The Best American Short Stories 2006 Edited by Ann Patchett

As I perused this collection, persistent questions tapped on my shoulder: Why do I read? Why do authors write? Why did they write these stories? Why were these stories included in this book? Unfortunately, "Why?" may be the only question in the world that can never be definitively, indisputably answered. We make partial attempts at settling the issue, but unresolved elements always remain. Nonetheless, Ann Patchett ventures her opinion of the matter of the short story and its purpose in her introduction. "I haven't been able to shake the notion that short story writers are famous people and that short stories are life-altering things. I believe it is human nature to try and persuade others that our most passionately held beliefs are true so that they too can know the joy of our deepest convictions."

Evaluating the book in that light, I think the purpose of this collection centers around inspiring compassion for others. While this is sometimes manifested in benign portraits of lonely senior citizens, bemused immigrants, and tragic marriages, at other times it seems merely a vehicle for gaining widespread acceptance of the practices of the most outlandish members of society. Homosexuality and all manner of promiscuity are boldly, kindly, even pedestrianly presented, as if such liasons were not only permissable but laudable, just another facet of a diverse civilization.

The unifying theme that these stories evoke is a continuation of the American motif of isolation. The individual is triumphed at the expense of the community. The gay military man unable to reach out to the needy family of a deployed solider nor commit to his "partner;" the sex-surfeited girl stringing along her smitten boyfriend; the aloof lesbian whose only human connections are fleeting, physical, and base - the individuals are worlds unto themselves, deceiving even their closest companions as to the true nature of their relationships, unable to foster meaningful interactions, nor engage in fully honest discourse. Here we have only ourselves; father, mother, sister, brother, husband, wife, friend - all are peripheral appendages with whom complete sincerity and verity, with whom selfless love, is tragically impossible. The stories form a paean to self.

So what are Ann Patchett's "deepest convictions" - that the individual is to be prized above all else? That the individual should pursue whatever feels right inside him, regardless of extraneous considerations? How should we apply these "life-altering" stories - Become more self-absorbed and self-obsessed than we already are? Accept whatever society foists on us as social norms?

Literature, like life, is vacuous, redundant, without a clear and defined purpose. Saying these short stories are worth reading is like saying one's aim in life is to just "be." The pursuit of truth and beauty is admirable only if it ends fruitfully. To get meat, hunt a deer. To find truth and beauty, seek the One who holds them, whose very being is composed of them.

Tristram Shandy by Laurence Sterne

Unbelievably lengthy, exceedingly verbose, purposefully tedious, Tristram Shandy was one of those books whose Introduction was infinitely more fruitful than the text itself. Peter Conrad, in his introductory remarks, extols Sterne's novel for its daring innovation, unconventional liberties, and subversive wit, meanwhile praising other prominent authors of the eighteenth century, making a thoughtful summary of their respective contributions to the novel form. He makes an excellent case for the merits of this book. While Sterne's originality holds, undoubtedly, historical literary importance, experienced at the present time it lacks immediacy, and ultimately, relevancy.

Ostensibly an autobiography, the book purports to be the "life and opinions" of the eponymous character, though little of either makes an appearance. Tristram famously does not appear himself until well into the narrative, a fact he readily admits is singular: "I am...almost into the middle of my third volume - and no farther than to my first day's life." What, then, constitutes the bulk of the novel? In a word, digressions. Tristram chronicles the inane conversations of his father, uncle, and neighbors, meandering along not only their rabbit paths, but taking liberal detours of his own. He freely addresses the reader at times, leaves blank pages, provides accompanying graphics, and wantonly flits from topic to topic, desperately trying to maintain an accurate chronology but coming nowhere near. Like an attention-challenged child who tries to behave but cannot for the life of him sit still, Sterne's spastic narrator never stays on one subject for long, himself least of all.

What sort of person Tristram truly is remains unanswered, though the haphazard sketches he produces of the personalities that peopled his childhood make it evident he was not raised without some degree of eccentricity. His uncle, an emasculate war veteran, and his father, a would-be ivory tower intellectual, volley with the pompous curate and bumbling parish doctor over antiquated obscurities and the more mundane happenings of the household. Though Tristram's father blathers nonsense most of the time, opining about his treasured pet theories involving medieval minutiae like how one's name affects one's life and the physical location of the soul, occasionally he makes an acute observation. Speaking of auxiliary verbs, he avers, "Now, by the right use and application of these...there is no one idea can enter [Tristram's] brain...but a magazine of conceptions and conclusions may be drawn forth from it. - Didst thou ever see a white bear...Would I had seen a white bear...If I should...If I should never..."

Little of what passes for the life of Tristram Shandy is of any consequence to anyone, and Sterne is well aware of this. Inquiring about an anecdote Tristram's father had just told, his mother asks, "[W]hat is all this story about?" The curate replies, "A cock and a bull - And one of the best of its kind, I ever heard." And there the book ends.

Pere Goriot by Honore de Balzac

Balzac designates Goriot "Pere," father, because the man devotes all he has to his two daughters. They define his amorphous existence, creating the sharp edge of poverty that he lives on in his old age. Though Goriot bestows upon the girls enormous dowries to ensure they are able to marry whomever they want and desires in return only love and a place in their homes, they deny him both. Nevertheless, he procures money for them whenever they plead for the sums their mercenary husbands refuse to grant them. Goriot is only too happy to suffer in miserable squalor if it adds to his daughters' comfort. One day, though, the debts become too much for him to bear. Goriot collapses into a fatal illness, and eventually dies, attended by neither of those whom he had loved so much.

Goriot's privation for the sake of his daughters forces him to live in a boardinghouse, along with varying examples of Parisian life in 1819. One fellow boarder, Eugene Rastignac, a poor law student from the country, befriends him when he discovers Goriot's daughters occupy the lofty sphere of society he desperately wants to inhabit. Eugene becomes increasingly enmeshed in their affairs, at the end burying Goriot when his daughters refuse to.

Eugene develops a profound respect for Goriot's unwavering affection toward his children, viewing him as the prototype of a father. Eugene is disgusted by the ignominious end the man comes to. "Great souls cannot stay long in this world. How, indeed, should noble feelings exist in harmony with a petty, paltry, and superficial society?" Eugene charges society with killing Goriot, finally declaring war on it to avenge the man's death.

Society, Parisian society certainly, with its values, may share some of the blame in the tragedy of Goriot. Materialism, hedonism, the unscrupulous clawing to the top of the heap - the world Goriot's girls inhabited did not triumph unselfish filial duty. But Goriot should have instilled in them the morals and beliefs that would have allowed them to stand tall amidst such pettiness. Giving them all they wanted was not loving them perfectly, not doing what was best for them. Permitting them to marry mercenaries directly contradicted the purpose of the large dowries. Scrambling to find money every time they asked for it only reinforced their remorseless greed.

Eugene refuses to accept the path society would have him take, declining to marry the young, naive heiress who adores him, but to whom he is indifferent. Instead, he aligns himself with Goriot's more compassionate, contrite daughter. As she is still married, it is not the most moral choice, but it is infinitely noble in his, and Balzac's, eyes. Why greed and disrespect for one's parents are sins in Balzac's world, but adultery is not, is unclear.