Theodore Sturgeon: "A God in the Garden"

Theodore Sturgeon
"A God in the Garden"
in The Ultimate Egoist:
Volume 1: The Complete Short Stories of Theodore Sturgeon


This tale strikes me as a variant of the Midas Touch.  What appears to be good at first glance proves ultimately to be a curse.

Kenneth digs furiously in his garden, working on a lily pond.  His ferocity comes from a recent flareup between him and his wife.  She suspects he is lying to her.  Unfortunately she is right, once again.  He is an inveterate liar, whether it benefits him or not.  It's just the way he is and she refuses to accept that.

Digging deeper he comes across a huge rock, and he calls a friend who has the necessary equipment to remove it from the hole.  Once on the surface he realizes that it isn't just a rock, but a carved rock!


"Yes, it was an idol, that brown mass in the half-finished lily pool.  And what a face!  Hideous--and yet, was it?  There was a certain tongue-in-cheek quality about it, a grim and likable humor.  The planes of that face were craggy and aristocratic, and there was that about the cure of the nostril and the heavily lidded eyes that told Kenneth that he was looking at a realistic conception of a superiority complex.  And yet--again, was it?  Those heavy eyelids--each, it seemed, had been closed in the middle of a sly wink at some huge and subtle joke.  And the deep lines around the mouth wee the lines of authority, but also the lines of laughter.  It was the face of a very old little boy caught stealing jam, and it was also the face of a being who might have the power to stop the sun."



Kenneth is overjoyed.  He had been looking for a statue to set off his garden and this seemed perfect.  With help he sets the statue upright in a prominent place, overlooking his garden.  It is then that Kenneth realizes that he  has found something much more than he expected.  The statue talks to him.


"'I"m a god,' said the idol.  'Name's 'Rakna.  What's yours?'"


After demonstrating his powers, much to Kenneth's discomfort,  Rakna relents.

"'Look, Kenneth, I've been a little hard  on you.  After all, you did give me a comfortable place to sit.  Anything I could do for you?'"

Kenneth says that all is well, except that, well, there's this little problem with his wife and lying.   The god's first offer to help is simple:  he will "adjust" Kenneth so that he only tells the truth whenever he is asked a question.   Kenneth cringes at that suggestion, especially when he thinks about being asked what he really thinks about his boss and having to answer truthfully.   The god suggests another solution:  whatever Kenneth answers will be the truth, for the god will make it so.

The god points to a chain on the ground and asks Kenneth to say it is in the shed when he is asked.  Kenneth does so and the chain disappears.  It is in the shed.   Kenneth, a skeptic, is confused:  is he crazy or hallucinating?   He goes into the house and discovers she is preparing turnips for dinner.  He doesn't like turnips and frowns slightly.  His wife remembers and says that she forgot.

"'Don't be silly.'  he lied gallantly. 'I love 'em.'  No sooner had he said the words than the lowly turnips seemed to take on a glamour, a gustatory perfection.  His mouth watered for them, his being cried out for them--turnips were the most delicious, the most nourishing and delightful food ever to be set on a man's table.  He loved them."

Kenneth is now a believer.

At first it's party time.  Kenneth tells his wife that there's $20,000 in their checking account, and it''s true.  But then . . .

Think about it--suppose everything you said became the truth.   Someone wonders how an incredibly rich person became so wealthy, and you cynically replied that that person must have stolen it.  Regardless of the real situation, that person was now a thief.   Or, someone asks you whatever happened to so-and-so, and you replied, "Oh, he or she probably died long ago."  Well, once you said that, it had to be true.

It seems to me to be a frightful gift.

Thomas Mann: "Disillusionment" Part 2

Thomas Mann
"Disillusionment"
a short story


After rereading the post, I realized that I had focused on the relationship between the story and the song and had ignored some interesting points in the story, or at least, they seemed interesting to me.
 
I wondered about  the source of his disillusionment.    He apparently believes that the problem lies in the situations themselves rather than in any deficiency in himself:  the problem is external rather than internal.  I think it is an internal problem: it is inside him.  Either he has excessive expectations or he is deficient in some way.  

Another of those ignored points is that the disillusioned man brought forth both types of disappointments:  he recognized that he was disappointed not only in those situations where the joy did not reach the hoped for expected levels, but also in those situations where the grief or sadness also did not achieve those heights.  It is almost as if he recognized that both had to be necessary: the great joy as well as the great sadness or grief.  Is this true:  one must be able to experience both? 

I think there may be those who would have regretted missing out on the great joys of life while being happy to have escaped those situations of grief or sadness.   Could there be those who never missed feeling even the great joys of life?  In other words, are there people who would envy the disillusioned man?

Thomas Mann and Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller and Peggy Lee?

Thomas Mann
"Disillusionment"
a short story included in Stories of Three Decades
H. T.  Lowe-Porter, translator 


I, after a few decades of my own, dug out my copy of Thomas Mann's Stories of Three Decades, a collection of twenty-four short stories.  It was while reading the second story in the collection, "Disillusionment," that something strange happened.

It's not a complicated tale at all.  The first person narrator is sitting in a sidewalk cafe in Venice, enjoying the evening, when a man seated at the next table, begins to talk to him.  After a few opening pleasantries, the stranger suddenly  becomes quite serious.

"Do you know, my dear sir, what disillusionment is?"  he asked.in low, urgent tones, both hands leaning on his stick.  "Not a miscarriage in small, unimportant matters, but the great and general disappointment which everything, all of life, has in store?  No, of course, you do not know.  But from my youth up I have carried it about with me; it has made me lonely, unhappy, and a bit queer, I do not deny that." 


One night, when he was a small child, his parents' house caught on fire, and it was only with some difficulty that the entire family was saved.  After it was over, he thought:


"So this,' I thought, 'is a fire.   This is what it is like to have the house on fire.  Is this all there is to it?"


Later, the inevitable happens: romance enters his life.


"'Years ago I fell in love with a girl, a charming, gentle creature, whom it would have been my joy to protect and cherish.  But she loved me not. . .and she married another. . .Many a night I lay wide-eyed and wakeful; yet my greatest torture resided in the thought: 'So this is the greatest pain we can suffer.  Well, and what then--is this all?'"

Even the sea and a vast gorge disappoints him.  And the last disappointment hasn't occurred yet, but when it does:

"'So I dream and wait for death.  Ah, how well I know it already, death, that last disappointment!  At my last moment I shall be saying to myself: 'So this is the great experience--well, and what of it? What is it after all?'"

It was a sad story, and I felt sorry for the disillusioned man to some extent.  However, it seemed to me, though, that he had suffered from an exaggerated or excessive expectations about the upcoming events.  He was much like a child, or so it seemed to me.

As I read the story, it not only seemed familiar to me (very possible as I had read it a long time ago), but I also associated a tune with it.  Finally, at the end of the story, I remembered a hit song from the late '60s.   The song, of course, is "Is That All There is?" sung by Peggy Lee.


Some of the lyrics:

I remember when I was a very little girl, our house caught on fire
I'll never forget the look on my father's face as he gathered me up
In his arms and raced through the burning building out to the pavement
And I stood there shivering in my pajamas and watched the whole world go up in flames
And when it was all over I said to myself, is that all there is to a fire?



And then I fell in love with the most wonderful boy in the world
We'd take take long walks down by the river or just sit for hours gazing into each other's eyes
We were so very much in love
And then one day he went away and I thought I'd die, but I didn't
And when I didn't I said to myself, is that all there is to love?


I know what you must be saying to yourselves
If that's the way she feels about it why doesn't she just end it all?
Oh, no, not me I'm not ready for that final disappointment
'Cause I know just as well as I'm standing here talking to you
When that final moment comes and I'm breathing my last breath, I'll be saying to myself


Is that all there is, is that all there is?
If that's all there is my friends, then let's keep dancing
Let's break out the booze and have a ball
If that's all there is


I went a bit further and found the following in a Wikipedia article titled "Is That All There Is?"  The following is an excerpt from that article.

"The song was inspired by the 1896 story Disillusionment (Enttäuschung) by  Thomas Mann.   Jerry Leiber's wife Gaby Rodgers (née Gabrielle Rosenberg) was born in Germany, lived in the Netherlands. She escaped ahead of the Nazis, and settled in Hollywood where she had a brief film career in films noir.  Gaby introduced Leiber to the works of  Thomas Mann. The narrator in Mann's story tells the same stories of when he was a child. A dramatic adaptation of Mann's story was recorded by Erik Bauserfeld and Bernard Mayes; it was broadcast on San Francisco radio station  KPFA in 1964."

The three events mentioned in both, of course, are the house fire, the unrequited love, and death.   Of course, not all of the incidents in the story were included in the song, and the visit  to the circus in the song was not in Mann's story.  Two disappointments in the story that are not included in the song are visits to a magnificent river gorge scene in the mountains and a visit to the seashore.   The river gorge scene could have become a trip to the Grand Canyon wherein Peggy Lee remarks that it's just a big hole in the ground and "Is that all there is?"

Rereading for me is positive pleasure.  Of course, after all these years, it will almost be like reading them for the first time--one of the advantages of a slowly decaying memory.   I wonder what else I shall find in the remaining 20+ stories.  If you are looking for a collection of literate and intriguing short stories, I would like to recommend  Stories  of  Three Decades  by Thomas Mann.

I know there have been many poems that were adapted for songs, but this is the first short story that I have found that has been turned into a song.  There probably are others, but so far I haven't come across them.

Do you know of any stories that became songs?

Nathaniel Hawthorne: King Arthur in Boston?

Nathaniel Hawthorne
"The Gray Champion"
in The Celestial Railroad and Other Stories


"The Gray Champion"


There was once a time when New England groaned under the actual pressure of heavier wrongs than those threatened ones which brought on the Revolution.  James II, the bigoted successor of Charles the Voluptuous, had annulled the charters of all the colonies, and sent a harsh and unprincipled soldier to take away our liberties and endanger our religion.

There is just a touch of irony in this opening paragraph of the story with respect to the loss of religious liberty.  The Puritans understood religious liberty to mean the freedom to practice their own brand of Christianity, which they certainly didn't extend to other brands  (see Anne Hutchinson and Roger Williams who were banished from the Massachusetts Bay Colony because of religious differences with the ruling Puritan clergy).

Because of the loss of the charter and the presence of mercenary troops, tensions were rising among the general populace.    The Governor and his councilors decided on a show of force to forestall  possible incidents of public unrest.

One afternoon in April, 1689, Sir Edmund Andros and his favorite councilors, being warm with wine, assembled the redcoats of the Governor's Guard, and made their appearance in the streets of Boston. The sun was near setting when the march commenced.

This, of course, drew a crowd.

There were the sober garb, the general severity of mien, the gloomy but undismayed expression, the scriptural forms of speech, and the confidence in Heaven's blessing on a righteous cause , which would have marked a band of the original Puritans, when threatened by some peril of the wilderness.  . . . Old soldiers of the Parliament were here, too, smiling grimly at the thought that their aged arms might strike another blow at the house of Stuart.   Here, also, were the veterans of King Philip's war, who had burned villages and slaughtered young and old, with pious fierceness, while the godly souls  throughout the land were helping them with prayer. . . .

"Satan will strike his master stoke presently," cried some, "because he knoweth that his time is short.  All the godly pastors are to be dragged to prison!  We shall see them, at a Smithfield fire in King Street!".  .  .

Hereupon the people of each parish gathered closer round their minister, who looked calmly upwards and assumed a more apostolic dignity, as well befitted a candidate for the highest honor of his profession, the crown of martyrdom.

With the Governor, his councilors, and the Governor's Guard at one end of the street and the crowd of godly and righteous Bostonians at the other, a bloody conflict seemed inevitable, until --

Suddenly, there was seen the figure of ancient man,  who seemed to have emerged from among the people, and was walking by himself along the center of the street, to confront the armed band.  He wore the old Puritan dress, a dark cloak and steeple-crowned hat, in the fashion of at least fifty years before, with a heavy sword upon his thigh, but a staff in his hand to assist the tremulous gait of age.

 I am here, Sir Governor, because the cry of an oppressed people hath disturbed me in my secret place, and beseeching this favor earnestly of the Lord, it was vouchsafed me to appear once again on earth, in the good old cause of His saints. . . .


This, to me, seems to be a variation on the legend of King Arthur, who, suffering from a mortal wound in his battle with his son/nephew? Mordred, was taken away in a small boat.   In some versions he had died, while others claimed he was still alive.  However, all agree that he went to the Isle of Avalon  whereupon he rests until the day that England needs him, and he will again come to its aid.  The words spoken by the Gray Champion could have come straight from many of the variations of the legend of King Arthur, or so it seems to me.


Of course, it's clear that the Gray Champion is not King Arthur.  I wonder why, though, Hawthorne thought it necessary to borrow a legend from the old country, rather than use an home-grown one.  Is this a commentary on or perhaps a recognition of the reality of the brevity of the English history in New England?


It seems a straightforward variation, but Hawthorne frequently has a hidden message in many of his tales.  Is there a touch of irony here--perhaps one variation of an intolerant Christianity trying to enforce its will upon another equally intolerant variation?

Ray Bradbury: "The Parrot Who Met Papa"

Ray Bradbury
"The Parrot Who Met Papa"
from Long After Midnight


"The Parrot Who Met Papa" is the second story I have read by Ray Bradbury that centers on Ernest Hemingway, sometimes familiarly known as Papa.  The first I read was "The Kilimanjaro Device," a time-traveling tale.  My post on that story is at  http://tinyurl.com/y7xt9t4h.  I wonder if there's any more about Hemingway and why he chose to write about him.  I also wonder if he has any other stories about real people.  I guess I will just have to read more stories by Bradbury. 

I suppose most people back then knew that Hemingway spent considerable time in Cuba.  That was the problem, for so many people knew this that Hemingway became a tourist attraction when he was there.  When the staring got to be too much, Hemingway would absent himself from his usual watering holes and hide out in a small local bar, the Cuba Libre.   At one end of the bar was a parrot in a cage, an ancient parrot to be sure.  Hemingway grew to like the parrot and would spend much time talking to it.  In fact, the question was whether Hemingway ended up talking like the parrot or the parrot sounded like him. Rumor had it that Hemingway had taught the parrot a word-for-word record of his last unpublished novel.

This parrot became famous, almost as famous as Hemingway himself.  So, although it was a shock to many, the reasons why El Cordoba, that was the parrot's name, was birdnapped? should have been obvious.  But, the real reason wasn't known, until much later.

Ray (the name of the teller of the tale, a coincidence, no doubt) decids to investigate and flies down to Cuba.  Upon interrogating the bar owner, he decides he knows the identity of the birdnapper.  He had asked the bar owner if someone strange or peculiar or eccentric had recently been there. The bar owner then described such a person who had been there the day before the parrot had disappeared:

"What a creature!. . . He was very small.  And he spoke like this: very high-eeee.  Like a muchacha in a school play, eh?  Like a canary swallowed by a witch!  And he wore a blue-velvet suit with a big yellow tie. . .And he had a small very round face. . . and his hair was yellow. . .he was like a Kewpie doll."

Ray recognizes him and blurts out, "Shelley Capon!"  (a capon is a castrated domestic rooster fattened for eating).  Ray knew that Shelley Capon hated Hemingway and now was very concerned about the fate of El Cordoba.

Perhaps I'm wrong here, but that description and the name reminds me of Truman Capote. Unfortunately I don't know anything about the relationship between Hemingway and Capote, so I can't offer that as evidence.

Ray then decides to confront Shelley Capon and rescue El Cordoba.  Shelly Capon is the most interesting character in the story.  If you have read the story or read it sometime in the future, let me know if you agree or disagree with my speculation regarding the identity of Shelly. 

It took a while for me to realize this, but this is a detective story!  El Cordoba is a victim of a kidnapping, and Ray comes to his rescue.  Shelly Capon is the unique and fascinating bad guy with his henchmen about him in the hotel room when Ray confronts him.  Their meeting gives us a clue:

Shelly greets him:  "'Raimundo, sit down! No .  .  . fling yourself into an interesting position.'

Ray responds:  "'Sorry,'  I said in my best  Dashiell Hammett manner, sharpening my chin and steeling my eyes.  'No time.'"

The tone is almost noir.  Ray senses a threat from those gathered in the hotel room.  Will he be allowed to leave, on his own two feet?   He responds with a threat of his own, clearly a hard-boiled detective tale.  Bradbury later introduces a very familiar element from a Hammett story, just to remind us of this story's antecedents. 

Overall, it's a light-hearted work, not to be taken seriously.  But, on the other hand, it is written by Ray Bradbury .  .  .

Ray Bradbury: Long After Midnight, "One Timeless Spring"

Ray Bradbury
"One Timeless Spring"
Long After Midnight

"One Timeless Spring" is the second story in the collection, Long After Midnight.  Just as the first story, "The Blue Bottle," could have been a part of  The Martian Chronicles, this story, at first glance, could have been included in Dandelion Wine (DW) .  It's the story of a young boy who lives in a small town. Moreover, his name is Doug, just as the young boy in DW is named Doug Spaulding.

One difference between this story and the others in DW  is that it is a flashback tale.  Doug is looking back at the events whereas the others are told in the present, if I remember correctly.  I think it would take a bit of revision to fit it in.  Perhaps another reason is the tone of the tale.  It doesn't seem to quite mesh with the overall tone of  DW.

For example, the story begins

That week, so many years ago, I thought my mother an father were poisoning me.  And now, twenty years later, I'm not so sure they didn't.  There's no way of telling.

He begins a journal.


"'I didn't know I was sick until this week,' I wrote.  'I've been sick for a long time.  Since I was ten.  I'm twelve now.'"

Doug then decides he doesn't want to grow up (the Peter Pan Principle?); he wishes to remain twelve.  Is he afraid of growing up, of joining that mysterious and possibly dangerous world of the adults?  He remains adamant about freezing at that age, and then he meets Clarisse.

Since I read this story, I heard about and eventually read Bradbury's sequel to Dandelion Wine, the title of which is Farewell Summer and have come to the conclusion that  "One Timeless Spring"  actually fits in better with Farewell Summer.  The overall theme is the same:  a fear of growing up.
  

Nathaniel Hawthorne: "The Minister's Black Veil"

Nathaniel Hawthorne:  "The Minister's Black Veil"

I'm sure most people have either read the story or are at least familiar with the basic story line.  Parson Hooper appears one Sunday morning wearing a black veil:  Swathed about his forehead, and hanging down over his face, so low as to be shaken by his breath, Mr. Hooper had on a black veil. The effect on the congregation was one of amazement and not a little fear:  "I don't like it," muttered an old woman, as she hobbled into the meetinghouse.  "He has changed himself into something awful, only by hiding his face." 

The sermon he delivered that day was clearly related to the black veil:  The subject had reference to secret sin, and those sad mysteries which we hide from our nearest and dearest, and would fain conceal from our own consciousness, even forgetting that the Omniscient can detect them. 

Hooper's black veil is supposed to serve as a reminder to all who see him of the secret sins they are hiding from others.   I think most of us are very well aware of those dark secrets we hide from others, so I don't understand why Parson Hooper feels it necessary to make himself a reminder of that.   What purpose does it serve to remind us of our own sins and also that others have their own hidden sins?

Doesn't this make us wonder about our friends and loved ones and strangers?  How does this increase Christian charity to towards others?  Doesn't this rather make us suspicious of others?  Doesn't this increase our mistrust of others?   He certainly found himself the object of fear among all who encountered him.  He persisted in this behavior and wouldn't even allow his betrothed to see him without the veil, thereby ending their engagement.

I am puzzled by this story.  Does Hawthorne mean for us to admire Parson Hooper or is he another example of excessive religious zeal, similar to the Salem witch trials in which one of Hawthorne's ancestors played a prominent role?



 

Ray Bradbury: "The Night"

Folks, spoilers follow, so if you haven't read the story and prefer to read it with no foreknowledge, you should stop here.

As I've mentioned in the past, too many times I suspect, Ray Bradbury is one of my favorite short story writers, regardless of the genre. He is probably best known for his SF and fantasy tales, but many of his stories stray far afield.  This is an example of a tale of his that doesn't fit easily into any category, except that of an excellent story that makes its point quickly and clearly.  "The Night" (perhaps "The Ravine" would be just as appropriate) is a short and simple tale, one of those that many might complain that "nothing happens."

It's a warm summer evening in a small town.  Doug is an eight-year-old boy who has just returned from getting ice cream at the local grocery.  His mother is busy ironing.  They are the only ones in the house. Father is at a lodge meeting and won't be back until around midnight.  Skipper, Doug's older brother, is out in another part of town, playing with some friends. He is late and should have been home some time ago.

Just as Doug is getting ready for bed, his mother decides to look for Skipper.  They set out along the path that Skipper will probably take on his way back.  They drop down into a ravine and about half way through, they hear Skipper and his friends laughing and giggling.  She scolds him for being late and they return home. Doug and Skipper go to bed.  Shortly afterwards, father returns from his lodge meeting.

Did anything happen?

This story is included in the collection The Stories of Ray Bradbury which the unknown editor describes as Bradbury's  best one hundred stories  (there a couple of stories missing that I would include).  Why is this story included?

Perhaps something did happen, something that only Doug experienced.  While Bradbury can do the obvious monsters and demons and horrors with the best, what I like is his grasp of what goes on inside the characters.  Many times I have recognized myself in his tales, something that doesn't happen with most writers.  Perhaps the following quotation (my apologies for its length, but Bradbury says it much better than I could)  may explain why this tale was included as one of his best one hundred.  At least, I think so.

Doug and his mother are on the path, expecting to meet Skipper on his way back.   The narrator tells us:

"You are only eight years old, you know little of death, fear, or dread.  Death is the waxen effigy in the coffin when you were six and Grandfather passed away--looking like a great fallen vulture in his casket, silent, withdrawn, no more to tell you how to be a good boy, no more to comment succinctly on politics.  Death is your little sister one morning when you awaken at the age of seven, look into her crib and see her staring up at you with a blind blue, fixed and frozen stare until the men come with a small wicker basket to take her away.  Death is when you stand by her high chair four weeks later and suddenly realize she'll never be in it again, laughing and crying, and make you jealous of her because she was born.  That is death.

But this is more than death.  This summer night wading deep in time and stars and warm eternity.  It is an essence of all the things you will ever feel or see or hear in your life again, being brought steadily home to you all at once.

Leaving the sidewalk, you walk along a trodden, pebbled, weed-fringed path to the ravine's edge.  Crickets, in loud full drumming chorus now, are shouting to quiver the dead.  You follow obediently behind brave, fine, tall Mother who is defender of all the universe.  You feel braveness because she goes before, and you hang back a trifle for a moment, and then hurry on, too.  Together, then, you approach, reach, and pause at the very edge of civilization.

The ravine.

Here and now, down there in that pit of jungled blackness is suddenly all the evil you will ever know.  Evil you will never understand.  All of the nameless things are there.  Later, when you have gown you'll be given names to label them with.  Meaningless syllables to describe the waiting nothingness.  Down there in the huddled shadow, among thick trees and trailed vines, lives the odor of decay.  Here, at this spot, civilization ceases, reason ends, and a universal evil takes over.

You realize you are alone.  You and your mother.  Her hand trembles.

Her hand trembles.

Your belief in your private world is shattered.  You feel Mother tremble.  Why?  Is she, too, doubtful?  But she is bigger, stronger, more intelligent than yourself, isn't she?  Does she, too, feel that intangible menace, that groping out of darkness, that crouching malignancy down below?  Is there, then, no strength in growing up? no solace in being an adult? no sanctuary in life? no flesh citadel strong enough to withstand the scrabbling assault of midnights?  Doubts flush you.  Ice cream lives again in your throat, stomach, spine and limbs; you are instantly cold as a wind out of December-gone.

You realize that all men are like this.  That each person is to himself one alone.  One oneness, a unit in society, but always afraid.  Like here, standing.  If you should scream now, if you should holler for help, would it matter?"


This ordinary walk in a quiet town has turned into something else.  Is this a horror story?  Or a growing up story when Doug climbs another step towards maturity and most likely doesn't realize it?


Any thoughts? 

Theodore Sturgeon: "It," a short story

Theodore Sturgeon:  "It"

As I began reading, I found myself doing something strange:  I was pausing more often than I usually do when reading prose.  The more I looked at it, the more it struck me as poetry: a poem about the birth of a monster.  These are the first two paragraphs of the story, as I saw them.  Below I have added the same two paragraphs as printed in the version I have.

It walked in the woods.

It was never born.
                            It existed.

Under the pine needles
                            the fires burn,
                            deep and smokeless in the mold.

In heat and darkness and decay
                            there is growth.

There is life
                            and there is growth.

It grew,
            but it was not alive.

It walked unbreathing 
                             through the woods.
                                   and  thought and saw 
                                   and was hideous and strong
                                   and it was not born
                                   and it did not live.

It grew
              and moved about 
                                 without living.


It crawled out of the darkness
                          and hot damp mold
                                  into the cool of a morning.
It was huge.

It was lumped  and crusted
                         with its own hateful substances,
                         and pieces of it dropped off
                         as it went its way,
                                      dropped off and lay writhing
                                      and stilled, and sank putrescent

into the forest loam.                    
                                      
-      -     -     -     -     -   

Now, the prose version as Theodore Sturgeon wrote it:

It walked in the woods.

It was never born.  It existed.  Under the pine needles the fires burn, deep and smokeless in the mold. In heat and darkness and decay there is growth.  There is life and there is growth. It grew, but it was not alive.  It walked unbreathing through the woods. and  thought and saw and was hideous and strong and it was not born and it did not live.  It grew and moved about without living.


It crawled out of the darkness and hot damp mold into the cool of a morning.  It was huge.  It was lumped  and crusted  with its own hateful substances, and pieces of it dropped off as it went its way, dropped off and lay writhing and stilled, and sank putrescent into the forest loam.                     




What do you think?   Is there a difference, aside from structure of course, between the two formats?  What is that difference, if any?                        


Several commentators have remarked on possible sources for "It," one being Frankenstein's monster, in which there is a scene similar to one in Sturgeon's tale and the other being a golem.   I think there might be a third source:  Genesis.


"7.  And the LORD GOD formed man of the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul."

.     .     .     .     .

21.  And the LORD GOD caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept:  and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof;

22  And the rib, which the LORD GOD had taken from the man, made he a woman, and brought her to the man."

Genesis 2: 7, 21-22
Authorized King James Version


In Genesis, all the LORD required was a rib, whereas Sturgeon's creation of clay needed a complete skeleton.

The monster is a strange one, innocent and naive.  In its innocence it is destructive, but it is neither deliberately evil nor cruel; it is not immoral, but amoral.  It has no sense of right and wrong.  And this, not so much its shape or appearance, is what makes it a monster.






SPOILER





As usual, Sturgeon provides a little surprise, an unexpected turn to the tale.  And, in this story, it's the demise of the monster.  What would be expected is a climactic struggle, with the monster resisting to the very end, perhaps even killing one or two more in its death throes.  But Sturgeon goes a different route with a very different end for his monster.   First is the "poetic" format, and at the end, the prose format of Sturgeon




The monster
             lay in the water.
It neither liked
                        nor
                               disliked this new element.
It rested on the bottom,
                     its massive head 
                               a foot beneath the surface,
                                       and it curiously considered the facts
                                                                           that it had garnered.
There was the little humming noise of Babe's voice
                                               that sent the monster questing
                                                                                       into the cave.
There was the black material
                                    of the brief case
                                               that resisted so much more
                                                      than green things when he tore it.
There was the little two-legged one
                        who sang and brought him near,
                                         and who screamed when he came.
There was this new cold moving thing
                                            he had fallen into.
It was washing his body away.
                       That had never happened before.
                                                               That was interesting.
The monster decided
                                to stay
                                       and observe this new thing.
It felt no urge to save itself;
                             it could only be curious.



The brook came laughing
                      down out of its spring,
                              ran down from its source
                                      beckoning to the sunbeams
                                               and embracing freshets and
                                                                        helpful brooklets.
It shouted and played
                         with streaming little roots,
                                  and nudged the minnows
                                                and pollywogs about
                                                              in its tiny backwaters.
It was a happy brook.
                     When it came to the pool
                                    by the cloven rock
                                                it found the monster there,
                                                                             and plucked at it.
It soaked the foul substances
                   and smoothed and melted the molds,
                                       and the water below the thing
                                              eddied darkly with its diluted matter.
It was a thorough brook.
                       It washed all it touched,
                                                        persistently.
Where it found filth,
                   it removed filth;
                            and if there were layer on layer of foulness,
                                              then layer by foul layer it was removed.
It was a good brook.
                   It did not mind
                             the poison of the monster,
                                                    but took it up
                                                            and thinned it and spread it
                                                      in little rings
                                                              round rocks downstream,
                                                                                    and let it drift
                                                      to the rootlets
                                                                   of water plants,
                                                                           that they might grow
greener
     and lovelier.

And the monster melted.

The monster lay in the water.  It neither liked nor disliked this new element.  It rested on the bottom, its massive head a foot beneath the surface, and it curiously considered the facts that it had garnered.  There was the little humming noise of Babe's voice that sent the monster questing into the cave.  There was the black material of the brief case that resisted so much more than green things when he tore it.  There was the little two-legged one who sang and  brought him near, and who screamed when he came.  There was this new cold moving thing he had fallen into.  It was washing his body away.  That had never happened before.  That was interesting.  The monster decided to stay and observe this new thing.  It felt no urge to save itself;  it could only be curious.

The brook came laughing down out of its spring, ran down from its source beckoning to the sunbeams and embracing freshets and helpful brooklets.  It shouted and played with streaming little roots, and nudged the minnows and pollywogs about in its tiny backwaters.  It was a happy brook.  When it came to the pool by the cloven rock it found the monster there, and plucked at it.  It soaked the foul substances and smoothed and melted the molds, and the water below the thing eddied darkly with its diluted matter.  It was a thorough brook.  It washed all it touched, persistently.  Where it found filth, it removed filth; and if there were layer on layer of foulness, then layer by foul layer it was removed.  It was a good brook.  It did not mind the poison of  the monster, but took it up and thinned it and spread it in little rings round rocks downstream, and let it drift to the rootlets of water plants, that they might grow greener and lovelier.  And the monster melted.
 

There is a little more after this, but I will leave that for you to discover, if you so choose to read this charming little horror tale.

Lu Hsun/ Lu Xun: A Madman's Diary

Lu Hsun or Lu Xun (his stories and poems appear under both names) is a new name to me.  I just happened to run across him while browsing the shelves of a used bookstore (can't count the number of times this has happened).  The title of the book is Selected Stories of Lu Hsun.  It was while I was searching for information about him and other works by him that I discovered that his works show up under two names.

"A Madman's Diary" is just what it purports to be, for the most part, anyway.  However, there are some disquieting elements to it that appeared only after I had finished the story.  It is the journal kept by a man who was suffering from a persecution complex and was convinced that all around him were cannibals, just waiting for the chance to sink their teeth into him.  At one point he even catches a dog eying him strangely.

The journal depicts his slow disintegration, from the early stages when he wonders about the strange look the dog casts his way and his suspicion that his neighbors had a inexplicable grudge against him to when he was convinced that all, including his older brother, were just waiting for a chance to eat him.

What makes me wonder though is the frame to the story.  The first chapter of the story is a first person narrative in which the anonymous narrator tells us that one of two brothers that he had been friend with was ill.   He had to be in the neighborhood, so he stopped by to see him.  At the house, he was met by the older brother who said that "my brother recovered some time ago and has gone elsewhere to take up an official post."  He then laughed and showed him the younger brother's diary in which he said he could see the nature of the younger brother's illness.  The older brother then gave him the diary, saying there could be no harm in giving it to him since he was a friend.

This sounds strange to me.  If I had become mentally disturbed in this way and had kept a diary, I should want to keep it with me when I recovered, or perhaps destroyed it if I found it too disturbing to be reminded of what had happened.  I doubt if I would give it to my brother.  Secondly, if my brother had been ill, recovered, and left his diary with me, I would never have given it to someone else, regardless of how good a friend that person might be.

The third point that bothers me is the present status of the younger brother.   According to the older brother, whom the younger brother was convinced he was a cannibal, "he recovered some time ago and has gone elsewhere to take up an official post."  Why was the older brother so vague about where his younger brother was and what that official post was?   

I've been accused in the past of over-reading, and this, possibly, could be another example.  But, I see no reason why the older brother couldn't have simply said what city his brother was now living in.  It is this point and the relinquishment of the diary that makes me wonder what really happened to the younger brother.

I've also toyed with the idea that there is a political message behind the story and the cannibalism is a mask to avoid getting afoul of government censors.  His reference to cannibalism could be symbolic of his insistence on being independent and not just part of a faceless community.  After all, cannibalism is the most extreme form of being absorbed by the community.   Unfortunately, I know too little of the political situation in China when this story was written in 1918.

In any case, I find the story intriguing and shall definitely go on to the others in the collection and perhaps, go looking for more by him.



September 4, 2014:  Late comment.  I should read intros and informational flyleaves more often--might learn something.  


From the flyleaf of Selected Stories of Lu Hsun:

"A Madman's Diary" was Lu Hsun's  " 'declaration of war' against China's feudal society, and the first short story in the history of modern Chinese literature."

Edgar Allan Poe: "The Black Cat"

"For the most wild, yet most homely narrative which I am about to pen, I neither expect nor solicit belief. Mad indeed would I be to expect it, in a case where my very senses reject their own evidence. Yet, mad am I not--and very surely do I not dream. But to-morrow I die, and to-day I would unburthen my soul. My immediate purpose is to place before the world, plainly, succinctly, and without comment, a series of mere household events. In their consequences, these events have terrified--have tortured--have destroyed. me. Yet I will attempt to expound them. To me, they have presented little but Horror--to many they will seem less terrible than baroques. Hereafter, perhaps, some intellect may be found which will reduce my phantasm to the common-place-- some intellect more calm, more logical, and far less excitable than my own, which will perceive, in the circumstances I detail with awe, nothing more than an ordinary succession of very natural causes and effects."

This is the opening paragraph of one of my favorite Poe tales, "The Black Cat." This tale can be read in a variety of ways. Most often it is printed in a collection of supernatural horror stories. It can also be seen as the ravings of a madman. Another way, and my favorite, is as a story told by a sane man who has concocted a mix of fact and fiction, designed to convince the reader that the teller is mad and therefore should not be executed by reason of insanity.

"The Black Cat" is one of a group of tales by Poe that I call "1st person confessionals." It's been awhile since I read all of Poe's stories, so there may be some that I have missed, but for now, I put four stories in that category: "The Black Cat," "The Cask of Amontillado," "The Tell-tale Heart," and "The Imp of the Perverse." (See my post on May 17, 2009 for some comments on this story and Dostoyevsky's Notes from Underground).


1. All four are told in the 1st person.
2. All four are murderers.
3. All four are now revealing the whole story.
4. All four were driven by uncontrollable forces to commit their crimes.


The problem is that these are first person narratives. They cannot be evaluated in the same way as a third person narrative. The third person narrator can be trusted since the third person narrator is outside the story and, therefore, has no reason to deceive or mislead the reader. The first person narrator, however, is inside the story, may be involved in the events, and therefore may have solid reasons for deceiving the reader or listener. The reader must evaluate the story in the same way any person's story would be judged--on the basis of what is known about the teller, the teller's possible motivation, and the likelihood of the story itself. How likely or unlikely are these events? Can these events by verified by other sources?

To begin, what is your reaction to the first paragraph of the story which I just quoted? How does it strike you? Notice that the teller contradicts himself throughout. First, he calls the story "wild" and then immediately afterwards, calls it "homely." It's as if he can't make up his mind as to how he wishes to present the tale so that it would be most convincing: is it "wild," a "Horror," "terrible," a "Phantasm"? Or "homely," "mere household events," "common-place," "an ordinary succession of very natural causes and events"? How could the reader avoid being sympathetic to the teller who is so completely confused by this inexplicable series of events?

What do we know about the teller? He obligingly fills in a bit of his background: "From my infancy I was noted for the docility and humanity of my disposition. My tenderness of heart was even so conspicuous as to make me the jest of my companions. I was especially fond of animals, and was indulged by my parents with a great variety of pets. With these I spent most of my time, and never was so happy as when feeding and caressing them. This peculiarity of character grew with my growth, and, in my manhood, I derived from it one of my principal sources of pleasure. " He was lucky in his choice of a spouse for he tells us that "I married early and was happy to find in my wife a disposition not uncongenial with my own."

What happened to turn this genial, kindly, docile, and humane person into the monster that he reveals later in the story? "The Fiend Intemperance --through which my general temperament and character . . . experienced a radical alteration for the worse. I grew, day by day, more moody, more irritable, more regardless of the feelings of others. I suffered myself to use intemperate language to my wife. At length, I even offered her personal violence. My pets, of course, were made to feel the change in my disposition. I not only neglected, but ill-used them." It was the "Fiend Intemperance"-- a demon outside him that controlled him. He is not responsible.

He now proceeds to tell the reader the events that lead him to his cell, and the gallows in the morning. His story regarding the mutilation of his first cat doesn't sound reasonable. He is very drunk when he comes home and decides to cut out the cat's eye. Cutting out an eye requires considerable coordination. Could someone drunk really do that? Gouge or stab the eye perhaps, if he got lucky, but, imagine holding a struggling cat in one hand while very drunk and trying to cut out an eye? Not too likely I should think. He may have done it, but I don't think he was drunk when he did it. And, of course, we have only his word for this. Who else could confirm that this happened?

The second and most ridiculous? unbelievable? impossible? unlikely? series of events takes place when the house burns down. In the morning, most of the house is destroyed except for the wall behind the bed, where appeared "as if graven in bas relief upon the white surface, the figure of a gigantic cat. The impression was given with an accuracy truly marvelous. There was a rope about the animal's neck." How can this be explained?

It's simple. He relates that he had killed Plato, the cat, by tying a rope around its neck and hanging it in the garden. When the house caught fire, people had rushed into the garden and attempted to waken him by taking the hanging corpse of the cat and throwing it through the window. It then struck the newly plastered wall with such force that it was covered by dripping plaster.

Is it really plausible that one would kill a cat by hanging it from a tree? And, is it really likely that someone would cut down the corpse of a cat hanging from a tree and throw it through the bedroom window in hope of awaking the occupants when the house was on fire? Or, is it more likely he had killed the cat and had plastered it in the wall to see if that was possible, as perhaps an experiment of some sort?

The third series of unlikely events culminates in the death and burial of his wife. He asks his wife to accompany him on some household errand (never explained) downstairs into the basement, where he is nearly tripped up by the second cat. Enraged he raises his axe (which he conveniently just happens to carrying--perhaps for that household errand?) to kill the cat, but his wife interferes and enraged, he kills his wife instead. Fortunately for him, there was a false wall in the basement which he could easily remove and place his wife's corpse in the opening. There he buries her and plasters up the wall. Again, I have some serious doubts about his tale of what happened.


I think Poe has created a fascinating narrative in which a sane man attempts to convince the reader that he is mad, and at the same time provides, through inconsistencies, evidence of his sanity. As for the mysterious events about the cat, well, what witnesses are there to corroborate his story? His wife?

Franz Kafka: "A Country Doctor"

Franz Kafka, "A Country Doctor," a short story.

It begins relatively sanely:

"I was in great perplexity; I had to start on an urgent journey; a seriously ill patient was waiting for me in a village ten miles off."

The situation? He had to get to a village ten miles away to treat a seriously ill patient, it was snowing heavily, his horse had died during the night from overwork, and he couldn't find anyone to loan him a horse. He does have a serious problem, but it doesn't sound strange or bizarre at all, at least not to me. But wait . . . This is Kafka!

I've read a number of Kafka's short stories (I find his novels almost unreadable) and some critical commentaries about them. Many refer to a "dreamlike" quality to them, and my immediate thought is that "nightmare" would be a more accurate term. However, I had to agree when I read "A Country Doctor." In fact, I will argue that this really is a dream, for there are too many elements in this story that are found typically in dreams to even consider it something happening in reality, even a bizarre reality that Kafka so frequently creates.


Spoiler Warning:


The first sign of a dream occurs immediately after the setting of the story. A stranger crawls out on his hands and knees of the abandoned pigsty. He is followed by "two horses, enormous creatures with powerful flanks, one after the other, their legs tucked close to their bodies, each well-shaped head lowered like a camel's, by sheer strength of buttocking squeezed out through the door hole which they filled entirely." The doctor does not seem surprised at this and immediately accepts the offer of the loan of the horses.

Does this seem possible, even in Kafka's admittedly bizarre world--that a horse would or even could crawl on all fours into a small pigsty? In a dream, this might happen, and the doctor's lack of surprise is typical of a dreamer's reaction to the outlandish events found in dreams.

What happens next is also commonly found in dreams: a quick change of scene. The doctor goes through his courtyard gate and is at the patient's farm, with no time passing, as if the two were adjacent and not ten miles apart. It seems that there is no travel time in dreams if one succeeds in going from one place to another.

He arrives at the farmhouse and discovers there's nothing wrong with the patient. He is about to leave when, again, the scene turns bizarre. The horses have somehow slipped loose from their halters and are standing at a open window, with their heads protruding into the room. They whinny loudly, and he discovers that the patient has a large wound near his hip. The village elders suddenly appear, and they and the family take his clothes off when the village choir appears and begins to sing:

"Strip his clothes off, then he'll heal us,
If he doesn't, kill him dead!
Only a doctor, only a doctor".

They pick him up and place him in the bed with the patient, and all leave the room. After reassuring the patient that all is well, the doctor gets out of bed, gathers up his bag and clothes, and without bothering to dress, he goes outside in the nude, in the midst of a blizzard. He mounts one of the horses and as is typical of a dream, or nightmare, when one wants to travel quickly, the exact opposite occurs.

"Gee up!' I [the doctor] said, but there was no galloping; slowly, like old men, we crawled through the snowy wastes; a long time echoed behind us the new but faulty song of the children:

'O be joyful, all you patients,
The doctor's laid in bed beside you!'


Never shall I reach home at this rate."


While Kafka is known for his bizarre tales, many of the elements here indicate that this really is a dream (nightmare, if you prefer). Looking at this as a dream, one might come up with some interesting interpretations of several of the elements. For example, the stranger and the horses are found in a pigsty. His servant girl laughs and says, "You never know what you are going to find in your own house." This, of course, is not true for the pig sty is a separate place. He doesn't know what is in there, just as we do not know what is in our unconscious minds. The unconscious is the repository of desires and needs, many of which we don't wish to acknowledge--disgusting things--the type of things suggested by a pig sty. Dreams supposedly are the manner in which the unconscious makes known these hidden needs and desires, although in a disguised way.

Numerous dream interpretation theories also include the belief that some characters found in dreams are actually disguised substitutes of the dreamer, engaging in activities that the dreamer finds distasteful or evil. As the doctor leaves his house, the stranger breaks into the house, and the doctor knows that he is going to attack the servant girl, "the pretty girl who had lived in my house for years almost without my noticing her." He "almost" didn't notice that she was a "pretty girl." I wonder if the stranger is acting out what the doctor has really wanted to do for a long time.

Later, at the patient's house, he, at first, couldn't find anything wrong, but then discovers a large wound near the hip. One of the most common ways of suggesting impotence is a reference to a wound near the hip or thigh. Is the patient another substitute for the doctor? Could the dreamer be having doubts about his sexuality? In addition are the strange events in the farmhouse where the doctor is stripped of his clothes and placed nude in the bed next to the patient, on the side where the wound is. That could suggest that the two are the same person.


I think there are enough clues in the tale to suggest that this really is a dream, but I must admit, though, that unless written confirmation by Kafka is found, there is no way of proving that the above interpretation has any validity. On the other hand, letting one's imagination run loose once in awhile can be fun. Stretching one's muscles is healthy; perhaps stretching one's mind is also.

Alexander Solzhenitsyn: "For the Good of the Cause"

I've read a number of Solzhenitsyn's works, and I find this one to be the most formulaic of the ones I've read. His characters are usually mixed, in that most have good and bad characteristics, and even in his prison works, there are good guards and administrators and bad prisoners. That doesn't happen in this novella, which makes me think that Solzhenitsyn was concentrating more on the situation than on a realistic portrayal of those involved.

It becomes obvious shortly into the work that there are good guys and bad guys in this work. The good guys are the faculty, staff, and students of the college and the local party secretary--the common people in this situation--, while the bad guys are upper echelon of the Party or the faceless, unknown members of various governing commissions in a distant city.

The setting is a small technical college somewhere in Russia during the Soviet era. The present facilities are small and inappropriate for a technical school which requires labs and workshops and various types of equipment. Moreover, the school is set in an out-of-way small town, so most of the students come from elsewhere. Since there is no dorm for the students, they must be put up in various, sometimes inappropriate or uncomfortable places. And, generally the stipend awarded is insufficient to cover the rent and other expenses.

The school has been given a piece of land in the town, large enough for putting up a dorm and a building for the college. The plans were carefully drawn and the building was large enough for classrooms and various labs and workshops. The overcrowding would be eliminated. As the contractors had problems getting laborers, the faculty, staff, and students volunteered to do the unskilled labor tasks, such as clearing the area of vegetation or digging the foundations during their free time and on weekends and holidays.

It took a year and the building was now ready for the final approval. Once they received the signed contract, the school personnel could begin moving into the new classrooms and labs. However, something was wrong. It had been several weeks since the request had been submitted to Khabalygin, the factory manager and nominal "proprietor" of the technical college, for his signature, but he did nothing. No one could understand the delay.

Well, no one could understand until an investigating Commission composed of bureaucrats from various Councils and Ministries (none of which really had anything to do directly with the college), led by Khabalygin arrived on the scene, just a few days before the new term was to begin. After "investigating" the old buildings, the Commission decided that the situation really wasn't that bad and that they could manage with the facilities that they had for a little while longer. The new building was being given to a "research institute of national importance."

Some investigating and discreet phone calls established that there was no hurry in finding a place for the research institute, as the plans for it had been put off for an indefinite time more than three months ago. In addition, there were a number of buildings in the small towns and the larger cities in the area that would have been appropriate, actually more appropriate. The new building had been designed to include labs and workshops as well as classrooms. Therefore, the building now needed to be remodeled for the research institute of national importance, at a cost of almost half of the original construction cost.

What happened? Khabalygin is a empire builder. Getting the research institute would put his town on the map and being the one who brought it here would enhance his reputation. Since it was in his jurisdiction, this also would increase his power and prestige much more than a small technical college would. When others protested this outright theft and reminded Khabalygin of all the voluntary work the faculty and students had put in, his response was that they should happy to be able to make sacrifices for the good of the cause.

What I found most interesting is that while this takes place in Russia, it could and does happen elsewhere, including the US. We have local government officials and, in place of the Party, we have the Corporation. Instead of communism being the weapon used against the people, we have capitalism. Local governments now have an expanded power of eminent domain. In the past, eminent domain could be used only if the benefit was to the entire community--highways, parks, government buildings, cultural institutions. Now eminent domain can be used to remove people from their homes simply to benefit a corporation which wishes to build a factory or office space or a retail outlet.

And recently, a congressman from an oil-producing state was upset because the federal government criticized BP for the oil spill and insisted that BP pay for the damage it had caused. This congressman argued that this was extortion, therefore a criminal action, and that one shouldn't criticize corporations--that it was un-American to do so. During the Soviet era, it was a crime to criticize the Communist Party and the Government in Russia. Today, in the US, some would argue that it's wrong to criticize a corporation.

Overall Reaction: very readable and with incidents that are found in any society--be it communist or socialist or capitalist.

Walter Van Tilburg Clark: August 3, 1909--November 10, 1971

Walter Van Tilburg Clark unfortunately published very few works: three novels, about ten short stories, and some poetry. It is my opinion that it is this limited output that keeps him from being considered among the United State's best writers. I guess I'm starting to sound like a broken record as I brought up this issue in my post of August 3, 2009.

Aside from The Ox-Bow Incident, probably his most famous work, another work, a short story, has also achieved some limited fame. It can be found in introductory literature texts and frequently in SF collections that focus on post-holocaust stories. It is "The Portable Phonograph." I suspect many have read it and never realized that it was written by the author of The Ox-Bow Incident.

It is one of three of my favorite short stories that are set in a post-holocaust world. The other two are Theodore Sturgeon's "Thunder and Roses" (see January 16, 2010) " and Ray Bradbury's "There Will Come Soft Rains" (see August 2, 2010). All three are anti-war stories, but they protest indirectly. They do not directly come out against war, especially nuclear war, but they quietly present possible outcomes.


Clark begins the story quietly:

The red sunset, with narrow, black cloud strips like threats across it, lay on the curved horizon of the prairie. The air was still and cold, and in it settled the mute darkness and greater cold of night. High in the air there was wind, for through the veil of the dusk, the clouds could be seen gliding rapidly south and changing shapes.


He gradually brings into his description of the sunset some disquieting elements.


A sensation of torment, of two-sided, unpredictable nature, arose from the stillness of the earth air beneath the violence of the upper air. Out of the sunset, through the dead , matted grass and isolated weed stalks of the prairie, crept the narrow and deeply rutted remains of a road. In the road, in places, there were crusts of shallow, brittle ice. There were little islands of an old oiled pavement in the road too, but most of it was mud, now frozen rigid.


Up to this point, we might just be looking at a typical late autumn landscape and a road that no longer goes anywhere, but Clark then shows us that, sadly, there is more, much more wrong here.


The frozen mud still bore the toothed impress of great tanks, and a wanderer on the neighboring undulations might have stumbled, in this light, into large, partially filled-in and weed-grown cavities, their banks channeled and beginning to spread into bad lands. These pits were such as might have been made by falling meteors, but they were not. They were the scars of gigantic bombs, their rawness already made a little natural by rain, seed and time. Along the road there were rakish remnants of fence. There was also, just visible, one portion of tangled and multiple barbed wire still erect, behind which was a shelving ditch with small caves, now very quiet and empty, at intervals in its back wall. Otherwise there was no structure or remnant of a structure visible over the dome of the darkling earth, but only, in sheltered hollows, the darker shadows of young trees trying again.


the toothed impress of great tanks . . . scars of gigantic bombs . . . the darker shadows of young trees trying again--I'm not sure which of those three seems the most ominous.


But, there is life here:

The creek was already silent under ice. Into the bank above it was dug a sort of cell, with a single opening, like the mouth of a mine tunnel. Within the cell there was a little red of fire, which showed dully through the opening like a reflection or a deception of the imagination. The light came from the chary burning of four blocks of poorly aged peat, which gave off a petty warmth and much acrid smoke.


Four men sit around the smoldering peat. Three are invited. The host, once a week, gives a reading from one of the four books he has managed to save, and more rarely, plays a record on his portable windup phonograph. This is what brings the four of them together: the beauty of the works he has saved--the Bible, Shakespeare, Moby Dick, and The Divine Comedy. The record that was selected that evening was one of Debussy's nocturnes. At the end, the three quietly leave, as he tells them to come again next week, when he will play Gershwin's "New York."

It's a simple little story that might encourage us by showing that, in spite of everything, people in the midst of horror can be brought together and gain solace from sharing the greatest creations of the human mind. However, the story hasn't ended yet.

After they had left, the host went to the entrance of the cave. He could hear the suppressed coughing of one of his recent visitors, but "It was not nearby, however. He believed that down against the pale alders he could see the moving shadow."

He reenters the cave and digs out a section of the wall and places the books, phonograph, and records inside. He covers it up.

He also changed his blankets, and the grass-stuffed sack which served as a pillow, so that he could lie facing the entrance . . .On the inside of the bed, next the wall, he could feel with his hand, the comfortable piece of lead pipe.

What hath war wrought?

Franz Kafka: July 3, 1883--June 3, 1924

As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself transformed in his bed into a gigantic insect. He was lying on his hard, as it were armor-plated, back and when he lifted his head a little he could see his dome-like brown belly divided into stiff arched segments on top of which the bed quilt could hardly keep in position and was about to slide of completely. His numerous legs, which were pitifully thin compared to the rest of his bulk, waved helplessly before his eyes.

Thus opens one of the most famous short stories in Western Literature. If millions have read it, I suspect that many more millions know about the story--about a man who wakes one morning and finds he's been turned into a gigantic insect. Aside from the obvious questions about its meaning and themes, I have a minor one.

At the beginning of the story, Gregor Samsa is the sole support of his family, which includes his parents and sister. His father went bankrupt, and Gregor has been working long and hard to not only support his family but also to pay off his father's debts. His father, crushed by his failure, does little except sit around and read the newspaper, sometimes out loud to Gregor's mother and sister. They seldom leave the house and entertain rarely.

The family's financial status has now become very serious. Gregor can no longer support them. There are sufficient funds available to keep them for about a year, but after that, some source of income must be arranged.

At the end of the story, Gregor has died. The father has thrown off his lethargy and found a job, as has also Gregor's mother and sister. All three now are working. They have found a smaller apartment, one more suitable for the three of them. They even take a trip into the countryside together, something they haven't done in a long time.

And Gregor's sister? The parents noticed--

their daughter's increasing vivacity, that in spite of all the sorrow of the recent times, which had made her cheeks pale, she had blossomed into a pretty girl with a good figure . . . And it was like a confirmation of their new dreams and excellent intentions that at the end of their journey their daughter sprang to her feet first and stretched her young body.

Considering the behavior of Gregor's family at the beginning of the story, when they relied on him as their sole support, and their new enthusiasm and energy at the end of the story, when he has died, I keep asking myself the following question:

Is Gregor Samsa the victim or the villain of the story?

Shirley Jackson: "The Lottery"

Warning: I will reveal significant plot elements and the ending.


One of my favorite short stories is "The Lottery" by Shirley Jackson (1916-1965). It is a deceptively simple and straightforward tale. This small village holds an annual lottery, and the reader wonders just what the point is as the procedure is spelled out in some detail. However, when the winner is announced, the reader begins to understand that something just isn't right here; all is not what it seems. The winner, Tessie Hutchinson, objects loudly that the procedure wasn't fair, that her husband Bill was rushed and didn't have the chance to pick the slip he wanted. It should be done over again. Her complaints are ignored, and, instead of getting money or a valuable prize, she is stoned to death by the townspeople, and her own children take part. Now, all is clear. This is a horror story. The shock ending provides the point.

The town is obviously filled with monsters in the guise of typical rural Americans in a small village who engage in this horrific ritual every year. The title is clearly ironic for the winner of the lottery does not get a prize but a death sentence, just the reverse of what one would expect from winning a lottery.

Or, so it seems at first glance.

If one looks a bit closer, though, one realizes that the title is most apt. She did win a prize: an opportunity to die for her people, an opportunity for a meaningful death, something not granted to everyone. Among the ancient Romans, we read in one of Horace's Odes that Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori. In English that translates roughly as "It is sweet and fitting to die for one's country." In the Bible, we read "Greater love hath no man than this, that a man shall lay down his life for his friends" (John 15: 13). Tessie actually died so that her friends may live. Is this not the same justification we use for sending young people off to war? We even have a memorial to The Unknown Soldier.

I was going to post this commentary about a week or so ago, but after glancing at the calendar, I decided to wait for today, June 27th. Why? Well, the story opens as follows:


"The morning of June 27th was clear and sunny, with the fresh warmth of a full-summer day: the flowers were blossoming profusely and the grass was richly green."


The lottery takes place on June 27th. Why did Jackson decide to begin the story on June 27th. I don't think it was a random choice, for June 27th in the ancient Roman calendar is Initium Aestatis. It is the Roman festival of the beginning of summer. We ourselves noted the first day of summer several days ago at the Summer Solstice--the longest day of the year. The Vernal Equinox (the first day of Spring) and the Summer Solstice are or were important days for ancient agricultural civilizations. On those days, many held rituals or religious ceremonies designed to please the gods of agriculture or nature in order to ensure a good harvest.

The size of the harvest was extremely important for these peoples. A good harvest provided sufficient food to survive the long dead seasons of late Autumn and Winter that follow. A poor harvest--many of the old and the weak and the sickly probably would not survive. The first colonists in New England suffered many deaths that first winter because of inadequate food.

Many of those rituals included sacrifices to the gods; frequently they were human sacrifices, for in what other way could a group show its devotion to its gods than by sacrificing one of its own. Those who were sacrificed were giving up their lives for their people.

Jackson provides other clues to the tie between Tessie's fate and rituals designed to ensure a good harvest.

One of the characters remarks that "over in the north village they're talking of giving up the lottery."

"Old Man Warner snorted. 'Pack of crazy fools,' he said. 'Listening to the young folk, nothing's good enough for them. Next thing you know, they'll be wanting to go back to living in caves, nobody work any more, live that way for a while.   Used to be a saying about 'Lottery in June, corn be heavy soon.' First thing you know, we'd all be eating stewed chickweed and acorns. There's always been a lottery . . ."

And later, Mrs Adams remarks: "Some places have already quit lotteries."

Old Man Warner provides valuable information here. First, this village isn't an aberration for there's at least one other village that holds a lottery. Mrs. Adams tells us that some have quit already, and in the first paragraph of the story, the narrator tells us that there were some towns that had so many people that the lottery lasted for two days.

Secondly he also provides a link to the harvest with his recollection of the old saying about the June lottery and the ripening corn in his reaction to the comment about giving up the lottery. He also grumps on and suggests that without the lottery they'd all "be eating stewed chickweed and acorns," thus again suggesting a link between the lottery and the harvest. Without the lottery, they would be reduced to living off chickweed and acorns. Since chickweed and acorns aren't harvested crops but are gathered wherever found, this would hint at a way of life prior to the agricultural stage--hunting and gathering for example. His reference to living in caves also indicates a pre-agricultural society.

Some of the names that Jackson gives her characters are suggestive. For example, the M. C., or perhaps he would have been the high priest in earlier days, is named Summers, a very apt name for one conducting a festival held on the first day of summer. Summer's assistant is Mr. Graves, another appropriate name if one considers the outcome of the lottery. The only name given extra notice, and it happens in the second paragraph is "Delacroix." I think that's French for "of the cross," another significant reference when one thinks about sacrifices for the good of the people.

In the drawing, the first man is Adams (Adam?) and it ends with Zanini--from A to Z. In the Bible, the prophets had a very specific role and that was to warn the Israelites of the dangers of straying from the rules laid out for them by the Lord. In "The Lottery," we have Old Man Warner forewarning the people of the dangers of dropping the lottery.

For me, the true horror of the story is that the people go through this ritual every year and no longer know why. Tessie's death has no meaning, no significance for them any more. It has been lost along with most of the ritual, for the narrator tells us that "at one time, some people remembered, there had been a recital of some sort, performed by the official of the lottery, a perfunctory, tuneless chant that had been rattled off duly each year; some people believed that the official of the lottery used to stand just so when he said or sang it, others believed that he was supposed to walk among the people, but years and years ago this part of the had had been allowed lapse. There had been, also, a ritual salute . . ."

I think that Jackson has told a story about the slow death of an ancient ritual that had meaning when it first began--the survival of the people.  Over the generations, most of it has been lost, all except the sacrifice of one for the many. The story, after several readings, now seems to me to be a much richer and even darker story than it first appeared to be.

I have one more thought about the story, but I'm still kicking it around and haven't come to any definite conclusion yet. Jackson published her story in 1948, just a few years after the Nuremberg Trials held in 1945-6. In the trials, the German defendants who had taken part in the horrors of those concentration camps insisted they were not responsible, that they were just following orders. Is Jackson's story a commentary on what happened in the concentration camps in Germany?

Any thoughts here?

Overall Rating: a story that has stayed with me for years and gets deeper each time I read it.