Weekly Short Story...Seven Types of Ambiguity by Shirley Jackson

Shirley Jackson was an acclaimed novelist and short story writer of the mid-twentieth century, probably best known for The Lottery, a short story about a small American town with a sinister ritual.  I happened to pick up a collection of some her short fiction, appropriately titled The Lottery and Other Stories.  One tale that stuck with me over the years wasn't at all scary in the way many of Jackson's stories were: Seven Types of Ambiguity, from 1948...

Maybe you've heard of the literary poetic criticism book Seven Types of Ambiguity, written by William Empson and published back in 1930.  It's not the content of this book that figures into Shirley Jackson's short eight-page story, but one of its fans, a young college student scrimping and saving his way through school and life, and who happens upon this work in an old bookstore.  It's a rare book and costs more than he can afford, so instead he stops by and reads a little of it at a time.  The bookseller allows this, but warns him that someone else could buy it at any time.  One day a man, accompanied by his wife, enters the store in search of "good" books...like some Dickens or Jane Eyre, for example.  He isn't given to reading and values the appearance of books decorating his home more than their content.   The college student eagerly helps him to find several books to buy in the store, and they discuss the book the boy is reading but can't buy.  It's all a pleasant scene, with folks from different backgrounds and perspectives interacting with each another in a constructive, positive way.  And then there is that surprise ending that changes everything...

I've said it before: the shorter the short story the greater impact is the ending, which is often completely unexpected and turns everything on its head: Seven Types of Ambiguity is no exception.  There are three major players here: the young financially-strapped college student, the older self-made man who wants to give the appearance of being well-read, and the shop owner, whose primary concern is the financial bottom line for his business.  How these three interact shows how money and the arts, while in many ways interdependent, are ultimately incompatible...a seeming paradox.  And also, when a person gets into the mindset that they are of a higher social level than another, then the common rules of courtesy and mutual respect can break down.  But to know how this story revealed this to me, you'll have to read it yourself.  By the way, there is both a novel and a television series titled Seven Types of Ambiguity, each one totally unrelated to Shirley Jackson's story...