Selected Shorts: Seven Deadly Sins

Recently I finished reading the Manga series FullMetal Alchemist by Hiromu Arakawa, a coming of age story of two brothers who try to bring back the dead. It’s an interesting comic with complex characters, including seven “homunculi” who represent the deadly sins–the worst being Pride, shown in this panel (click to see a bigger image), who sucks up other people to gain their powers.  The seven deadly sins also appear on Selected Shorts this week, in stories about other ways (besides necromancy) that we grow up and lose our innocence. Tobias Wolff’s “Smorgasbord,” performed by Rene Auberjonois, is set in a boarding school and runs the gammot of Gluttony, Pride, Sloth, Lust, Envy, Greed and Wrath. “Football” by Elizabeth Crane, performed Martha Lavey, imagines a “second life,” where the narrator dreams of what it would be like to live a simple, small town existence. I was away at Chicago’s AWP conference last weekend, and so missed writing up the most recent Selected Shorts, which featured Mark Kurlansky’s “The Leopard of Ti Morne,” read by Stephen Lang, and John O’Hara’s “Graven Image,” read by Denis O’Hare. You can listen to both episodes on the Selected Shorts website, or by tuning in to your local public radio station. In the meantime, to combat your own seven deadly sins, try the less exciting but still powerful seven heavenly virtues: Chastity, Temperence, Charity, Diligence, Patience, Kindness and Humility.