Debi Cates
No Kings! Readathon
June 14, 2025
I'm reviewing books about Kings today. How did it turn out for the Kings and the wannabe Kings in classic literature?
Willie Stark, a populist governor, initially is portrayed as a champion of the common people, who rises to power through charisma and a willingness to challenge the established political order. He becomes more and more corrupt, shrewd and ruthless, willing to stretch the boundaries of the law as far as he can.
“Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall,
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall;
All the king's horses and all the king's men
Couldn't put Humpty together again.”
This wannabe king's ambition and lust for power lead him down a path of corruption and tyranny, making one righteous man mad enough to shoot Stark to death in the state capitol building.
Like all wicked kings and wannabe kings–then and now–it just doesn't turn out too nice for them, not in literature, not in history.
No Kings! Readathon
June 14, 2025
I'm reviewing books about Kings today. How did it turn out for the Kings and the wannabe Kings in classic literature?
Two scruffy English adventurers head to the backwaters of Afghanistan, determined to set themselves up as kings and be showered with power and riches. They succeed, for a time. When the queen-to-be bites the lip of the “king god” and he bleeds, the game is up. The Afghanis have discovered he is,
“Neither God nor Devil but a man!”
Yes, a manipulative, greedy, immoral man.
Like all wicked kings and wannabe kings–then and now–it just doesn't turn out too nice for them, not in literature, not in history.
No Kings! Readathon
June 14, 2025
I'm reviewing books about Kings today. How did it turn out for the Kings and the wannabe Kings in classic literature?
An ancient classic. Oedipus, in a fit of rage he kills a man and marries his widow, inheriting the murdered man's kingdom. But one day, Oedipus learns the truth of what he's done. He has murdered his father and married his mother. His mother/wife kills herself and in despair, he takes two pins from her dress and blinds himself. With the help of his daughter Antigone, the remainder of his life he roams as an degenerate exile.
“No man should be considered fortunate until he is dead.”
Oedipus thought he could trick the fates. But found out that HE is the problem.
Like all wicked kings and wannabe kings–then and now–it just doesn't turn out too nice for them, not in literature, not in history.
No Kings! Readathon June 14, 2025I'm reviewing books about Kings today. How did it turn out for the Kings and the wannabe Kings in classic literature?An ancient classic, aka The Frogs Who Desired a King is one with a twist. A fable about the frogs in a pond who asked the god Zeus to give them a king. He tossed down an old log. The splash scared the frogs, but soon they saw it did not move, did not do anything. Soon they all hopped on and made fun of Old King Log. They then asked for Zeus to send them another king, a real king. Zeus gave them one, King Stork who proceeded to eat the frogs. Zeus told them to suffer the consequences of their request.William Caxton, who published the first version in English, writes the parable is that,“He that hath liberty ought to kepe it wel, for nothyng is better than liberty.”You might also recall this fable from the TV series, I, Claudius based on the novel of the same name and its sequel [b:Claudius the God and His Wife Messalina 52251 Claudius the God and His Wife Messalina (Claudius, #2) Robert Graves https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1657551049l/52251.SY75.jpg 4232163]. In his old age, Claudius, after ruling reluctantly as Caesar and overwhelmed with disgust at the corruption all around him, remembers the fable of Old King Log and says, “Let all the p-poisons that lurk in the mud ha-ha-hatch out. ... I will m-marry my niece. Bring her to me.”In Aesop's fable, those were what you might call today FAFO frogs. The Stork King was just being true to its nature, which interestingly is much like the so-called poem “The Snake” that a U.S. wannabe king liked to recite at rallies. It ends “You knew damn well I was a snake before you took me in,” told with utter lack of irony or self-awareness by himself and his followers.Like all wicked kings and wannabe kings, and “snakes,” too–then and now–it just doesn't turn out too nice for them, not in literature, not in history.
Sometimes a book doesn't hit quite right with my Littles (granddaughters ages 7 and 9). This one didn't.
But it hit wonderfully with me, the Granny!
I remember when my daughters were two Littles and I'd go up to the library's Children's Department with them, let them do their thing, and meanwhile I'd pick out books for me. It's a great way to be introduced to something you want to know because nonfiction books for young readers...
...begin at the beginning
...tell you just the basics in an easy to understand way
...are usually a fast read without a lot of lingo
...and do it in an entertaining way!
In this book I learned trees in the forest communicate and share nutrients through their root systems.
Just knowing that makes me happy.
UPDATE 06/22/2025I just went back and read more of The Short Story Club group's comments and that changed my whole opinion of the story!Yeah, I'm that person walking out of the movie, talking with my friends, saying, “Ohhhh, it was a fake moustache?”Another read with The Short Story Club group* from the [b:Black Water 2: More Tales of the Fantastic 147802 Black Water 2 More Tales of the Fantastic Alberto Manguel https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1473851695l/147802.SY75.jpg 1146288] anthology.I didn't dig this one, although I think it was well-regarded by the group. Might just be timing for me. I have to give it props for tension and eeriness, though, and I have massive respect for other Elizabeth Taylor's works. Boiled down, it simply was an unpleasant story for me, an innocent among entitled manipulators. * https://www.goodreads.com/group/show/1187035
“But can't we talk of pleasanter subjects? “No we can't. This was one of the most unpleasant books that I've ever read. Yet I was both addicted to it and had to force myself to stick with it. That's because this book predicted with astounding crystal clarity the year 2025. It was written in 1935. Thankfully, I'm done with the novel, but none of us are done with manifest reality.During the first part of the book, I was startled on every page by some exact fictional parallel with the horrid non-fiction American reality of today. I can't tell you how many times I thought that surely the writers of Project 2025, the string-pullers of the “Chief” used this novel as a User's Guide of step-by-step for converting America into totalitarianism. It was too remarkably easy—in the novel and what we are seeing happening now.The second part of the book was less compelling, but also necessary, putting the whole repugnant vision of a brutal dictatorship on American soil, in case our imaginations can't quite go that far.How incredibly prescient is this novel? To illustrate, I'll leave blank the fictional character's name to recap just a few of the fictional incidents. Ask yourself what name you could fill in that blank in America today: _____ wrote a popular autobiography full of self-aggrandizements. _____ held rallies that espoused no real policies, filled with aggrievements that targeted the simple-minded voter, a voter who wanted a government grift for themselves, would blame the Jew and the Rich, and for enacting laws that would enforce a clear class system where they are on top. _____ spoke like an “every man” but had close, villainous brains behind him, pushing him forward with plots and manipulation. _____ admired the dictatorships in Italy, Germany, Hungary, Poland, Japan, and China, and while admiring, also touted that he would, of course, get the upper hand on them. _____ first targeted Jews, the Blacks, and Immigrants. Then the lazy, the godless, the perverted, university professors, the elite, crooked judges, crooked attorneys, crooked adversaries. Considered that women should be treated with special deference as mothers and homemakers. _____ wouldn't tout the old wounded soldiers, instead attract the strong, easily radicalized young men in droves. _____ enacted his plan to empower the Presidency to the level of despotic monarchy, and disempower the other two branches, “...that Congress shall serve only in an advisory capacity, calling to the attention of the President and his aides and Cabinet any needed legislation, but not acting upon same until authorized by the President so to act; and (c), that the Supreme Court shall immediately have removed from its jurisdiction the power to negate, by ruling them to be unconstitutional or by any other judicial action, any or all acts of the President, his duly appointed aides, or Congress.” _____ spoke of being Against Intolerance–but it was double-speak, he promised vehemently no tolerance for those Americans that he considered destroyers of America. _____ 's intolerance and plans grew and grew more clear once elected president. It required allegiance to one person's vision and of course required the usual mass sacrifices for the greater good as defined by the president, while he suffers none of the rules or deprivations himself. The fictional character who became an American dictator was Buzz Windrip, but this easily could be filled in with a current U.S. President's name. And like our own 2024 election, Windrip clearly wins the election. He convinced followers who have no mental acuity to identify a mumbo jumbo con, followers who have axes to grind, and followers of the wannabe powerful or wannabe rich(er) who think they know the game and believe they are wily enough to come out on top. That amount of followers makes up a large part of the population.Once he wins, he immediately busies himself on the fascistic and anti-democratic promises, but is much less interested in his economic promises (the rich, of course, get richer). Regular people with modestly good intentions become filled with fear and quickly and hopefully painlessly acquiesce against a system that in a very short time overwhelms their middling resources. Others who were always more flexible in their morals mold to the changes quickly and prosper.The new unstated national motto (in the novel, and in the present) has clearly become “government of the profits, by the profits, for the profits.”No opposition is tolerated. Many politicians, judges, journalists, and even religious leaders are forcefully silenced or jailed in one of the many new internment camps. Long standing national allies are sidelined, Canada at first gladly accept American refugees, then, like the fate of all refugees, finds them to be an irritant and drain on their empathy. Later, Mexico is attacked when it hosts the resistance.This America has become a vicious dog-eat-dog world with millions of ordinary lives literally at risk for a single misstep. Habeas Corpus be damned. And, like we see now, it is a tsunami of chaos, regression, aggression, lawlessness, violence, ever shifting alliances, splintering factions, fear, fear, and more fear. Resistance grows but also must become more dangerous. No one, no matter how powerful, how rich, or how well connected in this kind of destructive world is safe from an overthrow. Not even the President. As was Buzz Windrip .
I loved every single word of this short story. It was a complete delight! I have read one Marquez, [b:Love in the Time of Cholera 9712 Love in the Time of Cholera Gabriel García Márquez https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1644691354l/9712.SY75.jpg 3285349] a decade or more ago. I didn't like it much. BUT that was me THEN. It's possible I could read it now and love the fire out of it. Indeed, I want me some more Marquez and going right now to look for more short stories by him (I'm in a short story reading era).
This is a ghost story that isn't scary. What is, is sad and humane.Of the stories we've been reading in the [b:Black Water 2: More Tales of the Fantastic 147802 Black Water 2 More Tales of the Fantastic Alberto Manguel https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1473851695l/147802.SY75.jpg 1146288] anthology, this story was the most contemporary feeling and the least “fantastical.” The story is about grief.It's a story I'll remember long after some of the other stories' details have faded.Join The Short Story Club group here https://www.goodreads.com/group/show/1187035-the-short-story-club
(Part of a Pair)Maugham, I've found, often has such a melancholy tone, even if writing about a man who is living the dream, on an Italian island in the Mediterranean, who by cashing in on his assets and with mild frugality calculates he can live, work-free, for 25 years. Maugham's stories seem filled with people who were born to be injured deeply. I love his writing; he puts you in touch with ordinary pathos.This short story turned out to be part of a random pair, two mood reads in sequence where I was surprised by the similarities. The other was written 30 years later by Graham Greene, [b:The Invisible Japanese Gentlemen 25243532 The Invisible Japanese Gentlemen (short story) Graham Greene https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/book/50x75-a91bf249278a81aabab721ef782c4a74.png 44962917]. In both, the narrator is not entirely enthused by the protagonist living the dream, or in the case of Greene, looking forward to living the dream. In this story, the narrator has a mild distaste for the idleness of the protagonist.See this GR list: https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/84287 a kind of short story anthology from which I have given myself the challenge to read all the stories in 2025. I picked this and the Greene story just based on their enticing titles.
(Part of a Pair)What must it be like to be a writer, dining among strangers, overhearing tidbits of conversation, and observing diners with that distinct writer's ear and eye? And what if in the snips of conversation you learn that among the other diners is an enthusiastic budding writer, just receiving her first advance and trying to plot out her life based on that? An old writer might be a tad jealous, a tad jaded, and if the writer writes about that, might he put a mean little twist at the end?Yes.This short story turned out to be part of a random pair, the second of two mood reads in sequence where I was surprised by the similarities. The other was written 30 years earlier by W. Somerset Maugham, [b:The Lotus Eater 2570750 The Lotus Eater W. Somerset Maugham https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1414076027l/2570750.SY75.jpg 2581235]. In both, the narrator is not entirely enthused by the protagonist living the dream, or in this case looking forward to living the dream. In this story, the narrator has a mild distaste for the young, self-absorbed protagonist.See this GR list: https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/84287 a kind of short story anthology from which I have given myself the challenge to read all the stories in 2025. I picked this and the Maugham story just based on their enticing titles.
I thoroughly enjoyed these Persian folk tales. As with all folk tales, it seems, there are certain elements: cruel rich people, young people trying to find their own path, magical helpers like fairies, and wicked spells cast creating beasts and then broken by selfless true love.
But all with a Persian sensibility. Like the a chickpea who was sent on an errand by his father to get the long owed penny payment from the Shah. Along the route, the little chickpea was able to absorb a river, a leopard, a wolf, and a jackal–all which came to his rescue when the Shah wanted to punish him for asking for the penny that was due to his father.
My favorite was the first story in the collection, “Miss Cockroach and Mister Mouse,” being perhaps the one with a message and sensibility that I have not encountered before. A silly, but beautiful and uniquely adorned Miss Cockroach is sent out by her father to find herself a suitable a husband. Each possible suitor she encounters would love to have her for her beauty, but warn her that if she is unable to do specific wifely chores, he will treat her ill for failing. She declines each offer of marriage (smart cockroach). Then, she meets Mister Mouse, who will love her, adore her, and care for her without any quid pro quo. He just wants to love her and be with her. She is happy and silly with Mister Mouse. But due to a mishap, during her rescue and subsequent making of soup for her, Mister Mouse falls in the soup and drowns. Miss Cockroach never again adorns herself so beautifully and goes back to her father where she is the humdrum, dutiful daughter.
To me, that was the level of a Shakespearian tragedy!
On a personal note, I am sad. I have been reading Iranian stories (I have more to read) because I made an Iranian online friend, an intelligent, quirky, young person with an immense appetite for life. A cultural and generational exchange, if you will. The person has gone missing from my inbox for a couple of months now. I worry but do understand these things happen. Indeed, I recall being remiss in my international penpal correspondences in my own youth and hope it is no more than that, that life has naturally become very full and sweet.
I will continue to read my Iranian books, feel connected to a dear Iranian friend (and Nanaie too), through the ether, heart to heart.
“You are not just the drop in the ocean. You are the mighty ocean in the drop.”— Rumi
Such youthful earnestness.
It's hard not to admire such an enthusiastic attempt, a story that clearly wants to be contemporary and likeable and profound all at the same time, with an upbeat and optimistic message as the cherry on top.
I read this as an audiobook, but perhaps if I had read the words on the page it would have had a tad more gravitas that I expected, or maybe if it had been (much) shorter it would have been concentrated, more meaningful.
Or maybe I'm simply not the audience–I can see this book would be great for a teen reader!
It was “ok,” but not my cup of tea.
An hour later...I just learned a fascinating new word, “solarpunk.”
“Mamma, did Pussycat see the Queen?”
This feels like the saddest book in the shortest number of pages that I've ever read. And yet, all that happened was Pussycat was distracted by the smallest, least important of things. Pussycat bragged that it went to London to see the Queen, but hardly realized that it did not actually, in fact, see the Queen or anything remotely as worthy of doing.
Not a word too many, not a leitmotif too insignificant, not a thought too small to be tangled, untangled, then tangled again. Not a single beautiful thing remaining undestroyed by the end of the life of Miss Harriett Frean.
May Sinclair, I love you.
86 perfect pages of a blurred life that strove only to behave beautifully and not be selfish.
This is a book about books. No, no, it's about reading...books.What happens in our heads as we read? How does that work, exactly, that thing called reading that creates whole worlds and time into a seamless conveyance page upon page like a film but not at all like a film? To think about reading is like thinking about walking. How do we coordinate two legs, two knees, two feet, in thousands of second-by-second permutations to create that seemingly effortless ability to walk?If you were to think about it, you'd be amazed at all that is going on. Just like you will be amazed in thinking about all that reading you do so effortlessly.Mendelsund covers a lot of ground–half the amount you might think since half the book is graphical representations of his concepts–but here are a few of my takes on the titular subject.Quickly he made me realize, I don't imagine in detail what characters look like, even if they are well described. A police sketch artist might, but I don't. Instead, I build a vague placeholder for the character, maybe something like an Amish doll, sometimes with long eyelashes attached, or a rosebud-shaped mouth, but no nose, no chin, lots of stuff missing. How do I cope? Well, I'm picking up lots more visuals and other non-visuals too: the movements of the character, the generalities (class, age, outlook on life), their history, their pain, their talents, how they speak to others. By the end of the book (or middle) I have stuffed all that inside the Amish doll, now an animated spirit with a still vague face. We are likely never given a full photo-like image of a character at their first mention. Instead, we are given pieces here and there, and accordingly our image of the placeholder for them evolves, even drastically. We might begin our reading assuming someone is young to later find out they are in their 50s, for example. Or not find out for 100 pages that they have unattractive hair growing out of their ears. So, it is unlikely that having a clear descriptive vision in our minds is as invaluable s one might think it should be.A recent example for me is the man Rhayader, a hunchback with a claw like hand in [b:The Snow Goose 529241 The Snow Goose Paul Gallico https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1318521439l/529241.SY75.jpg 726049]. That feels like a lot of identifiable information, but I don't know what his face looks like. And yet, he is a very distinct, identifiable person to me. I know the awkward way he moves, the paint and dirt under his fingernails, the loneliness inherent in his face. The author may (or may not) have told me those things directly, but over the course of the novella, the story evoked those rich characteristics.It seems like that would be hard to tolerate–not knowing firmly in the beginning what a character looks like, but it happens all the time and you may not even notice. I'd go so far as to say that's how I envision everyone I know. It's as if the nose, the cheekbones, the hair color, eye color, freckles, and al the many what-have-yous, are so much fewer than the whole. Facial recognition then seems to be meaningless in reading, but rather important as merely one of evolution's survival tactics.Additionally, that vagueness and lack of universal visual experience, might explain why multiple films can be made of the same novel with different actors and we soon are convinced that of the dozens made, each is Anna Karenina from the novel. Indeed, Mendelsund even gives us a stern warning to consider the ramifications of watching a film before reading the book because the film will forever supplant any possible nuanced vision we might have created ourselves. That happened to me when reading [b:Dean Spanley: My Talks with Dean Spanley 7439291 Dean Spanley My Talks with Dean Spanley Lord Dunsany https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1347345717l/7439291.SY75.jpg 9443077] recently. I have no opportunity now to envision the Dean except as Sam Neil's portrayal. It's permanent. (But not a bad thing in this case.)Do characters' appearances get more and more vivid to us as we read a work?Probably not says Mendelsund. At some point, my Amish doll's face is as defined as the writer will ever make it, as defined as I will adjust it, unless something very unusual happens. What continues is that sense of the inner character deepening, becoming the part the “I” that sees more than the doll. Just like I don't think often about what I look like, I stop focusing and developing what they look like too. (That is very odd, if you think about it.) It's as if we are looking through their eyeballs, not into their eyes.Mendelsund shares an anecdote where Kafka directed the first cover designer of [b:The Metamorphosis 485894 The Metamorphosis Franz Kafka https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1646444605l/485894.SY75.jpg 2373750] to no, don't put a bug on the cover! He wanted us to see with the eyes of the metamorphized Gregor Samsa, not try to imagine what a horrible bug he appeared to be. It's all very interesting, the thoughts Mendelsund has and throws out there. It's fun to think about them, to be amazed at our reading selves.Here are the chapter titles to give you a more complete taste of what he covers: PICTURING “PICTURING”, FICTIONS, OPENINGS, TIME, VIVIDNESS, PERFORMANCE, SKETCHING, SKILL, CO-CREATION, MAPS & RULES, ABSTRACTIONS, EYES OCCULAR VISION & MEDIA, MEMORY & FANTASY, SYNETHESIA, SIGNIFIERS, BELIEF, MODELS, THE ART & THE WHOLE, IT IS BLURREDI'm sure there is a wide variety of experiences of reading by individual readers, and you may or may not agree with every conclusion he makes. And, to be honest, he lost me a few times near the end of the book.But I found so many things so utterly intriguing to think about that I will be closely observing my reading self for a while.
“The loss of her own mysterious expectation, of her love for love, was a small thing beside the war's total of unlived lives.”
Let a prose poet who explores “the pathology of innocence,” write a short story based on a poem that is based on a novel and you have “Mysterious Kor,” which is a place that is no where because everywhere is being blown to pieces.
Bowen's story takes place during a few hours one cold night, a night that that the moon with its incredibly bright one all-seeing eye sears the streets of London, city of the Blitz. The moon's unsympathetic search will reveal two lovers in an incompatible pairing that have spent the evening walking, looking unsuccessfully for a dark place to make love before they must take their night's rest with a third, a virginal roommate, in a cramped apartment.
These three young people are deprived of being young, of feeling at home, of even being able to form a normal, youthful friendship with one another. They are able, only, to experience the ever-glaring reality of wartime.
Adding a novel by Bowen now, “a woman of commanding presence who seemed more quietly masculine than most men and, at the same time, as feminine as our mothers” to my Before I Die TBR.
“A week has passed without someone in #7 hanging himself. Marvelous.”A hotel room in Paris has had a series of bad luck incidents. Three unconnected men in three successive weeks have hung themselves in the same room. Each on a Friday. Each at 6pm. The baffling tragedies are now in all the papers and twenty-seven people quickly volunteer to stay alone in that room to help the police in their investigation. One volunteer, young Robert Bracquemont, a medical student on a tight budget has intimated to the inspector that he has a theory, which none of the other volunteers suggested they have. Nor does he! But it makes him the best candidate to stay in the room, free of charge, being provided all life's necessities including meals, tobacco, a gun, a police whistle, and a direct telephone line to the police. He brings a journal to record any activities, and also his medical text ready to buckle down to study in complete comfort for a few days for free. He takes the lodgings in room #7 on Tuesday, Feb 28th. But there is no event on Friday March 4. No event on Friday March 11, no event on Friday March 18. His journal is filling.His last entry is Friday, March 25.“The Spider” is a horror mystery packed with symbols, mythology, the occult, and a most strange romance. For those familiar with German author Hanns Heinz Ewers (I was not) none of that is a surprise. This was one of those stories so masterfully included within the [b:Black Water 2: More Tales of the Fantastic 147802 Black Water 2 More Tales of the Fantastic Alberto Manguel https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1473851695l/147802.SY75.jpg 1146288] anthology by Alberto Manguel and is currently being read, one story a week by The Short Story Club group..It garnered a range of reactions from the group, with lots of side rabbit-holes so that just reading it played out like a mysterious adventure game: what does this or that signify? what is this author known for? what is unique in the author's biography? could this be symbolic? could that be a reference to another work? and so on. It's very lively and I just eat it up. It's pleasure to indulgently spend time with one work until you feel satiated. You now “own” this work and it sits in your mind's library. I've noticed the group's reading trajectory often goes like this: after a first reading we each have a general reaction about whether we liked the story or not. Then, first stop Wikipedia for this work, this author. Next, questions about this or that referenced in the text are pondered and Google is given a workout. Multiple answers might arise for the same reference, different readers pick up on different things that they find worthy of further Googling. The work now begins to unlock its subtle flavors, aromas of rare spices. Other works might be referenced (and read), personal anecdotes might pop up, sometimes images are scraped from the internet and are included too.Randomly we each push away from the table. We quietly leave to write our own final impressions of the feast, each in his/her own inimitable way. The last bit of fun? Reading each other's dissimilar GR reviews!You should join, https://www.goodreads.com/group/show/1187035-the-short-story-club.“As for me, I hope to stay here as long as possible. I may not conquer Paris here, but I live very well and I'm fattening up nicely. I'm also studying hard, and I am making real progress.” My feelings exactly.
“...unceasing progress towards perfection...”
Love, ah sweet love and the longing for it, the early giddiness, the high expectations, the disappointments, the irritations, the growing bitterness, the regrets...the philandering.
This story is about that but an unexpected one that begins at the end, with philandering. Nothing assures me that it will not be a wheel, turning back to the beginning.
If a romance story for you is about people you care about who wrench your heart over the obstacles they must overcome to be together, and the heart-warming joy of their union at last, this is not that kind of romance.
This is cynical romance, one that begins outside of marriage, as part of a game of short-lived pursuits to combat boredom. The man is a cad who likes women almost only because he finds men boring. He thinks of women as “the lesser race.” He sees the lady with the dog, a young woman seeking her own first dalliance outside of a marriage that is just 2 years old, and together they begin an almost calculated affair.
But something happened. It became love. Although, I can't see why either sees anything in the other to warrant a surprised, passionate devout feeling of love. But there you go. Love, ah sweet, inexplicable love.
Almost always doomed to failure when its foundation is romance. Or lust. Or boredom. Or expectations of perfection. Or being too young. Or....well, yes, it's a fragile thing.
“...then a new and splendid life would begin...”
I seem to have Feed Me Short Stories appetite these past few weeks (does it have something to do with Spring, probably so). I've just begun to make my way randomly through [b:Art of the Short Story, The 78223 Art of the Short Story, The Dana Gioia https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1386921306l/78223.SX50.jpg 75538] the first (?) anthology read by The Short Story Club group back in 2022. Moderator Cecily recommended that I might enjoy those stories too. She seems to know me well.“...both men and women believe they have a right to impose a private will upon a fellow creature.”Ah, true. Even in a loving relationship, then (1800s) and now. However, in the 1800s it had to be even more so, heavy on the man side of imposer, with him as the social, financial, and legal “head of the family” he likely dictated the timbre of a married couple. There are two Chopin stories in this anthology. The other is [b:The Storm 13722759 The Storm Kate Chopin https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1371146359l/13722759.SX50.jpg 19355708]. I found they played nicely off each other, with their female-oriented views on married life. It's been enriching and relaxing to passively read the old comments of the group. In this story, I got a kick out of the last line, “—of joy that kills,” which I quickly translated to “killjoy” although the speaker meant it as an actual joy.The Short Story Club group is still very much active. You can join here: https://www.goodreads.com/group/show/1187035
Darn, I should have wrote a review when I read this just a few days ago. Details are already fading.I read it because this was the story upon which [b:The Spider 223288150 The Spider Ewers Hanns Heinz https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1736104394l/223288150.SY75.jpg 230348304] by Hans Ewers was based. And it's very clear that it was, with so many of the same elements.This story, in comparison to “The Spider” was more fast paced and had a folk-lore feel to it but it was also a lot less symbolic. Ewers was nothing if not a man of many symbols, myths, and occult elements.It was entertaining in and and of itself, and had that added umph because of the Ewers “remake.”
Nice! My first Chiang and I'm duly impressed.
The idea of time travel is always fun and Chiang's short story played with a concept I had not seen before.
Through the alchemist's gate, one can go forward and back in time, each gate defining the exact leap with one gate being a few seconds (as a “demo” product, if you will) and another being 20 years. The various time travelers have differing motivations for wishing to time travel (wouldn't we all?) but no matter what is done when one travels back or forward, the present already had that built in. It is the opposite of the “butterfly effect.”
Pretty clever stuff making that work for the various characters in the story, including interlocking them.
Told as stories within a story, it has a definite Scheherazade feel. It captures sprinklings of the long Islamic culture which felt authentic—or at least respectful—to this Westerner. Based on Chiang's short bio here on GR, that is admirable since his background is American, Chinese, and works as a technology technical writer of some esteem. For leaps, that is quite an interesting one—to go from a perfectly immersed contemporary life to ancient Cairo and Baghdad. He pulled it off with perfect aplomb.
I enjoyed the wise tidbits of life philosophy included too. Here are a couple that particularly resonated with me:
“...grief burns but does not consume; instead, it makes the heart vulnerable to further suffering...“
“Coincidence and intention are two sides of a tapestry, my lord. You may find one more agreeable to look at, but you cannot say one is true and the other is false.”
Thank you to Cecily, a stellar moderator at The Short Story Club GR group, for another well-matched recommendation as a supplement in our group discussions. She's a treasure trove, able to do leaps herself, from one short story to another similar. Here's her profile so you may follow her: https://www.goodreads.com/user/show/1199525-cecily
I just enthusiastically added Chiang to my More This Author shelf...for my own future self.
“Mrs. De Ropp was Conradin's cousin and guardian, and in his eyes she represented those three-fifths of the world that are necessary and disagreeable and real; the other two-fifths, in perpetual antagonism to the foregoing, were summed up in himself and his imagination“I love that kind of writing, those kinds of sentences: controlled, complex, original. In other words, just so stinkin' well written, a contrast to the loosey-goosey vernacular (as is this review, all my reviews).This is just one short story from the collection, [b:The Chronicles of Clovis 937219 The Chronicles of Clovis Saki https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1707253278l/937219.SY75.jpg 922198], by Saki, 1911. I will be reading all the stories soon. I have a minor 2025 project where I want to purposely read works from www.gutenberg.org. I don't know why. I want to give the site some love, I think. Does reading in the html from there give it love? I hope so. (I also do make semi-regular small donations to it and www.openlibrary.org.)Another minor mission I'm on is to learn, “What is this sort of story called?!” It's the kind of short tale where at the end, there is, not exactly a twist, but a sudden comeuppance for one or more of the characters as a result of their bad, or at least misguided, behavior. I've read two others like that of late: [b:The Phoenix 60400199 The Phoenix Sylvia Townsend Warner https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/book/50x75-a91bf249278a81aabab721ef782c4a74.png 95181813] by Sylvia Townsend Warner (of [b:Lolly Willowes 937105 Lolly Willowes Sylvia Townsend Warner https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1680550043l/937105.SY75.jpg 922084] fame and [b:Mr Loveday's Little Outing & Other Early Stories 11784645 Mr Loveday's Little Outing & Other Early Stories Evelyn Waugh https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1327505828l/11784645.SY75.jpg 16736622] by Evelyn Waugh of [b:Brideshead Revisited 58045504 Brideshead Revisited The Sacred and Profane Memories of Captain Charles Ryder Evelyn Waugh https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1621038975l/58045504.SY75.jpg 2952196] fame. So, something of a sub-sub genre. (I'm vaguely also reminded of some of Ray Bradbury short stories which depend upon a sudden realization at the end.)It's as if the writer is entertaining you and knows you are blithely going along, willing to be entertained effortlessly. Then at the end, slap!, as if the writer is saying, “What do you think of that? Now go back and contemplate what you've just read and with a little more depth this time if you please.” It's a little gimmicky, but also perversely rewarding.If you know the name of the technique, I'd love to know!“Do one thing for me, Sredni Vashtar.”