Sunday, March 29, 2015

March Short Stories


March's Short Stories (original sign-up post) (my list of 52) (challenge hosted by Bibliophilopolis)
  • 9 Spades "The Story of the Bad Little Boy" by Mark Twain from Complete Short Stories 
  • 3 Diamonds "Six Weeks at Heppenheim" by Elizabeth Gaskell from The Grey Woman and Other Stories 
  • 8 Spades "The Notorious Jumping Frog of Calaveras County" by Mark Twain from Complete Short Stories 
  • 2 Hearts "An Adventure on Island Rock" by L.M. Montgomery from Short Stories 1905-1906 
  • 5 Clubs "Second Chance" by Orson Scott Card from Worthing Saga
 "The Story of the Bad Little Boy" by Mark Twain from Complete Short Stories
  • Premise/Plot: A Parody of 'religious fiction' of the day written to "motivate" children to behave. His character is bad and nothing horrible ever happens to him, he does what he wants no matter how wrong or bad, and he has a very good and long life. 
Quote:
But the strangest thing that ever happened to Jim was the time he went boating on Sunday, and didn't get drowned, and that other time that he got caught out in the storm when he was fishing on Sunday, and didn't get struck by lighting. Why, you might look, and look, all through the Sunday-school books from now till next Christmas, and you would never come across anything like this. Oh no; you would find that all the bad boys who go boating on Sunday invariably get drowned; and all the bad boys who get caught out in storms when they are fishing on Sunday infallibly get struck by lightning. Boats with bad boys in them always upset on Sunday, and it always storms when bad boys go fishing on the Sabbath. How this Jim ever escaped is a mystery to me.
"Six Weeks at Heppenheim" by Elizabeth Gaskell from The Grey Woman and Other Stories
  • Premise/Plot: A very entertaining and satisfying story. The hero is on a European tour of sorts, he gets sick, and is tended to/nursed at a local inn. During his stay, he gets to know the family and the servants. There is a romantic element to this one. (The narrator is not involved. He's a witness nothing more to this sweet story). 
"The Notorious Jumping Frog of Calaveras County" by Mark Twain from Complete Short Stories
  • Premise/Plot: A funny story about a man who gets "caught" by a man who talks WAY too much. Can he escape the man's acquaintance, or will he have to listen to this man go on and on and on forever?! 
First sentence:
 In compliance with the request of a friend of mine, who wrote me from the East, I called on good-natured, garrulous old Simon Wheeler, and inquired after my friend's friend, Leonidas W. Smiley, as requested to do, and I hereunto append the result. I have a lurking suspicion that Leonidas W. Smiley is a myth; that my friend never knew such a personage; and that he only conjectured that, if I asked old Wheeler about him, it would remind him of his infamous Jim Smiley, and he would go to work and bore me nearly to death with some infernal reminiscence of him as long and tedious as it should be useless to me. If that was the design, it certainly succeeded.
"An Adventure on Island Rock" by L.M. Montgomery from Short Stories 1905-1906
  •  Premise/Plot: A dog, Laddie, saves a young boy, Ned, and is saved in the process from being sold by "mean" Uncle Richard. Ernest, the dog's best friend, is overjoyed. 
"Second Chances" by Orson Scott Card (1979) Printed in Capital and Worthing Saga
  • Premise/Plot: Abner Doon is in love, but, he won't be getting a happy ending. For the woman he loves is duty-bound to care for her parents. Both are in horrible health/condition. Conveniently, he convinces her for a few short hours, that she deserves a chance to be happy, to be with him. During these brief hours, he convinces her to get her mind taped (or bubbled?). (This is tied in with the drug, Somec, and preparing to go to sleep.) But she changes her mind. Decides that she couldn't possibly be happy with him if her parents were miserable and alone. This time the decision is final, or is it? What happens years later, when she's lost both her parents. Will they get a second chance?

© 2015 Becky Laney of Becky's Book Reviews

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I just really need to read more Twain. What kind of shoddy education have I had that I've completely missed him?