Pure Writerly Moments 2 (Short Stories, Essays, Book Reviews, and More)

Review of John Updike's 40 Stories

The summer of 2021, a wave of heat hit me, sent sweat down my back and somehow made me thirsty for a book of good short stories. I remembered the story "The A&P" from long ago and thought I might try 39 more stories by John Updike. I would read them in the various locales of Nagasaki. The book itself was in my university library. Its pages were brown and yellowing. I was busy that semester, which is why I had trouble concentrating.

I'm sorry. I'm lying. Let me start over. I had started a new job at the university, and I was gripped with anxiety. Would I be good at my new job? Would the coronavirus ever end? What would I do now that I was almost forty? Would I be able to finish my novel?

I always end up okay, but I'm never okay. That's why I had trouble concentrating. Maybe my anxiety is inexplicable.

I had to read the first five stories twice to absorb them. Periodically, I would skip back to the "A&P". That story I had read so long ago.

The other stories were charming and deep. If their content was inconsequential, it made the depth of the prose that much more beautiful. I read one of the stories in a park on a mountainside overlooking Omura Bay, Nagasaki. Omura Bay is a beautiful place dotted with small islands, fishing boats, and the twinkling of sunlight. I would contemplate the beauty of stories like "Alligators" and "Pigeon Feathers" while walking along the Togitsu coast. Idle fishing boats were on my mind, but my mind was also cluttered with many other worries.

I returned the book to the library. Only five stories finished. My reading went elsewhere. The summer grew hotter. I checked out the book again. I thought about that clerk at the A&P sick of authority and hoping for adventure. I took the book to the beach hoping to find girls in bikinis with sand on their butts and attitudes to match. I was growing older, but dreaming of being a short-story writer.

I can make it to forty. Maybe even forty-five. But only if I'm careful. I'm never careful.

And then on July 31st, miraculously I finished the book. The last story is "The Corner". "The town is one of those that people pass through on the way to somewhere else, so its inhabitants have become expert in giving directions." I don't know where I'm going or if I can write another good short story. I'm not at the beach today. It is overcast. I still have the anxiety of three middle-aged men. No one is here to give me directions.

I keep on writing.