“Kindness” By Yiyun Li #41

As this story opens, Moyan relays her current circumstances to the reader as a forty-one year-old single woman living in her meager one-bedroom flat, reflecting on her life. She now teaches in a third-tier middle school, and does not love her job, or her students. Before long, she begins to divulge details about the two most important people in her life. One is Lieutenant Wei from her time in the People’s Liberation Army, while the other is Professor Shan from whom she learned to read great literature.

In her narrative, Moyan regularly moves between these two major parts of her life and back again, sometimes to confusing effect. Considering that the story is nearly 80 pages in length, if you don’t read it quickly it is possible to be lost in who the different characters are, and what is going on at any particular time. I found Moyan’s two worlds to be of significant interest me. I took delight in learning about the different novels Professor Shan was reading to Moyan, whether it was David Copperfield by Charles Dickens, or a work by D. H. Lawrence. Of course, the main importance of their visits together were not just the books. Rather, the time was used by Professor Shan to instill different viewpoints on matters of love and living to Moyan, and not just to learn how to read. These times were often solitary, with just the two of them reading and talking regularly.

While her time with Professor Shan involves very few characters, Moyan meets a number of fellow soldiers in her training in the military, many of which provide memorable scenes in the story. I choose to not mention any of them here though, just to not spoil as much of the storyline. The main problem I had with the work is that the meaning of the story seemed to have come at me from leftfield so to speak. While reading this, I couldn’t gather the reason for the story’s title until it was actually spelled out to me about 3/4th’s of the way through. Maybe I didn’t get it immediately because I read this story in chunks, and not all at once, but it did dampen my enjoyment of this work. I don’t know if this happened because I wasn’t paying attention enough, or because there some flaw in the writing, but I felt that I needed to mention it here because it struck me when I realized what had happened.     

Despite this, I did enjoy this story and found it to be a good read. You can find it in Gold Boy, Emerald Girl: Stories.

Content Advisory: Drunkenness, Foul Language, Sexual Situations

“One of the Missing” by Ambrose Bierce #35

Jerome Searing is a private soldier of General Sherman’s army in Kenesaw Mountain, Georgia. Being an orderly, Jerome did not serve in the ranks, but rather did special duties outside of regular army regulations. Today, his orders were simple: get to the Confederate’s lines as close as possible, and report back all that he could learn. But things don’t go as planned, and before long Jerome is in a terrifying fight for his life.

This story was an excellent surprise to me. Before reading this, I simply thought of Ambrose Bierce as boring because of required reading in High School, but after this, I am looking forward to reading more by him. I found Jerome’s predicament chilling, and as the story developed I couldn’t help but be on the edge of my seat. I recommend this story. You can read it in Civil War Stories.

Content Advisory: Blood and Gore

“An Ordinary Soldier of the Queen” by Graham Joyce #5

I will be the first to admit that I am not an expert on the military, and I do not come from a military family. So when I discovered that “An Ordinary Soldier of the Queen” took place during the first Gulf War in ’91, I thought it would help my appreciation, even if it is from the perspective of the British military. The story opens with Seamus Todd remarking that he is going to go see the Queen, to ask her if what happened to him out there in the desert was true. He is a Color Sergeant in the British 1st Armored Division and it is his job to bring his boys back home alive. A lot of the story describes him leading his men through the deserts of Iraq in their Warrior tanks, which was for me something that helped me appreciate what my military has done to keep my country safe. But better than that, is the descriptions of what those men and women go through mentally while in that situation, and how they cope with what they see there that I enjoyed the most. It made me think, “man, I couldn’t do that.” Thus, the appreciation. It goes without saying that this story is filled with cussing all over the place, and that it is gory at times too, so reader discretion is advised. At times, the language was so much that I almost couldn’t take it, but what can I say, this is war, so I can look past that in this. Check it out in PEN/ O. Henry Prize Stories 2009.

Content Advisory: Blood and Gore, Foul Language

Links of Interest:

1st Armored Division (UK) from Wikipedia.com

Color Sergeant from Wikipedia.com