September (Part 2)

Short Stories

Along with Walking on Water we are also going to read three (very) short stories, picked out by our own short story enthusiast

Sarah Van Hecke

. Sarah is a fellow book club member and has some of the keenest insights on books. She regularly makes me rethink a whole book after hearing her perspective. She also pushes me to read literary works besides the novel (which is obviously my favorite), which I am thankful for. I am so glad to have her on here writing (and we should definitely collectively peer pressure her to come back)! Here’s what she has to say about them…

Selecting a short story to read alongside Madeline L’Engle's Walking on Water: Reflections on Faith and Art was a challenge for two reasons.  Firstly, having not yet read Walking On Water, I could not make as informed a choice as I might have hoped.  Secondly, choosing one short story to share always breaks my brain and my heart a little bit, as I have so very many that I love so very dearly. The first difficulty was clumsily surmounted with several dubiously academic but nonetheless rigorous googling sessions concerning L'Engle's biography and personal beliefs, and the second challenge was overcome in its entirety by good old fashion cheating. Namely, Kelsie has generously allowed me to recommend three (very short!) short stories to share with you this month.  

Each short story is by a different writer, though each deals explicitly with the Catholic faith that formed the religious backdrop of these authors' lives. Like L'Engle in her most famous work A Wrinkle in Time, Graham Greene’s The Hint of An Explanation, Caryll Houselander’s The Father, and Frank O'Connor’s First Confession each tackle the questions: "How can a loving God allow suffering and sin to exist in the world?" "How does the intersection of the spiritual world and the physical world affect me as a person? and "In the end, is the forgiveness and love of God and/or of our loved ones enough to overcome the darkness in the world and in our own souls?"

Readers already familiar with Graham Greene from The End of the Affair (March 2022) or The Power and the Glory (July 2021) likely remember Greene for his ability to vividly portray the soul as a battleground rife with all the grittiness of a physical war.  In his short story The Hint of An Explanation, this battleground is the tender soul of a young boy undergoing the gravest temptation he has yet encountered as he is bribed and threatened into stealing a consecrated host.  The frame story features the boy as an adult, conversing with an agnostic stranger on a train in the wake of World War II.  Our protagonist pours out his memory as a personal offering to the stranger in defense of God - the hint of an explanation - as to how and why a good God might allow the suffering and temptation of an innocent child.  The reader is left to decide if this hint is a strong enough defense of God, and whether similar “hints” might have been experienced in his or her own life.  The striking imagery and characterization throughout are heavily based on the contrast between light and darkness, and cannot help but call to mind L'Engle's "Black Thing."

Caryll Houselander is probably best known for her nonfiction contemplative works such as her Marian reflection The Reed of God, but her fiction also shines with piercing and profound insights into the workings of the human heart.  In The Father we see her juxtapose three very different experiences of fatherhood: that of a proud father struggling to forgive his wayward daughter, that of the parish priest come to counsel reconciliation, and that of God Himself who is the very pinnacle of fatherhood.  This story provides an interesting opportunity to contrast L’Engle’s tendency toward belief in universal salvation (the belief that God will redeem all people, regardless of their beliefs or their sins) with the more traditional view that God honors the free will of men to choose even their own damnation. L’Engle asks, and I dare say Houselander answers, “How can we hold God up as the highest example of fatherhood if He does not save all of his children, despite being able to do so?”  

A mere six pages long, First Confession by Frank O’Connor is a delightful example of how a skillful writer can bring several characters to life with shockingly few words. Narrated by seven-year-old Jackie, the story is hysterically funny in its portrayal of Jackie’s struggles with his porter drinking Gran, his seemingly pious older sister Nora, and his desire to make a good confession despite fearing that he couldn’t possibly be forgiven his attempt to stab his sister with a butter knife.  Laced with Irish humor, this glimpse into the mind of a child rings true, preventing the story from being all dessert and no dinner as it were.  Both Greene’s The Hint of An Explanation and O’Connor’s First Confession feature young children as the main characters, and I look forward to discussing with you all how L’Engle’s opinion on the difference between childishness and childlikeness relates to a well written child character!

Short fiction is my favorite mode of literature.  The brevity of a short story forces pithiness and poetry to the surface of a narrative that might otherwise lose force through stagnation.  The ability to produce a cohesive whole out of relatively few parts also unfailingly elevates my respect for the writer who achieves mastery of this notoriously difficult form.  Perhaps it is also a feature of my current state in life as a mother to young children that I appreciate efficient writing even more.  With only short pockets of time in which I can easily sit down to read, the short story reminds me not to give up on having an intellectual life amidst the endless cycle of very unintellectual tasks required to keep a home running smoothly.  Regardless, I can’t wait to share these short stories with you!

If you missed September (Part 1), here it is!

Stay tuned for October featuring our very own

Brittney Hawver

and a spooky book…

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