Woman Hollering Creek by Sandra Cisneros

Woman Hollering Creek and other stories is a collection of short stories by Sandra Cisneros first published in 1992. The collection is split into three parts, with the first two parts being very short stories with most being only a couple pages. In the third part, the stories are longer and quite powerful.

The two stories that stood out as being very memorable are, “Woman Hollering Creek” the title story, and “Never Marry a Mexican.” The latter is my favorite in the collection. It deals with things that her mother taught her and how she has to come to terms with the way Mexicans, including herself, are categorized and labeled in the US. This is one of the best short stories I have read in a long time.

The issues of identity and growing up are relatable to most people and Cisneros does a great job of highlighting issues that people have to deal with. She presents a complex main character that has to come to terms with her infidelities, which she is both proud and not proud of at the same time. The story is told to some other person, almost in recollections and she does a great job of showing how complex our relationships with each other can be.

Cisneros shows a much more mature work than The House on Mango Street, which she wrote when she was quite young.

Woman Hollering Creek and other stories was published a few years after Mango and really showcases her writing ability. Each story is different and yet they all deal with love and relationships. From a woman fantasizing about being in love with Zapata, to an immigrant women in an abusive relationship, the stories are all powerful and definitely worth a read.
Discover Sandra Cisneros again and enjoy her wonderful, poetic, and at times dark writing style.
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The Song of the Lark

Song of the Lark

By Willa Cather

Published 1915

Free on Kindle

I previously wrote about another novel by Willa Cather (1873-1947), The Professor’s House, and cover her history a bit more in that one. She is one of the best American novelists, considered in the top 10 and won the Pulitzer Prize for  One of Ours in 1922, a novel set in World War 1.

The Song of the Lark was written in 1915 and the story takes place in 1890s Colorado. The area is still being settled and there are many different groups of people living together during the frontier days. The story follows a young musician, Thea Kronberg, as she develops as an artists.

Novels that follow a character from early youth to adulthood are called Bildungsroman, a German term meaning a “novel of education.” Other notable Bildungsromans are A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man and my favorite novel Of Human Bondage. See my post.

I have started work on my Master’s Thesis and I am writing about The Song of the Lark using a postcolonial theory lens to analyze characters. The idea for this paper came about because of readings I was doing for an American literature class on Modernism. Thats the early 20th century. I was reading the book when I started to get a real positive portrayal of the Mexican characters. This stood out because I had finished a previous novel, Kate Chopin’s The Awakening, where the Mexican characters were portrayed or described very negatively. I kept reading the novel and got a more complex approach, in that some of the white characters insult the Mexican characters and other are looked down upon for being friends with them. I thought that Cather was doing something interesting with the race relations in the novel and wanted to explore that a bit more.  I wanted to do an analysis of the characters so that I could understand more about what was going on with them and what Cather was saying implicitly and through the narration.

Cather is a very skilled writer and can put two sentences together to give meaning and complicate ideas without having to say anything. She did not want to be limited in her interpretation so she leaves things unsaid, using silence to leave open the many possible interpretations of the text.

The Song of the Lark is the latest novel I have read by Cather and is currently my favorite. This is the second book in her “Prairie Trilogy,” following O Pioneers! and preceding My Antonia. Both of which are free in ebook. Download some samples and start reading some of the best American Literature.

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These Dreams of You

These Dreams of You
By Steve Erickson
Published January 2012


The latest work by Steve Erickson is different from his previous novels but contains some of the same great writing techniques. Erickson emphasizes repetition in his stories. He repeats certain lines and ideas often in different characters or scenes. He interweaves plot points that make it so that you know what is going to happen and you enjoy how he cleverly incorporates the repetition. Hes connected different novels by having a character from one novel be the main character in another. This novel is not post-apocalyptic American, like his usual books, but covers more contemporary and controversial topics.

Repetition is an important aspect of storytelling because readers and listeners can connect with what is being said and follow along. This is a recurring technique used for thousands of years. All stories are newer versions of other ones and how they are written and told is what makes them new and interesting.

In These Dreams of You Erickson manages to interweaves different fictions that can be a little confusing. You really have to pay attention and stay on track with the writer to follow along. That is not a problem with the great writing that you can expect from one of the best American Novelists and a Guggenheim fellow. He has been producing great novels now for over 20 years. Download a sample and enjoy this latest novel by Steve Erickson.

Check out Amazon’s new Kindle Unlimited for $9.99 You can read an unlimited amount of books for a monthly fee. It’s like Netflix for ebooks.

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The Professor's House

Willa Cather
The Professor's House - $4.65
Published in 1925

Willa Cather was a Pulitzer Prize winning American writer. She was a very confident writer, working for years on novels to produce a very specific voice. She did not fit in with other women writers of her time and is said to have “regarded most women writers with disdain, judging them overly sentimental and mawkish.” She is now recognized as a major American writer and the foremost woman writer.

In undergrad, I had the pleasure of taking a Willa Cather course with a renowned Cather Scholar Dr. Margaret Doane. Dr. Doane has published over 60 articles and papers dealing with many themes in various Cather novels. We read several novels by Willa Cather and The Professor’s House was the one that made the most impact on me.

The novel is split into three parts. The first concerns the family of Professor Godfrey St. Peter and the midlife crisis he is experiencing after winning an award for his life’s work. He has lost his lust for life after publishing his life’s work and still having a life to live after. He has become estranged with his family and is mourning the death of a brilliant pupil, Tom Outland. The second part is the story of Tom Outland that the Professor is editing from Tom’s journals. The last part concerns the Professor trying to hang on to his old life while his family is away on a trip in Europe.

The novel, like most great novels, has inspired a wide array of readings. A common reading of the novel is that it’s a “story about the moral decline of a money driven society.” This was a popular reading of the novel for many years until the novel and Willa Cather began to be studied more widely. Dr. Doane was the first to do a feminist reading of The Professor’s House. Willa Cather was a woman writing a man’s view of women. Generally, the views of the male characters were viewed as her views. It wasn't until doing a feminist reading of the novel that you can see that “the Professor strongly feels women, particularly those in his family, are destructive and petty.” The Professor is always amazed with women even though he finds fault with them. Professor “St. Peter and other males’ --thoughts about women shows a perspective which is both prejudiced and insensitive.”

The readings of the novel range from societal critique to feminist readings and more recently homosexual readings. Whichever reading you choose to use, The Professor’s House is a novel worth reading. This is not her most famous novel or the one she won awards for, but it is the one that defines Willa Cather for me. Download a sample and check out the foremost American woman writer.

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Autobiography of Mark Twain

Mark Twain
Autobiography of Mark Twain - $9.79
2010

Mark Twain had a knack for delivering the unexpected. He made a name for himself as a journalist while not writing the stories he set out to. He would procrastinate until the last minute then turn in something different to his editor. This was a nightmare to his editor but exactly what the people wanted. He was a very popular writer in his time because even though he was a humorist he never attacked people in a negative way.

Twain knew what he was writing in his autobiography and asked that it not be printed until 100 years after his death. He did not want to diminish his popular persona. He said he wouldn't care what people thought about him 100 years. He also thought that if he wasn't being discussed 100 years later this would be a way of making himself relevant. No one could of guessed that he would still be as widely read 100 years after his death as he was when he was a very popular living writer.

Mark Twain was always tactful. He could make someone feel important even when insulting them.

"This book is not a revenge-record. When I build a fire under a person in it, I do not do it merely because of the enjoyment I get out of seeing him fry, but because he is worth the trouble. It is then a compliment, a distinction; let him give thanks and keep quiet. I do not fry the small, the commonplace, the unworthy."

The autobiography is compiled of things he wrote that he did not want published as well as writings specifically written to be included here.

"It is a system which is a complete and purposed jumble — a course which begins nowhere, follows no specific route, and can never reach an end while I am alive, for the reason that if I should talk to the stenographer two hours a day for a hundred years, I should still never be able to set down a tenth part of the things which have interested me in my lifetime."

He wanted the autobiography published 100 years after his death but his estate published it several times before. Twain published a few chapters that he thought acceptable before he died.

Chapters from My Autobiography - Free

Here is a previous version of the autobiography. This is not the new edited version but is very close and much cheaper.

Autobiography of Mark Twain - $2.99

This is the second piece in the Mark Twain series. Knowing the background of a writer will help in understanding some of the points and in getting a better understanding. By reading the Henderson Biography on Twain and the Autobiography, you will be ready to dive into the Mark Twain library.

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Mark Twain

Archibald Henderson
Mark Twain Biography- Free
1911

I have been reading this really great biography on Mark Twain by Archibald Henderson. The biography was published a year after Twain’s death in 1910. Henderson personally knew Twain and wrote the biography from his experiences and from the interviews of people who knew Twain at important points in his life.

Henderson was a great admirer of Mark Twain, or Samuel Langhorne Clemens as he was born. He appreciated his humor and recounts many stories about Twain that relate to his writings. He recounts childhood stories from Twain’s life and ties them to Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn.

“The cave, so graphically described in Tom Sawyer, was one of Sam’s favourite haunts; and his first sweetheart was Laura Hawkins, the Becky Thatcher of Tom’s admiration.”

Henderson also explains why Samuel Clemens chose the pen name Mark Twain. Twain was a river boat pilot for two and a half years. You have to mark “twain” regularly to find out the depth of the water so that the boat does not run aground. He chose Mark Twain because it was shorter than Samuel Clemens and because it meant nothing to 99% of Americans at the time. He was reporting for newspapers and didn't want to affect what people read by writing under a name that they knew already. In his last years, Twain commented that he liked that he added meaning to the name Mark Twain and that people all over the world now knew the name.

There are many great stories about Twain in the biography and the main reason for the book seems to be to argue that Mark Twain is not just a popular author but that his works are works of literature. Henderson compared Twain to Tolstoy and says that the main difference between the two is that Twain used humor to reach more people with his writings. Twain was considered a humorist but should be considered an important writer as well. Twain remains popular today, over 100 years after his death and is read and studied from elementary school through universities. Henderson was one of the first people to write about how important Twain was to literature and history seems to agree with him.

When studying literature it is always helpful to get a background on the author of the work. Knowing where and how the author is approaching writing helps to understand the themes presented in the work. For example, knowing that Twain was a humorist who makes light or pokes fun at serious issues will help to understand his use of the “N” word in Huckleberry Finn. He does not use the word because he was a racist, he puts the word in the mouth of a child and shows the disconnect between the word and meaning to a child. Huck Finn was using the word because society used the word but he was coming from a place of love for the run away slave. Society, at the time, was using the word as a racist label and Twain was being satirical in using it. Maybe, if people knew more about Twain’s intention, Huckleberry Finn will stop being banned in schools for the flagrant use of the “N” word.

Henderson argues that Twain is not just a great American writer but one of the most important writers in the world. Twain has certainly lived up to the hype. Mark Twain is one of my favorite authors and I know that I cannot praise him as much as I should. As Twain said himself, 

“he feels embarrassed accepting compliments because the complimenter never says enough!” 

This is a great biography for those that have not yet read the works of Mark Twain and also for those that have read a lot. This is the first in a series on Mark Twain posts. Stay tuned for the next one!

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The Road

Cormac McCarthy
The Road - $11.99
2006

Isn’t it always the case that the book is better than the movie? Has it become a cliche that everyone says that now? One book that comes to mind is The Road by Cormac McCarthy. I loved the book when I read it and when I heard the movie was coming out I couldn't wait. I know that books are always better but some have turned into really good movies as well. When I finally saw the film version of The Road I wanted to love it. Yet, every scene would remind me of what they left out. The movie was good and if you didn't read the book you will really like it. What they always fail to include in the movies is the internal monologue of the characters. Even though there is almost none of that in The Road, you get a sense of what the characters are feeling by the lack of detail. The lack of details and communication gives you a sense of isolation and hopelessness, just like their surroundings.

The movie is dark and depressing. They did a great job staying true to the book. The main thing that is missing is the haunting feeling you get after reading the novel. For that you have to read the novel.

McCarthy is a master storyteller. He leaves the details for us to fill in. He shows us how the characters are feeling by what they do and how they interact with each other. He leaves so many things for us to fill in that the man and the boy are never named. It is up to us to fill in the faces and the names.

Cormac McCarthy has won numerous awards including the 2007 Pulitzer Prize for The Road. He is considered one of the best American writers and is being mentioned as a candidate for the Nobel Prize in Literature. McCarthy is a very private author but in the few interviews I found he is very opinionated. According to wikipedia:

In one of his few interviews (with The New York Times), McCarthy reveals that he is not a fan of authors who do not "deal with issues of life and death," citing Henry James and Marcel Proust as examples. "I don't understand them," he said. "To me, that's not literature. A lot of writers who are considered good I consider strange."

He sounds like a fascinating man. He is a great author and look for him to continue to write great books. If you haven’t read The Road yet, you definitely should. Download a sample and you will be hooked. This is one of the best books written in the last ten years, according to many sources. Check out the movie as well but make sure your read the book first!

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Slaughterhouse-Five

Kurt Vonnegut
Slaughterhouse-Five - $5.70
1969

Kurt Vonnegut was an american novelist, satirist and POW in World War 2. He wrote numerous novels, short story collections, essays and screenplays. He is best known for his novel Slaughterhouse-Five which is number 18 in the Modern Library’s 100 Best Novels.

So what is Slaughterhouse-Five? Is it a dark comedy, an anti war novel, a metafiction, or science fiction? Well, it is all these things, it is complex in structure yet simple to understand and a pleasure to read. You have to go along for the ride with Vonnegut. He has a way of finding humor in everything, even death; so much so that his writings are called Gallows Humor.

There is a recurring reference to death in the book, “So it goes.” Every time someone dies or there is any mention of death “So it goes” appears. This leads to some funny moments when he references inanimate objects and says “So it goes.”

“The Champagne was dead. So it goes.”

The novel begins with the narrator trying to write a war novel and quickly changes to science fiction. The narrator could be Vonnegut himself but that can also be a fiction. The story begins as a metafiction about writing a novel and ends with time travelling aliens. So it goes. For more on metafiction see my post here.

“All this happened, more or less. The war parts anyway, are pretty much true. One guy I knew really was shot in Dresden for taking a teapot that wasn't his. Another guy I knew really did threaten to have his personal enemies killed by hired gunmen after the war. And so on. I've changed all the names.”

Every person that I have recommended this novel to loves it. The story jumps around a lot but never to the point of being confusing. The humor comes at unexpected points that will keep you reading. This book has also been subject to numerous attempts at censorship, including a supreme court case specifically mentioning Slaughterhouse-Five.

Kurt Vonnegut was also quite popular appearing in many cameo roles in films, including a few of his novels adaptations. Slaughterhouse-Five was made into a film in 1972. Guillermo Del Toro has shown interest in remaking the 1972 movie adaptation. The novel is one of Vonnegut’s best work and an American masterpiece. This is modern literature at its best.

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The Red Badge of Courage

Stephen Crane
The Red Badge of Courage -Free
1895

August 2004 Iraq, I'm second from the left.

The Red Badge of Courage is a war novel set in the American Civil War. Stephen Crane penned this masterpiece at the young age of twenty four. Even though Crane never fought in the Civil War he interviewed many veterans to gain an understanding and an insight into the psyche of soldiers in battle. The novel deals with the themes of heroism and cowardice through the eyes of a soldier.

Crane tells the story of Henry Fleming dealing with the ideals of heroism. Fleming is a young man called to service by his country. He enlist and is soon disenchanted with military life and the monotony of it. What he is experiencing and what he expected are very different things. As word begins to spread of their impending battle he begins to question his courage.

The youth was in a little trance of astonishment. So they were at last going to fight. On the morrow, perhaps, there would be a battle, and he would be in it. For a time he was obliged to labor to make himself believe. He could not accept with assurance an omen that he was about to mingle in one of those great affairs of the earth.

Henry Fleming’s courage holds at first and through subsequent battles the chaos of war wins out. The lines break and he does not know which way to go. In the disarray Fleming loses his regiment. The young soldier is left to deal the shame of cowardice. He soon begins to envy those that are killed and wounded.

At times he regarded the wounded soldiers in an envious way. He conceived persons with torn bodies to be peculiarly happy. He wished that he, too, had a wound, a red badge of courage.

The dead and injured are lucky because they do not have to live with his shame. He manages to find himself and his courage and tries to prove his heroism once more. Fleming goes through great feats to prove to himself and his peers that he is not a coward.

Stephen Crane has a great style of writing. What makes is great is the realistic battle scenes juxtaposed with the psychological depth of a character dealing with the themes of heroism and cowardice. He shows us why soldiers fight, what drives a soldier to heroism. What really matters in the grand scheme of things.

The Red Badge of Courage is the best book I read last year. It is a war novel that deals with human emotions and the indifference of nature. The novel was first published in 1895 and has never been out of print. It is available for free in the Kindle Store. Download a sample or the entire book and add it to your reading list. This is a masterpiece of American literature.

There are many lists out there that tell you what you should read. With this blog, I hope to show why those books are important and why you should read them. Crane shows us that we do things not for our country but for the love and respect of the people that make up our country. By presenting the psychology of a soldier in battle, Crane makes us think about why we do things. Would you die for your family, friends or country? What is important to you?

Leave comments below. If you like the blog please leave us a review in the Kindle Store to help spread the word.

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