As read from the short story Free, from the Night Train collection. I read a Henry Oliver tweet today that asked: what is your favorite fiction you’ve read this year? This entire collection by A.L. Snijders would be my answer.
The stories don’t always make sense, a stream of consciousness type. But I enjoy every short morsel.
Hope Lydia Davis has another translation of Snijders’ stories in queue.
Snijders, A. L.. Night Train. United States, New Directions, 2021. pg 81
And because our summers were always ending, and because they lasted forever, we grew impatient with our games, we sought new and more intense ones; and as the crickets of August grew louder, and a single red leaf appeared on branches green with summer, we threw ourselves as if desperately into new adventures, while the long days, never changing, grew heavy with boredom and longing.
From one of my favorite short stories Flying Carpets, by Steven Millhauser. It might be my favorite short story. Is there any other description of summer so true, going to fall so true, that has ever been put on the page? I doubt it.
Maybe Thoreau?
Steven Millhauser, The Knife Thrower and Other Stories (New York: Crown Publishers, 1998), 77.
The tearoom was built in 1936, one year before my birth. The weather is bleak and rainy, I have my woolen cap on. He takes the photos. Head a little higher, no, back just a little, now turn, can you look more toward Van Eeghenstraat. I look and wonder which window it was. I tell the photographer: my mother fell out of a window there in 1912.
Lydia Davis is a legendary short story writer. But her translation work should be heralded as well. Her translation brings Dutch writer A.L. Snijders’ stories to life in English.
One of my favorite books of this year. Snijder’s short stories read like jokes + poems + journal entries + essays. Wicked combination.
Must find more.
Snijders, A. L.. Night Train. United States, New Directions, 2021. pg 33
“Bake bread” is the first thing my grandson calls out when I meet him on the path. He has made a long journey, I lift him up, and my plan is to talk a little about a poem by Ezra Pound, in order to sway his thoughts. He is just four years old, but with poetry you can’t begin to early.
From the short story “Soup Bowl”
The late A.L Snijders was unique, prolific, producing a story nearly everyday. His stories read like poems-journal excerpts-glimpses-into daily Dutch life.
Snijders, A.L..Night Train: Very Short Stories. Translated by Lydia Davis, New Directions Publishing, 2021.
For the first time in his life he was throwing himself into something with genuine enthusiasm. And the progress he made was remarkable.
pp139
2.
Was it not possible that the process he had gone through in order to acquire yoga powers had completely changed his outlook on life?
Certainly it was possible.
pp154
3.
John Winston told me everything he knew. He showed me the original dark-blue notebook written by Dr. John Cartwright in Bombay in 1934 about Imhrat Khan, and I copied it out word for word.
“Henry always carried it with him,” John Winston said.
“In the end, he knew the whole thing by heart.“
pp168
It could be an early morning thought hallucination, but The Wonderful Life of Henry Sugar suggests the idea that focusing on one thing, over an extended period of time, with sustained enthusiasm, can impact many lives.
What begins as Henry’s single focus then expands to other opportunities. First Henry aims to master concentrating only on the image of his face for five and a half minutes. He masters it. Then he moves to mastering visualizing the reverse side of a playing card within twenty seconds. This then develops to strategic gambling, establishing a non-profit, and leaving behind a clandestine legacy of generosity.
Lydia Davis on translating the late A.L. Snijders’ short stories:
I continued to work on it, still without a dictionary, “getting” a little more of it each time I read through through it. Simply reading a sentence carefully a second time yielded more understanding—I’m not sure exactly what happens in the brain between the first and the second readings.
Some people, when they have taken too much and have been driven beyond the point of endurance, simply crumble and give up. There are others, though they are not many, who will for some reason always be unconquerable. You meet them in time of war and also in time of peace. They have an indomitable spirit and nothing, neither pain nor threat of death, will cause them to give up.
Little Peter Wilson was one of these.
Dahl Roald. The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar and Six More. New York: Viking, 1977.
A conversation on talent and productivity between Amit Varma and Ajay Shah
“The two superpowers are curiosity and endurance.”
Ajay Shah, 27:05
Ajay’s superpower comment reminded me of Octavia Butler‘s thoughts on talent and persistence. From her essay Furor Scribendi:
First forget inspiration. Habit is more dependable. Habit will sustain you whether you’re inspired or not. Habit will help you finish and polish your stories. Inspiration won’t. Habit is persistence in practice.
Forget talent. If you have it, fine. Use it. If you don’t have it, it doesn’t matter. As habit is more dependable than inspiration, continued learning is more dependable than talent. Never let pride or laziness prevent you from learning, improving your work, changing its direction when necessary. Persistence is essential to any writer — the persistence to finish your work, to keep writing in spite of rejection, to keep reading, studying, submitting work for sale.
Butler, Octavia E. Bloodchild and Other Stories. New York: Seven Stories Press, 2005. pp125.
I crept to the end of a row and kneeled in the warm dirt. Her five brothers were singing melodious songs in Spanish. The stars bent over the little roof; smoke poked from the stovepipe chimney. I smelled mashed beans and chili. The old man growled. The brothers kept right on singing. The mother was silent. Raymond and the kids were giggling on one vase bed in the bedroom. A California home; I hid in the grapevines digging it all. I felt like a million dollars; I was adventuring in the crazy American night.
Floodlights and Goalposts 