Great Heavens, no! Hans Christian Andersen.
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I have not the space to speak in detail of more than one of the Stories in Mr. O’Brien’s collection, nor will it be necessary; one specimen of the deadly Amonita Bulbosa in a mess of mushrooms is enough to justify the partaker thereof in damning the whole dish, if he live to express any opinion at all; so, if in a collection that claims to be composed of “Best Short Stories” I find one that is very bad in both Substance and Form, indeed so bad in Substance that it hardly deserves to be called a Story at all, I may surely, with perfect justice, damn the whole book as being false to its title and not what it pretends to be.
But in censuring Mr. Anderson’s story “Brothers,” I am not so much criticizing the author as admonishing the compiler of “The Best Stories” for the gross misuse of an Asterisk.
One does not have to be an officer of the S. P. C. A. to rebuke a truck driver who is abusing a horse that is hitched to a truckload of junk that is much too heavy for it.
By the same token, I do not pose as a critic when I take Mr. O’Brien to task for hitching an Asterisk to Sherwood Anderson’s story, “Brothers.”
I should not have noticed the Anderson load of junk, but for the stupidity of its driver, which annoys me.
It is no way to treat an Asterisk.
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The kindest thing that can be said of “Brothers” is that its inclusion in a collection of American Short Stories puts it in a false position. It is unmistakably American—the mark of the “Melting Pot” is all over it—and I suppose it is Short, though it takes a lot of patience to read it, but it is not a story in the accepted sense of the word.