This delightful fantasy from H. G. Wells is about ‘magic’ and perception. A father and son enter a strange Magic Shop. As they begin to look around, the shopkeeper appears and entertains them with some ‘magic’. The innocent boy watches in awe, while his skeptical father looks for the sources of trickery. The pair moves further into the store and witness additional, seemingly impossible wonders. The father, realizing that what he sees may be real, becomes increasingly uncomfortable and begins to suspect the presence of unnatural forces. Themes: childhood innocence and wonder, father-son relationships, trickery vs. the supernatural. More…
Crazy Sunday
This partly autobiographical story from F. Scott Fitzgerald deals with the relationships between an up-and-coming Hollywood screenwriter (Joel), a powerful movie director (Miles), and the director’s wife (Stella). All three suffer major insecurity issues thanks to Hollywood’s toxic, highly competitive culture. Miles is a troubled adulterer; he and Stella look upon Joel as a friend/confidante; Joel has much stronger feelings for Stella. Unfortunately (or fortunately depending how you look at it), Miles dies before the seemingly inevitable marriage bust-up, and the future of Joel and Stella is left up in the air. Themes include insecurity, jealousy, appearances, romance, infidelity. More…
One Day
In this story by Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson, a timid Norwegian teenager becomes infatuated with an older villager whose voice moves her to tears at a choral performance. In his absence overseas, she is wooed by and finally marries a handsome sea captain. Within five years, she has two children and lives in fear of her dominating, hard drinking husband’s homecomings. She is enlivened when her teenage idol returns and is a regular visitor. They become close, but her hopes are crushed when, on a special outing together, he reveals his true self. Themes include unrequited love, obsession, loveless marriage, alcoholism, heartache. More…
Barn Burning
Barn Burning by William Faulkner is a story of how a ten-year-old boy rises above the intimidation and bullying of his embittered father. The father’s simmering anger stems from jealousy and lack of respect, fueled by an exploitative sharecropping system that keeps tenant families like his in perpetual poverty. He seeks retribution through senseless acts of arson (barn burning) against landholders he believes have slighted him. The boy, sensing the immorality of his father’s actions, has the courage to rebel and do something about it. Themes: family, class, alienation, exploitation, pride, anger, revenge, loyalty vs. morality, courage, betrayal. More…
First Love
Many readers have difficulty with Samuel Beckett’s post-World War 2 stories such as this one because of their stream-of-consciousness narrative approach. In this darkly comic dramatic monologue a reclusive, indolent man recalls how, after being evicted from the family home following his father’s death, he became infatuated with a prostitute he met on a canal-side bench. The more he tried to break away the closer they became until, after moving into her apartment, she gave him cause to leave her for good… a baby. Themes include misanthrope, self-obsession, love, misogyny, sexuality, the emptiness and futility of life. More…