I was watching an old episode of Jeopary last night and the answer was the river Ebro in Spain. I didn’t know it, but Ebro rang a bell in my mind and I remembered Hemingway’s Old Man at the Bridge.
There was nothing to do about him. It was Easter Sunday and the Fascists were advancing toward the Ebro. It was a gray overcast day with a low ceiling so their planes were not up. That and the fact that cats know how to look after themselves was all the good luck that old man would ever have.
Then there is A Clean, Well Lighted Place.
*Turning off the electric light he continued the conversation with himself. It was the light of course but it is necessary that the place be clean and pleasant. You do not want music. Certainly you do not want music. [Well, I would like music] Nor can you stand before a bar with dignity although that is all that is provided for these hours. What did he fear? It was not a fear or dread. It was a nothing that he knew too well. *
And Hills Like White Elephants.
Can you please please please please please please please stop talking. I especially like that, no commas
After starting to write this, I read them all again. I started out to write just the first paragraph and ask for recommendations about short stories. Not my preferred genre. I think the only other collection of short stories I have ever read was a Stephen King collection. And I not usually into horror. Would like recommendations of short stories that are, sorry, Hemingwayesque.
Dolan’s Cadillac by Stephen King. A perfectly rendered story of revenge. I think Stephen King’s short stories are his best stories.
Protaganist has a reason to seek revenge, protaganist plans out the revenge, protaganist acts upon his plan, protaganist scores his victory, the end.
I could have also nominated H.P. Lovecraft’s “At The Mountains Of Madness”, but for a short story, it’s actually kind of long.
If you like Hemingway, you’ll probably like the short stories of W. Somerset Maugham.
Short, brilliantly written, and usually with a twist in the tail. They range through all emotions and situations, and are always thought-provoking. Written and set in the 1920s and 1930s, with both British and American characters. His novels are good too.
Here’s one you can read in the Amazon preview, set in colonial Samoa (‘Mackintosh’).
Personally, I like the humorous ones like Mr Know-All, The Facts of Life, The Three Fat Women of Antibes.
Henry Lawson, Australian poet and writer around the turn of the 20th century.
The best selection of his work can be found in the anthology “While the Billy Boils” 1896.
His poetry is alternatively brilliant and fragile.
Though set a couple of decades earlier in the 1890s drought a US reader could set the context for “Past Carin” as if the speaker could have been one of Steinbeck’s Joad women at the time of the Okie Clearances.
I was a big fan of Raymond Carver back in the 80s, but re-reading again, a fair number of stories have a grubby feel and/or misogyny that doesn’t hold up well. That said, “Cathedral” still holds up really well.
There is a terrific compilation series that comes out every year called Best American Short Stories. you can buy them used really cheaply on Amazon, you don’t have to have the most recent ones, and you get a wide diversity of styles that you can follow up on. I have them going all the way back to the 70s, and I’ve discovered a lot of writers through them.
The Dope kept crashing while I typed that, excuse any grammar errors.
The Irish writer Frank O’Connor was a master of the form.
Two of my favorites are First Confession, which is an incredibly funny story about a boy making his first confession, and Guests of the Nation (not funny at all).
If we’re talking about Irish writers, don’t forget James Joyce, especially his collection of short stories The Dubliners.
The Dead is perhaps the most powerful short story I’ve ever read. It’s gentle, slow, and subtle, and builds up gradually, but you won’t ever forget it.
John O’Hara was a total dick of a human being and most of his novels blew goats, but damn…could he write short stories!
“Over the River and Through the Woods” is his most revered, and it certainly is a barn-burner, but I’ve always been extremely fond of “Graven Image.”
After his death in 1970, American readers completely forgot about him (he didn’t want his stories to appear in academic anthologies, where literature student might encounter them) and I’ve only met one other human being who read Appointment in Samarra, his first novel, and the one that didn’t blow goats.
When I was a teenager I bought for some reason a combo Appointment in Samarra/BUtterfield 8. The former was decent, the latter was awful, though maybe it would read better now that I’m older.
Mark Twain’s The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County – This is the story that put Twain on the map, and you can see why.
Twain’s The Facts Concerning the Recent Carnival of Crime in Connecticut
Fredric Brown’s Arena – Brown was a master of the short story. This is one of his best. The Star Trek episode of the same name was NOT adapted from it – they just bought the rights when they realized how similar the two were. Brown’s is much better.
Arthur Conan Doyle’s Silver Blaze – he takes liberties with the way horse raxes were run, but it’s a great little mystery. And it gave us the phrase “The Curious Icident of the Dog in the Night Time.”
It’s a typical British house party until one of the guests, a professor from Germany, tells everyone he’s perfected a method of teaching animals to talk, and he’s had his first success with their housecat Tobermory. Short Stories: Tobermory by Saki
It’s my favorite short story, but some other’s of that author come close.