Today’s post is longer than most while I play catchup with my reading challenges, starting with my Short Story Challenge – Deal Me In 2017. While I have not yet successfully caught up, I did do a bit of reading and here are my reviews for the ones I finished. My list of stories for this challenge are in the google docs here or in my first review post here.

 Short Story Reading Challenge – Deal Me in 2017 – Here is my catching up: Completed reading most of the stories below except for ‘The Snows of Kilimanjaro’ for Week 8.  All reviews and interesting links are in the post below.
Week 5:  ‘Among the Paths to Eden’ by Truman Capote (My 2 of Clubs per Random.org’s card shuffler)
Week 6 – Jack of Spades – ‘The Nightingale and the Rose’ by Oscar Wilde
Week 7 – 4 of Spades – ‘Eveline’ by James Joyce
Week 8 – 8 of Spades – ‘The Snows of Kilimanjaro’ by Ernest Hemingway
Week 9 – 5 of Diamonds – “The Yarn of the Nancy Bell” by S W Gilbert from ‘The Children’s Treasyry of Classic Poetry” 
Weeks 10 – 14 – catch up later
Week 15 – this past week – Ace of Spades – . ‘A Haunted House’ by Virginia Woolf 
Coming up next – along with the pending catchup for weeks 10-14, week 16 will be a short story by Tagore – my 5 of Hearts. 

Week 5:  ‘Among the Paths to Eden’ by Truman Capote (My 2 of Clubs per Random.org’s card shuffler) –
Oh! Why have I not read Capote before? That was my first thought as I read the story and definitely when I reached the end. For me, this story was reminiscent of the humor and twists in Saki’s stories who is among my favorite short story writers. 
This story starts off Mr.Belli walking to his wife’s grave (not in any remembrance, but just for exercise), and he encounters, he first believes, another person who has come to the cemetery  to pay respects to her recently lost father. While they converse, he has insights into his own life,  with and without his wife which he had not realized before. And his first belief about the woman he encounters takes a surprising twist towards the end of the story.
And I discovered this gem of a video below while looking up the story – oh so wonderful – Truman Capote’s reading of the story recorded in 1963 – a must listen (just like the story itself is a must read). Another video, also linked below, is of the movie adaptation of this story, starring Maureen Stapleton and Martin Balsam
Rating: A+ for the story and the reading
Note: I read this story from my copy of Reader’s Digest ‘Great Short Stories of the World’

 

Week 7 – ‘Eveline’ by James Joyce – my 4 of Spades – Inertia, indecision, difficult choices (a familiar unforgiving past or an uncertain future) – all of these words came to my mind when I read Eveline. The story opens with Eveline seated at the window thinking about leaving home, to a new life, freedom; and ends with Eveline rooted to the spot, unable to make her move to a new life. This is a sad commentary on what many face, and the inability to move forward, to just jump into unfamiliar waters, and of opportunities lost because of the fear of the unknown. You can read it here.
Rating: A

Week 8 – ‘The Snows of Kilimanjaro’ by Ernest Hemingway –  8 of Spades – YTR

Week 9 –“The Yarn of the Nancy Bell” by S W Gilbert from ‘The Children’s Treasury of Classic Poetry”  – My 5 of Diamonds – This is a comic classic and totally a smile-bringer of a poem, though a little gory (‘cannibalistic’ is what Punch used to describe this poem when they rejected it). If the more recent ‘The Life of Pi’ were a comic poem, with slightly different characters, this is what I would imagine it would be – though of course Gilbert wrote his poem ages before the novel.
Note: I read the poem in my copy of ‘The Children’s Treasury of Classic Poetry‘ – a beautifully illustrated selection of wonderful poems though you could read it here.
Rating for the poem and the book: A

Weeks 10 – 14 – catch up later

Week 15 – this past week – Ace of Spades – ‘A Haunted House’ by Virginia Woolf-  I read the title story in this collection online here. This is a really short story and it took me a few
readings to kind of understand what the story was really telling
the reader. I then had to cheat, kind of, and look at notes about the book
online but was glad that I did understand the story correctly or as perceived
in that summary of the story! Two couples – one living, and one ghostly –
connected by two things – the house, and by the love in their hearts. I truly loved all that was left unsaid (but yet totally understood by the reader) in those broken conversations Woolf mentions in the paragraph below 
“Here we slept,” she
says. And he adds, “Kisses without number.” “Waking in the morning—” “Silver
between the trees—” “Upstairs—” “In the garden—” “When summer came—” “In winter
snowtime—” The doors go shutting far in the distance, gently knocking like the
pulse of a heart. 
Woolf is definitely an acquired taste and I am beginning to enjoy her – this was my first foray into the literary genius that is her! and I am glad. 
Rating: A