Four New Yorker podcasts

I’ve still been listening to fiction podcasts, but my schedule has been upended about 4 times in the last few weeks, so I haven’t found the time to write about the stories. This time, rather than review each story podcast individually, I’m going to lump them together. Mostly for saving time on my schedule, but if this works out format-wise, I may keep doing this in the future.

The podcasts I’ve previously written about consisted mostly of an introduction, possibly some ads, and then the story. The New Yorker constructs their format a bit differently. First, in who the magazine has select the stories: other writers. Each episode has a writer whose work has appeared in the New Yorker select another story from the archives. Second, each podcast begins and ends with a discussion of the story between the editor and writer performing the reading. So you get something that amounts to literary criticism light along with the narrative. And I have to say that in the case of these stories, I’m glad this has been included. Otherwise I think I’d find many of these pretty boring. Gives me both an education as well as a guide.

Also, all four of the stories are well narrated. The readers are good verbal performers. In Orhan Pamuk’s case, an outstanding performer.

My Russian Education by Vladimir Nabokov

For October 2009, Nobel Prize winner Orhan Pamuk selected and read the Nabokov story My Russian Education. It’s an odd piece of fiction, because Nabokov later included a version in a memoir (Speak, Memory). But he sold it to the New Yorker as fiction. It reads much more like memoir than fiction, for there is little plot.

Basically, it’s Nabokov describing some of his school-related life during his formative years. However, it’s less about his actual schooling and more about his life, St. Petersburg, and especially his relationship with his father. School isn’t absent, but it’s just a part of the life described. It’s full of detailed, precise (sometimes down to street addresses) descriptions of what his life was like.

This is one piece that I think works better as audio than in print. I’d have stopped reading this, but Pamuk’s narration imparts feeling to the work that I would have missed in black and white. Nevertheless, still not my kind of story. When the editor and Pamuk talk about how lively the story is, I thought really, that was extremely staid, not lively. Or how the ending is so shocking after the description of a beautiful scene just prior, a scene I found not particularly beautiful and a turn of events that wasn’t so shocking.

The Wine Breath by John McGahern

Chinese author Yiyun Li reads a story by Irish author John McGahern from November 2009. This one is all about a priest who reminisces, at length, about a period of time 30 years before. Particularly his relationship with Micheal Bruen and the man’s funeral. The entire thing is a reminisce. If there was a point, I’ve forgotten it because it took too long for the story to get to it.

Water Child by Edwidge Danticat

December’s podcast had Junot Díaz read this story from 2000. I liked this story. Nadine Osnac is a Haitian immigrant working as a nurse in New York City. She sends half of each paycheck home to her parents in Haiti; they’d sacrificed greatly to pay for her school so she could become the family’s success. They write every week and hope for phone calls. But Nadine is not able to interact normally with other people. She lets her parents’ phone calls go to the answering machine, as well as that of her former lover. She doesn’t chat with other nurses at lunch.

It’s a portrait of a deeply scarred woman. She’s undergone a tragedy and doesn’t feel able to talk to anyone about it, instead setting up shrine in her condominium which she maintains faithfully. One particular patient has just undergone a laryngectomy and is unable to talk. The emotionally unable to talk and physically unable to talk find a bond of a sort in their lack.

The Jockey by Carson McCullers

I also really liked this story selected and read by Karen Russell from January’s episode. It appeals to the pissed off person in me. A short scene where a table full of horse-racing figures in a restaurant deal with a drunk pissed off jockey who used to ride for them. The jockey’s buddy was injured in a race and months later he’s still pissed off about it. Whether anyone is responsible for the injury is left unsaid. None of the characters get an actual name. The focus is entirely on the palpable resentment the jockey feels toward these people. Every attempt they make to mollify the jockey fails. He wants to be pissed. It makes him feel better than being reasonable would.

Every picked a fight just because you are in a pissy mood and want to get into it with someone, anyone? It’s not so much that you think the person deserves the fight, but goddammit it feels good and your antagonist did do something even if your reaction is out of proportion. Everything is raw, emotions magnified. The littlest thing serves as a pretext to get the release from a good drag-out argument.

That’s this story. And frankly, I’m impressed that the author is a woman. I know women who do this fight-picking just as I have. But it doesn’t seem like something that a woman would use at the core of a story. Maybe because I expect women to stick to reasonable anger, while the actions described are pretty unreasonable. One prejudice of mine chipped away just a little bit. I kind of wonder if the story would resonate with me as much if the protagonist were a woman. How strong is my prejudice? Would I think of her as shrill instead of identify with her anger, as I did with the jockey’s?