I've been whipping through the 20 stories that comprise this year's Best American Short Stories anthology at a pretty good clip. I'm on pace to be done about a month after I downloaded the book. I'm getting a little worn out, which is why I'm glad I can take a pass on story #16. There's just nothing much there. It's easily my least favorite of the anthology so far. It's the story of a minister in the 19th Century who tries to stop an abusive man from marrying a 14-year-old. The abuser, Gunter, has already run one woman into the grave and made another run away. The reverend is trying to stop the marriage without violating the principles of his faith. Gunter needs the revered to baptize him so the girl's mother will agree to let him marry the 14-year-old, and in that lies what conflict there is in "The Baptism."
There's nothing new in this story, nothing arresting or interesting about the main character or any of the side characters, and nothing surprising in the surprise ending. The villain is dumb enough to do everyone's work for them, meaning he was never really the threat he seemed to be. It's almost a deus ex machina kind of ending.
The dialogue seems a little trite and the narrator's language a little predictable. Nothing was new or arresting or challenging or memorable.
A few examples of the passages I felt killed the magic:
1: "Beneath a coat once worn by her husband, the woman shivered, and perhaps not just from the cold." (That's some kind of romance novel trope there.)
2: (Gunter trying to convince the preacher to baptize him so he can marry and lay pipe to the young girl):
"Our baptisms are held in warmer weather."
"I know for a fact you baptized Henry Cope last winter," Gunter challenged.
"He was dying," Reverend Yates answered. "Even then it wasn't this cold."
"I know the water will be cold," Gunter said, grinning now, "but I figure Pearl will warm me up real good later."
(Jesus. Apparently, the author would like us to know that Gunter is bad.)
3: There is a brief moment when it seems like the story might have something to give. There's a nice line: "At such times, he feared some malevolent counterpoint to grace operated in the world." But then, there's a knock at the door and then some dreadful dialogue takes place between the townspeople who want to stop the baptism/wedding and the preacher.
"That is of no importance, Reverend." The storekeeper bristled. "Let them go elsewhere."
....
"Doubtful, I say," Birch answered. "And if so, might not death be better for the child than being wedded to that blackguard?"
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Okay, enough. I didn't like it. It wasn't the worst thing I've ever read, I just don't understand how Roxane Gay suddenly went from one great pick after another to this story. On to the next one.
This is the third Rash story I've encountered. The first one, I felt almost exactly the way you did about this one, cliched and heavy-handed towards the bad guys. Others found it "incisive and devastating", and the collection it was placed in won the Frank O'Connor Short Story award. Some day I have to go back and either delete or edit my first two - no, three - no, five - years of posts. Except by then, I'll want to delete this years', too.
ReplyDeleteYeah, you're allowed to take a pass; those who don't think this is hard - coming up with something intelligent and insightful to say about 20 random stories chosen by other people - are welcome to try it themselves. You've seen my Pushcart poetry posts; I pass on about half of them, because all I can say is, "huh?"
I don't know if I've already mentioned it, but your post titles are hilarious.
Thanks! Sometimes, I think my titles are cheesy. Because my son tells me they are.
DeleteYour titles are pretty hilarious
Delete
ReplyDeleteA baptism is a ritual of blessed water that is poured onto one’s forehead, or they are fully immersed into this blessed water to be cleansed and forgiven by their belief of God. The purpose of being baptized is to be able to have a cleansed soul, to make a promise to (a) God that one is giving his or her soul to God for a better and purer mind, body and spirit, like a fresh start to life, free from any previous wrong doings, and to be able to be forgiven for any future sins.
I believe that Gunter wants to be baptized because he wanted to have a clear conscience pertaining to the mysterious death of his first wife, although there is no clear indication that he did or didn’t do anything to her, he may have a sense of guilt that we do not know about. As Ron Rash stated in the story, “Not yet thirty, but already responsible for one wife’s death, nearly a second” (242) this shows that Gunter knew something, or possibly did or said something that caused his first wife to either hang herself or be hung by someone else. Gunter also wants to be baptized because he wants Eliza to allow him to marry her daughter Pearl. When Reverend Yates asked Eliza why she wants him to baptize Gunter, she proclaims “To marry Pearl” (Rash 244) yet Reverend argues the fact that Pearl is a fourteen-year-old child and how she is “A thin, delicate child, one often sick.” (Rash 244) Eliza knows that her daughter is innocent, and still pure, which is why she will allow Gunter to marry Pearl, only if he is baptized, so his soul would be cleansed, and become pure and equal to Pearl.
At the end of the story, it is crazy to me about how God works, and how his choosing's were to freeze over the lake, which later caused Gunter to kill himself and remain at the bottom of the river. My intakes are that his body and soul remain at the bottom of the river, and he never comes back up for one of many reasons, one being that God wasn’t going to allow his soul to be cleansed, so the body would not come afloat, but it also shows that the bottom of the lake may represent Hell, in which God decided that’s where Gunter belongs.