The Big Read IV: The Lottery and Other Stories -- Shirley Jackson "After You, My Dear Alphonse" and "Charles"

Man, I can't believe I missed yesterday.  I'm really finding sticking to the schedule difficult this time around.

"After You, My Dear Alphonse":  I bet this one gets used in classrooms a lot.

• I loved this one.  I thought it was rather hilarious (sadly) that Mrs. Wilson assumed that her son was being racist by making his friend Boyd carry the wood and then proceeded to make, like, 57 stereotypical assumptions about Boyd and his family over the course of the next three pages.  And this:

"Boyd's sister's going to work, though.  She's going to be a teacher."

"That's a very fine attitude for her to have, Boyd."  Mrs. Wilson restrained an impulse to pat Boyd on the head.  "I imagine you're all very proud of her?"

A very fine attitude -- like it probably won't pan out, but that it's nice that she has that dream.  And the impulse to pat him on the head is so condescending.

• I thought, by the end, that Boyd had picked up on what was going on, but that it went over Johnny's head. 

• The Alphonse bit originated in a comic strip.

• The story is online here, so go read it if you haven't already.

"Charles":  In which I found myself picturing a very young, very short Marlon Brando.

• I think I must have read this one in school or something -- it was very familiar, and I remembered the ending.  It's available online here.

• This is another one that falls into the parent-being-freaked-out-by-their-child category:

The day my son Laurie started kindergarten he renounced corduroy overalls with bibs and began wearing blue jeans with a belt; I watched him go off the first morning with the older girl next door, seeing clearly that an era of my life was ended, my sweet-voiced nursery-school tot replaced by a long-trousered, swaggering character who forgot to stop at the corner and wave good-bye to me.

• I thought both of these stories felt very Dahl-esque.

________________________________________________________

Other reader/bloggers:

Heidi at Adventures in Multiplicity (Alphonse)
Heidi at Adventures in Multiplicity (Charles)
TadMack at Finding Wonderland
Gail at Original Content
Patricia at A Girl Diverged

________________________________________________________

Previously:

"The Witch" and "The Renegade"
"My Life with R.H. Macy"
"The Villager"
"Like Mother Used to Make" and "Trial By Combat"
"The Intoxicated" and "The Daemon Lover"
The Schedule