Book #134 |
Book: The Mayfly | Author: Ben Rogers | |
| Source: Free BookBub download Format: Kindle |
Pages: 268 | Duration: 12/28/25 – 12/28/25 (1 day) | |
| Rating: ★★★☆☆ | Genres: fiction, short stories | ||
| 📕10-word summary: 8 quite different short stories, albeit some with common themes. 🖌6-word review: Sometimes arcane writing; many unappealing-to-me plotlines. |
|||
| 💭A memorable quote: “But you’ve never heard me refer to my ‘Mr. Morning’ as a ‘beaver basher’ or a ‘cranny axe!’ Still, if it be necessary, do allow me to herein and henceforth renounce this most troublesome organ, which ‘serves as duct for the transfer of sperm but equally so the dissemination of so much poisonous masculinity.’ Lord. To think all my life I’ve been lugging such a weapon betwixt my legs! When last we shared a bed and you tugged me to tumescence, am I to understand you were actually trying to uproot the root of all evil? Do tell…” | |||
| 🎓Some new-to-me words: Mephistos, Sikorsky, mayfly, riffle, absquatulating, helpmeet, escritoire, larder, memento mori, Sozodont, road agentry, invectives, pudenda, rusticate, manzanita | |||
| Description:* The life of a mayfly can be harrowing or hilarious, but it is always short. So, too, the short story. Fans of the genre will love the inventive specimens on display in this rollicking debut collection. A group of aging engineering professors take the weekend off for some fun and felony. A pro cyclist learns the cost of greatness in a Pushcart-nominated ride. A member of the Manhattan Project sees the world’s first nuclear reaction through resentful eyes. A Hollywood editor discovers what belongs on his cutting room floor. And in 1869, an aspiring writer pens a series of letters during his doomed homecoming to Virginia City, Nevada.*From goodreads.com’s synopsis. |
|||
| Thoughts: I wanted to like this book more than I did. I really don’t like when I’m reading a story and I’m not exactly sure what’s going on in it for an extended period of time. There were a few of those in this collection. The biggest problem, I think, was that I wasn’t interested in, or just didn’t like, the plotlines of most of the stories. Some examples include: a bunch of guys (implausibly) stealing a Reno landmark, an athlete pushing himself beyond safety, anthropomorphizing animals, and a bunch of privileged kids pulling pranks at an exclusive tennis camp. The story I liked the most appealed to me because it was epistolary in nature and it was about writing, but it was way too long for a short story in an anthology. If it wasn’t the last story in the collection, I probably would have abandoned it, but it was ultimately satisfying — the ending “saving it.” It would have been better as a novella, or perhaps as the first story instead of the last, at which time you already had an expectation of it being much shorter than it turned out to be. | |||
See the rest of the books I’ve read in 2025 and previous years: 2024 | 2023 | 2022 | 2021 | 2020 | 2019.
