The Lottery : And Other Stories

Rating:
Summary: Insightful, funny, creepy
Review: I never read the short story "the Lottery" in school or anything, but had it recommended to me by my mum after she heard I loved Ira Levin's "the Stepford Wives". I didn't know it was a short story, so when I got the book and saw it was the last story included, I decided to leave it till the end and read the stories front-to-back.

I really enjoy Margaret Atwood, and find similarities in the writing style of her and Shirley Jackson; perhaps it's the feminine perspective, the insight, the banal everyday detail laid out with great care. I found myself really enjoying the book, and always of course anticipating the final story.

Highlights for me in this book include "Charles", about the 'troubled classmate' of a woman's young son; "the Renegade", in which a woman feels compassion for her dog's ignorant activities; "Dorothy and My Grandmother and the Sailors", which reminded me of my paranoia of the unknown as a child and my then-absolute belief in my family's viewpoints; "Of Course" made me squirm with awkwardness at the "thin-ice" of introductions and laugh out loud; and of course, "the Lottery" was a great way for this book to end for me. I kind of anticipated what was going to happen, but it was no less effective when it did.

The feeling of helplessness is present in many of these stories, of a woman watching her life through confused eyes and feeling a loss of control, not being able to relate to or understand the people around her. The stories and characters were very real, the conversation between characters very natural. Every awkward moment, every suspicious action, is captured beautifully. I really liked this book. I would recommend it highly; I am not usually a fan of short stories, but these were wonderful. I found myself looking forward to sitting down to read one here and there, and all of them left me thinking about them afterwards.

**Interesting note: as I was reading the short story of "the Lottery", I found myself reminded of a music video by Marilyn Manson, for the song "Man That You Fear". Looking this connection up on the internet, I found that he used the story as his inspiration for the video. Even if you can't stomach Marilyn Manson, it's an interesting (and inoffensive!) visualization (though somewhat altered) of the story, and worth checking out for interest's sake. Just thought I'd mention it!

Rating:
Summary: Lottery - 5 stars, Remainder - 3 stars
Review: I purchased this book on the fact that the Lottery is a great story and extremely eerie. Another reason for purchasing this was the overall high rating for this book by everyone. That was incredibly misleading. If you read thru the other reviews of this book closely, you will find that most people are telling you about the brilliance of the story "The Lottery" and not the other stories in this compilation.

I expected stories on par with the Lottery in this collection. I didn't find it. The majority of other stories do not fall in to the classification of horror stories like the Lottery or "The Haunting of Hill House" which Shirley Jackson is also so famous for. The stories would fall in to the region of American Literature, not horror or mystery. As some other reviewers have noted there are multiple stories that don't come to a conclusion as one would expect with either a horror or mystery story but are a poignant tale of literature.

I am a huge mystery buff and definitely part of the pull of this collection was that it was in the mystery section of my bookstore. That along with the other items I previously mentioned convinced me to buy it. If you find yourself buying this for mystery or horror stories, take a pass. If you are looking to reread "The Lottery" I would recommend taking this book out from the library. This purchase is only wise for literature enthusiasts.

Rating:
Summary: Extraordinary
Review: I bought this book as a substitute, Waldenbooks had neither of the books I went there looking for. But on a tip to "check out the literature section for something" I came across this collection. I remembered very vaguely reading "The Lottery" 4 years ago in middle school, and decided to get the book. Not because I particularly liked "The Lottery" (which I did), but I thought the book might have a couple other interesting stories. Boy, was I right. Every story has something brilliant to it. A couple of people have complained about the stories "just ending", but how else would one end them? I mean, if you put yourself in the situation, what else could you do? The stories perfect little morsels of the aberrant. So strange and so cute. I love all of them. Some say "The Lottery" is the best one in the book but I (and this may be due to my boredom with the cliché and the popular) think that the other stories are in general much better. I've copied so far 2 stories for friends, and I'm looking forward to reading more by Shirley in my Am Lit 2 class.

GET THIS BOOK. It's brilliant, it's different. I read it in 2 days.

Rating:
Summary: Don't Expect to Make Sense from This
Review: The stories are chilling and rememberable. However, many of the stories seemed to have no point. "Art for art's sake alone" perhaps, but I felt somewhat empty after reading some stories and not quite understanding them. However, I am rather young, so perhaps that is just my opinion for someone in teens or twenties.

Rating:
Summary: A must-have collection
Review: I first picked up this volume because, shocking as it may seem, I'd never actually read Shirley Jackson's landmark story "The Lottery." That's the last story in the book, so I skipped right to it; and, long story short, I wasn't quite as floored by it as I thought. (Full disclosure, though: I more or less knew the ending already.)

However, as I read through the rest of the stories in the book I was amazed at the range, depth, and general brilliance of Jackson's storytelling. Many of her stories tend to center around basic human cruelty (a theme made all the more powerful by the fact that the characters are mostly genteel females) and insanity. Jackson wrings plenty of drama out of these concepts, to be sure (many of the stories are downright chilling), but she's equally capable of playing them for laughs--in "My Life With R.H. Macy," a hilarious account of working in retail, and the "Come Dance With Me In Ireland," a perfect illustration of the pessimistic axiom, "No good deed goes unpunished."

"The Lottery and Other Stories" is an outstanding body of work from a woman who's clearly one of the best short-storytellers of the past century. It's going on my shelf right next to Raymond Carver's "Where I'm Calling From," and if you knew my reading habits, you'd know that's probably the finest compliment I could give a book.

Rating:
Summary: Not quite as freaky
Review: Its not quite as freaky as i like, but excellent in the effect of anticipation.not something for little siblings to read or hear.

Rating:
Summary: Seven types of ambiguity - an inimitable & original voice
Review: Shirley Jackson was a writer of a unique talent, whose stories carried the inimitable stigma of originality, both in the structure of the stories per se, and in the subject matter. It's refreshing to know that her stories are still read almost forty years after her death, that the mere fact that she authored longer works ever since classified as the background work in horror genre - didn't diminish the importance of her more ambitious works, collected in this volume. In other words, we should be grateful that Jackson was not pigeonholed as a writer routinely delivering the literary equivalent of circus and bread to the mass reader. Although "The Lottery" is her most widely recognized short story from this collection, almost every single story contained here is worth the laurel.

The book starts with "The Intoxicated", where in a single scene Jackson conveyed the enormous tension between a drunk man and a girl, talking in the dimness of the kitchen, during the party. Right off the bat, during the first few pages of this book, we have an opportunity to see that Jackson's stories may be interpreted in various ways and that her stories serve as a departure station of a train of thought that inevitably follows. Each piece is a mighty knock on the reader's head, forcing him to break the reading for a while. To think. Now, that's powerful storytelling. Then follows the best piece of the collection - a heartbreaking story of "The Daemon Lover", which is as far apart from its predecessor as possible - both in intensity and in the subject matter. A small, brilliant allegory on the despair of a woman scorned. I have read many a novel with the abandoned woman in the center, but never have I understood so much about the essence of despair as I did from "The Daemon Lover". One by one, Jackson delivers ingenious stories, all uniformly devoid of references to the outside world of literature, with all characters bearing similar, or identical names, as the anonymity is essential. Drained of almost all points of reference, the stories allow us to focus on the real content, on whatever Jackson wanted to convey, and the latter is delightfully disputable, and I wish I had someone to talk to about "Trial by Combat", or "Like Mother Used to Make". The book is divided into several parts, sorted thematically, if that's what it is, for each and every story in this book is so original and distinct, that it's hardly possible to sort them in any way. The first part ends with "My Life with R. H. Macy", one of the most humorous stories ever written!

The second part of the book features stories with children, and indeed some are absolutely delicious: "Charles", or "Afternoon in Linen" being the best examples. However, the author is deadly serious in some other stories, for a change, and our smiles quickly fade when we read "After You, My Dear Alphonse", or Flower Garden. Then again, in "Dorothy and My Grandmother, and the Sailors", Jackson comes back to the abstract tone of the opening story in this volume, and combines the humorous with the gravely serious, with the powerfully analytical. Her stories are very short, but rarely so much diverse content and chameleonly atmosphere has been ever squeezed into so little space, with the plainest setup possible. Then comes the third part of the collection, with slightly longer stories, and the supposedly autobiographical "Elizabeth", where Jackson tells an enormously depressing tale set in New York, a tale of a single lady, a secretary in a literary agency. You think that's bland and common? I dare you to read "Elizabeth", and attempt to claim the same after you finish! The author's keen observational sense is very evident in "The Dummy", "Come Dance with Me in Ireland" and "Seven Types of Ambiguity"; the title of the latter being one of my favorite titles, ever. The aforementioned stories are by no means complex. Just snapshots, situationally pregnant stories, carving a narrow, deep cut in the flesh of the mammoth otherwise known as the human nature. This book seemed to never end, for my infinite enjoyment. I laughed with "Of Course", I was paranoid with "Pillar of Salt", I was compassionate with "Men With Their Big Shoes", I was alternatively dreaming the unreal and feeling the mind-numbing pain with "The Tooth", and I was furious, proud and vain with "Got a Letter from Jimmy". And then, as might have been expected, I was grossed out and horrified with "The Lottery". A powerful ending of this superb collection of short stories.

Rating:
Summary: quite uneven
Review: This collection of short stories ranges from the dull to the decent. It is never awful or great but just o.k. I found most of the stories just ended, like maybe it was an idea for a novel that she discarded.

Rating:
Summary: Fabulous tales with a twist
Review: I first read "The Lottery" in high school and it has stayed with me ever since. I bought this book for the title story, and it is the most powerful of the stories, though the others are also very entertaining. Hopefully it will also stay with you.

Ms Jackson is a phenomenally talented writer. You know immediately that there is something wrong with the simple village lottery, and the suspense and horror builds with every word. That this can be achieved in the space of a short story is amazing - we have a very lttle time before we are faced with the shocking truth.

"The Lottery" is the finest short story of its genre, and stands alone as one of the greatest stories ever written. Shirley Jackson is a master, and her novels "The Haunting of Hill House" and "We Have Always Lived in the Castle" are also engrossing reads. But "The Lottery"? Well, you will never forget the twist in the tale.

Rating:
Summary: Addressing questions
Review: After seeing a rerun of the 1996 movie version of "The Lottery" on TV the other day, I once again find myself consumed with Shirley Jackson's genius in expressing the manifestation of evil that lies within each of us. As the Bible says, sin is universal (Romans 5:12); in the Scriptures we find Jesus Christ lecturing the Pharisees of his time that they are like "whitewashed tombs" in their hypocrisy (Matthew 23:27; Luke 11:44).

Even though "The Lottery" does not offer any recommendation for the redemption of mankind from ever-lurking evil, the 1948 short story retains enormous value in that it places the reader in the story. One can almost feel the rising temperatures of late morning in early summer in New England. If your ears are attuned, you can hear Mr. Summers' voice boom out the family names: "Adams. Delacroix. Hutchinson. Warner." If you allow yourself to enter the story, you not only sense the shifts in emotion among the villagers, you experience the emotional ride for yourself. And that is the genius of Jackson and "The Lottery." The founder of my church knew this genre well and often responded with stories (parables) when confronted with questions such as "And who is my neighbor?" (Luke 10:25-37, which, like "The Lottery", shocks first-time readers even today)

When I learned, just tonight, that "The Lottery" was first published in the New Yorker on JUNE 28 in 1948, I was not surprised to hear of the overwhelming response, even canceled subscriptions, to the publication. The date for the annual lottery in the story is June 27. Jackson's style is that of a news feature writer dispatched by a section editor of a major daily newspaper to capture off-the-beaten-track events. All that is missing is the dateline. To have read this all-too-realistic fiction in news-feature style on June 28 must have been bone-chilling, to say the least. Move over, H.G. Wells, Orson Welles, and "War of the Worlds"! In the movie version, the name of the town is New Hope, Maine. An idea for high school literature teachers presenting "The Lottery" is to lift the text onto a mock section front of a metropolitan daily that has a fictitious but convincing name. If the teacher is really creative, he or she could conspire with the journalism department and make the page look real, complete with a three-column color photo of "Mr. Summers" barking the names from the platform, with the box and three-legged stool in view, of course. A six-column headline that pulls the reader in but doesn't give away the ending would top the presentation. Then, the byline of By Shirley Jackson, Advocate Feature Writer. With the dateline of "NEW HOPE, Maine -- The morning of June 27 was bright and clear....", Jackson's use of "the village" and "here" would be given even more realistic context.

Like the parables of Jesus, Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery" has a timeless quality. Unless Christ, Jackson offers no solutions to the problem of evil. But her 20th-century parable does force the reader to confront the horrible reality of evil. In that "The Lottery" continues to be of great service to mankind.