Modern Short Stories: The Uses of Imagination

by Arthur Mizener

In any reasonably definable sense, the short story has existed as a literary form for less than a hundred years, and the significant differences among short stories are not historical differences but differences in mode, in the attitudes toward life which govern an author's sense of reality and the techniques of expression these attitudes dictate. The best way to arrange a volume of short stories is by types or kinds rather than in a chronological pattern intended to indicate some not very significant historical development. The stories in each group require essentially the same kind of reading, and in the introductory essay for each group I have tried to suggest the kind of reading the stories require and why they do so.

Genres: Short Stories, Fiction, Anthologies

Paperback

First published January 1, 1971

About the author

Arthur Moore Mizener was an American professor of English, literary critic, and biographer. After graduating from Princeton, Mizener obtained his master's degree from Harvard. From 1951 until his retirement in 1975, he was Mellon Foundation Professor of English at Cornell University. In 1951, Mizener published the first biography of Jazz Age writer F. Scott Fitzgerald titled The Far Side of Paradise.
In addition to authoring the first biography of Fitzgerald, Mizener proposed the now popular interpretations of Fitzgerald's magnum opus The Great Gatsby as a criticism of the American Dream and the character of Jay Gatsby as the dream's false prophet. He popularized these interpretations in a series of talks titled "The Great Gatsby and the American Dream."
Although Mizener's biography became a commercial success, Fitzgerald's friends such as critic Edmund Wilson believed the work distorted Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald's relationship and personalities for the worse. Consequently, scholars deemed Andrew Turnbull's 1962 biography Scott Fitzgerald to be a significant correction of the biographical record.
In 1971, Mizener released a biography about writer Ford Madox Ford titled The Saddest Story: A Biography of Ford Madox Ford that received critical acclaim but did not achieve the same commercial success. He later wrote a supplemental Fitzgerald biography titled Scott Fitzgerald And His World.

Reviews

[Susan E. Neill]

This is the third edition, published in 1970 (previous editions came out in 1967 and 1962), of Norton’s book of short stories that was meant to be used as a text book. I’m not really sure what was meant by “modern.” The compilation includes many authors, such as Joseph Conrad, Kipling, Andrew Lytle, and others, whose social attitudes and beliefs decidedly don’t fit my definition of “modern.” In his intro to this edition, Mizener wrote that Norton’s purpose for the edition was to add stories by Black writers, including Richard Wright, Ralph Ellison, Ernest J. Gaines, Diane Oliver, and James Alan McPherson. The differences between these newly added stories (Ellison, Wright, and Oliver had originally published years before) and many of the older inclusions are truly striking.

I stuck mostly to the writers and stories I hadn’t already read (got about half way through Heart of Darkness, which I’d already read, then just couldn’t take anymore). Norton included the first chapters of some novels, such as “The Waiting” from A Death in the Family by James Agee, “Defender of the Faith,” from Philip Roth’s Goodbye Columbus, “Pnin” from Nabokov’s novel of the same title, and “Battle Royal,” from Ellison’s Invisible Man. I skipped these except “Pnin” and “Battle Royal.” I skipped James Wright’s very long story “Big Boy Leaves Home” because I have it in his story collection Uncle Tom’s Children. I also skipped Henry James, Kipling, Updike, Joyce’s Araby which I’ve read, Faulkner, and J.F. Powers. Ellison’s “Battle Royal” disturbed me so that I know the full novel Invisible Man will be a rather difficult read, to be expected considering the novel’s importance and when it was published.

My favorites were “Gold Coast” from James Alan McPherson’s collection Hue and Cry; McPerson was the first Black author to win the Pulitzer Prize, in 1978 for his story collection Elbow Room; “The Sky Is Gray” by Ernest J. Gaines; Frank O’Connor’s “My Oedipal Complex;” and Nabokov’s “Pnin.”

The biggest disappointments were “The Day Stalin Died” by Doris Lessing—I didn’t get the point at all; “Her First Ball” by Katherine Mansfield; she’s frequently been compared to Anton Chekhov but this story had no similarities to Chekhov’s work; and “What You Hear from ‘Em?” by Peter Taylor, the 1987 Pulitzer winner for his novel A Summons to Memphis; this story does not bode well for that novel.

And then there are writers loyal to the Old South whose stories just made my skin crawl—Andrew Lytle (“Mr. McGregor”) and Robert Penn Warren (“When the Light Gets Green”), yet another Pulitzer winner.

This story collection was a real learning experience for me…

[Dawn · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read the 1962 version of this title, which I found on sale for $1 in the basement of the Kzoo Public Library. It contains several classics that I never tire of reading: "Heart of Darkness," "Defender of the Faith" and "The Odor of Chrysanthemums." Also stories by Faulkner, Updike, Hemingway ... a very enjoyable collection except for the Henry James stories - I don't know why, but I can't read his writing. My favorite story here was "The Gardener" by Kipling - new to me and deliciously sad & surprising.

[Monica Madaus · Rating 4 out of 5]

I particularly liked Ralph Ellison's "Battle Royale", which I'd read before. I remembered how 'powerful' it was, but not much more of the particulars. I also really liked Rudyard Kipling's "The Gardener." Reluctant as I am to endorse the fellow who viewed the rest of the universe as "The White Man's Burden," this is a good story. I didn't even know that he'd lived to see the first World War.

[Natalie Jennings · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book fell into my lap and if FILLED with so many great authors. Published in the early 60's, it is indeed one of the best collections I own. Conrad, Dylan Thomas, O'Connor, Updike, Fitzgerald, Thurber, Welty, Wharton, Roth, Lawrence, Mansfield, Nabokaov, Kipling, and on and on...

[Drew]

Modern short stories; the uses of imagination by Arthur Mizener (1967), Rev. ed