Katherine Anne Porter (1890–1980)

This book contains 3 short novellas (as so described) from a very famous, highly regarded author who died in 1980. It was the first of her works I had read, and I was impressed & glad this had been recommended to me. Each of the 3 stories is interesting, and the last was fantastic.

Here is a wonderful composition of words in Pale Horse, Pale Rider, by Katherine Anne Porter: “It is like turning a corner absorbed in your painful thoughts and meeting your state of mind embodied, face to face.”


That is the quality of writing and insight I found here.… (more)

I haven’t previously read anything by this author, and hope not to read any more stories by her.

I will first admit that from the beginning I didn’t like this story – I liked nothing about it.

Neither did I understand the point of it.

Laura is the protagonist. She is visited by Braggioni almost every night; he strums his guitar and sings to her.

Laura is tired when she comes home and wants to lie down but she doesn’t say so; she says “Have you a new song for me this evening?” (She sounds like a woman who loves too much.)

Laura listens “with pitiless courtesy”. “--- she does not smile at his miserable performance.”

Braggion is sensitive to slights and it is dangerous to offend him.

He is a skilled revolutionist with an excess of self-love.

He has a “gluttonous bulk”.

There is a “disunion between her way of living and her feeling of what life should be”.

It is not explained how Laura comes to end in this situation with the unwanted visits of the obese, singing Braggioni, and why she cannot do something to get rid of him.

She is in Mexico, where she teaches children English. She visits prisoners and brings them food, cigarettes, money and messages.

The author states that the “scarlet blossoms” of the Judas tree are “dull purple”. How can they be both?? But we are not told where the Judas tree is.

The scrawny Braggione is a poet and a leader of men. How can he be both scrawny and have a gluttonous bulk? Or perhaps he once was scrawny and later grew gluttonous and obese?

He has “good food and abundant drink”. He has a wife. He confesses “One woman is really as good as another for me, in the dark.”

Braggione loves pistols, cannon and, best of all, dynamite.

We are told that Eugenio’s body has not yet been discovered by the guard, but we have not been introduced to Eugenio, and don’t know who he is.

It turns out Eugenio had taken tablets given to him by Laura, all of them. Why does she give him tablets that can kill him, whoever he is?

Braggioni’s wife weeps constantly – he is the cause of all her sorrows. I would also weep constantly if I were married to Braggioni.

This is such a confused story: we are not told things clearly.

Yet it was much appreciated when first published and probably still is. In 1966 the author received a Pulitzer Prize.

In the final paragraph Laura has a dream where she is told to leave the house. She reaches for Eugenio’s hand. The Judas tree is in the dream and sets her upon the earth and finally to a sea that is not water but a desert of crumbling stone.

Eugenio says he is taking her to Death and they must hurry as it is a long way off. He strips the “warm, bleeding flowers” from the Judas tree and Laura eats the flowers greedily. Eugenio calls her ”Murderer” and ”Cannibal!”

I assume the dream means she quickly has to get away from Braggioni, but she is going to Death, nonetheless. And I fail to understand the significance of the Judas tree.

Read the story at your peril!… (more)

Old Mortality 4stars
Uncle Gabriel, who at one time was married to their Aunt Amy, was now an overweight drunkard. Harry their father took them to the track one day and told them to bet on Harry's horse, Lucy. Lucy won and to celebrate, the two girls, their father, and Uncle Gabriel went to his house to say hi to his wife and then out. Uncle Gabriel's second wife was a bitter woman who did not hide how she felt in front of the children.
P.44:
" 'we'll move to the St Charles tomorrow,' said Uncle gabriel, as much to Harry as to his wife. 'get your best dresses together, honey, the long dry spell is over.'
Miss Honey's nostrils pinched together and she rocked slightly, with her arms folded. 'I've lived in the St Charles before, and I've lived here before,' she said, in a tight deliberate voice, 'and this time I'll just stay where I am, thank you. I prefer it to moving back here in 3 months. I'm settled now, I feel at home here,' she told him, glancing at harry, her pale eyes kindling with blue fire, a stiff white line around her mouth.
The little girls sat trying not to stare, miserably ill at Ease. their grandmother had pronounced Harry's children to be the most unteachable she had ever seen in her long experience with the young; but they had learned by indirection One thing well – nice people did not carry on quarrels before outsiders. family quarrels were sacred, to be waged privately in fierce hissing whispers, low choked mutters and growls. If they did yell and stamp, it must be behind closed doors and windows. Uncle Gabriel's second wife was hopping mad and she looked ready to fly out at Uncle Gabriel any second with him sitting there like a hound when someone shakes a whip at him."

Now Miranda is a married (eloped) 18-year-old who runs into Old Maid Cousin Eva, on the train on the way to Uncle Gabriel's funeral.
P.52:
"...they didn't do you much good, those parties, dear cousin eva," thought Miranda. 'They didn't do me much good, those parties,' said cousin Eva aloud as if she were a mind-reader, and Miranda's head swam for a moment with fear that she had herself spoken aloud. 'or at least, they didn't serve their purpose, for I never got married; but I enjoyed them, just the same. I had a good time at those parties, even if I wasn't a belle. And so you are Harry's child, and here I was quarelling with you. you do remember me, don't you?'
'yes,' said Miranda and thinking that even if cousin Eva had been really an old maid 10 years before, still she couldn't be much past 50 now, and she looks so withered and tired, so famished and sunken in the cheeks, so old, somehow. Across the abyss separating cousin Eva from her own youth, Miranda looked with painful premonition. 'Oh, must I ever be like that?' she said aloud, 'yes, you used to read Latin to me, and tell me not to bother about the sense, to get the sound in my mind, and it would come easier later.' "

P.59-60:
" 'your branch of the family,' said cousin Eva, with that terrifying habit she had of lifting phrases out of one's mind 'has no more practical sense than so many children. everything for love,' she said, with a face of positive nausea, 'that was it. Gabriel would have been Rich if his grandfather had not disinherited him, but would Amy be sensible and marry him and make him settle down so the old man would have been pleased with him? No. and what could Gabriel do without money? I wish you could have seen the life he led miss honey, one day buying her paris gowns and the next day pawning her earrings. It just depended on how the horses ran, and they ran worse and worse, and Gabriel drank more and more.'
Miranda did not say, 'I saw a little of it.' She was trying to imagine Miss honey in a Paris gown. She said 'but Uncle Gabriel was so mad about Aunt amy, there was no question of her not marrying him at last, money or no money.'
cousin Eva strained her lips tightly over her teeth, let them fly again and leaned over, gripping Miranda's arm. 'what I asked myself, what I asked myself over and over again,' she whispered, 'is, what connection did this man Raymond from calcasieu have with Amy's sudden marriage to gabriel, and what did Amy do to make away with herself so soon afterward? For mark My words, child, Amy wasn't so ill as all that. she'd been flying around for years after the doctors said her lungs were weak. Amy did away with herself to escape some disgrace, some exposure that she faced.'
the beady black eyes glinted; cousin Eva's face was quite frightening, so near and so intent. Miranda wanted to say, 'stop. Let her rest. what harm did she ever do you?' But she was timid and unnerved and deep in her was a horrid fascination with the terrors and the darkness cousin eve had conjured up. What was the end of this story?"

Noon Wine 3stars
This is the story of a farming family. The father is an unmotivated human who complains about his weak wife. One day a Scandinavian man walks up to his farm and asks him for a job. This man does his work so well, that the farmer is able to get ahead little by little.
P.76-7:
" 'now I can't give you no dollar a day because ackshally I don't make that much out of it. no sir, we get along on a lot less than a dollar a day, I'd say, if we figure up everything in the long run. now I paid $7 a month to the two n******, three - fifty each, and grub, but what I say is, one Middlin-good white man equals a whole passel of n****** any day in the week, so I'll give you $7 and you eat at the table with us, and you'll be treated like a white man, as the feller says -'
'that's all right,' said Mr helton. 'I take it.'
'Well, now I guess we'll call it a deal, hey?' Mr Thompson jumped up as if he had remembered important business. 'now, you just take hold of that churn and give it a few swings, will you, while I ride to town on a couple little errands. I ain't been able to leave the place all week. I guess you know what to do with butter after you get it, don't you?'
'I know,' said Mr helton without turning his head. 'I know better business.' He had a strange drawling voice, and even when he spoke only two words his voice waved slowly up and down and the emphasis was in the wrong place. Mr Thompson wondered what kind of Foreigner Mr helton could be."

P.119-20:
..." 'now of course, if you won't help, I'll have to look around for help somewhere else. It won't look very good to your neighbors that you was harboring an escaped loonatic who killed his own brother, and then you refused to give him up. It will look mighty funny.'
Mr Thompson knew almost before he heard the words that it would look funny. It would put him in a mighty awkward position. He said, 'but I've been trying to tell you all along that the man ain't loony now. He's been perfectly harmless for 9 years. He's – he's –'
Mr Thompson couldn't think how to describe how it was with Mr helton. 'why, he's been like one of the family,' he said, 'the best stand by a man ever had.' Mr Thompson tried to see his way out. it was a fact Mr helton might go loony again any minute, and now this fellow talking around the country would put Mr Thompson in a fix. It was a terrible position. He couldn't think of any way out. 'you're crazy,' Mr Thompson roared suddenly, 'you're the crazy one around here, you're crazier than he ever was! You get off this place or I'll handcuff you and turn you over to the law. you're trespassing' shouted Mr thompson. 'get out of here before I knock you down!'
He took a step towards the fat man, who backed off, shrinking, 'try it, try it, go ahead!' And then something happened that Mr Thompson tried hard afterwards to piece together in his mind, and in fact it never did come straight. He saw the fat man with his long Bowie knife in his hand, he saw Mr helton come around the corner on the run, his long jaw dropped, his arms swinging, his eyes wild. Mr helton came in between them, fist doubled up, then stopped short, glaring at the fat man, his big frame seemed to collapse, he trembled like a shied horse; and then the fat man drove at him, knife in one hand, handcuffs in the other. Mr Thompson saw it coming, he saw the blade going into Mr helton's stomach, he knew he had the ax out of the log in his own hands, felt his arms go up over his head and bring the ax down on Mr Hutch's head as if he were stunning a beef."

Though Mr Thompson wins an acquittal in the case against him, he can't stop the voice in his head that continues to ask the question: what happened? It destroys his life.

Pale Horse, Pale Rider 1star
I hated this story. It's at the beginning of a war, probably world war one because they're talking about a plague that's spreading over the country, and this could be the Spanish flu. A young woman works in a newspaper and meets a young officer soldier who has moved temporarily into her boarding house. Just when they're getting towards falling in love, and he has only 10 days leave left, she falls sick. Like a selfish idiot, she allows him to stay by her side, taking care of her, and when she comes out of the hospital, finds that he has died of the flu.

These three short novels are dark and depressing.


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