It's December 16. It's cold outside, it seems to snow every weekend (unlike last year when it was only cold and brown outside). The tree is up and decorated. So it seems only fitting to choose a few short stories from the Everyman's Pocket Classics edition of Christmas Stories edited by Diana Secker Tesdell that I found at the library. I wish the editor would have done more than just select the stories for this volume. I wish she would have written an introduction discussing her choices. The only reference to the stories comes in the blurb in the dust jacket:
"As a literary subject, Christmas has inspired everything from intimate domestic dramas to fanciful flights of the imagination, and the full range of its expression is represented in this wonderfully engaging anthology."
That's all well and good, but I'd like to know more. I guess I'll go for entertainment purpose reading only right now.
I'm very interested in Elizabeth Bowen's work. I'd like to find a biography of her. Although I am grouching a bit at the extent of illumination I am getting in the Forster biography of Daphne du Maurier's novels, I think a bit of the same would be quite welcome in terms of Bowen and her work (and no grouching, I promise). I read (and thoroughly enjoyed) a couple of her novels some time ago. Last October I read the short story "The Cheery Soul" and wasn't quite sure what to make of it. I thought I'd give another of her stories a try, so I read "Green Holly". She's known for her short stories and she has written quite a few--ghost stories, stories set during WWII, and various others. Although "The Cheery Soul" was found in a ghost story anthology, I think either of these stories could fit easily into both categories (ghost/Christmas). Once again in "Green Holly" there is a WWII setting, a country house, it is Christmas, and we find yet another ghost. (What is it with ghosts and Christmas by the way?).
The green holly of the title is the decoration that Miss Bates hangs (sans berries as the birds ate them all) in the country house where several army personnel are ensconced. They are "Experts"--their work very "hush-hush" for the war effort. It's Christmas and there was no question of them taking any leave. Curiously the green holly keeps falling from its place on the wall--moved by a mysterious breeze, though there seems to be no draft. It would appear that a love sick ghost has her eye set upon Mr. Rankstock. I'm just wondering about "the figure of the man with the side of his head blown out (who) lay as always, one foot just touching the lowest step of the stairs". Hmm. That's the story I'd like to know about. Curious short story once again, but I'll continue reading Bowen's work--eventually something is going to click (or a pattern is going to form).
Muriel Spark is another author whose work I'd like to become more familiar with. Her story "Christmas Fugue" is included in the anthology. I had always thought the word "fugue" had musical connotations only. I am glad I looked the word up, because in psychiatry it means "a period during which a person suffers from loss of memory, often begins a new life, and, upon recovery, remembers nothing of the amnesic phase". Cynthia is a young woman who has emigrated from England to Australia. Her life is blah, however. I think Spark does a marvelous job evoking this feeling through her prose. She uses short, concise sentences devoid of any sort of embellishment--much like Cynthia's life.
Eventually Cynthia decides to chuck it all--her job, her boyfriend and return to England, as she had never really lived there as an adult--it will be a totally new experience. She buys a one-way ticket from Sydney to London departing Christmas day. The flight was nearly empty, but it is memorable in other ways (though I should use that term loosely). A curious mix of people are on the plane, including a handsome pilot. Let's just say that Cynthia does start a new life indeed. Cynthia and the pilot, Tom, connect and start a bit of an affair. But when Cynthia returns she is greeted by all her family and friends unexpectedly when she thought she had not given anyone a definite time of arrival. Another curious story. Did it all really happen? Did she even meet Tom? When she tries to track him down it seems he doesn't even exist. A fugue.
I hope to read more of the stories in the collection. They seem to be the perfect thing to turn to these days when my mind is twenty other places trying to get things done. A nice short story seems to fit my attention span perfectly.