Literary Short Stories Nominations June 2012 • The MR Literary Club

[sun surfer]

Help us select what the MR Literary Club will read for June 2012!

The nominations will run through June 11 or until five works have made the list.

Final voting in a new poll will begin by June 11, where the month's selection will be decided.


The category for this month is:

Short Stories


In order for a work to be included in the poll it needs FOUR nominations - the original nomination plus three supporting.

Each participant has FOUR nominations to use. You can nominate a new work for consideration or you can support (second, third or fourth) a work that has already been nominated by another person.

To nominate a work just post a message with your nomination. If you are the first to nominate a work, it's always nice to provide an abstract to the work so others may consider their level of interest.


What is literature for the purposes of this club? A superior work of lasting merit that enriches the mind. Often it is important, challenging, critically acclaimed. It may be from ancient times to today; it may be from anywhere in the world; it may be obscure or famous, short or long; it may be a story, a novel, a play, a poem, an essay or another written form. If you are unsure if a work would be considered literature, just ask!


The floor is now open!

*

Nominations are closed. Final nominations:


The Metamorphosis, In the Penal Colony, and Other Stories by Franz Kafka - Fully nominated

Spoiler:

In favour - Hamlet53, Synamon, issybird, sun surfer

A collection of almost all short to medium length works

My Old Man by Ernest Hemingway - Fully nominated

Spoiler:

In favour - GA Russell, Synamon, sun surfer, Hamlet53

Fifty-One Tales by Lord Dunsany - Fully nominated

Spoiler:

In favour - Hamlet53, issybird, fantasyfan, GA Russell

This collection shows Dunsany (Edward John Moreton Drax Plunkett, 18th Baron of Dunsany) to be a master of the short story from pure fantasy to commentary on the human spirit and society.

The Complete Stories by Flannery O'Connor - Fully nominated

Spoiler:

In favour - issybird, fantasyfan, Hamlet53, paola

From wikipedia:

Mary Flannery O'Connor (March 25, 1925 – August 3, 1964) was an American novelist, short-story writer and essayist. An important voice in American literature, O'Connor wrote two novels and 32 short stories, as well as a number of reviews and commentaries. She was a Southern writer who often wrote in a Southern Gothic style and relied heavily on regional settings and grotesque characters. O'Connor's writing also reflected her own Roman Catholic faith, and frequently examined questions of morality and ethics.

Her Complete Stories won the 1972 U.S. National Book Award for Fiction and was named the "Best of the National Book Awards" by internet visitors in 2009.

Selected Stories of O. Henry - Fully nominated

Spoiler:

In favour - RoccoPaco, fantasyfan, Synamon, paola

Barnes & Noble Classics Series Volume

O. Henry originated the humorous, energetic tale that ends with an ironic, even shocking twist. In "After Twenty Years," for example, two boys agree to meet at a particular spot exactly twenty years later. Both are faithful, but in the intervening years one boy has turned into a criminal, the other into a policeman. Behind the rendezvous lurks a powerful dramatic situation with a fascinating moral dilemma--all in a few brief pages.

This is just one of the many literary gems in Selected Stories of O. Henry, a collection of forty-five of O. Henry's most renowned and entertaining short stories. Each one offers insights into human nature and the ways it is affected by love, jealousy, poverty, gentility, and the all-pervading reality of people conning people--themes that ran through the author's own life. Born William Sidney Porter, O. Henry started writing while in prison for embezzlement. Later he moved to New York, and his tales romanticizing the commonplace, particularly the life of ordinary New Yorkers, became highly popular. The most widely read author of his time, O. Henry died penniless but left behind a wealth of short stories that endure as hallmarks of the genre.

The short stories of M. R. James - 3

Spoiler:

In favour - fantasyfan, issybird, paola

Reminiscent of the inner psychological horror of Sheridan Le Fanu--but without the Gothic context of the Irish writer.

From The New Yorker:

If M. R. James is remembered now, and honored beyond the bounds of his university, it is not because of his scholarly deeds but precisely because of his talent for applying the very highest calibre of jolt. All of his stories have now been freshly gathered in “Collected Ghost Stories” (Oxford), edited by Darryl Jones. We also get a compendium of James’s reflections on the art that he practiced. Our response to ghost stories, Virginia Woolf argued, “is a refined and spiritualized essence of fear.” Most of James’s heroes are like James. Dons, obsessive bibliophiles, and bachelors. James summons unholy terror from the very texts and objects that concern him. Not for him the mad gothic landscape. The stories were written, so to speak, in front of a mirror, by a man hoping to drown the tiny, shivering thrills of the chronic bookworm with the low snarl of a more universal emotion, that of dread. Despite the titles of James’s books, only rarely does he deal in the mere emanation. What he fears most is surface contact. What truly provoked him, and what filtered into his stories, was not so much misogyny as a more basic, mortal panic at gazing into the face of the unknown. . . . A.E. Housman used poetry to touch on loves that he had lost or never dared to enact; M. R. James used ghost stories to explore fears of which he could not otherwise speak.

[GA Russell]

My Old Man by Ernest Hemingway

I started The Complete Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway in 2002, and I was so moved by My Old Man that I stopped dead in my tracks and haven't picked up the book since.

All of Hemingway's works are in the public domain in Canada, but I haven't found this one for free at Inkmesh. Perhaps if it wins someone will post it at the Patricia Clark MR Library.

[issybird]

I'd like to nominate The Complete Stories by Flannery O'Connor, winner of the National Book award in 1972. Here's the intro to her Wikipedia entry; I'll find something more illuminating later.

Mary Flannery O'Connor (March 25, 1925 – August 3, 1964) was an American novelist, short-story writer and essayist. An important voice in American literature, O'Connor wrote two novels and 32 short stories, as well as a number of reviews and commentaries. She was a Southern writer who often wrote in a Southern Gothic style and relied heavily on regional settings and grotesque characters. O'Connor's writing also reflected her own Roman Catholic faith, and frequently examined questions of morality and ethics.

Her Complete Stories won the 1972 U.S. National Book Award for Fiction [2] and was named the "Best of the National Book Awards" by internet visitors in 2009.

[RoccoPaco]

I'd like to nominate Selected Stories of O. Henry (Barnes & Noble Classics Series).

O. Henry originated the humorous, energetic tale that ends with an ironic, even shocking twist. In "After Twenty Years," for example, two boys agree to meet at a particular spot exactly twenty years later. Both are faithful, but in the intervening years one boy has turned into a criminal, the other into a policeman. Behind the rendezvous lurks a powerful dramatic situation with a fascinating moral dilemma--all in a few brief pages.


This is just one of the many literary gems in Selected Stories of O. Henry, a collection of forty-five of O. Henry's most renowned and entertaining short stories. Each one offers insights into human nature and the ways it is affected by love, jealousy, poverty, gentility, and the all-pervading reality of people conning people--themes that ran through the author's own life. Born William Sidney Porter, O. Henry started writing while in prison for embezzlement. Later he moved to New York, and his tales romanticizing the commonplace, particularly the life of ordinary New Yorkers, became highly popular. The most widely read author of his time, O. Henry died penniless but left behind a wealth of short stories that endure as hallmarks of the genre

[Hamlet53]

I nominate The Metamorphosis, In the Penal Colony, and Other Stories, a collection of almost all short to medium length works by Franz Kafka. This is perhaps my all time favorite work of fiction and is available as an ebook from a number of sources. Inkmesh search.

[fantasyfan]

I nominate the short stories of M.R.James. He was a great--perhaps the greatest--master of the macabre. His stories have been described in a review from The New Yorker as follows:

"If M. R. James is remembered now, and honored beyond the bounds of his university, it is not because of his scholarly deeds but precisely because of his talent for applying the very highest calibre of jolt. All of his stories have now been freshly gathered in “Collected Ghost Stories” (Oxford), edited by Darryl Jones. We also get a compendium of James’s reflections on the art that he practiced. Our response to ghost stories, Virginia Woolf argued, “is a refined and spiritualized essence of fear.” Most of James’s heroes are like James. Dons, obsessive bibliophiles, and bachelors. James summons unholy terror from the very texts and objects that concern him. Not for him the mad gothic landscape. The stories were written, so to speak, in front of a mirror, by a man hoping to drown the tiny, shivering thrills of the chronic bookworm with the low snarl of a more universal emotion, that of dread. Despite the titles of James’s books, only rarely does he deal in the mere emanation. What he fears most is surface contact. What truly provoked him, and what filtered into his stories, was not so much misogyny as a more basic, mortal panic at gazing into the face of the unknown. . . . A.E. Housman used poetry to touch on loves that he had lost or never dared to enact; M. R. James used ghost stories to explore fears of which he could not otherwise speak."

I would agree with that assessment but would add that I am reminded very much of the inner psychological horror of Sheridan Le Fanu--but without the Gothic context of the Irish writer.

A complete collection of these very literate and very scary stories is available for free right here at MobileRead!

http://www.mobileread.com/forums/ebo...sc&forumid=128

It's the second item on the list.

[fantasyfan]

I second Selected Stories of O. Henry and also The Complete Stories by Flannery O'Connor

[Synamon]

I'll second Hemingway and Kafka and third O. Henry.

[issybird]

I'll second James and third Kafka.

[sun surfer]

I'll third Hemingway and fourth Kafka.

[Hamlet53]

I would like to fourth My Old Man by Ernest Hemingway and third The Complete Stories by Flannery O'Connor .

Using my final nomination I will offer Fifty-One Tales by Lord Dunsany (Edward John Moreton Drax Plunkett, 18th Baron of Dunsany ). To me this collection shows Dunsany to be a master of the short story from pure fantasy to commentary on the human spirit and society. This collection is available in nice versions (LRF, PRC, IMP) here at MR, and being in the public domain for free at the other expected sources. This link (to one of the LRF versions at MR) provides more information as well as and example of one of his very short pieces.

[issybird]

I'll second Dunsany with my last nomination.

[fantasyfan]

I'll use my last nomination to third Dunsany.

[GA Russell]

I'm not familiar with Dunsany, but I will be happy to fourth him.

*****

I see that everyone else has nominated a collection of short stories, while I nominated a single one. Should I have nominated The Complete Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway instead?

http://inkmesh.com/ebooks/complete-s...nest+Hemingway

This is my first participation with this club, and I will be happy to go along with the program.

[sun surfer]

Originally Posted by GA Russell

I see that everyone else has nominated a collection of short stories, while I nominated a single one. Should I have nominated The Complete Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway instead?

http://inkmesh.com/ebooks/complete-s...nest+Hemingway

This is my first participation with this club, and I will be happy to go along with the program.

Your nomination seems fine to me, and welcome. If it wins and any others want to read more, they're free to.

This is actually our first month with this category (it's the last of our first yearly cycle that started last July). But we've had a variety of types of nominations in other categories too.