This month’s read is a nod to the festive season, with O. Henry’s The Gift of the Magi. Heads up, the first read for 2023 will be Ling Ma’s Bliss Montage, so purchase a copy or borrow one from the library if you’d like to follow along!
Once you’ve read The Gift of the Magi, join in the conversation below! Think reading experience, writing craft (setting, scene, voice, structure, characterisation, mood, subtext, POV etc), insights, inspiration, or anything else that comes to mind.
What a clever story! Talk about masterful set up and establishing of stakes ahead of the big reveal where husband and wife exchange gifts. For the most part, I enjoyed the narrative voice and the descriptions of place that reinforce mood, e.g. 'Della finished her cry and attended to her cheeks with the powder rag. She stood by the window and looked out dully at a gray cat walking a gray fence in a gray backyard.'
The story length just right, any longer and I would have wanted there to have been perhaps a parallel story line and not simply a tale of the willingness of both characters to make a significant sacrifice in order to present their partner with a gift they'd cherish. Speaking of length and the ending, it lands so well with the juxtaposition of the wisdom of the magi with the foolishness, at least on the surface, of Della and Jim.
The only aspect that didn't work for me is the self-aware tone of the narrator ('And here I have lamely related to you the uneventful chronicle of two foolish children ...') as I have a deep dislike of meta narratives, but being a short piece, I'll forgive it.
What a clever story! Talk about masterful set up and establishing of stakes ahead of the big reveal where husband and wife exchange gifts. For the most part, I enjoyed the narrative voice and the descriptions of place that reinforce mood, e.g. 'Della finished her cry and attended to her cheeks with the powder rag. She stood by the window and looked out dully at a gray cat walking a gray fence in a gray backyard.'
The story length just right, any longer and I would have wanted there to have been perhaps a parallel story line and not simply a tale of the willingness of both characters to make a significant sacrifice in order to present their partner with a gift they'd cherish. Speaking of length and the ending, it lands so well with the juxtaposition of the wisdom of the magi with the foolishness, at least on the surface, of Della and Jim.
The only aspect that didn't work for me is the self-aware tone of the narrator ('And here I have lamely related to you the uneventful chronicle of two foolish children ...') as I have a deep dislike of meta narratives, but being a short piece, I'll forgive it.