"The Story of a Painter" by Ludmilla Petrushevskaya

This story can be found in the January 18, 2016 issue of The New Yorker.

This review can also be read at The Mookse and the Gripes.

First Line: "There once lived a painter so destitute that he couldn’t afford a single crayon, let alone brushes and paints."

Last Line: "'It’s because you’re a silly one,' Vera told him. 'Always were and always will be.'"

How wonderful to read a story that is merely a fairy tale - a story intended to amuse, to entertain, to hold the recepient's interest from beginning to end!  And though this piece is elementary, it is fun, and also current, touching universal and timeless themes and characterizations.  Fairy tales remind us that some things- some thoughts and emotions - some of life's circumstances - never seem to change.

No Big Bad Wolf, no little gnome of a man, and no princess to be found here.  But amid echoes of Dickens and Tolstoy we find a poor, abused painter; a young woman with a withered leg; a melodramatic swindler; and magic - paints, brushes, canvases...  There are "strangers in a strange land" and there is "no room in the inn" for a woman giving birth.  And guilt!  Oh, the guilt that runs throughout this piece - a thread weaving together the fuzzy differences between wants and needs!

As in any fairy tale, there are positive events that suddenly lead to negative turns and a moment when all seems lost.  Despair looms and threatens the thinnest fabric of humanity and hope.  But then there is a moment when what is real overcomes what is magic, in the end, and the hero comes through triumphant, and legally and lawfully wed.

Mormon Moment: "For behold, are we not all beggars?"  Mosiah 4:19
 
Photo Credit: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/1/19/Ludmilla_Petrushevskaya_seven_2009_Shankbone_NYC.jpg/200px-Ludmilla_Petrushevskaya_seven_2009_Shankbone_NYC.jpg

"Who Will Greet You at Home" - Lesley Nneka Arimah

This story can be read in the October 26, 2015 issue of The New Yorker.

This review can also be found at The Mookse and the Gripes.

First Line: "The yarn baby lasted a good month, emitting fry, cotton-soft gurgles and pooping little balls of lint, before Ogechi snagged its thigh on a nail and it unravelled as she continued walking, mistaking it little huffs for the beginning of hunger, not the cries of an infant being undone."

Last Line: "In the morning, she would fetch leaves to protect it from the rain."

While the language of this story is lyrical - the opening paragraph is quite beautiful - this genre is not something I enjoy.  I love the traditional Grimm's fairy tales, but I do not enjoy newly created parables or fables (think Dan Miller or Paul Coehlo). They feel forced and what I enjoy about fiction is the ease with which reality is addressed- even if in a hyperbolic way.

Maybe I am still reeling from the wonders of last week's story (Ben Marcus's "Cold Little Bird"), and the intriguing examination of fatherhood.  Maybe.  But this mythological invention of motherhood has less for me to link with, less to embrace.  And because it is not a "common" folk tale, it did not take root in prior memories or schemas.

This story is vaguely reminiscent of "The Snow Child" - but less beautiful, more harsh and unyielding.  Universal themes and ideas are addressed.

Even still, the writing is delightful.  It is animated and I can see the story unfolding in my mind's eye. The sensations for the reader of scene and character were well done.

Photo credit: http://i.ytimg.com/vi/GFUv9CHibZ0/maxresdefault.jpg

"Little Man" by Michael Cunningham

This story can be found in the August 10, 2015 issue of The New Yorker Magazine. 

First Line: "What if you had a child?"

Last Line: "Each would be stranded, laid flat, abandoned, bereft."

What a fun twist on the dark and brooding Rumpelstiltskin!

“Little Man” is probably not great literature itself, but is a refreshing treatment of such lasting stories.  Fairy tales endure because they are beautiful, important, and they reach us – have reached us – for generations…

I was touched in the very beginning when the Little Man spoke of how the miller saw his daughter – in her beauty “his daughter may not be singular”, but neither is the gnome’s desire for a child.

The second person point-of-view brings me back to the Choose Your Own Adventure stories and third grade when I still reveled in the magic of fairy tales.  I listened to Michael Cunningham’s version on SoundCloud.  It was like a teacher reading during story-time after recess.  This may have heavily influenced my thoughts on this piece.  Cunningham has a commanding and entertaining story-telling voice.  The tale was conversant and in today’s vernacular, style, and tone

“Belief is crucial.”  Insightful psychology employed in the story adds certainty to the reader’s perspective.  Why is Rumpelstiltskin the way he is?  How did the miller’s daughter approach marriage to the murderous king?  Could such a man desire a family?  Is love/sex available to all?  Are our children merely an extension of ourselves? 

While this piece of fiction may not win awards or accolades by the dozens, it is a perfect example of masterful storytelling.  I look forward to more of Cunningham’s work.

Photo credit: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/6a/Michael_Cunningham_JB_by_David_Shankbone.jpg/220px-Michael_Cunningham_JB_by_David_Shankbone.jpg