What’s Black Tuesday again? It is October 29, 1929, the attributed day of the stock market crash (it actually occurred over four days); 16 million shares were traded as the market pummeled downward. It wasn’t until November, 1954 that Dow achieved its pre-crash levels or until 1968 were that many shares traded on a single day. We’ve been hearing more and more about the crash in the last year as our own economy brings it alive as no history book ever could. Recently, for a Literary Affairs lunch, I read the short story “Babylon Revisited,” a tale that provides a fuller view of the cost of the crash than any charts or bank statements. The story describes post-crash Paris with flash backs to the Roaring Twenties era, a gut-wrenching difference.
What struck me is the pervading sadness throughout the story. The main character, Charlie, grew rich during the Roaring Twenties, led the high life, then lost his money and his family. His wife died, a victim of heedless living. His daughter is living with his sister-in-law in Paris because he was an unfit father. He is working in Prague successfully restoring his finances. The story opens with Charlie visiting the infamous bar at the Ritz, but it is monument to the past as Charlie and the bartender list the tragedies that befall the former regulars. But not only Paris has changed due to the financial collapse, Charlie returns sober and with limited funds.
He remembered thousand-franc notes given to an orchestra for playing a single number, hundred-franc notes tossed to a doorman for calling a cab.
But it hadn’t been for nothing.
It had been given, even the most wildly squandered sum, as an offering to destiny that he might not remember the things most worth remembering, the things that now he would always remember–his child taken from his control, his wife escaped to a grave in Vermont.
Charlie is in Paris to gain custody of Honoria, his daughter, from his sister-in-law, Marion, who can barely stand to be in the same room with him. She resents how he and her sister lived (Fitzgerald gives snippets through out the story) , and how her sister died. Fitzgerald creates emotional tension Read the rest of this entry »
primary reasons for Easter. In this quiet story old, black Phoenix Jackson walks to town to obtain medicine for her grandson. Phoenix “was very old and small and she walked slowly . . . Her eyes were blue with age. Her skin had a pattern all its own of numberless branching wrinkles as though a whole little tree stood in the middle of her forehead.” Phoenix endures fear, pain, and humiliation, but brushes them off and retains her dignity throughout her journey. 
I react like Pavlov’s dog whenever a stack of books is put in front of me, I just want to plow through. I love goals and lists, especially the crossing off part of lists. I already decided that as part of my New Year’s resolution I would spend the first third of the year reading an essay a day, the second third a short story a day, and the third trimester a poem a day. (For purposes of my New Year’s resolution, “a day” means a work day, Monday through Friday, and all holidays, such as my birthday, anniversary and vacations, are off.) So, I’ll sign up for the 
son, I jumped at the chance and joined in. Then I realized I was reading a book right now (My Name is Red) that would qualify for the 
Claire
Kim
