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Post by callipygias on Feb 27, 2011 18:28:10 GMT -5
#13 The Music of Erich Zann(1921)H.P. Lovecraft[/center][/color] Reading the best Lovecraft is like dreaming that dream that something horrible is chasing you, and no matter how long or fast you run you know it's right behind you; you know that if you dare turn around to look, THAT's when it will get you -- kuhCHAWMP! His stories are waaay out there, but they tap into a corner of our minds labeled with a cobwebby old sign that says: PRIMAL FEARS. He uses our imagination against us by exploiting our fear of the unknown to great effect, and when he manages to hold that uncertainty all the way through to the end is when he's at his very best, like in The Music of Erich Zann or The Colour Out of Space (shamefully forgotten when I was making the list!). There are several more authors yet to come who, like H.P.L., believed that there are things out there so alien we're completely incapable of understanding them. The story starts with the narrator unable to find his way back to the house, the street, or even the neighborhood where he had previously rented a room for a time beneath the room of a mute, haunted violinist, named Erich Zann, and it ends with him "Leaping, floating, flying down those endless stairs through the dark house; racing mindlessly out into the narrow, steep, and ancient street of steps and tottering houses; clattering down steps and over cobbles to the lower streets and the putrid canyon-walled river; panting across the great dark bridge to the broader, healthier streets and boulevards...." In the small space between we discover Erich Zann and his inexplicably terrifying, otherworldly music through the impression it makes on the narrator. It would be useless to describe the playing of Erich Zann on that dreadful night.... He was trying to make a noise; to ward something off or drown something out—what, I could not imagine, awesome though I felt it must be. The playing grew fantastic, delirious, and hysterical, yet kept to the last the qualities of supreme genius which I knew this strange old man possessed. ...Louder and louder, wilder and wilder, mounted the shrieking and whining of that desperate viol. And then I thought I heard a shriller, steadier note that was not from the viol; a calm, deliberate, purposeful, mocking note from far away in the west. H.P. Lovecraft
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Post by callipygias on Mar 14, 2011 23:26:31 GMT -5
#12 The Nose(1835)Nikolai Gogol[/center][/color] The barber Ivan Yakovlevich finds a nose inside a loaf of bread his wife baked. After some poking and probing he becomes afraid he may have accidentally cut the nose off one of his clients, as he recognizes it as the nose of one Kovalev. He decides to dump the nose on a street somewhere, but he keeps running into people that know him. Eventually Yakovlevich tosses the nose off a bridge, is spotted and accosted by 'a constable of smart appearance,' and just then the narrator ends part one with the claim, 'what happened after that is unknown to all men.' Then The Nose begins in earnest with Major Kovalev waking up without his nose. He's pretty upset so he sets out to register a complaint with the police, but on the way he spots his nose entering a cathedral. This has to be one of the funniest and strangest scenes ever written, as Kovalev deprecatingly confronts his nose which, according to its uniform, outranks him--his growing desperation as the nose wrinkles its brow (oh that's right) and demands he express himself more clearly is the height of bizarre. It is a surreal nightmare of vanity and bureaucracy. In fact, if it is supposed to be a nightmare, it's the very rare story in that it isn't the less for it. Amazing to think that at the same time, in different parts of the world, Gogol and Poe were born within a few months of one another, they were both ground-breaking masters of the short story, hundreds of years later they're the two most commonly argued masters of the short story, and they both died far too soon, within a few years of each other. Nikolai Gogol
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Post by solgroupie on Mar 15, 2011 11:51:58 GMT -5
that was incredible. funny as hell. some truly laugh out loud moments.
"grasping the organ of smell." i mean, come ON!
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Post by callipygias on Mar 16, 2011 23:11:24 GMT -5
The funny part I get, it's the incredible part that's so hard to put into words. I remember reading something about Gogol's critical reception back in his day -- that it was positive but confused, or positive but missed the point. "The point" that was missed was that the satire, the characters, the humor, and even the subject was not what makes Gogol so great--so unique--it's all about the way he does it; I think I remember someone claiming he wrote like an alien mimicking a writer. Like how he'll suddenly introduce a character without apparent reason, or end a scene like he did Part I of The Nose. Maybe he was an alien. No, seriously, man.
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Post by Mr. Atari on Apr 27, 2011 18:42:24 GMT -5
Giving a bump to see what's next. I've been waiting to find out if there's more Melville or Flannery O'Connor coming up.
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Post by callipygias on May 3, 2011 12:49:05 GMT -5
Thanks^. When I found the text link for #11 online I wondered why the scroll bar was so tiny; I went back to the physical book and discovered the story is almost 50 pages long! I started with about a 30 page maximum for a short story, stretched it to 35 pages or so a couple times, and even to 40 pages to get my favorite Raymond Chandler story in, but I didn't want to stretch it any further. This one got away from me. But I swear, it feels like a thirty page story. So anyway, since I've already gathered the pics and link and such, here's what was my #11 favorite short story until it was disqualified for emissions. #00ps The Willows(1907)Algernon Blackwood[/center][/color] It's probably just as well I removed The Willows, as I got it on my Kindle (for free!) in order to mark my favorite quotes and ended up with half the story underlined. I'll just put in my favorites, from a conversation between the Swede and the narrator. We must sit tight and wait. There are forces close here that could kill a herd of elephants in a second as easily as you or I could squash a fly. Our only chance is to keep perfectly still. Our insignificance perhaps may save us. And the same discussion, the Swede explaining to the narrator what he feels they've stumbled into. ...Another region--not far removed from our own world in one sense, yet wholly different in kind--where great things go on unceasingly, where immense and terrible personalities hurry by, intent on vast purposes compared to which earthly affairs, the rise and fall of nations, the destinies of empires, the fate of armies and continents, are all as dust in the balance.... Algernon Blackwood
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Post by callipygias on May 3, 2011 12:52:11 GMT -5
I've been reading for a worthy replacement and boy did I ever find it. The new #11 on my list is settling in like it's going to last. It's by one of the greatest writers of all-time (undisputed), and for some reason it never even occurred to me that the author wrote short stories. I wish all my mistakes worked out this well.
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Post by callipygias on May 10, 2011 15:10:13 GMT -5
#11 The Dream of a Ridiculous Man(1877)Fyodor Dostoevsky[/center][/color] I looked up at the sky... one could distinctly see tattered clouds, and between them fathomless black patches. Suddenly I noticed in one of these patches a star, and began watching it intently. That was be- cause that star had given me an idea: I decided to kill myself that night. Then we see both the narrator's apparent brutal indifference to human suffering as he yells away a pathetic little girl despairing for her mother, and his ridiculous confusion at his inability to stop thinking about the poor girl as he sits at his table with loaded pistol. He can't understand why he should care at all about her when his studies have taught him that nothing matters, there is nothing to care about and, in fact, nothing exists. At first I fancied that many things had existed in the past, but afterwards I guessed that there never had been anything in the past either, but that it had only seemed so for some reason. Little by little I guessed that there would be nothing in the future either. He falls asleep sitting at his table waiting for the inspiration to pull the trigger. He dreams he shoots himself in the heart. Time compresses, his body is discovered, he is buried and tormented for his sin, raised by a "dark and unknown being," dragged through space, where he sees again the star he saw before determining to kill himself. They head for it and he ends up on an Earth that never experienced The Fall. Time passes. Collinsworth grabs it. Look at him go! Is it about Christianity, madness, or a desire for spiritual meaning so intense that a man otherwise unable to find it finally, desperately tries insanity? Whatever it is it's certainly a recurrent theme for Heavy D. The fact that he's always kind enough to destroy his narrator's credibility doesn't help. Do I miss his point? By most accounts I seem to; not just here but in much of his work. I get the spirituality of D's religious characters, but I almost never get the Christianity part -- at least not beyond its capacity to allow his characters an avenue to exercise their spirituality. In fact, it seems to me Dostoevsky did this on purpose. In fact, it even seems obvious. That's some pretty profound misunderstanding if I'm wrong, but if I'm right then it's worse because I'm unsure of something others would say, "Dur" about. His characters and his stories don't seem to say, "Believe in God because he is real," as much as, "Believe in God because this is the alternative." So I guess I tend toward the ridiculous man having driven himself mad with the need for meaning, under threat of suicide and the brutality of a completely uncaring universe (the girl). The end result of the ridiculous man seems telling, too. How common is the figure he ends up? There's little to differentiate him from the crazies still talking to themselves on street corners today. Of course, maybe the crazies are all ridiculous men who have seen the truth, which would make me the ignorant man unwilling to understand. "Does it matter whether it was a dream or reality, if the dream made known to me the truth?" ~ Ridiculous Man Fyodor Dostoevsky
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Post by callipygias on May 11, 2011 12:20:44 GMT -5
#10 Micromegas(1752)Voltaire[/center][/color] If there was a mandatory reading list for adults and I was able to put a story on it, I'd probably pick this polemical fable. It feels like a children's book for adults. No other short story I've come across teaches tolerance, humility, significance, and an appreciation for curiosity with the sense of wonder of Micromegas. And it's funny, too. Micromegas starts with its free-thinking title character being expelled from his home world (for heresy) and beginning a journey in search of knowledge and wisdom. His enormous home planet revolves around the star Sirius, and it breeds enormous people: Micromegas stands 120,000 feet tall. As he journeys around the universe he is able to bound between worlds. He picks up a traveling companion on Saturn--a relative dwarf standing only 6,000 feet tall--whom Micromegas pities for his small stature and mere seventy-two senses, Sirians having a thousand. They make their way to earth, which they initially find lifeless. Their amazement when the dwarf picks up a nearly microscopic life form from the ocean, a whale, is outdone when he then picks up a similar-sized life form that turns out to be a tall ship, and what they had assumed was this creature's fecal matter turns out to be tiny humans moving about the Saturnian's hand. But their true astonishment comes by discovering the tiny creatures are not only sentient, they are intelligent! When one of the humans figures the height of the travelers the Saturnian's mind reels, "This atom has actually measured me!" And with humility admits that he, and even Micromegas, are not capable of measuring the tiny humans as quickly. Great story, and Micromegas and his dwarf are characters that can stick with you for a long time. Francois-Marie Arouet Voltaire
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Post by solgroupie on May 11, 2011 12:57:32 GMT -5
while you were posting about #10, i was reading the dream of a ridiculous man. and when i finished, i googled it just to see what would come up and found this:
i watched all five parts - i have always liked jeremy irons and though i had only finished the story for the first time minutes before, i feel you couldn't have picked a better guy for this. it isn't word for word - the BBC left parts out, but most of it is as it was written. i'm going to need some time to absorb this one.
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Post by Mr. Atari on May 11, 2011 14:47:31 GMT -5
His characters and his stories don't seem to say, "Believe in God because he is real," as much as, "Believe in God because this is the alternative." I think you're on to something here. I remember doing a research paper in college on FD, and learning about how much of his purpose in writing was to process the nihilism and existentialism of his contemporaries (both in Russia and folks like Nietzche). Crime and Punishment was written if not to Nietzche specifically, at least to his views of existentialism and moral relativism. In many ways, Dostoevsky was saying in that story, "Okay, let's suppose God is dead, and right and wrong are purely subjective. What would happen then, if a guy killed his landlady for no good reason?" In many of his writings, he seemed to be making the point that the effect on the conscience and the mind of the individual would be devastating if there truly were no God. Or, as you so adroitly put it, "Believe in God because this is the alternative." I think this theme is everywhere in FD's works. And now I'll have to go find it in this short story I've never heard of before. Gracias.
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Post by callipygias on May 15, 2011 12:48:52 GMT -5
#9 Greenleaf(1964)Flannery O'Connor[/center][/color] The first thought I wrote out for #9 was, "Reading Greenleaf is like watching Raging Bull," and I swear I didn't even see the pun till I was half done with the post. I meant that both are unsettling almost to the point of unpleasantness. It is uncomfortable reading Mrs. May in the same way it is watching Jake LaMotta, yet both are among the very best-portrayed characters of their respective media. Nobody can draw a certain type of character like O'Connor, at least when it comes to short stories, so for Greenleaf I'll ignore the other aspects of O'Connor and focus on characterization. Bu' how? She somehow presents her (older female) characters to their core... from their core?.. with a result that is easy to recognize but REALLY hard to put into words. Everybody probably has a long-suffering mother or aunt or grandmother, in-law, whatever, who needs to feel in control of everything and who, when that doesn't work out, is adept at substituting her own reality--one that meets her expectations. A woman who needs to believe that without her influence it would all fall apart. Make her southern Protestant and imbue the air around her with Christly Righteousness (but for God's sake don't allow that air to actually touch her) add one part O'Connor's catholicism, two parts O'Connor's genius (which includes a truly bizarre sense of humor), then for the icing add her appreciation for the <overused word alert> grotesque and for the concept of divine... retribution? or maybe "forceful implementation of divine grace" would better fit. You end up with a story that nobody else--throughout history, as far as I can tell--could possibly have written: A cross between profound realism and profound absurdity. And THAT is getting to the heart of humanity. When Flannery died, [Thomas] Merton was not exaggerating his estimate of her worth when he said he would not compare her with such good writers as Hemingway, Porter and Sartre but rather with "someone like Sophocles . . . I write her name with honor, for all the truth and all the craft with which she shows man's fall and his dishonor." -Robert Giroux Flannery O'Connor
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Post by mummifiedstalin on May 15, 2011 12:59:53 GMT -5
I happen to agree with the notion that O'Connor is going to be one of the "greats" a century or two down the line. So many American writers are "of their age" or (even profoundly) regional in ways that make it hard for them to be considered international or to speak across time periods. Faulkner, for all his greatness, is ultimately a Southern writer. Melville, for all his hugeness of spirit, is profoundly early American. But O'Connor, despite being 20th century, despite being "Southern," strikes so many people as deeply, profoundly Christian and human at the same time that she cuts across all kinds of barriers, regardless of the types of literature that have formed peoples' tastes.
That's one of the things that makes her "great," in my opinion, or that will at least lead her to keep being read as time goes on. But I also have a feeling that accolades like that will only become commonplace after we're dead. She won't be an obvious great like Shakespeare or Dickens or Goethe until after we're long gone.
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Post by callipygias on May 15, 2011 13:07:12 GMT -5
Crime and Punishment was written if not to Nietzche specifically, at least to his views of existentialism and moral relativism. In many ways, Dostoevsky was saying in that story, "Okay, let's suppose God is dead, and right and wrong are purely subjective. What would happen then, if a guy killed his landlady for no good reason?" In many of his writings, he seemed to be making the point that the effect on the conscience and the mind of the individual would be devastating if there truly were no God. When I was doing that part of the post for Dream of a Ridiculous Man C & P was the only thing of his I didn't even consider. It's the first I ever read, so I wasn't familiar with his themes and ideas at the time, maybe that's why I missed the opportunity. Now I'm wondering if future readings will be affected by a better familiarty with D. I can't imagine it doing anything but good.
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Post by Mr. Atari on May 15, 2011 14:10:55 GMT -5
Hooray, Flannery O'Connor!
I agree with everything you and mummi said about her.
On my way to the financially useless Literature Degree I earned, there were many classes and authors I endured for the credit, but hated to read (cough...Jane Austen...cough). Some authors I loved studying, researching, and writing about (Shakespeare, Twain, Melville). But Flannery O'Connor was one of the authors that made me read with awe and joy. I can count on one hand the works that knocked the wind out of me and flat-out changed me as a person with their genius. Dante's Divine Comedy was one, The Brothers Karamazov was one, and without a doubt, Flannery O'Connor's short stories.
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