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X marks the intersection of my youth’s joy of reading and my discovery of great storytellers like London, Poe and Hardy. Walking down memory lane this week with some old friends.

 “The Three Strangers”, by Thomas Hardy, www.everywritersresource.com

I did my senior project at UC Berkeley on Thomas Hardy.  Hardy remains relevant in our time; his writing shows how far we have traveled from our agrarian roots, where seasons and weather determined how we lived—and yet not so far as we might imagine. Innocence and appearances are themes in this story, and  justice is served. Some great social commentary :

Absolute confidence in each other’s good opinion begat perfect ease…

• “The Tree of Knowledge”,  by Caroline Zarlengo Sposto

I pulled this story from an old file. What happens when our innocent assumptions are stripped away by an ugly truth? When the young woman in this simple story sorts out that the lively woman she recalled from childhood and the wife displayed in a coffin are not the same person, knowing the truth will corrupt her. 

• “The Mexican”, by Jack London, www.americanliterature.com

Who fights the revolution?

…all the flotsam and jetsam of wild spirits from the madly complicated modern world.

The description of the boxing scene in this story is London at his finest.

• “The Masque of the Red Death”, by Edgar Allen Poe, www.americanliterature.com

For all the walls we build up around us, we cannot escape what we fear. It lives inside us. Poe is a master at spooking us with this truth in ever new and creative ways in every tale he tells.

• “Shadow—A Parable”, by Edgar Allan Poe, www.americanliterature.com

A parable tells a simple story to illustrate a point. In a time of plague seven comrades hold a lively wake in the bedchamber of one recently departed until they are overcome with a terror that is signature Poe. The veil is thin.

• “Silence—A Fable”, by Edgar Allan Poe, www.americanliterature.com

A fable tells a short story to make a point and often uses animals as characters; nature seems to be the beast in Poe’s prose poem. Biblical in building tension through repetition, readers layer the ghastly grays and yellows that border pale lilies under a crimson moon in their minds’ eye. Lit crit is all over the map on this one; could very well be satire.

• “A Shameful Affair”, by Kate Chopin, www.americanliterature.com

In a day when affairs are prime time entertainment our concept of shame (the consciousness of wrong or foolish behavior) wanes. In Chopin’s day, one indiscreet kiss was cause for shame. The lady in question who allows the kiss takes responsibility and in so doing, trumps shame with self-possession.