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Short Story Appreciation Discussion - February 2024 (Patreon)

Published:
2024-02-22 21:06:04
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2026-06
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Dear Book Club Readers ---

Your comments in our last short story appreciation thread made for fascinating reading. So it would be wonderful to hear what short stories you are enjoying alongside your other reading this month.

Our short story appreciation thread is a place to mindfully check in and share what works of short fiction have resonated with us recently.

The best way to appreciate the magic of short stories is to dive into some great ones and start discussing your insights and impressions with others. So let us know:

What short stories are you appreciating at the moment?

Let us know anything that has resonated with you during your short story excursions:

  • Powerful subtext
  • Compelling themes
  • Resonant passages
  • Your favourite writers
  • Beautifully crafted lines
  • Complex character studies
  • Elements you want to examine
  • Stories you want to recommend
  • Reflections, musings, and insights
  • How the stories inform your wider reading

This is the place to put your short story appreciations and get other readers weighing in on your thoughts!

Curated Short Stories:

I have also specially curated three stories for you to enjoy. This is, of course, completely optional. Don't feel like you need to read all three. I recommend sampling the opening lines, or the first few paragraphs, of each one and seeing which one pulls you in. Spend time with the story that most speaks to your heart.

My aim is to offer you short masterworks that will inform your wider reading. I love these works, and believe that being attentive to the themes, characters, and style of writing will prove to be very rewarding.

The short stories I would like to recommend for you are:

  • 'The Nose' by Nikolai Gogol (story - audio)
  • 'Emergency' by Denis Johnson (story - audio)
  • 'The Pied Piper of Hamelin' by The Brothers Grimm (story - audio)

I would love to know what you make of the chosen stories. Which one did you focus on? Why did the style or theme resonate with you? If you read a different short story, let us know your thoughts on it. Or tell us about your favourite story.

All short stories can be found in the anthology That Glimpse of Truth, which makes an excellent collection for deepening your appreciation of the short story form.

Thank you so much for sharing your love of great literature with us.

Happy reading, everybody!

Files

Previews only

Comments

Stephanie Jeannette

I could not get past the rabbit/baby rabbit images in Emergency. I try The Nose. Tomorrow I will start The Master and Margarita. I just joined today.

Mayelin Garcia

I just finished The Nose by Gogol. Another story that makes no sense at all, but I found it very delightful. It is my first Nikolai Gogol, I recently bought Dead Souls, I really think I will read it soon. I am half way through The Master and Margarita, and I really like it. The story brings a lot of memories to me, since I am coming from a socialist country, there is a lot of situations where I can see the reality of my people, unfortunately.

Stephanie Jeannette

Any thoughts about Pilate and Yeshua speaking in three languages Aramaic, Latin and Greek (chap 2 M/M)? Also, interesting passage, "for some reason this immortality evoked a sense of unbearable anguish". I have been thinking about this a lot. Can or does believing in immortality or an after life produce a dark side and exist simultaneously with anguish?

NANCY CHRISTENSEN

Just finished Emergency. Loved it I was laughing the whole time. The thing I think about short stories is that you just don't have any words to waste. So when I'm reading them I'm trying to see if there are any words that are wasted. Could the sorry be shorter? Some are so good though like The Lottery by Shirley Jackson, so short but so deep

NANCY CHRISTENSEN

It took me awhile to find the Pied Piper in That Glimpse of Truth but that's because it's called the Children of Hameln. It's so short. I never knew. The folk tale seems longer. Is it a fable? With a moral? Like Aesop?

Wanda Raposo

The Nose was funny. The Pied Piper was familiar. Emergency scared the crap out of me. Any description of a drug induced state wierds me out.

Landry Smith

Emergency was wild. It reminded me so much of the beats and Kerouac specifically. I really appreciate the way Johnson told the story. He made the outrageous seem sane and the morbid seem normal. The Nose stuck with me the most. As I’m writing this I just had a light bulb moment. All three stories in one way are about abnormal or even absurd experiences and peoples inability to accept them without finding some way to explain them in real ways. There is a better way to articulate that, but anyway The Nose was so weird. I quite liked it.

Alan

I am reading the volume of Gallant stories Benjamin mentioned. Enjoying the author’s voice.

MJ Föhr

The Complete Short Stories of Flannery O’Connor - my recent favorites!

Mary-Ann Maronski

Even though the one story the Pied Piper is a fairytale all three of the stories do have elements that could be considered magical realism. I read all three (in May) but I suppose a lot of us read things out of sync with the group.