The Night in Question: Stories

I’ve grown weary of a certain type of fiction. Fiction that presents itself as fiction. Better said, fiction whose language strives (w/o precision) for poetry’s vague enchantments, and whose stories and details are of the kind that fruity old professors speak about in succulent terms, terms like pieces of brownly broiled chicken, these professors smacking their lips maddeningly on nothing but their ideas of something juicy. Somewhere a saucy Shakespearean actor shouts the word, “acting,” pronouncing it “ahkh-teen!” and shakes a soft fist at the audience. Anyway, et cetera. It’s unseemly, this kind of fiction. The fiction I like now is more like non-fiction. Tobias Wolffe’s fiction isn't like this; it's both real and show more precisely poetic. Wolffe is funny and exacting. He goes after hard detail and doesn’t repeat himself. His stories’ structures are intricate and interesting. He seemed to me to reveal in his stories the basic structure of life, as if opening the hood of an exotic sports car and slowly taking apart the engine, piece by gleaming piece. And he’s very funny, not just haha funny. And he’s wise. I’m certainly going to read him again. show less

A very short story about a man in the queue of a bank who out of sheer bloody-mindedness takes on the sociopath robbing the bank and gets a bullet in the brain for his trouble. The man is not a pleasant man. In fact, his actions are those of an idiot but that is not the point of the story.

What Wolff is doing is describing an angry unconscious suicide. The writing is superb even if the final paragraphs do not quite explain anything very much. The ending is just an ending - the path to the ending is what matters.

There is not a lot of 'why' in this story, just the imaginative presentation of something no writer can actually claim to have experienced and so write about with authenticity - sudden death. The death itself is not the point, show more the suicidal bloody-mindedness is and it is this that is drawn masterfully. show less

Mr. Wolff is known for his short fiction, but this is the first collection of his I have read and it did not disappoint. This was published in 1996 but most of the stories are set in the 60s and 70s. Stories about damaged or flawed people, facing the trials of every day life. There are also a couple of stories set in Vietnam, capturing the boredom, the fear and horror of war. He is a solid writer and good story-teller. I will be seeking out more of his short fiction.

Wolff is undoubtedly one of America's best short story writers, in the tradition of Hemingway and Carver, and a number of stories in this collection are evidence for this claim. His stories are compact and meticulously constructed, brimming over with meaning. Each story in some way explores the psychology of memory, with protagonists examining or struggling with the implications of the past. Wolff navigates landscapes of physical, emotional, and spiritual violence in much of his fiction, and "Bullet in the Brain" and the titular story are two outstanding examples. Several of the stories in this collection are oft anthologized, and this is a great place to start for a sampling of Wolff's fiction.

Simply put, an amazing collection of stories. Many seem quite simple when initially read but upon reflection, layers and meaning come forth. There's really only one story I felt didn't measure up to the other 14 short stories. The last story, "Bullet in the Brain," is one of my all-time favorites.

Short story that I was able to read online for free. The main character clearly has no regard for anyone but himself. He is jaded and due to his mundane routine he cannot take anything seriously. Not sure if there is some hidden message, I took it as life being so boring that when something traumatic happens, you don't know how to deal with the curve ball thrown at you. Despite it being short, the story was a good read.

I was rather disappointed by these stories. I have heard so many great things about Tobias Wolff's writing, but most of these stories did not really speak to me. Although all the stories are about different types & constellations of people, the underlying theme seems to be alienation. There were lots of alienated or broken families in these stories. Many of the stories were about single, isolated men and those didn't really spark much in me. I preferred stories like "Flyboys", which was about families and childhood and friendships, or "Sanity," which was about families and two women (a girl and her stepmother), "The Other Miller," about death, families, and alienation from families. Overall though, I found myself frequently checking how show more long I had to go until I reached the final story - not generally a good thing. I think this was a book that I finished out of obligation, rather than genuine interest, but it was saved from a two-star rating by the presence of the few great stories that I mentioned. show less