So, if, like me, your New Year’s Resolution was to read more, why not start with some short stories? Here are a few recommendations to get you going:
The Bloody Chamber by Angela Carter (TW: sexual violence): Carter’s collection is one of the cornerstone texts of second wave feminism, in which she reworks fairy tales (arguably our first exposure to short stories themselves) into dark, gothic, stories which highlight and subvert their inherent misogyny. The stories individually are rich in imagery and humour, making them highly enjoyable to read as stand-alones, though the texture of the collection as a whole develops these ideas of female empowerment and sexuality.
The Elephant Vanishes by Haruki Murakami: Murakami is a highly celebrated Japanese author best known for his novels Norwegian Wood and Kafka on the Shore. In The Elephant Vanishes he presents seventeen individuals who seem to lead fairly normal lives yet have something incredibly unusual happen to them. A stand-out for me was the story Barn Burning, in which a conversation where one’s man admission of having a compulsion to burn down a barn every month-or-so sends another into a spiral, becoming obsessed with burning barns himself. This may sound nonsensical, but that is the beauty of this collection: expect the unexpected!
Moderate to Poor, Occasionally Good by Eley Williams: Last semester, I attended a talk by Eley Williams, in which she read a couple of stories from this collection. She spoke about her fascination with language, which comes across in the wordplay she uses in her unique and entertaining stories. The collection more broadly focuses on relationships between people and what remains unsaid, remaining both comedic and moving.