The Mookse and the Gripes discussion
Mookse Madness
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2018 Mookse Madness: The List
Looks really interesting, I have not participated in one of these before. (How exactly does it work ? Sorry, that is maybe detailed elsewhere if I go and have a look.) I will do my best to track some of these down and contribute. Happy to see Katherine Mansfield make it ;)
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Any good hints to collections where several of them might be found?
Excellent list. I have read a few a long time ago and am looking forward to revisiting them. I tend to skip over short stories. I am not sure why but this will be a great opportunity to expand my reading enjoyment.
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I agree that this would be very useful, and would be happy to help collate a list - it would also be useful to know which author-specific collections include them, but I don't really know where to start, though a handful or so should be in books I already own!
Some of them don't even exist as individual works in GoodReads.
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In the Gloaming (1993) by Alice Elliott Dark, in In the Gloaming
See In the Gloaming (New Yorker)
The Bear Came Over the Mountain (1999) by Alice Munro, in Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage
See The Bear Came Over the Mountain (New Yorker)
The Boat (1968) by Alistair MacLeod, in The Lost Salt Gift of Blood or Island
An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge (1890) by Ambrose Bierce, in Tales of Soldiers and Civilians or An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge and Other Stories
See An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge (Classic Short Stories)
The Story (2006) by Amy Bloom, in A Blind Man Can See How Much I Love You
A Father's Story (1986) by Andre Dubus, in Selected stories
Servants of the Map (2002) by Andrea Barrett, in Servants of the Map
The Bloody Chamber (1979) by Angela Carter, in The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories or Burning Your Boats
Them Old Cowboy Songs (2008) by Annie Proulx, in Fine Just the way it is
See Them Old Cowboy Songs (New Yorker)
A Passion in the Desert (1830) by Honoré de Balzac
See A Passion in the Desert (Project Gutenberg)
The Management of Grief (1989) by Bharati Mukherjee, in The Middleman and other stories
The Yellow Wallpaper (1892) by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, in The Yellow Wallpaper and other stories
See The Yellow Wallpaper (Project Gutenberg)
Foster (2010) by Claire Keegan
See Foster (New Yorker)
Mermaids (1986) by Deborah Eisenberg, in Collected Stories or All Around Atlantis
The Tell-Tale Heart (1843) by Edgar Allan Poe, in Tales of Mystery and Imagination
See The Tell-Tale Heart (The Poe Museum)
Sister Imelda (1981) by Edna O'Brien, in Returning
The Demon Lover (1945) by Elizabeth Bowen, in The Demon Lover and other stories
A Dedicated Man (1965) by Elizabeth Taylor, in A Dedicated Man and other stories
Death of a Traveling Salesman (1936) by Eudora Welty, in A Curtain of Green
A Good Man Is Hard to Find (1953) by Flannery O'Connor, in A Good Man Is Hard to Find and other stories
Michael's Wife (1936) by Frank O'Connor, in Bones of Contention or Collected Stories
The Semplica-Girl Diaries (2012) by George Saunders, in Tenth of December
See The Semplica-Girl Diaries (New Yorker)
The Necklace (1884) by Guy de Maupassant, in The Necklace and other stories
The Call of Cthulhu (1926) by H.P. Lovecraft, in Tales of the Cthulhu Mythos
Dead as They Come (1977) by Ian McEwan, in In Between the Sheets
Nightfall (1941) by Isaac Asimov, in Nightfall and other stories
The Story of My Dovecote (1925) by Isaac Babel, in The collected stories
To Build a Fire (1902) by Jack London, in Lost Face or To Build a Fire and other stories
See To Build a Fire (Project Gutenberg)
La Grosse Fifi (1927) by Jean Rhys, in La Grosse Fifi or Tigers are Better-Looking
A Temporary Matter (1998) by Jhumpa Lahiri, in Interpreter of Maladies
Intervention (2003) by Jill McCorkle, in Going Away Shoes
Redemption (1977) by John Gardner, in The Art of Living and other stories
The Beginning of an Idea (19??) by John McGahern, in Collected Stories
The Lottery in Babylon (1941) by Jorge Luis Borges, in Labyrinths or Ficciones
The Skater (1990?) by Joy Williams, in Escapes
Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been (1966) by Joyce Carol Oates, in Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?: Selected Early Stories
The Island at Noon (1966) by Julio Cortazar, in All Fires the Fire
In the Penal Colony (1919) by Franz Kafka, in The Collected short stories
A Pair of Silk Stockings (1897) by Kate Chopin, in A Pair of Silk Stockings and other short stories
See A Pair of Silk Stockings (Project Gutenberg)
The Grave (1935) by Katherine Anne Porter, in The Collected stories
The Fly (1922) by Katherine Mansfield, in The Dove's nest and other stories or The Collected stories
Harrison Bergeron (1961) by Kurt Vonnegut, in Welcome to the Monkey House
The Debutante (19??) by Leonora Carrington, in The Debutante and other stories
People Like That Are the Only People Here (1997) by Lorrie Moore, in The collected stories
Sister Godzilla (2001) by Louise Erdrich
See Sister Godzilla (The Atlantic)
Travis, B. (2002) by Maile Meloy, in Both Ways is the Only Way I Want it
Rape Fantasies (1977) by Margaret Atwood, in Dancing girls and other stories
Dede (1987) by Mavis Gallant, in Across the Bridge
Shoggoth's Old Peculiar (1998) by Neil Gaiman, in Smoke and Mirrors
A Man from the South (1948) by Roald Dahl, in Collected Stories
The Inner Room (1968) by Robert Aickman, in Sub Rosa: Strange Tales
Gómez Palacio (2005) by Roberto Bolaño, in Last Evenings on Earth
The Open Window (1914) by Saki, in Beasts and Super-Beasts or The Collected short stories
See The Open Window (Project Gutenberg)
Death in the Woods (1924) by Sherwood Anderson, in Death in the Woods and other stories
See Death in the Woods (Project Gutenberg)
Eisenheim the Illusionist (1990) by Stephen Millhauser, in The Barnum Museum or We Others: New and selected stories
I Stand Here Ironing (1961) by Tillie Olsen, in Tell Me a Riddle
The Things They Carried (1990) by Tim O'Brien, in The Things They Carried
In the Garden of the North American Martyrs (1981) by Tobias Wolff, in In the Garden of the North American Martyrs or Our Story Begins
A Tree of Night (1945) by Truman Capote, in The Grass Harp or A Tree of Night and other stories
The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas (1973) by Ursula K. Le Guin, in The Wind's Twelve Quarters
Signs and Symbols (1948) by Vladimir Nabokov, in Nabokov's Dozen
See Signs and Symbols (New Yorker)
Paul's Case (1905) by Willa Cather, in The Troll Garden
See Paul's Case (Cather Archive)
A Rose for Emily (1930) by William Faulkner, in A Rose for Emily and other stories
The Piano Tuner's Wives (1995) by William Trevor, in After Rain
Note that in some cases I am not 100% sure the stories are in the right edition, so let me know if you spot any errors or find any better collections.
Hugh hits the spreadsheets! Amazing :-)I'll chip in :-)
Alice Munro story (The Bear came over the mountain) https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/20...
A Pair of Silk Stockings by Kate Chopin can be found here http://www.gutenberg.org/files/160/16...
The Semplica-Girl Diaries by George Saunders was in the New Yorker https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/20...
Ambrose Bierce "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge"
Can be found here http://www.classicshorts.com/stories/...
Gomez Palacio by Roberto Bolano in Last Evenings on Earth
In the Garden of the North American Martyrs by Tobias Wolf can be found in the book by the same name OR Our Story Begins: New and Selected Stories
To Build a Fire by Jack London can be found for free here
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/2429/2...
A Tree of Night by Truman Capote is in The Grass Harp, Including A Tree of Night and Other Stories
Saki "The Open Window" can be found on Gutenberg.org in Beasts and Super-Beasts
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/269/26...
Sherwood Anderson "Death in the woods " http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks04/0400...
you guys are amazing. amazing. i'll help too when i have a minute.
willa cather's Paul's Case william faulkner's A Rose for Emily
vladimir nabokov's Signs and Symbols
ursula k leguin The Ones Who Walk away from Omelas
Just a quick question, Tim O'Brien "The Things They Carried" - appears to be a full length book? The Things They Carried
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According to Wikipedia the book is a collection of linked short stories and the first one shares the title: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Thi...
You can also find the Roald Dahl story in Someone Like You and DeceptionTrivia: Both Hitchcock and Tarantino have adapted it to film
Mod
One thing the exercise demonstrates is that online information on exactly which stories are contained in which collections and anthologies is very hit and miss! In some cases the original publication dates are elusive too.
Louise's question at comment #4 is still a good one - I have not attempted to search for appearances in multi-author anthologies but the older stories are likely to appear in these.
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While I’ve seen absolutely no evidence of this occurring, please do refrain from posting links to pirated copies. Again, no one here has done this and I don’t foresee it, but I wanted to get that out there. If you don’t know if a link you have is to a pirated or legitimate online version, err on the side of not sharing here. Links that magazine sites and the like are most likely legitimate copies of the story, and if the story is old enough to be in the public domain share the link.
I will come back in here in a bit to explain the process for those just coming to it for the first time. I hope all will feel welcome to participate as much as they’d like!
Ahhh, JM&J, what a welcome relief to not read any kvetching, humble-bragging, or one-upmanship about Trevor's list, i.e., "X is a superior story to Y by Z and should be on this list, and I read it first, and I knew the author would write it before he knew, and my scion wrote his dissertation on it, and author has praised said dissertation as superior to his inchoate ...."Check your wayback machine shelves (a.k.a. stolen from your high school) for:
The Best American Short Stories of the Century : Oates, T. O’Brien, and Dark.
Literature; Structure, Sound, and Sense (Perrine) : Cather and Welty.
Adventures in American Literature (Pegasus Edition) : Bierce and London
many of these are classics and posted online by teachers for their classes. the .edu domain is a clue to this. these seems to me perfectly okay to use. :)if people want original date of publication we can do this too. hugh, have you considered putting your spreadsheet on google docs for editing/adding?
(ETA i'm not even really sure how "pirated" applies to short stories; they have such little financial value....)
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Let's just not go there in this forum :-)
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General Process
There are 64 works that will be pitted up against each other in a single-elimination tournament, similar to the NCAA Basketball March Madness tournament that has inspired this tournament (and countless others).
Round 1 includes 32 head-to-head match-ups, with the losing story being eliminated for good. There will be a calendar provided that will contain the match-ups as well as dates. On those dates, I will open discussion threads with polls prepared for each match-up. There you will be able to vote and conduct "spirited and convivial discussions." The poll will be open for two or three days. Once Round 1 is done, the 32 winners will move on to Round 2 after a day or two of rest, and so on until we have our winner.
General Rules
-Every member of the forum is invited to participate as much as possible. If you have friends who love this kind of thing, invite them to join in.
-While the voting is open you can change your vote as often as you'd like should anything persuade you to do so.
-You can vote based on whatever criteria you desire. Meaning, you do not have to have read the works in a match-up to vote in that match-up. This is because the point is not to get an objective "best" winner but rather to discuss a variety of things that come up in the match-ups.
-Feel free to vote against a work rather than for a work, and tell us why (see next point).
-Please contribute to the discussion as much as possible, even if it means admitting that you haven't read the books yet and why you find yourself drawn to or repulsed by either. As stated at the outset, the best part of this will be the discussion that occurs when we pit an apple and an orange together and try to figure out which is the winner.
-The discussion should be respectful, but please bring a sense of humor and don't be afraid to use it.
Naturally, your uninformed opinion swaying the vote will frustrate someone who has read everything and, therefore, knows your vote is incorrect and should be invalid. It'll drive that person mad knowing he or she cannot do anything about this injustice, this concession to idiocy. But hopefully that person can try to persuade you kindly and, if it comes to it, concede magnanimously, keeping in mind this soothing mantra: "I still love to read and will for all time. Mookse Madness will soon be a thing of the past, drifting into obscurity."
Oh and this one is nice - and should be legal :-)The Story of My Dovecote by Isaac Babel
as free audio on The Guardian.com read by Nathan Englander
https://www.theguardian.com/books/aud...
I must be dreaming-literary march madness!! Whoever thought this up is a genius!
Weird, I just got Transactions in a Foreign Currency by Deborah Eisenberg, in from the library, and Mermaids is not in it - might there be different editions? That's a tough story to locate...
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I'm looking forward to this.Thanks for all the links.
I am surprised at how few are available on Kindle.I have a New Yorker subscription which gives me access to the archive, so that helps.
Edit to add: I see now that a lot of these are available on US Kindle, but not UK.
Amy Bloom's The Story is in this collection: A Blind Man Can See How Much I Love YouNeil Gaiman's Sloggoth's Old Peculiar is in this collection: Smoke and Mirrors: Short Fiction and Illusions
I found Sister Godzilla by Louise Edrich in The Atlantic - I have a subscription so I don't know if this will be available to those who don't:
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/...
Mod
Ursala Le Guin's can also be found in The Unreal and the Real: Selected Stories, Volume Two: Outer Space, Inner Lands
my puny contribution--but, it is great--Mary Gaitskill reading "Symbols and Signs" by Nabokov, for The New Yorker Fiction podcast:https://www.newyorker.com/podcast/fic...
This is such a wonderful list. It would make such a wonderful anthology.
I am working through this list and have a clear favourite so far. I should add that I rarely read short stories. I hope to find entries from this list that will encourage me to read more of them.
Now I'm curious :-) I'm about half way through at this point
I envy your position of being half through. I am about a quarter through but the good thing is, I am starting to enjoy them (and no longer a clear favourite).I can't find Michael's Wife in Collected Stories, but it is in A Frank O'Connor Reader from Syracuse University Press.
Great list of stories. I will start with the ones that I own
The UK edition of Margaret Atwood's Dancing Girls and Other Stories does not include Rape Fantasies. I wonder if the UK publisher didn't like the sound of that one, or maybe the name has been changed. The "Look Inside" option on the US edition isn't working very well (only shows a picture of the cover) but based on the reviews which name the stories, it appears it is not in the later volumes over there either.
According to wikipedia the revised Simon & Schuster 1982 edition of the book replaced "The War in the Bathroom" and "Rape Fantasies" with "Betty" and "The Sin Eater". It doesn't say why.
So we might have a bit of difficulty obtaining that one.
If you google: Rape Fantasies AtwoodThe pdf of the story is the third item down. You can download it, print it or read on line.
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I hope you are enjoying the stories you've been reading so far and that we have some fun!
Thanks, Trevor. I have read 49 so far and plan on reading them all. I have made brief notes on each in order to remember them when the time comes, but some are unforgettable, e.g. the Ursula Le Guin one.
http://www.penguinmodern.com/listIt's possible this new series from Penguin will include some of our MM stories. I haven't found any to list the exact stories within so will just have to see when they come out on 22nd Feb.
Yes notes are good, I may have to re-read some of the stories I read last year- before I started taking notes/marking ratings.Last one I read had me crying - but in a good way :-)
Mod
Bracket 1:
-Amy Bloom: “The Story”
-Elizabeth Bowen: “The Demon Lover”
-Julio Cortázar: “The Island at Noon”
-Alice Eliot Dark: “In the Gloaming”
-Louise Erdrich: “Sister Godzilla”
-Neil Gaiman: “Shoggoth’s Old Peculiar”
-Claire Keegan: “Foster”
-Katherine Mansfield: “The Fly”
-Ian McEwan: “Dead as They Come”
-John McGahern: “The Beginning of an Idea”
-Tim O’Brien: “The Things They Carried”
-Frank O’Connor: “Michael’s Wife”
-Vladimir Nabokov: “Signs and Symbols”
-Annie Proulx: “Them Old Cowboy Songs”
-Jean Rhys: “La Grosse Fifi”
-Saki: “The Open Window”
Bracket 2:
-Sherwood Anderson: “Death in the Woods”
-Isaac Asimov: “Nightfall”
-Honoré de Balzac: “A Passion in the Desert”
-Jorge Luis Borges: “The Lottery of Babylon”
-Willa Cather: “Paul’s Case”
-Roald Dahl: “A Man from the South”
-Andre Dubus: “A Father’s Story”
-Deborah Eisenberg: “Mermaids”
-Franz Kafka: “In the Penal Colony”
-Jhumpa Lahiri: “A Temporary Matter”
-Maile Meloy: “Travis, B.”
-Alice Munro: “The Bear Came Over the Mountain”
-George Saunders: “The Semplica-Girl Diaries”
-Elizabeth Taylor: “A Dedicated Man”
-Kurt Vonnegut: “Harrison Bergeron”
-Tobias Wolf: “In the Garden of the North American Martyrs”
Bracket 3:
-Robert Aickman: “The Inner Room”
-Margaret Atwood: “Rape Fantasies”
-Isaac Babel: “The Story of My Dovecoat”
-Andrea Barrett: “Servants of the Map”
-Truman Capote: “A Tree of Night”
-Leonora Carrington: “The Debutante”
-Kate Chopin: “A Pair of Silk Stockings”
-William Faulkner: “A Rose for Emily”
-Alistair MacLeod: “The Boat”
-Guy de Maupassant: “The Necklace”
-Jill McCorkle: “Intervention”
-Stephen Millhauser: “Eisenheim the Illusionist”
-Bharati Mukherjee: “The Management of Grief”
-Edgar Allan Poe: “The Tell-Tale Heart”
-Eudora Whelty: “Death of a Travelling Salesman”
-Joy Williams: “The Skater”
Bracket 4:
-Roberto Bolaño: “Gomez Palacio”
-Ambrose Bierce: “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge”
-Angela Carter: “The Bloody Chamber”
-Mavis Gallant: “Dede”
-John Gardner: “Redemption”
-Charlotte Perkins Gilman: “The Yellow Wallpaper”
-Ursula K. LeGuin: “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas”
-Jack London: “To Build a Fire”
-H.P. Lovecraft: “The Call of Cthulhu”
-Lorrie Moore: “People Like That Are the Only People Here”
-Joyce Carol Oates: “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been”
-Edna O’Brien: “Sister Imelda”
-Flannery O’Connor: “A Good Man Is Hard to Find”
-Tillie Olsen: “I Stand Here Ironing”
-Katherine Anne Porter: “The Grave”
-William Trevor: “The Piano Tuner’s Wives”
The Mookse and the Gripes
Books mentioned in this topic
The Unreal and the Real: Selected Stories, Volume Two: Outer Space, Inner Lands (other topics)A Blind Man Can See How Much I Love You: Stories (other topics)
All Around Atlantis (other topics)
Smoke and Mirrors: Short Fiction and Illusions (other topics)
All Around Atlantis (other topics)
More...
Authors mentioned in this topic
Roald Dahl (other topics)Sherwood Anderson (other topics)
Steven Millhauser (other topics)
Tillie Olsen (other topics)
Robert Aickman (other topics)
More...
For general process and rules, click here.
March is still a ways off, but many asked if we could get the list of stories up early so that folks who want to can read the stories well in advance. And so, taking into consideration folks' suggestions elsewhere to create the list, below are the 64 short stories that will be fighting against each other for the championship in our second season. What we have is a list of classic and contemporary stories, no author getting more than one on the list (even if many deserve it), and the story selected may not be the one that author is most famous for.
As always, keep in mind the point: to engage with a variety of stories together, having fun and hopefully lively and vigorous and courteous conversations about stories in our literary culture, facilitated by this completely bonkers format.
It would be impossible to make a list that everyone is happy with, so I didn't try too hard. But a bit on how this list was -- well, more like, was not -- formulated. I tried to select authors folks are likely to have come across and stories I thought people could get behind and enjoy. This list was not made with the intention of defining the most worthy or the most representative or the most exemplary or the most important short stories. The list was not made with the intent of shedding light on unfairly neglected authors and their masterpieces. I went to many many lists of "best of" (and this group's own suggestions), and while doing so I purposefully made a list that contains an equal number of male and female authors, but that was about it. A casualty of this approach is most other kinds of diversity. I didn't, for example, check year or country of origin or race, and we can address this failing and what, as a culture, we're missing out on below when such stories and authors rarely if ever get general cultural attention.
When the time came to start slashing, I did away with some that probably should have been on the list -- like Carver and Cheever: sometimes the greats stumble at the finish and fail to get into the tournament. Feel free to chat about surprising exclusions or inclusions below! The list will not change, barring some error or major uprising (but go ahead and winge appropriately!).
I still don't know which books will be in which brackets or what match-ups may show up in the first round, and I probably won't do that until close to the beginning of the tournament. I'd suggest just keeping some brief notes as you make your way through them.
I hope this yields some great conversations but also some great discoveries!
-Alice Eliot Dark: "In the Gloaming"
-Alice Munro: "The Bear Came Over the Mountain"
-Alistair MacLeod: "The Boat"
-Ambrose Bierce: "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge"
-Amy Bloom: "The Story"
-Andre Dubus: "A Father's Story"
-Andrea Barrett: "Servants of the Map"
-Angela Carter: "The Bloody Chamber"
-Annie Proulx: "Them Old Cowboy Songs"
-Balzac: "A Passion in the Desert"
-Bharati Mukherjee: "The Management of Grief"
-Charlotte Perkins Gilman: "The Yellow Wallpaper"
-Claire Keegan: "Foster"
-Deborah Eisenberg: "Mermaids"
-Edgar Allan Poe: "The Tell-Tale Heart"
-Edna O'Brien: "Sister Imelda"
-Elizabeth Bowen: "The Demon Lover"
-Elizabeth Taylor: "A Dedicated Man"
-Eudora Whelty: "Death of a Travelling Salesman"
-Flannery O'Connor: "A Good Man Is Hard to Find"
-Frank O'Connor: "Michael's Wife"
-George Saunders: "The Semplica-Girl Diaries"
-Guy de Maupassant: "The Necklace"
-H.P. Lovecraft: "The Call of Cthulhu"
-Ian McEwan: "Dead as They Come"
-Isaac Asimov: "Nightfall"
-Isaac Babel: "The Story of My Dovecoat"
-Jack London: "To Build a Fire"
-Jean Rhys: "La Grosse Fifi"
-Jhumpa Lahiri: "A Temporary Matter"
-Jill McCorkle: "Intervention"
-John Gardner: "Redemption"
-John McGahern: "The Beginning of an Idea"
-Jorge Luis Borges: "The Lottery of Babylon"
-Joy Williams: "The Skater"
-Joyce Carol Oates: "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been"
-Julio Cortazar: "The Island at Noon"
-Kafka: "In the Penal Colony"
-Kate Chopin: "A Pair of Silk Stockings"
-Katherine Anne Porter: "The Grave"
-Katherine Mansfield: "The Fly"
-Kurt Vonnegut: "Harrison Bergeron"
-Leonora Carrington: "The Debutante"
-Lorrie Moore: "People Like That Are the Only People Here"
-Louise Erdrich: "Sister Godzilla"
-Maile Meloy: "Travis, B."
-Margaret Atwood: "Rape Fantasies"
-Mavis Gallant: "Dede"
-Neil Gaiman: "Shoggoth's Old Peculiar"
-Roald Dahl: "A Man from the South"
-Robert Aickman: "The Inner Room"
-Roberto Bolano: "Gomez Palacio"
-Saki: "The Open Window"
-Sherwood Anderson: "Death in the Woods"
-Stephen Millhauser: "Eisenheim the Illusionist"
-Tillie Olsen: "I Stand Here Ironing"
-Tim O'Brien: "The Things They Carried"
-Tobias Wolf: "In the Garden of the North American Martyrs"
-Truman Capote: "A Tree of Night"
-Ursula K. LeGuin: "The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas"
-Vladimir Nabokov: "Signs and Symbols"
-Willa Cather: "Paul's Case"
-William Faulkner: "A Rose for Emily"
-William Trevor: "The Piano Tuner's Wives"