Stories and Sermons, Literature and Life's Lessons

Stories and Sermons, Literature and Life's Lessons

You just read a rather long short story hailed as one of 39 best American Noir stories of the century. Its title is "Running Out of Dog" and was written by Dennis Lehane, the author of the novels "Mystic River and "Shutter Island", which were both adapted for movies. You were disappointed when reaching the end of the story. In fact as you were reading it, you already knew it was not as good as it was not billed. The plot was plodding and implausible, the characters were deftly drawn but unconvincing, and the language was just so so. Worst of all, you felt that you were just wasting your time for you learned nothing; you were not transformed.

Reading a short story is like going out on a date for the first time with a woman that caught your fancy, but you hardly know anything about her, except her bright intelligent eyes, her having gone to college and been divorced ten times, and her incredibly sexy body. Then magic strikes. You are having a time of your life. You know the evening will end, and you have to go back to your place by yourself, but you sense she likes you, too. The laughter with her head tilting backward, the attentiveness to everything that came out of your mouth, the light touchings on your arm, the questions posed to you. So you say to her, "I am having a very good time. I just want you to know that. And I want to get to know you better." And you drive her home, open the car door for her, gently say goodnight, and waiting for her to get into the house before you drive off, with soft rock music humming from the car radio speakers. The next day, you order red roses sent to her work place, with a corny note "can't get you out of my mind/no matter how hard I tried/roses are red/hoping one day my tears won't be shed/ because of you/don't ever make me feel blue". She calls you up, tersely says, "I got your roses. Thank you. They're beautiful." She says nothing about the note. Neither do you. You just mumble, "You're welcome." And you hang up after feebly saying you hope to hear from her. Then you wait for another round of magic.

A good story is like having an affair with an alluring, sexy, witty, wise woman. It has a hook on you. And you are delightfully caught. You enjoy reading it. You savor every word, every sentence. You wonder how the story would end. You care about the characters. As you reach the end of the story, you put the book down, exhausted and transformed. You think about what has happened. And then you go back to the story, reading it again, word by word, sentence by sentence. And if the story is incredibly good and resonates richly with you, you copy it out of sheer love and excitement. You may even send the author a note, expressing your admiration for his gifts. If you're lucky, the author will write you back. Most are too stupid and arrogant to write back to their fans, however.

Several stories by Hemingway and Nam Le and all the stories by Scott Wolven have such an effect on you. They make you feel thankful and lucky to have a fair familiarity with the English language.

All Zen sermons are stories succinctly told. Haiku poems are even more succinct stories. You remember one Haiku poem that you came across at the age of 19, "Keep a green bough in your heart/And the birds will come singing".

Stories are life's lessons. If you heed them, you will be happy and wise. Years ago, English and Philosophy majors were often looked down as barely a step above idiocy which was accorded to majors like Physical Education, Arts, History, Sociology, and Anthropology. Science and math majors were regarded with respect. Nowadays, those in the know realize that it takes both brain and sensitivity to do well at school if one decides to pursue a major in English or Philosophy. With some exceptions, most science majors you came across were clumps of clay, ill-informed outside their area of expertise, and stupid about the human heart. You despise them, with good reasons.

Wissai
April 18, 2013.