What I learned from reading O. Henry Short Stories.

O. Henry slayin’ it! 

Starting with this post I am changing the dynamic of the boring and awfully reviews that I’ve been doing, to be honest I don’t know how to review things, specially books, because I just enjoy them so much even when they are bore and lame and I end up liking them and recommending them to everybody. So, instead, I’m starting this new ‘section’ (if I can call it like that) of “What I learned from...” in which instead of reviewing the books, I’ll state the knowledge I got from reading them AND I’ll be expanding it to movies, series, anime, music videos, etc. 

Now that I cleared that up, I can get back to the topic, which is O. Henry’s short stories.

But before jumping into the stories, I’d like to share with you what I learned of O. Henry, as it is a habit of mine to check the biography of the authors I read, after I read them, and it turned out that O. Henry real name was William Sydney Porter, he was American and he lived quite a life, he went to prison and he didn’t started his writing career after his serving time, which I think it’s pretty cool, because some of the stories I read were about robbing people, banks or trains, and I can guess where he got those ideas from...

About his short stories, O. Henry wrote over 300 short stories, but I only read like around 40, the most popular ones, and I’m sure that one of the things that he wanted to teach in all of his stories, even if they were fiction, is how ironic life can get to be, as they all had unexpected and twisted endings that I’m sure all of us have experienced in life in one way or another, like when we fight for getting something and we end up having exactly the opposite but realizing that what we’ve got it’s better than what we wanted. 

Therefore O. Henry‘s short stories are full of funny, sad and interesting ironies that represents life, which are important to mark and reckon and learn from, as this will help us accept what happens on our own life. So it’s a big thumbs up to O. Henry for that. 

Another not so remarkable thing I learned from his stories is how the economy has grow and change from the period of time where he lived (late 1800s) to nowadays, as he used a lot of monetary remarks and reference on his stories, so it’s pretty fun to read how people just made $8.00 a week from a full time job back then. Which tell us the never ending tale of how wages are never enough for people, because as wages go up, so does the price of things and services, making it an infinite loop. 

To conclude, I also re affirmed (because I’ve been knowing this for years) that fiction it’s not too far away from real life, because all fiction has its root in reality. So, after learning that O. Henry had served time in prison, I understood how all the plots of his stories were so spotless and felt so real, because I’m assuming he used the stories he got from his fellow prisoners when he was in jail. So I’m guessing he took reality and blended into fiction, but is it really fiction if it’s based on reality?... I’ll leave you that to think about. 

So, if you’d like to read some of his stories, I found this great website which contains a lot of them if not all, so you can check them up and read them for free. 

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