Louise Erdrich (Editor), �The Best American Short Stories: 1993�
[Ed. note: This is part two of an experiment to see if drinking while writing will make me more charming, funnier, and the best dancer in the world. The experiment begins here.]
Short stories are supposedly ideal for bathroom reading material. I found this out when I was reading Richard Adams, The Unbroken Web. Reading short stories provides just enough of a distraction so you don�t have to think about how putting all that Tabasco on your steak wasn�t such a good idea after all.
In addition, collections are usually small, which is important � you don�t want a five-pound copy of Atlas Shrugged cutting off your circulation as you try to perform a male version of birth.
But for fucks sake, somebody needs to pigeonhole the criteria for what constitutes a short story and stick to it, as the stories in this collection are all over the map in terms of length. Some of the stories are as short as five pages, while there are others, like Wendell Berry, who write for 40 pages.
I don�t care how much red meat a person builds in their stomach, nobody can sit on a toilet for that long.
Except perhaps an invalid, and really, is there ever a time an invalid isn�t on a toilet?
And of course, since this was started four months prior and completed over a month ago, I can�t remember any of the stories in this book. As with most collections, some were good, but a surprising number of them were bad. At least I think they were.
I know the term �Best� is subjective, but Jesus Christ, does being best mean you have to be overwrought? I think that�s the criteria they used in judging who would be included for this collection. People want their serious literature to be full of pain and heartache, with more analogies than a bad poet can fit into as couple of lines.
I can only think of maybe two stories that had any humor in it whatsoever. And sitting on the toilet is not the place I want to think about man�s inhumanity to man. I�m already busy thinking about my inhumanity to my sense of smell.
And as for the Tabasco � it was worth it.
- Beer consumed: 1 and 1/2.
- Cigarettes smoked: Two.
- Specifics that I actually remember about the book: Slim to none.
