And now for a little something different. As much as I have been enjoying the collection Fifty Great American Short Stories, I need a little break from it. The Stories of Jane Gardam have been getting a lot of positive attention. I mentioned it back in May and had been dipping into it and enjoying what I was reading but it's been a while since I picked it up. I think it was just what I needed this weekend. She's so good. If you've not yet had a chance to read her (her longer fiction is superlative, too), do give her a try. What better way to 'taste' someone's work than by reading a short story or two by them? I'll make my way through the whole collection, though I am taking my time with it. When it is a matter of a collection of stories by one author I like to dip into it now and then rather than gulp it down. (I think, however, Gardam's stories are pretty gulpable in case you prefer them in one go).
I love reading diaries and I love reading letters. There is something voyeuristic about the action of doing so. It's less as a voyeur that I like them however, and more a matter of curiosity about a time or place or a desire to learn about someone's life than anything salacious on my part. But diaries and letters are private things. I do think that often diaries are kept with an eye towards posterity and with the understanding they are likely to be read by others. But what of those letters or diaries that are intimate affairs meant to be kept between two people or in the case of a diary, for the diarist alone? What if the person in question is famous and to know this intimate aspect of their life could assist in scholarly academic work. If you found the letters of say, Jane Austen, what would you do with them? This question is at the heart of the story "The Sidmouth Letters".
What I look for in a short story is the ability of the writer to tell a story of depth in a succinct manner. A good short story writer will make you feel like you've been somewhere and done something in just a few pages. Jane Gardam can do that well. You've probably heard about the purported love interest of Jane Austen? (You can read more about it here). She visited the seaside town of Sidmouth and fell in love with a young man there and apparently he was as taken with her as she was with him. Letters were written but in the end it came to nothing. At least that is what is hinted at. What if these letters really existed and they had been kept by a local family, unread (respectful of privacy). What would you have done with them?
This is where Gardam's story arrives at in the end (and no worries I won't give the actual ending away). Where it begins is somewhere else entirely. It begins with a death. The death of a woman in contemporary times. Reading the story is (and this is the pleasure for me with short stories) an unravelling of actions and desires. A young British woman is invited to study in an American university. She writes a piece on Jane Austen and her seaside romance and submits it to her professor who hands it back with only a "tick and 'interesting' on it." A year later the piece is published with a few minor changes and her professor's name on it.
Is the story just about Jane Austen's letters, however? Yes and no. And the beauty of stories is that they are usually about something more. In this case the more is the professor. Gardam creates such a marvelous portrait of this man (who I have to say is the tiniest bit odious) that he is as 'interesting' as Jane Austen's letters are. It's the professor and the interplay between he and this student that Gardam is telling us about.
The next story in the collection is "A Spot of Gothic" which I read a few years back, but I plan on reading again. I suspect you'll be hearing about Jane Gardem here for a while.
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The New Yorker's (July 28 issue) short story is "Last Meal at Whole Foods" by Said Sayrafiezadeh, which you can read here. Like Allegra Goodman's story a few weeks back, this is another story about dying. You can read the author's Q&A here.