W. D. Myers’s Monkeyman is a quiet, bookish senior high-school student who steps in to prevent two “lady” members of a street gang from slashing the face of a girl he knows. The rest of the gang is honour-bound to extract payback. Instead of hiding, he challenges one of them to meet in a park. As a large crowd gathers to watch, Monkeyman does something that surprises everyone. Three weeks later, he is fighting for his life in hospital. At the time, the narrator thinks Monkeyman’s actions in the park were stupid. Years later, he/she thinks differently. More…
The Pit and the Pendulum
In this story by Edgar Allan Poe, a man in a dreamlike state of consciousness swoons upon being sentenced to death by the Spanish Inquisition. He wakes to find himself tied to a wooden frame in a chamber housing three forms of horrific death: a deep, water-filled pit; a slowly descending, razor-sharp pendulum; and contracting, red-hot walls. After almost giving up and welcoming death, he finds the will to live and devises a plan to escape the pendulum. As the walls close in, an unexpected visitor saves him. Themes include injustice, sadism, fear, time, the will to live, inventiveness, salvation More…
The Golden Honeymoon
This story from Ring Lardner describes an elderly couple’s “second honeymoon” to celebrate their 50th (golden) wedding anniversary. Related in the folksy language of the 1920s, the story is a gentle satire of the shallow lives and petty concerns of the aged, and the way long-term marriages can evolve into lives of constant, albeit affectionate, bickering. Larder’s narrator (the husband) is a likeable old windbag: vain and insensitive; a good winner but poor loser; quick to find fault in others but never in himself; and always wanting things to go his way. Themes: aging, enduring love, jealousy, competitiveness, pettiness. More…
The Bakery Attack / Second Bakery Attack
The Second Bakery Attack, one of Haruki Murakami’s most popular stories, is the sequel to an earlier, less well-known work. In the first story, an empty stomach symbolizes a life empty of ambition and intellectual stimulation. In the second, it symbolizes the insecurity inherent in a recently married couple’s (as yet) superficial relationship. The man has a lot to learn about his new wife, as becomes clear when she proves surprisingly adept at planning and carrying out a robbery. For the couple, the successful robbery proves a bonding, curse-lifting experience. Themes include marriage, insecurity, gender roles/’manhood’, the supernatural, change (Westernization). More…
Do What You Can
Sometimes a short, simple children’s story can carry a powerful message for people of all ages. Adapted from an old fable by Carolyn Sherwin Bailey, this story is about a raindrop that sees a farmer in distress. His carefully tended crop of corn is beginning to wither and droop and, although the raindrop knows it cannot save the crop alone, it decides to bring the farmer a moment of happiness. Contrary to the raindrop’s expectation, this makes a big difference. The story shows how a single act of kindness can often motivate others to also do good. More…