of 2010" list.

T Coraghessan Boyle's "A Death in Kitchawank" (novelette, non-genre, free)

A nostalgic look at life of a woman - happy days while kids were small & neighborhood familiar, & slow progression towards old age with yearning for what was & won't be anymore. Sad ending, but generally a good read.

Fact sheet.

First published: The New Yorker, 18 January 2010.
Download full text from publisher's site.
Rating: A.