Want to Read More? Start with Short Stories
This article is by Peter Waterbury.
It seems harder than ever to read these days. Not because, generally, we are busier with employment and various menial tasks. Rather, the now exhausting supply of passive entertainment offered by Netflix, Hulu, Prime Video, etc., typically holds greater allure at the end of a work day than the more involved activity of reading.
Why We Tend to Avoid Reading
It takes more mental energy to translate the written word into our own mental images than to sit back and let Netflix throw ready-made, amusing image-sequences at us. Opening up a novel now seems more like committing to a task than like “winding-down” at the end of a hard day.
Those of us who, prior to the dawn of instant streaming services, went through books with the voracity of starving termites, recognize that watching four hours of shows/movies a day is probably not the healthiest use of our leisure time. We want to read the way we used to. Despite this desire, we still find it difficult to do so.
Sure, we try.
We might open a book on Monday night, read 10-20 pages of it, and might even do so on Tuesday. But then we have a stressful day at work, and we tell ourselves we deserve an evening devoted to vegetating in the glow of the device on which we are watching Frasier.
A couple of days in a row of this, and we feel that we have lost the momentum of whatever story we were reading, and we abandon the novel entirely. Frasier may, “hear the blues a callin,” but we hear the seemingly irresistible call of Hulu and Netflix.
Why You Should Start with Short Stories
In light of the phenomenon described above, I think one of the best ways to rediscover our love for reading is by reading short-stories.
Stories that can be read in a single evening, so that if tomorrow we fail to read, we do not lose the momentum of the story, and can simply start and finish another short story the next day. If we take this approach, we may find ourselves reading more often than if we attempt, right from the start, to read full-length novels.
Rudyard Kipling is an Excellent Introduction to Short Stories
One author whose work I love is Rudyard Kipling.
Best known for The Jungle Book and Kim, he wrote many short-stories and poems, some designed to instill fear, others calculated to elicit laughs. Many of his stories and poems are set in Victorian era India and present a fascinating picture of British-Indian relations.
Granted, Kipling was a bit of an Imperialist. Some of the attitudes he expresses in his writing don’t square with modern sensibilities. That being said, all writers are products of their times, and a mature reader can enjoy Kipling’s stories while bracketing some of the author’s statements as the expected views of a 19th Century Brit.
Without further ado, then, let’s look at some standouts from the Kipling canon:
The Finest Story Ever In the World
This first-person narrative details the fictional collaboration of Kipling and the would-be author, Charlie Mears. The latter, described as a twenty year old who suffers “from aspirations” seeks to make a name for himself through his writings.
Unfortunately, he lacks both originality and style. So the fictional Kipling is quite surprised when Charlie comes to him with a story about a Greek galley-slave, whose experiences Charlie describes in inexplicably realistic detail.
Convinced that Charlie is the possessor of “the finest story ever told” Kipling works with the young man to transfer his story to paper, while also seeking to determine the source of Charlie’s inspiration. The undertaking begins auspiciously, but an issue soon arises…
The Mark of the Beast
Don’t drunkenly deface the images of pagan deities. That is the lesson learned in this treasure of a tale. While three friends are passing by a pagan ceremony in India, one of them, a man whose name is Flete, and whose BAC is DUI, intrudes upon the ritual: “Before we could stop him, Fleete dashed up the steps, patted two priests on the back, and was gravely grinding the ashes of his cigar-butt into the forehead of the red stone image of Hanuman [the idol]. Strickland tried to drag him out, but he sat down and said solemnly: ‘Shee that? Mark of the B - beasht! I made it. Ishn’t it fine?’” As a consequence, one of the priests calls a curse down upon Flete, who begins to exhibit strange behaviors the next day…
Wee Willie Winkie
Percival William Williams is the six-year-old son of a British Colonel stationed in India, who faces a daily struggle to behave in a manner worthy of “good-conduct pay.”
Little Percival befriends one of his father’s subalterns, “Coppy,” whom he one day sees engaging in the unmanly activity of kissing a “big girl.” The child discusses the incident with Coppy. The soldier explains to him why grown men may kiss grown women occasionally without prejudice to masculinity, and that he intends to marry the girl, a secret which he asks the boy to keep. The boy agrees to do so. A feeling of duty arises in him towards the girl, a duty which one day he finds in conflict with his paternally imposed “house-arrest”...
Of the three stories I’ve listed, Wee Willie Winkie is the shortest, so I recommend reading it first. If you enjoy it, give the other two a try. If you enjoy those, read some of Kipling’s other stories.
If you decide Kipling isn’t for you, there are plenty of other short-story authors out there that you can enjoy. But give Kipling a first chance! He may just be the one to break Hulu’s hold on you!
About the Author
Peter Waterbury is a graduate of Thomas Aquinas College, where he got a degree or something. He enjoys reading, country dancing, and driving his roommate nuts. He lives in Arizona.