In this folktale (aka The Clever People), a cruel farmer is angry with his wife because she was cheated out of two cows. He promises not beat her for it if can find someone more foolish. He soon finds one: a widow who is worried about how well her dead husband is doing in Heaven. The farmer makes up for losing his cows by cheating the widow out of a bag of money and stealing a horse from her son. At the end of the story, he seems to think that it is OK to cheat foolish people. More…
Luba
This story by Lily Brett is as much a description of how a group of holocaust survivors settled into Australian life as it is a tale of a marriage gone sour. One of the couples is understandably obsessive about security and the welfare of their only daughter. Against their wishes, the girl marries outside their faith and, despite five years of psychotherapy, carries some of their concerns and obsessions into her marriage. A passionate affair with an artist friend of her husband’s opens up a new, more carefree life. Themes include assimilation, friendship, family, intermarriage/racism, obsession, infidelity, love. More…
Land Deal
Australians recently voted (No) on a proposal to change their Constitution to recognize its First Peoples by establishing an advisory body called the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice. In recognition of this, it seems appropriate to feature this acclaimed story by Gerald Murnane. It provides a surreal interpretation of an early (afterwards deemed void) “treaty” between men from overseas and representatives of the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin Aboriginal Nation. The Wurundjeri narrator rationalizes the events as a dream (or perhaps nightmare) within a dream that must one day end. Themes: manipulation, exploitation, indivisibility of the land, restoration. More…
In the Middle of the Fields
This story from Mary Lavin highlights the isolation, vulnerability and resilience of a recently widowed farmer’s wife. Its major theme is the need to “move on” after the death of a loved one. Having decided to manage the farm herself, she hires a neighbor to “top” (trim) the long grass in her fields. The neighbor visits that night seeking to defer the work. She bests him with her knowledge of farming practices and, after rejecting an inappropriate advance, realizes that he is yet to get over a similar loss that occurred many years earlier. Other themes: passion, grief, fear, sexism. More…
Only Goodness
In this Jhumpa Lahiri story a Bengali-American woman successfully navigates growing up in a strict environment where her parents compensate for their lack of love for one another by high expectations of their children. This is not true of her more academically gifted younger brother, whose alcohol abuse shames her parents in the eyes of the local Bengali diaspora. She feels partly responsible for his drinking and subsequent fall, and makes a foolish decision that destroys her husband’s trust and almost costs the life of their child. Themes include cultural identity, sibling relationships, parental expectations, alcoholism, rebellion, alienation, guilt, trust. More…