Enough Rope - Dorothy Parker - 222 / 365 of reading one short story every day.

Enough Rope


Enough Rope is Dorothy Parker’s first published work of poetry, released in 1926.

Dorothy Parker’s early works of poetry have been categorized as light verse. It combines playful rhyme and humor with themes that, for the most part, talk about love and loss, or rather more of loss than love. Consider, for example, the following:

In youth, it was a way I had

To do my best to please,

And change, with every passing lad,

To suit his theories.

But now I know the things I know,

And do the things I do;

And if you do not like me so,

To hell, my love, with you!


There are the occasional interludes of love, as in the poem Day-Dreams

If you and I were one, my dear,

A model life we’d lead.

We’d travel on, from year to year,

At no increase of speed.

Ah, clear to me the vision of

The things that we should do!

And so I think it best, my love,

To string along as two.

This sentiment is carried forward in another poem titled Love Song, that begins:

My own dear love, he is strong and bold

And he cares not what comes after.

His words ring sweet as chime of gold,

And his eyes are lit with laughter.

Adapted from thinktome blog

A Telephone Call - Dorothy Parker - 221 / 365 of reading one short story every day.

A Telephone Call


The protagonist is waiting for a call from a young man. And she is wishing that the telephone will ring. At some point she had called him at work and he tells her that he is busy. He promises to call her at 5:00 pm. In their short conversation, he calls her darling twice. And she is thinking that he must care for her.


She prays, pleads and makes all kinds of deals with God, if only He would let the young man call her. She wants to know if God is punishing her because she did something bad. Desperately, she wants the telephone to ring. She moves through a range of emotions, and sometimes she wants the guy dead because he isn’t calling her.


The story is situational and based on the trappings of the mind and the work of emotions of a person based on a single phone call. The story’s tone is set to anxiety and waiting at the edge of one's seat, for what the outcome of the call can be.

Adapted from Goodreads

Image - American Telephone & Telegraph, Modern telephone service, 1920

The Wonderful Old Gentleman - Dorothy Parker - 220 / 365 of reading one short story every day.

The Wonderful Old Gentleman

The story is a delightful  combination of Parker’s writing style of imagery and combining it with dialogue. It is from a collection of stories called Here Lies. The story, with a heavy family emphasis, begins with a description of a room. The room is described as trying to be elegant, but ends up looking like “a home chamber of horror, modified for family use.”


An old gentleman has moved in with a married couple, the Bains and lives as a tenant. It is revealed that he is Mrs. Bains’ father. He has moved in with his daughter, due to his health. He is suffering from dementia or Alzheimer’s.


The main plot of the story is the conversation that Mr. and Mrs. Bains have with Mrs. Bains’ wealthy sister. The sister tries to ignore that she has left her father in the care of her poor sister and that she should have helped out more. Mrs. Whittaker, the sister, thinks that her father’s failing state of mind is funny.

    
It is a sad story of loneliness and basic human need for company.

New York To Detroit - Dorothy Parker - 219 / 365 of reading one short story every day.

New York To Detroit


The story is a dialogue between a woman calling from New York to a man in Detroit, who isn't as thrilled to speak to her as she hopes. 

The story is from a woman's point of view and shows her desperation. The story also highlights the way long distance relationship works in contempory  world and in modern societies.

The Sexes by Dorothy Parker - 218 / 365 of reading one short story every day.

Dorothy Parker

The Sexes by Dorothy Parker


Dorothy Parker captured early twentieth century American society like no one else could. She was a masterful observer of character, a witty, sharply exact writer of dialogue and a delicate noted writer of the subtleties of relationship.

In these five stories of The Sexes, of relationships strained by ill-will, social distance or circumstance, all her strengths are clear.