A Mother's Tale by James Agee
Available ONLINE
My Rating: 5 on 5!
I have to thank Jason Gignac who commented on C.B. James post about creating a list of 1001 short stories you must read before you die; about a story he liked very much. Maybe it has to be the story title or something, I was intrigued and went ahead and bookmarked it. C.B. has 333 short stories in the list and the list is growing, if you have a short story you think should be on the list, let him and me know [ I would love to read it]. So I have a new repository to dig through for more stories.
What should I say about this one? It is touching, marvelous and definitely on of those stories you must take time to read!
The story begins with a calf shouting and asking his mom where immense drove of cattle were going and why were men moving around them on horses and dogs following them like that. Evidently the calf had seen nothing of this sort all his life and the young group wanted an explanation from the all - knowing mother. The mother was first evasive, didn't really want them to know, but as she saw the curiosity and the determination in her own, to join the herd, she starts telling them about it!I love the way the author has rendered the dialogues... I can't tell you more, you definitely will have to read to know!
She always tried hard to be a reasonably modern mother. It was probably better, she felt, to go on, than to leave them all full of imaginings and mystification. Besides, there was really nothing at all awful about what happened . . . if only one could know why.
I read this one for 100 shots of shorts challenge, he is hosting! Join in the challenge here.
2 comments:
Hi,
Thanks for visiting me. You have a very nice blog.
Very nice and precise review of "A Mother's Tale", he story sounds interesting.
Iam adding you on my blogroll.
Sounds like a fun read, thanks for the link, I'm going to check it out Veens :-)
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