Not Your Mother's Storytime

Anderson has saved his best for last. I think you’ll find the final scene in Winesburg very touching. I hope you’ve enjoyed our journey to a little midwestern town in Ohio!

We have choices that are presented to us throughout our lives. “Doors” that appear in the form of opportunities and pathways. If one decides not to go through a door or take a certain pathway, what are the consequences? How could one ever know? Would one have been happier if a certain door was chosen?

Ah. Elusive happiness. We can’t find it when looking for it. But it pops up throughout our lives, unexpectedly, IF we can conceive of it! And yet, there are “A thousand inconceivable petty worldlinesses” that prevent us from realizing our own happiness. Enjoy!

This is the story of two women who set out on a journey of 120 miles across a prairie in Canada during a very wet September. I’m not sure what to think about this story; a couple of 20 something women take a wagon through treacherous territory, in the most unpassable conditions. I guess women weren’t as frail as we thought they were back then. Perhaps women have never been frail. Enjoy!

We are getting to know these characters well, wouldn’t you say? There are a total of over 100 characters named in the book, some appearing only once and some recurring several times. Let’s crunch some numbers:  According to literary scholar Forrest L. Ingram, “George Willard recurs in all but six stories; 33 characters each appear in more than one story (some of them five and six times). Ninety-one characters appear only once in the cycle (ten of these are central protagonists in their stories).” Ok, enough math. Within the stories, characters figure in anecdotes that cover a relatively large time period; much of the action takes place during George’s teenage years, but there are also episodes that go back several generations (like “Godliness”), approximately twenty years  like “Hands”, and anywhere in between. The climactic scenes of two stories, “The Strength of God” and “The Teacher”, are actually juxtaposed over the course of one stormy January evening. As Malcolm Cowley writes in his introduction to the 1960 Viking edition, Anderson’s “…instinct was to present everything together, as in a dream.” Enjoy!

I could not resist bringing you a new story for the spooky season. So, here is “With Intent to Steal” by Algernon Blackwood. Blackwood has a special place in my heart because he was a broadcast narrator! I also love his philosophy about horror and the human mind. He says: “My fundamental interest, I suppose, is signs and proofs of other powers that lie hidden in us all; the extension, in other words, of human faculty. I believe it possible for our consciousness to change and grow, and that with this change we may become aware of a new universe.” My favorite type of horror story always has something to do with the Supernatural. How about you? What’s your favorite kind of horror?