I chose to read Margaret Atwood’s “The War in the Bathroom” for the short story assignment. The title alone grabbed my attention, but it also happened to be the first work in Atwood’s anthology, Dancing Girls. The story is written similar to a journal; it specifies the day of the week on which the action occurs. When I began reading, two characters became immediately prevalent: a narrator, “I” and a woman, “she.” As the story progressed, it was difficult to discern who exactly the “I” figure was because he/she told the story from his/her own point of view, but narrates the actions of “she.”

The plot of the story involves the main character, “she”, moving out of her old apartment and into a building that seems quite destitute. It is assumed that she does not have much money because when she goes shopping for groceries, she is very limited to what she is able to purchase, and the narrator mentions that he/she has to watch how much she spends. There is an allusion to her past in the statement, “Old habits are hard to break,” so one might conclude the woman was once well off. The title of the story refers to a battle between all of the residents in the main character’s new dwelling. Since there is only one bathroom, each must make their claims as quick as possible. Every morning at nine, an old man with a hacking cough uses the bathroom and always awakens the woman and the “I” figure, since her/their room is adjacent to the bathroom. One morning, however, the woman gets the courage to wake up early enough to use the bathroom before the old man. She takes a luxurious bath and, when the old man knocks incessantly, she simply ignores him and enjoys her victory.

The puzzling aspect of the ending, though, is the fact that the last line is, “For the time being I have won.” When I was reading, I debated over the identity of this “I” figure. At first, I thought it might be the protagonist’s husband or child since Atwood paints “I” as a real person using verbs like dislike, tell, read, persuade, watch, trace, allow, and think to describe the character. Then, upon closer examination, it seemed to me that the “I” was part of the “she”. The two individuals never exchange actual dialogue, “I” goes everywhere with “she”, even in the bathroom, and when “she” encounters others, it seems as if “I” is not a separate being because no one notices him/her.

I think that “I” might be the main character’s inner voice or the part of her that wants her to stand up for herself, but also the part that keeps her sane and not completely alone, because I get the feeling that her husband and/or family may have deserted her. Atwood obviously wanted the reader to be confused as to who is whom and to ponder over the identities of the characters, which coincidentally mirrors the style of Hubert Aquin in Next Episode.

Atwood also toys with another pair of characters in the story, an old woman and her nurse or caretaker. Until the end of the story, the protagonist believes that the two are just one woman that talks to herself in different voices, because only one set of footsteps can be heard when she enters the bathroom and they never actually appear in person. However, the reader eventually discovers that the nurse carries the old woman around because she is so frail, so there is, as suspected, only one set of footsteps.

Overall, “The War in the Bathroom” was an interesting read, and I was definitely enthralled by the plot; I wanted to find out what exactly happened at the end, who won the “war”, and to whom the “I” was referring. Although the conclusion left me with unanswered inquiries, I enjoy not knowing because it gives me, as a reader more freedom to determine the background and meaning of the story.

I read a short story by Hugh Garner called A Trip for Mrs. Taylor. The story centered around Mrs. Taylor, an old woman whose loneliness encouraged her to take a short trip on the train, just to feel the excitement again and not feel so alone. Her oldest son was married, Johnnie and her husband and younger son had died and she receives an old age pension check that made her feel even older. This is a precious story of an old woman really trying to find excitement, happiness. The fast past train station reminds her of when she spent time with her family and the trips they took. Now, she feels separated by her age. People look at her a different way and her age makes people reluctant to talk to her, which is all she longs for, a conversation. She says “that was the thing she had missed most during the past few years, the feeling of being one with those about her.” Mrs. Taylor wants to feel needed and loved really by anyone. Taking the train, and this short trip, gives her a sense of belonging. It makes her feel important, wanted, like she is part of something. When a young woman struck up a conversation with her at the train station, Mrs. Taylor realizes that she was “starving” for conversation. When she holds the young woman’s baby, it reminds her of all the memories with her children. When the conductor helped her on the train he mistook her for the children’s grandmother. She did not correct him because hearing the sound of those words made her feel visible and someone of importance. She longs to take care of someone, anything. Mrs. Taylor just wanted to be somebody for a day and for that one day; she wasn’t just the old lady with a pension check that sits alone in her room day after day, waiting for someone to care. She was part of the craziness of the city, part of the crowd, which made her feel like she belongs. A Trip for Mrs. Taylor was a delightful short story that just makes the reader want to give her a hug and listen to her stories.

I chose to read We Want It All by Margaret Atwood. This is a very brief piece but it is loaded with meaning and a valid message. This short story is basically stating that humans want everything and we want it all as predictable as it comes. We want to be able to do anything and everything. I think that people take the simplest things for granted and expect to wake up each morning and follow the same prints. We, as human beings, continue to grow more and more greedy. Our greed is beginning to hurt us; it is beginning to hurt the world and yet, we still want more and we want to continue to improve. But, “when will it all cave in?” as Atwood asks in this eye opening work. We have continued to reproduce and we have continued to advance in technology and we have continued to try and find cures for everything. There is only so much we can do. We can’t save everyone and no one will live forever. Animals will continue to become extinct; we will always have warnings about the natural world (pollution, global warming, the sun’s harmful rays).

I really enjoyed the style of her writing. It is direct, somewhat dark, and poetic. I love how she puts us in our place. In reading this I felt like she was speaking to me. “What the hell is wrong with us? When is enough enough? Can we ever just be satisfied?” This is what I thought she was asking me. Every now and then I think about this myself. I think about how greedy humans are and how we love the same old story over and over again. I think about how much we don’t appreciate what we are given and we complain when we should really just zip it and be grateful for our days. There is beauty in the natural world and we should really take some time to realize that. Our world could be crashing down, tumbling down around us and sometimes I think we still wouldn’t notice.

I really liked this brief writing a lot. There is a lot behind it and the words make you think about our lives. It made me question our needs and wants and opened my eyes to the obvious. We Want It All by Margaret Atwood is a great reality check. If you find yourself drowning in your needs and your wants you should really just take a second and read this. It might help you realize how pathetic and blind we can be at times. I think being able to acknowledge that is a step in the right direction.

The short story that I chose comes from a book called Firey Spirits : Canadian Writers of African Descent. The author that I chose is Carol Talbot who writes the story ‘The Crystal Cave’. Honestly I chose this story because of the title I had no knowledge of what to expect. What I found was a gripping tale about a mother and daughter who have been cast out by their tribe. Magdela and her daughter Alonia are cast out after Magdela is spotted bathing naked by another tribesman and, being married, this is quite the scandal. Magdela feels grief and regret throughout the story about being cast out by her tribe because she had a husband and because of her foolhardiness she has landed herself and her daughter in this predicament. Her exile is complicated by the fact that her daughter is blind and has been severely injured by their outcast. The story starts after they have visited a wise woman who has told them of this healing crystal cave that will cure them of their troubles. Magdela continues the story through her flashbacks as she and Alonia travel towards this crystal cave. When they arrive at the cave they come to an important healing process. “Each was at peace within the harmony of the healing cave and each would be at peace whenever they danced its healing rays. Magdela would weave the colors of those lights and in those patterns Alonia would speak the visions of truth and healing” (Talbot 15). Here we see that even though they have both suffered immensely they have finally been healed. Magdela would no longer have to deal with the guilt and pain that she feels, and Alonia is no longer blind and can finally see. An interesting question to ask about this story is, is the cave itself a representation of heaven? And have Magedela and Alonia moved beyond the physical world?
I thought that Carol Talbot does a really good job in the writing of this short story. It is very interesting because you are constantly going back and re reading sections because you are not sure if she is talking about past or present. The only way to tell is through the italicized words on the page and even then it is hard to piece together the story. I have always enjoyed works where writers blend both past and present into the same line of thought. It is not interesting to me to be told whether or not what I am reading is in the present or the past and I think that Talbot does an excellent job of this. Talbot weaves the story in such a way that you are gripped from beginning to end and you always will have more questions to ask of the text.

I chose to read the short story OZY by Craig Boyoko which won the 2007 Journey Prize. I found the story in an aptly named anthology entitled The Journey Prize Stories: 2007. The story centered around the attempts of a young boy (Ossie or OZY) and his friends to break a high score at an arcade game located at a local convince store. The story was told from the perspective of an adult looking back at one of the memorable moments of his childhood, and in this regard it reminded me a lot of the cinematic classic A Christmas Story.

The story was able to draw powerfully upon the themes of youth, and immortality. The mood was upbeat, but at the same time bittersweet. OZY reflects that the things we do in the past are never really stuck there, but resonate with us or others in the future, perhaps not even in a tangible form. He reminisces that,

“I was good at something once. Great, even. It was a long time ago. I was ten. Now I’m 43 and not good at much of anything. I’m not complaining. You’re only 43 and not good at anything for a short time. But you will have once been ten and good at something forever” (Boyko 19).

There is a sense that the past and the future are inevitably connected in this concept of “Forever”. Boyko paints a picture of “forever” being both a period of time, but almost also a place like deep space, “Every mark we make, every trace we leave is a broadcast sent out into forever”(19).

One of the most noticeable stylistic elements of the story that I enjoyed was that OZY would refer to anyone’s high scores using the initials they put into the machine. This was even done while introducing each of the characters, which sort of gave me a feel of there being a connection between both the real world and the game world. I think that Boyko also did an excellent job portraying the diction of a child in the work, particularly with his use of short choppy sentences.

I would recommend this story or any of the others from the anthology, having read a couple of others I would agree that they are all top notch stories. What really resonated with me from this story was the idea that things you do in the past can resonate into the future, beyond even your own life and experiences. I think that OZY sums this up nicely near the end of the story:

“Like a spring trap, the immediate past is supposed to inexorably propel the present into the immediate future. But I think what the past really does is stand nearby, at the present’s elbow, and whisper in its ear, give it counsel, suggest how a future might be made. We listen but we don’t always hear everything. Not the first time. Not right away. But there might be echoes”(20).

I decided to read another Alistair MacLeod story because I enjoyed No Great Mischief so much. I looked at a book of his short stores and ended up reading several of them. However, I'm going to focus on his 1968 story, The Boat. The Boat is about a family living in a small fishing town. The narrator, the youngest and only boy with six older sisters, tells the story of his father, a man who fishes for his family, even though his true happiness and passion lies in literature and books of all kinds. As his mother is distainful of books and the desire for an education, his father pushes him to strive for a life outside of the sea, outside of fishing; a life that he wanted for himself. In the end, the boy ends up being a professor though he still feels his father's presence in his everyday routine, getting up before the sun as one might before a day out on the boat. The story ends with the author discussing his father's eventual death on the sea, being swept off the boat and drowning.

This story was very much like his novel. I thought that it delt with many of the same issues. However, while family ties were what I believes to be the central theme binding the entire story together, this short story delt with becoming a product of ones' environment. A man with dreams of going to school and getting a university education ends up being a fisherman for the rest of his life and even though he is never happy, he does it for his family, for his wife. I felt the sacrifice of the father in this story, who would work all day and then stay up all night reading because it was the thing that made him truly happy. At one point, the narrator describes how, when he was working for his father, he would occasionally oversleep and the other fisherman would throw rocks at his window to wake him. However, his father would never be the one to get him up because he would be reading and if he could get away with staying in just a few minutes more and doing the thing he loved, he would take that over being the first boat on the water that day.
The end of the story, with the death of his father at sea, was symbolic of the ultimate sacrifice that he had made, for his entire life, to his wife and the the idea of being a fisherman in a small fishing town where doing anything but working on the sea was seen as lazy. His death was symbolic of how the sea took everything from him: it took his life, it devoured him, literally and figurativly, stealing away his dreams, his passion and happiness. I thought that this story was a great story and I really love Alistair MacLeod's writing. There is a similarity in all his stories but each story is unique. His writing style is detailed but not boring, and the loss that is present in all his writing is so articulate. I think he is a great writer and storyteller and I am so glad to have been introduced to his as a writer during this course.

Because my only knowledge of Canadian literature comes from this class, I decided to read the first story in "Best Canadian Stories 01" It turned out to be "The Yellow House" by Leon Rook. It was very short, so I can pretty much tell you the whole story. The narrator is one of a family of sick people, their house turned to an infirmary. Everyone in the house is sick, all the time. One day, the narrator sees his sister leave, the perfect picture of health, carried away by a boyfriend from the happy, healthy family of the yellow house across the street.
I would describe the tone of this story as haunting. Very much so. There's very little room for a story or much explanation. The narrator is delirious with sickness. After an otherwordly, gloomy description of their sickhouse and an otherworldy, paradisaical description of the yellow house nextdoor, we are introduced to 'the Geeks', people with the same sickness who came to live with the narrators family, but no one knows how. Over the course of the story, we lose, suddenly, the grandparents, parents, and six 'geeks'. Left behind are the younger generation: the narrator, his sister, and the littlest geek.
The most striking aspect of the story is the lack of explanation. There is no future and no past. These people are dying, the people across the street are fine. It's like this for as long as we hear the story told of it. Ten people die, with no remorse, no service, no burial. It's hard to tell how the narrator knows they're dead, because no one ever moves in the house. This, with minimal explanation, is only the introduction to the confusing part. This morning, the sister is at the window. She informs her brother that a man from across the street is picking peaches from their family's tree, and will soon be asking her to marry him. She's going to say yes. She feels great, and sees no reason why her family should suffer anymore. The youngest geek is healed the next time he's mentioned. Then it starts to rain. Then their entire house is flooded in blinding yellow light. End of story. No explanation. While this story could be taken at face value, it's well written and gripping, I feel that the abundance of symbolism and metaphor suggest an allegorical message from the story. I immediately thought of poverty. Could the family have been so crippled just by a lack of money. Wouldn't the yellow house next door seem so much more vibrant and happy if they had money. And, most importantly, wouldn't the sister getting married to a boy from next door automatically mean salvation for the small number of survivors? Or perhaps I'm misreading a hallucination right before the narrator dies. That would explain the blinding yellow light at the end. Luckily, I don't think you can be wrong about this story. It's so short and unspecific, yet loaded with potentially meaningful symbols.

The short story I read was called The Privilege of The Limits by Edward William Thompson. The story was very short so the summary will not be long. The narrator of the story was the granddaughter of Mr. McTavish, whom the story is about. The author does not specify the age of the granddaughter, but calls her 'Old Mrs. McTavish.' Her main purpose was to tell the tale of her grandfather. She tells the tale of how her grandfather owed a shopkeeper Tougal Stewart,a fellow neighbor money for half the cost of a plow, but failed to pay. He was unable aot pay because he had to pay for the funeral of his brother. This resulted in him going to jail. Throughout the story the author stresses what a quiet, peaceable and big hearted man McTavish was. He was sent to jail and while there was visited by all of his neighbors to tell him the happenings that were going on while he was away. The whole time McTavish promises to pay 'when he was able' the fact that he had to bury his brother was his reasoning for not paying, and he felt that was a good enough reason, and he was sticking by it. He also makes a 'Heilan’ promise' throughout the story for various situations, which I believe is a Scottish term. When in jail he makes a promise not to go past the posts, which marked the borders of the jail. When McTavish finds out his son is ill, he must go to him. Keeping him Heilan’ promise he picks up the post and carries it with him home to his son. When he is finished with his personal affairs, McTavish returns back to the jail with the post behind him, which keeps him within the lines. After returning he find out that Tougal Stewart did not pay the full 5 shillings to keep him in jail, so McTavish is now free.

I really enjoyed this story because it was full of pride and heritage. It was also very witty at the end. One aspect I really liked was that the author wrote the dialog of the narrator spelled as if she was speaking in a Scottish accent. This added to making me feel as if I was listening to a Scottish woman rather than just guessing by their last names. I think the story was teaching about greed. McTavish was a notably good man, who keeps his word, but the law made him go to jail. The judge and everyone around him knew he was good for his word, but Tougal's greed took over.In the end we learn that how "Tougal had paid out six pounds four shillings and eleven pence to keep him in on account of a debt of two pound five that never was due till it was paid.” In the end Tougal paid out more to keep him in jail than what the debt was. The officer who tells him he is free to go even asks him to dinner because he respects McTavish as a good man. The way the officer apologizes for not treating him well because those were the rules, coupled with the judges' knowing that he does not deserve to go to jail, also proves a theme about law and how one must abide by it even if they do not agree.

Preservation was the runner-up for the 2008 CBC Literary Award for Short Stories in English. In it, Alex Leslie tells the story of forbidden love set in an aging beach community. The turtle pit that her family finds, dug out of an old construction site, with fossilized turtle shells left behind that locals pick up for lawn ornaments, serves as a symbol for the town itself. A lesbian, Alex falls in love with a girl from the other side of town. This is a love not permitted by the town, though, especially not the love’s father, who has already arranged for her to marry a man to make her a proper woman. Like the fossils of the turtles, these people are locked in a time based, one based on intolerance rather than inclusion, one based on old jobs and looking back rather than moving ahead. The collection of knick-knacks that washed up on the shore from the beach from parts unknown is yet another indication of where this town is based, it too is a relic. As Alex looks to be an archeologist, she imagines what one might view of her own humble roots, and wonders whether the town already is a fossil, just waiting to be dug up.

While her girlfriend refuses to move on, Alex will not allow herself to become one of the remains left behind to be dug up.

I have uploaded a PDF version of the story on to my website for easy access to it for the class, and it can be downloaded here: http://crucialtaunt.com/Preservation.pdf

I chose to read the short story, "The People Who Love Her" by Amy Jones. The story is set in Calgary and follows the events of a night on the town with two friends. The story begins with the retelling of the life of Sephie, who has broken her ankle. She once lived in Paris with a man and they were very poor. This man was so in love with her he often painted pictures of her doing various activities. When they had nothing left, she left him and came to Calgary and moved in with an older man who was rich. She had an eating disorder during high school and was supported by her friend, who is the narrator of the story. They go to breakfast at a local diner where the narrator reflects on their friendship over the years.

This story reminds me a lot of Next Episode because it jumps around so often. There are many times that the narrator jumps from the diner to a memory and then back again, only to jump to another memory shortly after. This was really interesting because it really shows the train of thought of the narrator. She might see something in her friend, a specific detail, that reminds her of a story and then she reflects on it and tells it to us.

I really liked this because in such a short story you are able to tell so much about Sephie. Through the limited stories that are told, you can gather so much information about Sephie and her life. Although you aren’t told a lot about the narrator, you can tell that she is different from Sephie because of the way she talks about her. You can also tell that they are also alike because of the things they do together, taking pills and going out drinking.

All in all, I thought this short story was really interesting because in such a short amount of time, you are able to gather so much information of the characters and their lives.

I thought it would be interesting to read a story by an author we've read in class so I found one by Margaret Laurence called 'The Loons.' Ironically, it was written from the perspective of Vanessa Macleod, a character in The Diviners. This story was about the Macleod family taking Piquette to their cabin for the summer so she could rest and recover from her TB. I was pretty surprised to find that this story was so relative to what we're reading. Vanessa tells of how her father, the doctor, thought it was benefit Piquette to not rush home even though her leg is healing, as once she's home she would be keeping house and taking care of her father, Lazarus. So Piquette joins the family at their cabin on the lake and remains unto herself the entire time. Vanessa makes repeated efforts to get to know her and to invite her to play, but Piquette refuses these offers. Vanessa is convinced that since the Tonnerre's are Indians that Piquette has vast knowledge of the woods and nature. She tries to get Piquette to come to the water and listen to the loons. She sits alone at the water listening, when her dad comes and sits with her. They sit in silence, just listening.

Time passes and now Vanessa is home for the summer for college. Her mother tells her what happened to Piquette. There is no real emotion from Vanessa upon finding out this information. She is somber. Later that summer, she's at the lake with her friend, who has a house next to her old one (they sold it when her dad died). The area around the lake has changed: there are more people, more shops, more boats, and less nature. She goes to the water and sits alone. Soon she realizes that the loons are gone. She recalls that her father told her, that last time they sat by the water together and listened to the loons, that soon there would be too many people and the loons would leave. Vanessa wonders that perhaps Piquette was the only one to hear the loons in the first place, which is the last line of the story.

This confused me some. I guess I was distracted with the fact that I knew from the beginning that Piquette was going to die. When she refused to accompany Vanessa to the water and listen to the birds she does so with scorn and questions why anyone would want to listen to the stupid birds squawk. I think Laurence is suggesting that Piquette knew what her reality would be (that she was poor, left alone to raise her kids, and a drunk) and that it would end too soon. Piquette saw no beauty in life or nature, even though Vanessa thought that all Indians would. This also is telling of the Tonnerre Family in that they have no real connection with their heritage. Laurence give the reader the idea that Piquette, unbeknownst to herself, even, has wisdom. Maybe most of us wouldn't see it as wisdom, but as ignorance. Piquette doesn't take pleasure in much of anything and in doing so shut herself off from a lot of the good things in life. She had the opportunity to hear the loons, once, and now, not only are there no loons, but Piquette is dead. Maybe she knew all along that there would be no loons for her to hear.

For this assignment, I landed on a short story by Margaret Laurence titled “Loons”. Initially attracted by the title, I began reading only to find myself somewhat dismayed with my selection. The piece is a mere ten pages during which Vanessa MacLeod, a wealthy girl, struggles over her [barely there] relationship with Piquette, a poor girl on the margin of Manawakan society. To be honest, I found Laurence’s language and content colloquial, which surprised me after reading The Diviners, which I appreciated for its possession of intensely dynamic language and content. Maybe Laurence could have used more space to develop her characters more fully, as she did in the 500-page Diviners, for someone who wasn’t already acquainted with these characters (via reading another of Laurence’s works) would find them seriously lacking in depth and leaving the reader without any way to connect and relate.
I was able to extract some symbolic significance from the story, mainly through the two girls’ living spaces. Piquette lives with her family in a shack surrounded by chaos—random objects strewn about the yard and whatnot, whereas Vanessa’s summer lake house is neatly tidied and decorated. The girls’ homes reflect their places in society. Vanessa, the narrator, even notes in the opening of the story that the Tonnerres (Piquette’s family) are out of place in Manawakan society due to their half-French, half-Indian background—thus her house is out of order and nothing has its place. Vanessa, on the other hand, fits in quite neatly, and so do the objects fit in her house.
Later in the story, when Vanessa is describing the loons on the lake of Diamond Beach, she notes that their shrill cry gives them the feel of being from another world. Clearly this is meant to reference Piquette, who spent a summer with Vanessa at her lake house and was very out of place—was from another world, that of poverty and struggle. Then, of course, the loons leave the lake because it becomes overdeveloped, foreshadowing the death of Piquette in the end of the novel, to which Vanessa’s reaction is unoriginal and typical—reflecting back to her relationship with the girl, and stating, that perhaps Piquette was the only one to ever really hear the loons…very ambiguous.
Overall, as I noted earlier, I’m somewhat displeased with my selection. Maybe now that I have an anthology of Canadian short stories checked out from the library, I’ll peruse some others. I guess its just my personal preference for literature—that it be engaging, dynamic, puzzling, and colorful. Unfortunately, “Loons” by Margaret Laurence was lacking in these departments.

I chose to read the short story, "The Search", by Elizabeth Spencer. This story was in a book that I found called 79 Best Canadian Stories. This story is about a couple that travels to Canada in search of their daughter. We do not find this out until the end when the reason of their trip is revealed. They are enjoying a dinner at a fancy restaurant and the owner asks the purpose of the trip. They are a well off couple and so it was odd for the people of this town to see them in this neighborhood. There was an issue where the owner of the hotel recieved complaints that garbage came from their window. Yet the wife denied these accusations.

They were traveling around to local areas where they feel that thier daughter may have went regularly. Yet, they never went and saw her. She moved away from them with her husband. After their stay is done the wife questions wether her daughter was even real. Her husband accuses her of throwing the trash out the window.
This story was very interesting because it became hard to see what was truthful. Was their daughter still alive or was it something from their past. I feel as though the trash metaphor was the way they felt about the city as they took pride in the way they appeared to the people. If you look deeper in the story it just becomes complicated because what is real? They are pretending for their daughter. In the end she wonders if her child existed and her husband asks "Do you want her not to have?" Then she admits throwing the garbage out the window. This could mean that she let her child go and really never was the mother she wanted to be and her daughter moving away was like getting rid of trash. THey feel as though they are better then this is a way.

For this assignment I picked a book of short stories by Margaret Atwood and started reading. I ended up reading several and decided to just write about the first one I read that intrigued me which was "The Bad News". The bad news is a story of a woman who is waking up and her husband comes in with the paper bearing some sort of bad news. The news is that a government official has been shot. She says she doesn't want to hear any more until she has gotten ready for her day because only then can she deal with it. As she gets ready and goes down to eat breakfast she reflects on what bad news is, her family, her old cat, and a time that her and her husband Tig visited the south of France. One morning on that visit a similar situation occurred where she was starting breakfast and Tig came in with bad news about the barbarians invading. It was a beautiful day where she was and she knew that meant nothing to the dreaded barbarians, but she also knew they were far away and that for the time she was safe.

I was really interested into the reflection the author put into the idea of bad news and how we handle it. The narrator has to psyche herself up to prepare for it, while her husband just needs to immediately get the telling of it over with so it gets off his chest.
Society also often deals with bad news in the attitude that there has been bad news before so there is hope to get past this one. The narrator talks about that specifically, the we got through it attitude that people have even if they weren't alive for the bad news that they are referring to. I see this attitude a lot, but have never thought about it. I am probably even guilty of it might self: taking credit for surviving something that I wasn't necessarily even a part of, but maybe my family was years before.
For some reason people are drawn to bad news. It is like when you drive past a car crash and you can't look away. Sure you wonder if the people are okay and you hope they are, but at the same time you are probably thinking, I am glad it isn't me. Hearing bad news is kind of the same thing. We have to hear so we can assure ourselves that it won't affect us.That is what I thought about in the ending of this story. The barbarians are coming, that is bad. But for right now, not a lot of concern is shown. She is still safe and it is almost like she had to hear this bad news to be assured of it.

First of all, I can't believe that I have forgotten to do this. Especially since, I chose and read the story a couple of weeks ago. It was the day before Halloween so I guess you could say I was in the mood, so I chose a book entitled
"The Oxford Book of Canadian Ghost Stories." As I browsed the table of contents, one title grabbed my attention but I didn't know why until after I started reading it. It was called Shoeless Joe Jackson Comes to Iowa by W.P. Kinsella.

The reason why the title had jumped out at me was because this story has been made into a movie called "Field of Dreams" and stars Kevin Costner in the main role. It is one of my mother's favorite movies. It is a story about a young farmer who one day hears a voice, that tells him "If you build it, he will come." Now for most people, hearing a voice with such a message would be meaningless but for this man, he knew exactly what it meant. He was to build a baseball field, right there in his yard and cornfield. When he told his wife about the voice and what he was told to do, she told him to do it. The "he" the voice talked about was Shoeless Joe Jaackson whowas the best left field hitter of all time. His father played baseball as a young man and he was an avid baseball fan and told his son everything there was to know about Shoeless Joe. Shoeless Joe along with seven members of his team were suspended for life for supposedly throwing the 1919 World Series. However, his father never beleived that Shoeless Joe played a part in such a thing. The farmer laid out the whole field but it was the left field he concentrated on building. It took him three seasons to get the grass just right. Even when the people in town laughed and made fun of him, he waited patiently. One night, his tells him that there is a young man out on the field with a baseball uniform. Heknows instantly who it is and as he steps out onto his proch, all the sights and sounds of basebal come flooding from every direction. As he sits in the bleachers, he watches the game. However, the only player that has any substance is Shoeless Joe, it is as if all of the other players are transparent. Shoeless Joe and he talk and asks if he can come back to play sometime. When the farmer tells him that he built the field just for him, Shoeless tells him that there are others that would like to play too if he could finish building the field. The farmer tells him that he will finish it. He also asks Shoeless if they would take a look at a good catcher that he knows of. The catcher that he is thinking of is his father. Shoeless Joe could not contain his exuberance any longer. He told the farmer, "This must be heaven." Then without thinking the farmer answers, "No, it's Iowa." However after thinking, the farmer says, "I think you're right Joe."

The movie of course, goes into greater detail about the story where the farmer actually gets to see his father play when he was in his prime.

Most stories about ghosts are much more mysterious, sometimes even violent or disturbing. This story was very different in that it explored the power of the human spirit. When we believe in something, anything is possible. With the full support of his wife, he followed his dream and heeded his call and made it come true. I wonder if the author Kinsella knew when he wrote this story how powerful a story it was and that one day it would be made into a major motion picture.

The short story I chose was called, “The Haunting of Blue Lake” by Norah Randall. It was taken from a book of short stories titled Dykeversions Lesbian Short Fiction, published in 1986. It is written in the first person, and the main character is a woman, Ann, most likely between twenty and thirty. She returns to her hometown Blue Lake, somewhere in the prairies, to attend her cousin Betty’s wedding. The catch is, that Ann and one other cousin in her family are the only people in the family who aren’t married. Her cousin Joe is not married because he recently divorced, and Ann is not because she is a Lesbian. They are both looked down upon by all of the family members and wind up talking about their family’s history in a bar while the wedding goes on.
The story tackled some pretty interesting issues like religion, being gay, and divorce. When the main character opened up about her family she sarcastically informed the reader, “God’s love is infinite and so are the number of things not talked about in the Haggerty family. Amen.” (Randall 33) Ann calls herself a ghost, as her family refuses to acknowledge her sexuality. On the other hand, she also calls her cousin Joe a ghost because their family speaks about divorce in a distasteful way as if pretending he isn’t there. Most of the story is Joe and Ann reflecting about their family and how every one of them conform to the societal values in seeking happiness, but will never actually find it. The ending is hilarious, and I won’t spoil it if anyone wants to read it. Let’s just say Ann gets her point across to her family without even attending the wedding.

I looked around the library for a little while waiting for a book to jump of the shelf at me and I found a book called Eye Wuz Here, a collection of short stories by Canadian women under age 30.

I ended up reading the whole book because all the stories were good.
I chose one story in particular however, titled Sista to Sista by T. J. Bryan, because I liked its poetic stylings and grammatically incorrect sentences. The author, an African American lesbian from Ottawa, uses a contemporary flow with the piece that I found interesting.

The story sets off with a fantasy that she is having about her girlfriend. It uses short staccato sentences that fall onto the page very poetically and scenically. Also notable, is the way the author made up her own spellings of words in her story. For instance, she continuously spells women "wimmin."
This break from the traditional English language reminded me of the Last Episode where he pushed the boundaries of what is acceptable and traditional story telling.
The plot is in flashback form, and loosely is about Zeena falling for a woman named Nia at a Woman's Retreat she visits in the States for five days.
Zeena and Nia are some of the only African Americans, and Zeena describes the way she feels about being around mostly white women and being the only black one. She invites Nia to dinner outside the retreat because she relates well to her and is very attracted to her physique.
I enjoyed how the author very accurately describes the awkwardness and sexual tension of their first date at diner, "watching carefully...to gauge Nia's reaction." That was one of the aspects I most appreciated from this author, her ability to describe the littlest detail without being to wordy. She was very funny, as well, using description like "her mayonnaise-self," describing her uptight white co-worker.
I like short stories in general and the book was a REALLY good read if you are into alternative fiction. It covered a lot of racy topics and important women's issues which are important to me. And I think something I appreciated was the fact that these women faced most of the same problems that I as an American woman do. I really get down with women speaking out and using their voices. And this story resonated with me because T. J. Bryan is very open about her sexuality and her desires and likes/dislikes. It was refreshing from the female perspective.

Spring Song is broken into three sections with only one continuous character, Will who is middle aged successful divorcee. In each section, he interacts with a different woman. Each of these women holds different significance in Will’s life, but share an unhealthy penchant to adhere to the silent standards of societal beauty. They each suffer from varying degrees of eating disorder, while living under the perception that the only disorder they suffer from is ugliness. In “The Spring Song of the Frogs” Margaret Atwood explores the transience of socially constructed aspects of beauty and the dangerous effects these aspects can have on those who choose to uphold them.
Within society beauty has come to be defined as a matter of time; what is attractive can become unattractive within the dictates of minutes and seconds all because a trend deems it so. Atwood’s examination of the transient nature of these societal standards of beauty further demonstrates their ridiculous nature. Will recalls men’s magazines of his childhood, “with no air-brushing, the plump women posed in motel rooms, the way the garters would sink into the flesh of thighs and rump. Now there’s no flesh, the things have shriveled up, they’re all muscle and bone” (167). The cultural obsession with thin and the beauty it represents is not concrete. Years before such thin and bony features would be rejected from men’s magazine and public image in general. Atwood points out that it is not the changing depictions of female beauty that is problematic, it is the standard they set. Women often do not see the false perception of beauty and attraction, which these societal standards create. They come to believe that without meeting these standards they cannot be attractive. Like a deal with the devil, women will trade their health and well-being all for a chance to be “beautiful.” It goes beyond the harmless past time of buying different shades of makeup and transcends into the realm of a lifestyle of bodily harm.
These standards equate more than just foolish coquettery and can transform a woman’s pursuit of beauty into a dangerous way of life. In all three sections of the short story Will interacts with women, all suffering from various stages of eating disorder. In each section, Atwood makes it a point to describe each of the women employing the current trend of “pale” colors. The waitress has powdered pale skin, his niece Cynthia has pale painted nails, and his former lover Diane has pale painted lips. All of the women of Atwood’s tale adhere to the “current” trend, allowing Atwood to parallel the effects of these standards of beauty at their most harmless stages and their most toxic stages. One of the most interesting details of “The Spring Song of the Frogs” is that it is narrated from a man’s perspective. Atwood effectively uses the observation of someone who stands outside of these societal demands in order to illustrate the foolishness of adhering to these standards. Will is perplexed by the actions of his female counterparts. All of their efforts to achieve what is beautiful and attractive work counterproductively. Will does not find these women attractive but frightening and unreasonable.
The first woman is the waitress at the restaurant he is eating at while on a date. Will cannot figure out whether or not this waitress is a woman or a man and finally “in view of the two slight bumps visible on her ribcage” (167) decides she is actually a woman. It is ludicrous that the slight intonation of breasts is the only factor Will can use to decipher this woman’s femininity, but this is what the skeletal nature of her frame presents to him. He expresses this lack of clarity over sex to his date, Robyn, who does not believe such a mistake over the waitress’s sex is possible. In this section Atwood uses juxtaposition of Will’s and Robyn’s perspectives, to show the stark contrast of viewpoint between those who are within and without the standard. To Robyn the waitress is undeniably female because she represents that thin beauty which Robyn aspires to every time she “orders a spinach salad with no dressing” (168) or refuses bread and “gives a little shudder as if the thought of it is slightly repulsive” (169). Robyn does not see that starving oneself (like the waitress was obviously doing) actually greatly deters femininity and thus attractiveness.
The second female Will interacts with is his cousin, Cynthia, who has been hospitalized for her eating disorder. He does not know how to help Cynthia because “reason doesn’t work. It would do no good to tell her that if she doesn’t eat she’ll digest herself, that her heart is a muscle like any other muscle and if it isn’t fed it will atrophy” (171). Cynthia has reached a level where death is more possible than achievement of the standard and she still refuses to give that standard up. Will reflects on Cynthia’s carefree youth and beauty and remembers as she aged into her adolescent years “all of a sudden she didn’t like getting grease on her hands; she began painting her nails. Will sees this now as the beginning of the end” (170). Will point’s out that Cynthia’s eating disorder did not start when she refused to eat certain foods or began throwing up in the bathroom at school. This eating disorder began the moment she chose to adhere to those false societal standards of what is beautiful.
The third female Will interacts with is his former lover Diane. Since Will last saw her, Diane developed an eating disorder. Will talks about how attractive Diane was in the past with sexuality and confidence exuding from her every movement. She has lost a lot of weight since he last saw her “now she’s almost spindly. In his arms she felt frail, diminished” (175). Here Atwood identifies that even if these standards of beauty are supposed to increase attractive quality they literally do quite the opposite. Will had always been attracted to Diane to the point where he conducted an affair with her while still married. She was not unattractive with a fuller figure; she merely fooled herself into believing it to be so.
Atwood poignantly remarks in her short story that societal standards of beauty are irrelevant in understanding what dictates human sexuality and attraction. Will’s examination of the changing trends of lip color illuminate this point. Whether a woman’s lips are the color of “melting orange sherbet” or “deep sensuous mulberry”(165), it is just a shade. The definition of attractive lip color “waxes and wanes, from season to season” now the lips are pale “except on the ones who have ignored whatever wordless decrees has gone out” (165). Will’s observations reveal the transience of beauty constructed by society’s terms. One day pale innocent lips are what is attractive and the next day it is dark sensuous lips. Will notices these trends and sees them for what they really are: just a change in color. By making color so important there is a detraction of attention from what actually does dictate attraction. It is not color, which makes lips (or any other body part for that matter) attractive it is the lips themselves; it is the curve of the mouth with all its possibility and mystery. Makeup and clothing can enhance or detract from beauty, but they never define it. Human attraction is natural and diverse and therefore that which spurs it is also natural and diverse.
Atwood’s use of Will’s narration is effective in creating an opinion formed outside of these standards. Will in his interactions, calls into question the reasons for these societal trends on beauty. After all, if the object of female attraction remains immune to these changing trends are they not obsolete? Women turn themselves into Christmas trees, believing that the more ornaments and accessories they add the more beautiful their appearance will become. They forget that it is their natural endowments and who exactly is looking, which determine their attractiveness. The female face is striking and beautiful in its natural features of nose, eyes, and mouth not in the gallons and tubs of makeup and color an individual colors over those features. Beauty is abstract; it cannot be defined in a simple calculation nor can it be declared by a trend in a society.

I read a short story by Thomas Chandler Haliburton, titled Sam Slick the Clockmaker. I found this story to be an entertaining satire of what Haliburton refers to as ‘soft sawdur’ and ‘human natur’. It takes places in rural Nova Scotia, when a local man, riding his horse, Mohawk (of whom he is quite proud) is encountered by Mr. Slick (certainly not a very subtle name choice) who is traveling on what he calls “the circuit”, selling clocks to those with not much need or financial wherewithal for such things.

The narrator of the story wonders how it is that Slick is “so successful in teaching these people the value of clocks, [but] could not also teach them the value of time”. Slick is a smooth talking Yankee, well versed in the ways of manipulation. Not only does this story contain a satirical view of the crooked business ways of Yankees (or New Englanders, Americans), but also pokes fun at the naïve tendencies of the Nova Scotians.

It is interesting to note the dialect used by the characters of the story, it was reminiscent to me of some of Mark Twain’s major usage of colloquial language, though it would seem that Haliburton’s North American humor may have paved the way for such American writers. While Slick’s language is that of a slimy American salesman, Deacon and Mrs. Flint’s is that of the ignorant farmer who is easily taken advantage of.

However, more than simply mocking ignorance and satirizing caginess, this story is, more than anything else, a social commentary. Written in a changing world in which material objects were becoming more and more important, this story is an observation on “having once indulged in the use of superfluity, how difficult it is to give it up…We can do without an article of luxury we have never had, but when once obtained, it is not in ‘human natur’ to surrender it voluntarily”.

For this assignment I chose to read another Alistair Macleod story entitled “In the Fall.” Not surprisingly the story takes place in Nova Scotia, about 200 miles from Halifax. It is about a family preparing for the winter, and questioning whether or not to get rid of their graying old horse, Scott. The father of the family leaves to work in the wintertime, formerly in the mines, but more recently contracting for the miners. He was quite fond of Scott, and would frequently tell a story of his youth in which Scott had waited for him all night in the freezing cold, while he was passed out drunk at a bootlegger’s. The narrator’s brother David was particularly fond of this story.

Unfortunately for Scott, the mother is unwilling to house the horse for the winter, claiming it’s on its last legs, and that if they sell it now they can make money, as opposed to feeding it all winter only to have it die. Eventually the buyer comes around, and although he has difficulty, he carts the horse away to become mink-feed. David reacts poorly to this, knowing what the horse had meant to his father, and reacts by destroying the family chicken coop and several chickens in an act of anger and confused emotions. A powerful moment concludes the story as the mother and father reconcile, and the narrator sets off to try and make his brother understand this aspect of life.

I very much enjoyed this story. Alistair Macleod once again delivers a realist tragedy, narrated in a very beautiful way. The cold landscape and harsh winds of Nova Scotia are described beautifully enough to make the reader want to be standing on the edge of the Atlantic, watching the menacing waves crash into shore, one after another. I think that the main theme of this story is the reality of working life and maintaining a family in a cold, unforgiving climate. The most powerful aspect of this story is the notion of coming to terms with death as a part of this necessary cycle, where everything outlives its usefulness. Like the beautiful coastal summer turns into a brutal, unforgiving winter, the chickens must be slaughtered anew every Christmas, and as a part of this process more valued and more cherished participants in this system such as horses are eventually outgrown. The horse is such a central part of the story that the three characters that have names are Scott, David, and the foul-tempered, vulgar man that purchases the horse. As tragic as the ending is, as the reader empathizes with David’s misplaced and confused emotions, one recognizes that only Alistair Macleod can make such a beautiful moment out of such a miserable concept (okay I lied, Charles Bukowski is pretty good at it too).