bookshelves of doom

The Big Read IV: The Lottery and Other Stories -- Shirley Jackson "My Life with R. H. Macy"

"My Life with R. H. Macy":  And now I will never think of Macy's in quite the same way again.

• This is the first story that's been in the first person, yes?

• I actually don't have much to say about this one, other than that I loved it and want to quote the whole thing but obviously can't.  And it's the first one that I thought was funny without being painful, and it's the first one in which I thought the main character actually made a move to break a cycle.  Here's a snippet:

They gave us each a big book with R. H. Macy written on it, and inside this book were pads of little sheets saying (from left to right) : "Comp. keep for ref. cust. d.a. no. or c.t. no. salesbook no. salescheck no. clerk no. dept. date M."  After M there was a long line for Mr. or Mrs. and the name, and then it began again with "No. item. class. at price. total."  And down at the bottom was written ORIGINAL and then again, "Comp. keep for ref., and "Paste yellow gift stamp here."  I read all this very carefully.

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Other reader/bloggers:

Gail at Original Content
Patricia at A Girl Diverged

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Previously:

"The Villager"
"Like Mother Used to Make" and "Trial By Combat"
"The Intoxicated" and "The Daemon Lover"
The Schedule

The Big Read IV: The Lottery and Other Stories -- Shirley Jackson "The Villager"

"The Villager": In which Miss Clarence doesn't deny being Mrs. Roberts.

• Love this:

"She went into Whelan's and sat at the counter, putting her copy of the Villager down on the counter next to her pocketbook and The Charterhouse of Parma, which she had read enthusiastically up to page fifty and only carried now for effect."

• And this:

"She stopped and rested on the third landing, and lit another one of her cigarettes so as to enter the apartment effectively."

• Another Mr. Harris!  No first name, though.

• This was another one in which someone pretends to be someone else.  Why did she do it?  Embarrassment at being caught?  Because she felt silly explaining the situation?  Because she wanted to feel, even for a few moments, like she had followed her dream of dancing?

• I got the feeling that she had mixed feelings about the other residents of the Village -- that she wanted to be one of them, that she wanted her old friends from home to think of her as one of them, but that she also wasn't all that comfortable with their way of life.  The starving artist lifestyle didn't work for her -- it sounded, from the very beginning of the story, like she moved to New York with the idea of becoming a dancer, but didn't necessarily try to make a go of it.  She liked the idea, but not the reality, maybe?

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Other reader/bloggers:

Gail at Original Content
Heidi at Adventures in Multiplicity

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Previously:

"Like Mother Used to Make" and "Trial By Combat"
"The Intoxicated" and "The Daemon Lover"
The Schedule

The Big Read IV: The Lottery and Other Stories -- Shirley Jackson "Like Mother Used to Make" and "Trial By Combat"

I can't believe I missed a post already!  I blame election craziness for the general crappitude of my internet service yesterday.

"Like Mother Used to Make":  In which I wished for a Roald Dahl "Lamb to the Slaughter" ending.

• The first few sentences make me think of two things:  The first was that scene in The Weatherman where Nicolas Cage tries to remember the tartar sauce (decent amount of swearing and whatnot):

 

The second was, of course, this:

Okay, okay.  On to the story.

• Have you noticed that the characters in these stories seem to get quietly mocked a lot?  Or, at least, they think they're being quietly mocked?

• Who does that?  Eats dinner at someone's house and then invites random guy in without even asking the host and says, "That's all right, it's just Davie"?  Especially because he's so into having his world and his space Just So.  Gross.  It feels like a violation.

• And, yeah.  I felt very much like David was kind of mothering Marcia from the beginning, but that doesn't mean it's okay for her to act like he IS her mother.  That now she expects him to feed this guy.

• AND THEN SHE PRETENDS THAT SHE MADE THE PIE???

• AND NOW SHE'S PRETENDING THAT IT'S HER APARTMENT??

• When he was putting the silverware away, my heart broke a little bit.  Even more than when he let her get away with it.

"Trial By Combat":  In which Mrs. Allen totally wins.

• It's funny that I ended up reading both of these stories today -- in which the main characters avoid confrontation and making a scene and end up losing out, even though they were clearly in the right.

• And it's interesting that even though her writing feels really distant and detached, somehow, that it still evokes these violent reactions in me.

• I wonder what went through Shirley Jackson's mind during cocktail parties.

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Other reader/bloggers:

Heidi at Adventures in Multiplicity
Gail at Original Content (not posting about it, but reading and discussing!)

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Previously:

"The Intoxicated" and "The Daemon Lover"
The Schedule

The Big Read IV: The Lottery and Other Stories -- Shirley Jackson "The Intoxicated" and "The Daemon Lover"

"The Intoxicated":  In which a young woman scares the bejeebers out of an older drunk man.

• I love the opening line:  "He was just tight enough and just familiar enough with the house to be able to go out into the kitchen alone, apparently to get ice, but actually to sober up a little; he was not quite enough a friend of the family to pass out on the living-room couch."

• I've read this story before.  I wonder where and when? 

• This is perfect:

He waited for a minute before he said, "I think it's a little silly for you to fill your mind with all this morbid trash.  Buy yourself a movie magazine and settle down."

So she should fill her mind with fluffy trash instead.  Get the feeling that he's more upset about her filling his mind with morbidity?  And wow, how condescending is that bit about the movie magazine?

• "He wanted badly to say something adult and scathing, and yet he was afraid of showing her that he had listened to her, that when he was young people had not talked like that."

• This story would be less creepy if Eileen poisoned his coffee or something.  Their conversation, her words and his reactions, made my skin crawl.  I got the distinct feeling that she hated him and what she thought he represented.  Either that, or she was screwing with him in a major way.  Or both.

"The Daemon Lover":  In which a groom doesn't show.

• I've read this one, too.  But I'm positive I haven't read this whole collection.  We shall see.

• Was he ever really there?  She ripped that letter up before finishing it.  "Thirty, it said on the license."  Marriage license?  Were there actually people in that apartment at the end, or was it another empty one with rats?  So.  Is she bananas or is there an actual missing person?  Or does any of it matter?

• And then there's this:  The Ballad of James Harris.  GAH.

• Okay, so the first story made my skin crawl.  This one made me tense up.  My neck got so tight that I'm still rolling my head around trying to unkink it.  It wasn't just her growing panic -- it was that everyone laughed at her.

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Other reader/bloggers:

Heidi at Adventures in Multiplicity
Gail at Original Content (not posting about it, but reading and discussing!)

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Previously:

The Schedule

The Big Read IV: The Lottery and Other Stories -- Shirley Jackson The Schedule.

I'd have been happy with any of the choices, but I am very excited about reading these stories -- I loved the Haunting of Hill House and I adore-with-a-capital-A-D-O-R-E-D We Have Always Lived in the Castle, and I remember reading "The Lottery" (of course) in high school, but I never have read the rest of the collection.

Also, I've been meaning all year to read more short stories.  Nice that I'm finally getting around to it.

As always, this is the schedule I'm going to stick to.  You all can do whatever your little hearts desire -- but if you want to follow this schedule, grab a copy soon!  We're less than a week away from our start day. 

And of course, if you blog about it, let me know so that I can link it all up.  Oh, and it should be noted that Matthew Baldwin at Defective Yeti, the creator (as far as I know) of NaNoReMo, is gearing up for November as well.  So if The Lottery isn't what you're looking for, there'll be another group read over there!

November 3:  "The Intoxicated" and "The Daemon Lover"
November 4:  "Like Mother Used to Make"
November 5:  "Trial by Combat"
November 6:  "The Villager"
November 7:  "My Life with R. H. Macy"

November 10:  "The Witch" and "The Renegade"
November 11:  "After You, My Dear Alphonse"
November 12:  "Charles"
November 13:  "Afternoon in Linen"
November 14:  "Flower Garden"

November 17:  "Dorothy and My Grandmother and the Sailors" and "Colloquy"
November 18:  "Elizabeth"
November 19:  "A Fine Old Firm"
November 20:  "The Dummy"
November 21:  "Seven Types of Ambiguity"

November 24:  "Come Dance With Me in Ireland" and "Of Course"
November 25:  "Pillar of Salt"
November 26:  "Men with Their Big Shoes"
November 27:  "The Tooth"
November 28:  "Got a Letter from Jimmy" and "The Lottery" and "Epilogue"

The Big Read IV.

And it's The Lottery.

But as it was pretty darned close, I think we should do Titus Groan next, and maybe The Blue Castle as a Little Big Read sometime soon.  AND WE'RE TOTALLY DOING IVANHOE AT SOME POINT BECAUSE IT'S AWESOME!!!  Ahem.  Moving on...

Schedule coming soon.  Very soon, as we'll start reading next week.

Big Read IV update.

OMG, The Lottery and Titus Groan are currently tied!!