There Will Come Soft Rains by Ray Bradbury — Review

"There Will Be Soft Rains" by Ray Bradbury is a futuristic story about the actions of an automated house after its inhabitants were destroyed, probably with a nuclear weapon.

Dishes are prepared but not eaten. Bridge games are installed, but no one is playing them. Martinis are made, but not drunk. Poems are read, but there is no one to listen to. An automatic voice recounting times and dates, which has no sense without a human presence.

Instead of describing the moment of the explosion, Bradbury shows readers a charred black wall, except when the paint remains intact in the form of a woman picking flowers, a man moving on a lawn, and two children throwing a ball. These four people were a family who lived in the house.

"There Will Be Soft Rains" is a part of the series“ The Martian Chronicles ” and one of the most famous stories in the world of fiction: touching, fatal, shocking.



This is the link to the text of the story:
https://www.btboces.org/Downloads/7_There%20Will%20Come%20Soft%20Rains%20by%20Ray%20Bradbury.pdf

All Will Be Well, by Yiyun Li — Review

The story “All Will Be Well”, by Yiyun Li was published in 2019 in the magazine “The New Yorker”. It is written in autobiographical style although the plotline refers to the acquaintance of the author. 

It is possible to classify the work as a love story, this term is mentioned a few times in the text. Desires become stronger in the distance - this idea makes the story remarkable.

 

Here is the link to the text of the story:

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/03/11/all-will-be-well

Riddle by Ogbewe Amadin — Review

Riddle by Ogbewe Amadin belongs to the genre of flash fiction. It is short and it has an unexpected ending. In the beginning, a mother said to her little daughter that her aunt is a witch.

According to her mother, it is bad, but the girl becomes less and less sure as the story goes on. The story also presents the moment of childhood when children realize that their parents may hold views of which they don't always agree.

However, the reader doesn't have enough facts to conclude if the aunt is a good or bad person, the main character only made her assumptions, which gives the reader space for interpretation.



This is a link to the text of the story:
https://firesidefiction.com/riddle

The Iliad of Sandy Bar by Bret Harte — Review

American writer, Bret Harte, is famous for his stories about life of gold diggers in California. This period of time in the history of the USA is associated with adventures, discoveries and exploitations. 

The story, “The Iliad of Sandy Bar, '' describes consequences which can occur after a slight quarrel. The narration begins with the sentence, “Before nine o'clock, it was pretty well known all along the river that the two parties of the 'Amity Claim' had quarreled and separated at daybreak.”

 

The story displays typical characters and relationships in American society.

 

Here is the link to the text of the story:

http://www.sagen.at/texte/sagen/u_s_a/illiad.html

The Yellow Streak by William Somerset Maugham — Review

According to the dictionary,  “yellow streak” means a tendency to be cowardly or easily frightened.

The story,  “The Yellow Streak,” by British writer William Somerset Maugham included a rich and colorful description of the trip which a group of people had in Malaysia. Nevertheless, the main idea of the author was to present the peoples’ characters in extreme circumstances.

 

The title gives readers a clue about which part of human nature was represented in the story.

Here is the link to the text of the story, see page 44:

https://www.bookfrom.net/w-somerset-maugham/36264-65_short_stories.html