"Everyone, Real or Invented, Deserves the Open Destiny of Life."

I don't really know what to say about Enormous Changes at the Last Minute by Grace Paley. It was a collection of short stories first published in 1960. And I can easily say that I've never read an author who writes the way she does. Maybe a little reminiscent of Dorothy Parker, but blunt in a different kind of way. Not overly wordy or florid language, but sometimes a very honest kind of a gut punch.

All of the stories were largely about single mothers or young women in unhappy marriages, taking place in New York, including the recurrence of one character, Faith, which I guess Paley had used multiple times across many of her writings. There were very open descriptions of sex and sexual relationships which seemed quite avant garde to have been written in the 1950s by a woman. 

And while I have much appreciation and respect for the way Paley crafted the stories, oddly enough, this book is not going to be memorable for me at all. Even now, having finished it not that long ago, I can barely remember any of the actual storylines of any of the vignettes. So it's interesting to me that the way a writer writes can leave more of an impression on me than the stories themselves (and I certainly feel the same way about other writers too in the opposite sense). So overall while I appreciated the book, I probably wouldn't pick it up again or recommend it to others. Is that a bad thing? 

183 to go (I swear I feel like I've been at 183 for an eternity).  

"You Do Not Let Your Eyes See Nor Your Eyes Hear, and That Which is Outside Your Daily Life is Not of Account to You."

I don't know how I've gotten to 43 years of age and not actually seen a movie of or read the novel of Dracula. Sure, I know all of the stuff about vampires; all the cliches, all of the fascination, all of the other stories spawned from this one legend. And you guys: this book was amazing. Given that it was published in 1897 (more on that in a moment), it holds up. It's engaging, suspenseful (and expertly built), with just the right amount of foreshadowing. 

And considering how much focus over the years has landed on the actual character of Dracula, he's surprisingly not in the book all that much. Sure, he's a presence that continues to wreak havoc on a couple of the different female characters (and their male loves in consequence), but we don't see him in his body all that much. Mostly in the beginning when he has made a prisoner of Jonathan Harker, who has travelled to Romania to go over some legal paperwork with the Count himself. I don't want to think that I let my knowledge of Dracula affect my interpretations of what was presented in the novel, but the way he was written was as one cruel being. Sure, he was able to share exchanges of intellect with Jonathan while he was initially in Romania, but after that, he is ruthless and cruel. But his evasiveness and cunning made him even more dangerous. The character in the novel really is the embodiment of pure evil. 

So I know that it's not easy to want to delve into the classics. But this is one I would say DO IT. It holds up to today's standards and is still completely engaging. I was turning the pages at the end in complete suspense for how it was going to end (because, as I mentioned, I didn't actually know the full story). 

Next up is Enormous Changes at the Last Minute by Grace Paley. I don't think I knew that this was a collection of short stories - it was a random selection from my list of works by women writers. We'll see how she goes. 

184 to go.