crookedsharktree

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One of the many fantastic stories in Carver’s Cathedral, “A Small Good Thing” finds a young mother and father in a period of shock when their son is left unconscious and after a hit-and-run. To make matters worse, they keep getting calls in the middle of the night from a shopping mall baker telling them to pick up their son’s birthday cake — a cake that might never be eaten.

While it’s true that a lot of short stories are smarter than they are humane, the final act of “A Small Good Thing” delivers a graceful moment of emotional truth: one that will likely stick with you for a while.

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 samurai has been found murdered in a bamboo grove. So opens the best-known work from Japan’s undisputed master of the short story (the country’s leading literary prize is named after him, don’t ya know?). Through three conflicting witness accounts — from a woodcutter, a bounty hunter, and an old woman — the story raises the important question of subjectivity when it comes to how we perceive truth.

Akira Kurosawa’s 1950 film adaptation, Rashomon, has since become a byword for stories told by multiple unreliable narrators — but this is the story that started it all. Now the very device of retelling a story from multiple perspectives has become a trope in its own right, appearing in just about every cop show under the sun.

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First published in 1961, Vonnegut’s satirical story imagines a future in which America’s quest for egalitarianism has resulted in laws preventing anyone from being “better than average.” Our title character is born strong, handsome and intelligent — and in order to make him equal to others, he is given golf-style “handicaps.” He has to wear glasses that make it hard for him to see (and that give him headaches). He has to wear weighted clothes and a rubber mask to counteract his strength and good looks.

The US Declaration of Independence states as a self-evident truth that “all Men are created equal,” but in Vonnegut’s story, that idea is extrapolated to an absurd degree — offering some answers that may be uncomfortable to us.

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Love mvp

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Foggy stroll

#flowers

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#love

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#love #stranger things #robin buckley

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#flowers #dream smp #morning

[crookedsharktree]

Of all my body parts my eyes get the most exercise, I do at least a thousand eye rolls every day.

#stranger things #flowers

[crookedsharktree]

I hope Santa fills our socks with cash instead of gifts and toys. I know you hope for the same. Wishing you a happy Christmas! 😉

[crookedsharktree]

I hope Santa fills our socks with cash instead of gifts and toys. I know you hope for the same. Wishing you a happy Christmas! 😉

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5 posts!

It is amazing and lovely 🌹 day on this Christmas day

#5 posts #tumblr milestone

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Happy Christmas 🌲🎁

#ken tennyson #flowers #purple #stranger things

[crookedsharktree]

Love is something that's very strong but can make a powerful man a coward