Discovery

One thing about taking a literature course that I have really appreciated is that fact that I have rediscovered my love of short stories.  I've been gobbling up all the stories in our text book.  Lovely little nuggets of fiction.  They may be short but they are completely satisfying.  What makes them so delicious?

The fact that they are compact but jam packed full of drama, humor, images, theme...everything rolled up into one tight, well constructed package.  They are almost like little soundbites from great writers.  I love how they can tell a story so quickly but not leave me hanging with unresolved issues or questions.  I may have to come up with them myself, but the information is there for me to piece together my own conclusions.  And I can do it in 30 minutes!  Talk about a time saver.  I can commit to an entire story and it won't take me a couple of weeks to get through it.

I love finding quirky short stories with a bit of humor.  One of my favorite first finds was Bernice Bobs Her Hair by F. Scott Fitzgerald.  It's the story of  Bernice, a dopey kind of girl who comes to visit her beautiful cousin, Marjorie, for the summer.  She runs with the popular crowd, but is pretty much tolerated.   Her cousin basically tells her she's a bore and gets Bernice to agree to let her guide her.  At this point in time, women are still keeping their hair long and putting it up.  However, the bobbed hairstyle is coming into vogue, but is consider unmoral and something only fast girls wear.  Bernice starts tell everyone that she is considering getting her hair bobbed.  This grabs attention and allows her to flirt with all the boys.  Eventually, Marjorie's boyfriend becomes infatuated with Bernice and Marjorie is not thrilled.  She decides to call Bernice's bluff.  So Bernice goes to the barber shop and, in front of all the in-crowd, gets her hair bobbed.  The boys, including Marjorie's boyfriend, lose interest.  Bernice decides to go home, but before she does she takes her revenge on Marjorie.  She goes into her room in the early morning and cuts off her braids.  She then flings them on the front porch and runs off down the street to catch her train.

A short synopsis, but I highly recommend it if you haven't read it. You can find the text here: Bernice Bobs Her Hair.  You're welcome and enjoy!