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Sep
08
The Bare Necessities—Harvey Freedenberg, Reviewer Extraordinaire
2010 at 5am Posted by Rebecca Joines Schinsky
The Bare Necessities is a series in which writers and bookish folk share annotated reading lists of the books they can’t live without.
I met Harvey Freedenberg on Twitter (where else?) not too long ago (you can find him there as @HarvF), and it was one of those beautiful things where you just click with a new friend instantly. Harvey’s conversations about books and publishing are interesting and thoughtful, and I feel like I always learn something or begin to think about something in a different way after we chat. I’m happy to have him here today to share his must-read short stories.
In 2000 I took a six month sabbatical from my law practice and used the opportunity to study creative writing at my alma mater, Dickinson College. Like many aspiring writers, I thought short stories were the training wheels of fiction and that once I picked up the basics of setting, character, plot and voice I’d move on to write my novel. What it took me a while to realize is that writing short stories is hard. It’s the reason why lots of people learn to ride a bike but only a handful of them make it to the Tour de France.
So I’m grateful for The Book Lady’s invitation to share with you some of the short stories I treasure, my Bare Necessities, ones that are so good they make me think writing a novel might turn out to be easier than creating one good, true story.
For me, The Stories of John Cheever perch atop the mountain. Winner of the Pulitzer Prize (along with the National Book Critics Circle and National Book Awards) in 1979, it contains sixty-one stories that are pretty much the Bible on life in suburbia and Manhattan (with some excursions to Italy) in the 1950s and 1960s. But Cheever doesn’t merely capture that world with photographic precision, he does it in prose that dazzles and delights, like the climactic sentence of “O My Brother:” “I saw them come out and I saw that they were naked, unshy, beautiful, and full of grace, and I watched the naked women walk out of the sea.”
Some other favorite meaty volumes by accomplished short story masters include John Updike’s Early Stories 1953-1975 (I can’t wait for the arrival of the volume that presumably will span the rest of his career) and William Trevor’s Collected Stories (I’ve never been to Ireland, but it feels as if I have after reading a large helping of Trevor’s work; look for a second hefty volume this fall).
When it comes to novels, I’m generally inclined toward more traditional literary fiction, but in short stories I’m willing to give edgier fare a chance. That’s why I found Karen Russell’s St. Lucy’s Home for Girls Raised by Wolves so appealing. If her slightly off kilter world of minotaurs and camps for people with sleep disorders appeals to you, then you should check out Kevin Brockmeier’s The View from the Seventh Layer (his “The Human Soul as a Rube Goldberg Device: A Choose-Your-Own-Adventure Story” is a wildly inventive tale) or George Saunders’ Civil Warland in Bad Decline or Pastoralia.
Short story writers, particularly those who’ve graduated from MFA programs in the past generation, are chided for producing precious, formulaic fiction. That criticism can’t be leveled at two astonishing collections I’ve read in recent years. One is Jim Shepard’s Like You’d Understand Anyway, which pretty much covers the globe (and beyond with a detour into space alongside some Russian cosmonauts) and the entire sweep of human history from Roman Britain to the present day (including visits to the French Revolution and nineteenth century Australia) in eleven stories, or Anthony Doerr’s brand new collection, Memory Wall. While Doerr’s stories are linked by the theme of memory, they range from a village in China to suburban Ohio to Hamburg, Germany in the midst of the Holocaust, and each one is written in elegant, perceptive prose.
Then there is the group of stalwarts who have delivered consistently well-crafted stories rich with wise, thoughtful, sometimes humorous forays into the dark forest that is human character, over careers that have spanned at least a generation and whose new collections I snatch up as soon as they’re published: Richard Ford (Rock Springs), Lorrie Moore (Birds of America), Alice Munro (Too Much Happiness), T.C. Boyle (T.C. Boyle Stories), Tobias Wolff (Our Story Begins: New and Selected Stories), Richard Bausch (The Stories of Richard Bausch) and Charles Baxter (Believers).
But for me, the purest pleasure of the short story rests not merely on character or plot, but on language, the ability to capture a scene or an emotion with grace and an economy of words that approaches poetry. Here are just three examples of the kind of writing I find fresh and vital despite many rereadings:
The final paragraph of Tim O’Brien’s “How to Tell a True War Story” (The Things They Carried) gives me chills every time I read it:
And in the end, of course, a true war story is never about war. It’s about sunlight. It’s about the special way that dawn spreads out on a river when you must cross the river and march into the mountains and do things you are afraid to do. It’s about love and memory. It’s about sorrow. It’s about sisters who never write back and people who never listen.
If that’s not enough to get you pick up this brilliant book, the title story and “On the Rainy River” are two other short story classics.
Enough fiction has been written about the Holocaust to fill a sizable library, but none of it is more memorable than the concluding paragraph of Nathan Englander’s “The Tumblers” (For the Relief of Unbearable Urges) the story of a group of circus performers on their way to a concentration camp that concludes with this haunting sentence:
But there were no snipers, as there are for hands that reach out of the ghettos; no dogs, as for the hands that reach out from the cracks in boxcar floors; no angels waiting, as they always do, for hands that reach out from chimneys into ash-clouded skies.
But I’ll finish where I began, with Cheever, and the final scene of “The Swimmer,” as Neddy Merrill — the swimmer of the title — comes face-to-face with his self-delusion at the end of his swim across the pools of Westchester County. It’s as bleakly honest a depiction of utter despair as any I’ve read:
The house was locked, and he thought that the stupid cook or the stupid maid must have locked the place up until he remembered that it had been some time since they had employed a maid or a cook. He shouted, pounded on the door, tried to force it with his shoulder, and then, looking in at the windows, saw that the place was empty.
The best short stories endure because they meld insight and craftsmanship to excel at offering us a compressed, heightened experience of life that requires our engagement for an hour but that can resonate for lifetime. In our frantic, distracted days that’s no small gift. I’m grateful I’ve received it in ample measure from all of the authors mentioned here.
Since 2005, Harvey Freedenberg has been a regular reviewer for BookPage, Bookreporter.com and Shelf-Awareness.com and is a member of the National Book Critics Circle. He also writes a monthly column on books for Harrisburg (PA) Magazine. The author of several prize-winning short stories and an unpublished novel, Harvey is a longtime board member of the Dauphin County Library System. He enjoys literary fiction and nonfiction on a wide range of subjects. When he’s not reading or writing, Harvey practices intellectual property law with the firm of McNees Wallace & Nurick LLC in Harrisburg.
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[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by The Story Prize, Harvey Freedenberg. Harvey Freedenberg said: I'm delighted @bookladysblog asked me to do a guest post for her blog. Here's the result, on my favorite short stories: http://bit.ly/aCYMxi [...]
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Rebecca Schinsky, Bookstore Tourism. Bookstore Tourism said: My friend, book reviewer Harvey Freedenberg, on some of his favorite short stories: http://tinyurl.com/2gyqb6g @harvf @bookladysblog [...]
I’ve recently come to a new appreciation of the short story, and it is definitely an art form of it’s own, not just a warm up for writer’s before embarking on a novel. The best short stories are like a perfect miniature painting, creating an entire world on a tiny canvas.
Great post – now I’m going downstairs to the bookstacks to hunt out my volume of Cheever’s Collected Stories.
Becca´s last [type] ..Giveaway Winners
I like Katherine Anne Porter and Banana Yoshimoto. Looking forward to reading some of your recommended picks!
I became interested in short stories thanks to my creative writing professors in college. I also thought they were just a step you take before writing/reading a novel, but now I love them and I’m always on the lookout for more. Thanks for adding to my list!
I would love to read The Bare Necessities. He’s a new author for me. I haven’t met him on Twitter yet. His thoughts kind of make me think of the wonderful Nancy Pearl. I came to your blog because of Bermudaonion. She has great words to say about you. I know you from Twitter page. I didn’t put it together until I got to your blog.
[...] a wonderful post by a man named Harvey Freedenberg on The Book Lady’s Blog. The author is a lawyer who took a sabbatical to study creative writing. It’s a wonderful [...]