ASH by Roddy Doyle (New Yorke, May 2010)

Ash 　　This is an up-to-date story. Doyle used the Iceland volcanic eruptions in May effectively. One day Kevin’s wife leaves him though he doesn’t want her to, but that night she comes back to ride him. He doesn’t know whether she is really going to leave him or not. The relation between Kevin and his “wife,” Ciara is unstable and fragile, almost at the verge of divorce. When Ciara comes back the third time, the Iceland eruptions take place. As he, his wife, and their daughters watch the news on TV, he says to his daughter, “It’s just for a while. Things will get back to normal when the ash drifts away. Or falls.” The last words suggest that their relation will also get back to normal. 　　 Doyle spends most of the pages depicting the unstable relation between Kevin and Ciara. This is a foreshadowing technique for introducing the fall of the volcanic ash, which symbolizes the resume of the normal relationship between the couple. 　　 Another technique of the story is that most of the story consists of unusual length of dialogues between Kevin and his brother, Mick. The third page consists of only dialogues. I do not understand the writer’s intention, although I understand that you can write a short novel consisting of dialogue in most of the pages. It is irritating that the reader must a pay careful attention as to who is saying which dialogue

チェホフ 「ゆがんだ鏡」

短編の名手だけある。不細工な妻が祖母の鏡を見て、とびっきりの美人に映る姿にうっとりする話。ちょっとしたアイデアを大げさに面白おかしく、悪魔の鏡かと思わせぶりもよろしく、読者を最大引き込みこれ以上は引き込めないというまさしくその時点で、種を明かす、その明かし方が素晴らしい。 アントン・パーヴロヴィチ・チェーホフ[1]（ロシア語:Антон Павлович Чеховアントーン・パーヴラヴィチュ・チェーハフ；ラテン文字転写例: Anton Pavlovich Chekhov、1860年1月29日タガンログ - 1904年7月15日バーデンワイラー）はロシアを代表する劇作家であり、短編小説家である。

アンナ・ガヴァルダ 「その男と女」

　ショートショートだから、落ちがあると思って読んでいたが、最後まで何の話かわからなかった。３度目によんで、落ちがないのが落ちかと思った。しかしよく考えてみると、夫と妻が車で別荘に向かう途中、全く会話をしない風景を描いた。 落ちは「ふたりはそれまで一言も言葉を交わさなかった。まだ先は長い」だ。 アンナ・ガヴァルダ（Anna Gavalda, 1970年12月9日 - ）は、フランス中北部ブローニュ＝ビヤンクール出身の小説家。1999年の短編集『泣きたい気分』でRTL-Lire文学賞 (fr:Grand Prix RTL-Lire) を受賞した。

山川方夫 「他人の夏」

　中３の慎一が海で自殺をしようとしている女性に対して止めようとせず、「その人を好きなように死なしてやる方がずっと親切だ」という父親の言葉を女性に言って女性を離れる。翌日自殺を止めた女性に会うというあらすじ。結末が予想ができる型どうりの話で面白くない。 不自然な点が２つある。 １．自殺しようとしている女性が軽く、まるで日常会話をするように慎一と話をする点。 ２．海岸から一時間もかかる沖の波間であのような長い対話ができるかという点。 味がない。読者を引き込まない。感情移入ができない。 山川 方夫（やまかわ まさお、本名：山川 嘉巳、1930年2月25日 - 1965年2月20日）は日本の作家。芥川賞、直木賞候補者　享年３４　交通事故　合掌

Ruth Reichl "The Queen of Mold"

　　 As one of the guests invited to the party says ironically in The Queen of Mold, “I’ve never tasted anything quite like that before,” I have never read anything like this before. This is not an irony but an honest impression of the story. It is full of humor. 　　 Whence does the humor arise? It comes from the mother’s unique way of cooking. She does not care about mold at all. She just scrapes the fuzzy blue stuff off the food before serving it. She mixes all the leftovers in the refrigerator, from cheese ends to squishy tomatoes, to make “Everything Stew.” 　　 The most humorous part arises when she holds a party inviting more than 150 people. She buys a tremendous amount of food at a wholesale food company including fifty pounds of frozen chicken legs, industrial-size cans of tomato soup, and two cases of canned peaches. Moreover, she buys “everything” at the Automat for almost nothing. The writer worries about how to cook them, which serving bowls to use, and whether the food will poison the guests, but her mother doesn’t care about it at all. The humor lies in the gap, as wide as the Grand Canyon, between the writer’s worry and her mother’s nonchalance. At the end of the story, even when twenty-six guests became sick from food poisoning, she says she doesn’t know why they became sick because her family all feel fine though they ate everything. 　　 Exaggerated expressions also add to the humor. The title, “Queen of Mold” is an exaggeration. “The Queen” is just the suitable word to call the mother. She knows everything about mold. She makes her husband “taste” it, wipe it out, or even hide it in her food. She can manipulate it in any way she wishes. She is more than the master of mold. She is the queen of mold. Some other exaggerations I enjoyed are: “My mission was to keep Mom from killing anybody who came to dinner,” “Mom…came back honking her horn loudly, her car filled to the brim,” “Steak tartare was the bane of my existence,” and “…cook those millions of chicken legs….” 　　 As I was reading the story, I visualized that Ruth Reichl was smiling as she was writing the story. Maybe she can be called “The Queen of Humor.”

UNCLE ROCK by Dagoberto Gilb (New Yorker, May 10, 2010)

PLOT: 　　　Erick’s mom, a Mexican, is so pretty that men try to lure her by talking to her and Erick, an 11-year-old boy. She is invited to a wealthy family with Eric, but they are so rich that she is overwhelmed and wants to go back home, a poverty stricken, weird place in Mexico. One day, a man named Rock comes to her. He is obedient to and adores her. Erick calls him Uncle Rock, because he already has “Dad,” an engineer. Rock takes Erick and his mom to Dodgers Stadium, where Erick catches a home run ball. One of the baseball players collects all the signs and gives it to Erick with a note to lure her. Eric threw the note on a parking lot. COMMENTS: 　　　This is only a three-page story, but depicts Erick’s psychology well: his feelings about Mom, God, Albert. He loves Mom. He believes in God. He thinks he doesn’t need a superficial friend like Albert. 　　　In the end of the story, Erick wants Uncle Rock to continue to be his “uncle” because he is a good man, and adores his mom. So Erick throws away the love-note. In the beginning of the story, Erick is described as a naïve, obedient boy, but at the end, he becomes an independent Big Man who can deal with the note to his benefit by himself.