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I remember reading The Sniper by Liam O’Flaherty sometime in late middle school, I wanna say.
teacher let us know after that it was about the Irish civil war, and that things similar to the story had actually happened.
This is the exact story that came to mind when I read the post. This one stuck with me for sure.
A Modest Proposal was quite memorable
Tsunami survivor realizes a part of him died with his friend that day. Messed me up. Don’t remember the name
There’s a story called “Time Safari” that ends in a dude just straight up killing another dude. This was in a kid’s literature book.
Also I think Casque of Amontillado is funny.
I remember that. Either Ray Bradbury or Isaac Asimov.
Hunting party goes back in time to hunt dinosaurs right.
I thought that was called a Sound of Thunder. Because the last line went “there was a sound of thunder, then silence.” Or something to that effect, heavily implying that the time safari employee killed the hunter who stepped off the trail and on to a butterfly.
I also remember that one of the results of stepping on the butterfly was that all English words were spelled fonetically (typo intentional), a “mistake” I would happily go back in time to commit.
I also remember this short story, the death of the butterfly also changed the results of an election.
Huh I never realized how weird of a story that is to tell to kids
Don’t even get me started on a tall tale heart or that one story about this dude fantasizing about escaping while getting hanged
Alan and Naomi by Myron Levoy
It’s a novel, but not a very long one.
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I still hate Steinbeck as an author. Don’t think that would have changed if I had read any of his works later in life.
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You know what. I haven’t read him in a very long time. I’ll get back to you. Do you have a favorite? (I’m vetoing The Red Pony.)
Edit: Guessing The Grapes of Wrath. I remember not liking it as a kid. But at least it wasn’t The Red Pony.
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I don’t believe I’ve read either. I’ll put those on my list. I’d love to be proven wrong. Usually I’m more into light hearted things, which doesn’t necessarily seem to be Steinbeck’s wheelhouse (I can be sad in real life, after all), but that doesn’t mean I can’t enjoy more down to earth or down right depressing works.
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Not in english, but we read Anne Frank’s Diary in grade 8, Andorra by Max Frisch in grade 9 or 10.
But the most disturbing was “Der Sandmann” in grade 11 and “Der gelbe Vogel” (originally “Alan and Naomi”) in grade 9.
Mine is the one where the soldier returns from WWI completely desensitized to murder and fucked in the head.
He starts stabbing little girls, just like in the war. “Poor people” by Móricz if anyone is interested.
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I still often think about “Flowers for Algernon.”
I don’t think about it much anymore but I cried at the end, which is a rare occurrence for me
“A Country Doctor” by Franz Kafka. The whole thing is just one disturbing nightmare.
Just read the synopsis on Wikipedia. Holy fuck - Kafka really was something else…and very troubled.
What did I just read? It just seemed so incoherent.
Same answer i had on tumblr.
The Jaunt
Longer than you think!
It’s forever in there! 🤩
If you’ve never read the story that inspired it, “The stars my destination”, I highly recommend it. In that some (most?) people can jaunt at will.
We had to read a story in 10th grade about this family that’s out on a road trip when their car breaks down in the middle of nowhere. A car pulls up and the driver steps out to assist the family. However, the grandmother (who up to this point was doing nothing but bitch and whine about everything) recognizes the stranger as a wanted criminal she saw on TV and stupidly points this out to everybody. Which naturally results in the entire family being executed one-by-one because they’re now witnesses.
A whole family erased, just because granny couldn’t keep her fat mouth shut for 5 minutes.
Hadn’t read it before, so I just did. (It’s only 13 pages)
!Not only did Grandma call out the misfit to everyone, she caused the car accident in multiple ways: Bringing a cat on the trip, directing the family down a dirt road to a place she misremembered from a different state, scaring the cat enough that it clawed her son, the driver, in the shoulder, causing the car to flip and THEN was willing to sell out her entire family to survive.!<
Fuck grandma.
Yeah, she was terrible throughout the whole story. Not one redeeming quality.
Flannery O’Connor’s “A Good Man is Hard to Find”?
Yes, that’s the one. I couldn’t remember the name.
I forget a lot of it, except that last bit where the Misfit says something like “she could’ve been a good person if there’d been someone to shoot her every day of her life.”
Well that summary’s an uncomfortable parallel for modern events
The Veldt, by Ray Bradbury.
They didn’t make everyone read it though, just us “gifted/advanced” kids. It was one of several short stories that were in a special program book that I had to read.
I still think those kids were brats.
Edit: just looked it up and this was supposed to be 9th grade English??? We fucking had to read that as 5th graders.
I also took the “fucked up stories for smart kids” class
I was in the “gifted/advanced” track too. Teachers saw this one of two ways. Half of them got the memo: you got extra interesting stuff to noodle through because we’re all under-stimulated in a typical class. The others decided to just double your homework load and call it a day. At least the teachers in the first group had some interesting takes on brain teasers and reading material.
And on that note: I must have thought about Flowers for Algernon every week since I read it. Since the 90’s. I’m tired, boss.
Oh I was gonna call out All Summer in a Day cause holy fuck Ray Bradbury has some issues with kids…
I mean he is right too but damn those stories stick with you. And also did that and basically all the ones you pointed out as a “gifted class”. Do you think they literally had just 1 syllabus for us weird kids for the whole nation to try and scare us back into line or what? Cause, seems like we all getting traumatized by stories of death and emotional torture at like 11 by the same stories.
This was the one. Every once in a while my brain just says “hey, remember that fucked up story where the kids had a smart room that became whatever they wanted and it spoiled them to the point they murdered their parents with lions? Wasn’t that fucked up? Let’s think about how fucked up it was for a while!”
It was 7th grade for me, but still, I can’t believe we read that as kids.
Blood Music absolutely terrified me as a freshman in high school
I’m jealous you got to read Blood Music in high school. Though Chrysalids was also great and turned me into a long time sci-fi fan. Despite the horribly hypocritical ending.
My Biology teacher actually made us read that one. Big sci fi nerd, that guy. I haven’t read Chrysalids, I’ll have to check it out
It mostly holds up. The ending though… It’s a product of its time.
