...Or perhaps "History as Novel (more accurately, as Short Story)." From recounting the time he was trapped in a bar during a blizzard in Detroit to the dawn of the Enlightenment, a long-winded raconteur barely leaves his listener enough time to think, "He's full of it!" Read by Scoot. Time 7:38.
At the time of this story's publication in the collection Country Cooking and Other Stories, in 1980 by the Burning Deck Press, the author had already been publishing fiction for nearly twenty years in places such as The Paris Review and Antaeus, and had been awarded a National Endowment for the Arts grant. Which is our way of saying we don't really know anything about him except what it says in the book's front matter and really should find out more soon!
Sunday, February 19, 2006
Thursday, February 16, 2006
"On Trains" by James Alan McPherson
When this story was written, most of the porters on American trains were black. Over thirty years later, not much has changed, and so this story's exploration of black and white relations on a long-distance train ride is still topical and still relevant. Read by Jonathan Strong. Time 12:09.
A professor at the University of Iowa's Writers' Workshop for a quarter of a century, James Alan McPherson is a Georgia native who studied to be a lawyer at Harvard and Yale but ended up publishing two award-winning collections of short stories, Hue and Cry and Elbow Room and (in 1969 and 1977, respectively). Though he is not a prolific writer (the best kind, usually), since then he has also published Crabcakes and A Region Not Home. John Updike selected his story "The Gold Coast" for his anthology, Best American Short Stories of the Century, so you know he must be good!
A professor at the University of Iowa's Writers' Workshop for a quarter of a century, James Alan McPherson is a Georgia native who studied to be a lawyer at Harvard and Yale but ended up publishing two award-winning collections of short stories, Hue and Cry and Elbow Room and (in 1969 and 1977, respectively). Though he is not a prolific writer (the best kind, usually), since then he has also published Crabcakes and A Region Not Home. John Updike selected his story "The Gold Coast" for his anthology, Best American Short Stories of the Century, so you know he must be good!
Monday, February 13, 2006
"The Unstrung Harp" by Edward Gorey
It is that time again, time for C(lauvius) F(rerdick) Earbrass to begin the doubtful enterprise of embarking on yet another novel, which will seriously disrupt his croquet matches and reading of the Compendium of the Minor Heresies of the Twelfth Century in Asia Minor. In the midst of his anxieties, he receives a mysterious silver-gilt epergne-and-candelabrum hybrid from a mysterious admirer and contemplates a stuffed fantod in a belljar. Read by Scoot. Time 19:20.
You might be as surprised to find Edward Gorey lurking on these pages as we are, since he is more often thought of as an illustrator than fiction-writer--though even if one takes away the idiosyncratic charm of his cross-hatched drawings (something one would never truly wish to do!), one will still have much to appreciate in his droll and acerbic prose. There are legions of his fans, us included, who still miss the tall bearded man in the big strange house on Cape Cod and his sporadic offerings of amusing books--and especially the whimsical musical "entertainments" he specialized in during his later years, sometimes appearing in these plays himself. The cult of Gorey is immortal, and it has already outlasted many of those delightful dust-jackets he designed for Manhattan publishers from the 1950's through the 1980's, which one still sees in used-book stores everywhere. Like Gorey himself, you can spot them at several paces. And want to take them home.
You might be as surprised to find Edward Gorey lurking on these pages as we are, since he is more often thought of as an illustrator than fiction-writer--though even if one takes away the idiosyncratic charm of his cross-hatched drawings (something one would never truly wish to do!), one will still have much to appreciate in his droll and acerbic prose. There are legions of his fans, us included, who still miss the tall bearded man in the big strange house on Cape Cod and his sporadic offerings of amusing books--and especially the whimsical musical "entertainments" he specialized in during his later years, sometimes appearing in these plays himself. The cult of Gorey is immortal, and it has already outlasted many of those delightful dust-jackets he designed for Manhattan publishers from the 1950's through the 1980's, which one still sees in used-book stores everywhere. Like Gorey himself, you can spot them at several paces. And want to take them home.
Friday, February 10, 2006
"Alternatives to Sex: An Introduction" by Stephen McCauley
Here's a "Stories to Go" exclusive, offered to our faithful listeners between our regular short stories: Stephen McCauley, author of such novels as True Enough, The Man of the House, and The Object of My Affection, introduces us all to his latest work, the forthcoming Alternatives to Sex. Look below and you'll find Mr. McCauley reading Lorrie Moore, as well as James Thurber some months ago. Now you'll hear his own words in his own voice. We hope you'll enjoy this brief excerpt and the author's commentary--and that you will rush right out to buy the book as soon as it hits your town. Time 6:40.
OK, Steve, what percentage do we get?
OK, Steve, what percentage do we get?
Wednesday, February 08, 2006
Authors, anyone?
We've just become aware that recently a few new people have been taking a peek at this site, and so first of all we want to welcome them--as well as give a hi-howdy to anyone who's dared to venture back here after recent problems with downloading and listening and story selection. We still have a backlog of things we want to accomplish--and must admit it might take a long time or never. What we'd really love is an Author's List so one could navigate to any particular entry with ease, but there doesn't seem to be any easy way for us Bloggers to do that. (Well, we could hand-stitch it, but that would take a very long time.) If anyone out there could show us how to create an index efficiently, please let us know! In the meantime, don't forget that there is one easy way already to find an author or topic, so easy that we've often forgotten it ourselves--just use the "Search This Blog" feature at the top of the page. Of course, if you don't know which authors or stories we've already featured, this might not be too helpful--but if the author or story you're looking for has already been presented, that search feature should lead you right to that page or those pages.
We'll be looking for more ways to improve this site as we go along. Sorry if the pages are getting a little more cluttered with options nowadays (more than we like, actually), but in an effort to "maximize our potential" and cooperate with the many methods of listening on- or offline, it looks like more clutter is the way to go. You might note that we now feature the timing of new entries (and will try to update previous ones, although Blogger updating can be very slow). And in the future we promise to have readers always say "The End," just in case there might still be any confusion. (After all, quite a few stories do have unexpected or abrupt endings.) Any further suggestions?
One other note: all of our entries past and present have been encode to 48 or 56 kbps, in an effort to balance file size with quality. Being that these are only monophonic voice recordings, that seems to work for us, but does it for you? We do wonder when our ISP server space will run out, even if we don't quite understand all these technical things...
Thanks as always for reading these bothersome notes.
Your Humble Editors
Tuesday, February 07, 2006
"How to Become a Writer" by Lorrie Moore
"How does one become a writer?" authors are probably often asked by acolytes and critics alike. This story might not help much, but it is a cleverly disguised bildungsroman disguised as a guide for would-be fictionists everywhere. Read by Stephen McCauley. Time 16:15.
It is up to the reader to decide how much of this story might really be autobiographical; Marie Lorena Moore the real person grew up surrounded by books and music, the daughter of parents who had both wanted to be writers at one time. By the time she was Lorrie Moore the writer, she had already won a Seventeen magazine contest and was fast on her way to tenure at The New Yorker and teaching college students to write. She is one of those somewhat rare writers known equally as much for her short story collections as her novels. Her fiction, as one might guess, can often be elusive, spurning or parodying convention.
Stephen McCauley's forthcoming novel Alternatives to Sex will be his sixth; he continues to live in Cambridge, Massachusetts despite everything. Look for a special advertising supplement from Mr. McCauley within the next day or so. If he's lucky, as he says, Oprah may mistake this latest novel for a memoir.
It is up to the reader to decide how much of this story might really be autobiographical; Marie Lorena Moore the real person grew up surrounded by books and music, the daughter of parents who had both wanted to be writers at one time. By the time she was Lorrie Moore the writer, she had already won a Seventeen magazine contest and was fast on her way to tenure at The New Yorker and teaching college students to write. She is one of those somewhat rare writers known equally as much for her short story collections as her novels. Her fiction, as one might guess, can often be elusive, spurning or parodying convention.
Stephen McCauley's forthcoming novel Alternatives to Sex will be his sixth; he continues to live in Cambridge, Massachusetts despite everything. Look for a special advertising supplement from Mr. McCauley within the next day or so. If he's lucky, as he says, Oprah may mistake this latest novel for a memoir.
Saturday, February 04, 2006
"The Man in Pyjamas" by Eugenio Montale
On his way down the corridor of a hotel late at night, a guest overhears another guest's anxious voice on the phone in her room. Immediately the unintentional eavesdropper begins to conjecture all sorts of possible scenarios--all that's possible within the space of a couple of pages, that is. Read by Scoot. Time 4:18.
Let's consider this story absurd, since that's how it's categorized in the anthology from which it came (after having first appeared in London Magazine some month, apparently, in the 1960's). The author himself was not so usually absurd, since he was the rather serious translator into Italian of many writers in English, from Shakespeare to Hawthorne, as well as himself. More importantly, Montale was "the most influential Italian poet of the twentieth century," as it says right here in that anthology, and is said to have transformed modern Italian poetry the same way T. S. Eliot transformed English poetry. Who would have ever guessed that from this little scribble of a story?
Let's consider this story absurd, since that's how it's categorized in the anthology from which it came (after having first appeared in London Magazine some month, apparently, in the 1960's). The author himself was not so usually absurd, since he was the rather serious translator into Italian of many writers in English, from Shakespeare to Hawthorne, as well as himself. More importantly, Montale was "the most influential Italian poet of the twentieth century," as it says right here in that anthology, and is said to have transformed modern Italian poetry the same way T. S. Eliot transformed English poetry. Who would have ever guessed that from this little scribble of a story?
Wednesday, February 01, 2006
"Cynthia" by Aldous Huxley
A goddess meets her god--or so the ugly, lovestruck "god" thinks. Here's one of those tales which might be told by Oxford graduates as they pass the decanter and thumb through Zuleika Dobson once again for inspiration. Read by Sebastian Stuart. Time 13:50.
The anthology this story comes from is so old it doesn't even mention Huxley's most notorious novel, Brave New World, which hadn't even been published yet. The author and satirist, one of the famous English Huxley family of scientists and artists, was only about 25, a recent college graduate (Balliol at Oxford) himself, when he included this story in his 1920 collection, Limbo. Soon after he would add Leda, Mortal Coils, and Antic Hay to his shelf at the booskhops. It was a long way from there to the swamis and Hollywood and the wild LSD trips that helped inspire a generation of rock stars and hippies until his final injection on the same day that both C. S. Lewis and John F. Kennedy died.
Fresh from several ghostwriting stints, Sebastian Stuart will soon be adding another book to the shelf that holds his thriller The Mentor. It's a comic novel he co-wrote called 24 Karat Kids, and it's already been blurbed by Woody Allen. He has spent much time recently doing scholarly research, as well as writing comic skits for hire, and he will be seen in a forthcoming documentary about his grandfather, the renowned anthropologist Branislaw Malinowski.
The anthology this story comes from is so old it doesn't even mention Huxley's most notorious novel, Brave New World, which hadn't even been published yet. The author and satirist, one of the famous English Huxley family of scientists and artists, was only about 25, a recent college graduate (Balliol at Oxford) himself, when he included this story in his 1920 collection, Limbo. Soon after he would add Leda, Mortal Coils, and Antic Hay to his shelf at the booskhops. It was a long way from there to the swamis and Hollywood and the wild LSD trips that helped inspire a generation of rock stars and hippies until his final injection on the same day that both C. S. Lewis and John F. Kennedy died.
Fresh from several ghostwriting stints, Sebastian Stuart will soon be adding another book to the shelf that holds his thriller The Mentor. It's a comic novel he co-wrote called 24 Karat Kids, and it's already been blurbed by Woody Allen. He has spent much time recently doing scholarly research, as well as writing comic skits for hire, and he will be seen in a forthcoming documentary about his grandfather, the renowned anthropologist Branislaw Malinowski.
Tuesday, January 31, 2006
Get clicking!
What? You haven't clicked on our link to Librivox yet? If you haven't already, do so now--soon you'll be listening not just to short stories, but to entire books--novels and other works of wonder from out of the public domain and into your earphones! This is an important site everyone should know about, and even yours truly has taken part in the communal readathon. We thank Hugh McGuire from way up in the magical city of Montreal for putting together this important--nay, crucial--resource.
Just to listen to while on your way to the library or bookstore, of course...
Sunday, January 29, 2006
"Silent Movie" by Charles Baxter
Maureen is tired of men--their voices, their demands, their ways, their world. And she is, most of all, tired of that man living with her. Read by Jonathan Strong. Length 10:37.
When he was a small child, Charles Baxter was dandled on the knee of rabble-rousing writer Sinclair Lewis. When he grew up, Charlie became a writer himself, specializing in tales of married couples like this one trying to cope with the large and small despairs of our existence, and of other lives of that famous "quiet desperation" in the American Midwest, where the author, as Lewis did, lives. Actually, his writing is not quite as sober as that description might suggest, because we all know the other side of that equation is a quiet joy. Look for Saul and Patsy, his most recent novel, and A Relative Stranger, the collection from which this story comes, and many others.
When he was a small child, Charles Baxter was dandled on the knee of rabble-rousing writer Sinclair Lewis. When he grew up, Charlie became a writer himself, specializing in tales of married couples like this one trying to cope with the large and small despairs of our existence, and of other lives of that famous "quiet desperation" in the American Midwest, where the author, as Lewis did, lives. Actually, his writing is not quite as sober as that description might suggest, because we all know the other side of that equation is a quiet joy. Look for Saul and Patsy, his most recent novel, and A Relative Stranger, the collection from which this story comes, and many others.
Thursday, January 26, 2006
"A Girl Called Apple" by Hanan Al-Shaykh
Apple is an unmarried woman approaching middle age in a culture which, much like any other culture, expects most adults to marry, settle down, and have children. Living as she does with her family in an infrequently visited oasis, Apple's choices may be few, but her willpower strong. Read by Scoot.
Not surprisingly, the writer says she wrote this story after a visit to Yemen. Though she now lives in London, Hanan Al-Shaykh is a Shi'i Muslim from southern Lebanon, and is considered one of the most important female writers in the modern Arab world. Al-Shaykh began her career, as so many writers do, as a journalist in Cairo and Beirut. Her books, which, in part, examine power struggles between the sexes in the Middle East and beyond, include Women of Sand and Myrrh and Only in London--which gives you an idea of the cosmopolitan scope of her writing. Interestingly, the title of one of her lectures was "The New Scheherezade," so one might assume she has many more stories to tell us.
Not surprisingly, the writer says she wrote this story after a visit to Yemen. Though she now lives in London, Hanan Al-Shaykh is a Shi'i Muslim from southern Lebanon, and is considered one of the most important female writers in the modern Arab world. Al-Shaykh began her career, as so many writers do, as a journalist in Cairo and Beirut. Her books, which, in part, examine power struggles between the sexes in the Middle East and beyond, include Women of Sand and Myrrh and Only in London--which gives you an idea of the cosmopolitan scope of her writing. Interestingly, the title of one of her lectures was "The New Scheherezade," so one might assume she has many more stories to tell us.
Wednesday, January 25, 2006
From the top shelf...
Just in case you missed this (of course you did!), here is the explanation we gave to a recent visitor to this site, one who wondered if our last story offering, by Jane Bowles, was complete. Since this answer applies to quite a few of our stories, we thought we might repeat and revise it:
Yes, as abrupt as it is, that is the end of the story. But you're not the first to wonder if the whole file of the day has been downloaded; indeed, as we have lately discovered, some of our offerings have been accidentally truncated--those have been fixed (permanently, we hope). We try to keep most of our downloads as small and brief as possible, usually choosing the shortest stories in the collections we own. (This doesn't mean, therefore, that they are all favorites!) Because most of our readings are so short or fairly short, many of them number among the authors' fragmentary or even not-quite-finished works. Other times, especially with the more experimental stories, the endings are purposely unsettling or left dangling. It's up to the reader to decide whether the way the story ends is successful or not. Don't worry; we'll try to have more unquestionably complete stories as often as we can... Thanks, Marc, for your query.
Monday, January 23, 2006
"Andrew" by Jane Bowles
A young man who joins the military becomes friends with another, strange young man whose officers allow him to camp out in the woods and cook meat over an open fire. Be prepared for fireworks! Read by Jonathan Strong.
Many people know her as merely the frail wife of writer/composer Paul Bowles (featured here previously), someone who followed him to Morocco, where she came under the thrall of an Arab woman who eventually, some say, led her to her destruction. Well, that may be partly true, but Jane Bowles was an excellent if idiosyncratic writer in many critics' regards, albeit one who took some decades to be fully recognized and realize her just rewards--post-mortem, as if often the case. Her play In the Summer House might be her most widely recognized work, but she is also well-known for her novel Two Serious Ladies and more recently for her collected stories, wherein this one is drawn. So, you see, she was much more than the neurotic portait of her in The Sheltering Sky. Not that we should ever think actual, "real" people ever haunt the otherworld of fiction, any more than those famous real toads in imaginary gardens!
Many people know her as merely the frail wife of writer/composer Paul Bowles (featured here previously), someone who followed him to Morocco, where she came under the thrall of an Arab woman who eventually, some say, led her to her destruction. Well, that may be partly true, but Jane Bowles was an excellent if idiosyncratic writer in many critics' regards, albeit one who took some decades to be fully recognized and realize her just rewards--post-mortem, as if often the case. Her play In the Summer House might be her most widely recognized work, but she is also well-known for her novel Two Serious Ladies and more recently for her collected stories, wherein this one is drawn. So, you see, she was much more than the neurotic portait of her in The Sheltering Sky. Not that we should ever think actual, "real" people ever haunt the otherworld of fiction, any more than those famous real toads in imaginary gardens!
Friday, January 20, 2006
From the desk of...
We continue to shuffle the virtual papers on our virtual desktop, trying to keep the "IN" box stack lower than the "OUT" box stack...
Recently we have discovered to our shock and dismay that cyber-critters apparently were nibbling away at the kilobytes of our digital files, so no wonder new and old visitors alike were having difficulty sometimes downloading complete stories! Several of the stories in our files were indeed truncated, no matter what our server had been telling us (oh, those coy servers!). For this, we greatly apologize for the frustrations we have caused now and then--or constantly. From this moment on, we intend to lay our digital traps with more care and catch these culprits before they do greater harm. Rest assured that we promise to become more vigilant and will always compare file sizes thrice before posting.
A recent visitor asked how to listen to our stories using iTunes; since we are not users of this fine program, we invite any readers out there to help guide us toward the best answer. What follows is a modified transcript of our very tentative response:
"...We've only just tinkered a little with that program, so don't know it very well (not being Apple or iPod persons ourselves, as much as we respect those fine products). On a Windows machine we do know that you can just do a search for "Stories to Go" in the iPod search box, and it should take you right to the recent episode(s). (Or at least that's how it worked last time we tried it.) Then you can just click and play through that program, right on your computer. Additionally, we think the program will help guide you toward archiving our files. From this website, one can probably right-click on one of the orange "feed" buttons and save it to your "feeder" program (such as iPodder). Or you can do it the easy way, as we do when we encounter material we like on podcasting websites, by right-clicking, saving it to one's computer, and then listening to it either on that computer or transferring it to one's digital audio player (they're just humble mp3 files, after all).
"Frankly, despite being podcasters ourselves, we are not experts on this and have often been overwhelmed by the little switches and levers that can inadvertently bring the whole machine to a crashing halt (see E. M. Forster's "The Machine Stops" for the most accurate description of our lives today, written some seventy or so years ago). Being simple sorts, we just like saving the mp3 files to our computer and dealing with them from there. Of course, it's not automatic, but we have found we just couldn't keep up with the sheer proficiency of any feeder program!
"If you're confused by all this, we don't blame you. Let us know how this works for you--and good luck!"
Lastly, we'd like to point out the fine work of fellow podcaster Jay King, who recently contacted us. Though he hasn't been doing this for too long, he's created some very interesting content, including his own productions of stories from Calvino's Invisible Cities (that seems to be a popular work among bloggers!). Despite whatever ideas this website may give you, there really is a lot of originality and energy out there in the blog/photoblog/vidcast/podcast-osphere. Give Jay a listen at
http://audiolingo.org/
PS Don't forget the divine Miette at the link down below to your left and some fine music-oriented podcasts from Podchaostrophe (formerly "podcasts with a lower-case p" by the mysterious "governor"), to be found at
http://guypluspodcast.blogspot.com/
We almost always really enjoy "guy's" musical selections and skills at arranging them.
Lastly, for mostly non-literary thrills, venerable eclectic nonprofit freeform New Jersey radio station WFMU's regular accumulation of dj bloggers, "Beware of the Blog," is one of the greatest delights of the Internet Age:
http://blog.wfmu.org/
Not to neglect the inimitable though oft-imitated imomus.com for all things Momus and Momusian or the world's greatest Alexandrian library of avant-gardia, ubuweb.com. Where else can one go to hear both Gertrude Stein and the Tape Beatles, look at Aspen magazine or outsider art, or watch Man Ray's or Marcel Duchamp's groundbreaking films?
"The Hit Man" by Bobden Uyl
A man walks into a bar... In this case, a bar on Jonkheren street in Amsterdam (or is it Rotterdam?), where a captive audience is entertained by a hired killer's tale of woe. There is sometimes, perhaps, little difference between the witness and who will be witnessed. Translated from the Dutch by E. M. Beekman.
Bobden Uyl is that next thing to a hit man: a hired writer, one whose works have been translated into German, Russian, Spanish, Bulgarian (!), and of course, English. As the book we're cribbing this from says, "His main theme is travel, from which his characters often return empty-handed or having made discoveries that they did not expect at all." We'll leave it to our listeners to determine whether any of this is to be expected or not. This year Mr. Uyl will be 75 years old, if that makes any difference to anyone.
Bobden Uyl is that next thing to a hit man: a hired writer, one whose works have been translated into German, Russian, Spanish, Bulgarian (!), and of course, English. As the book we're cribbing this from says, "His main theme is travel, from which his characters often return empty-handed or having made discoveries that they did not expect at all." We'll leave it to our listeners to determine whether any of this is to be expected or not. This year Mr. Uyl will be 75 years old, if that makes any difference to anyone.
Monday, January 16, 2006
"The Green Bird" by P. K. Page
Two young people visit the home of two much older people, perhaps not entirely willingly. In the course of their visit, however, at least one of them is profoundly affected by what she encounters there. Read by Scoot.
Patricia Kathleen Page is the grand old lady of Canadian literature, an English-born poet who has been publishing since the early 1940s; although she is a prize-winning poet, she has written fiction, as well. Her first book was The Sun and the Moon in 1944; her latest is 2002's Planet Earth, which has been ranked as one of the fifty most essential Canadian books. Though she grew up on the prairie and spent much time in Brazil, she now lives in Vancouver, British Columbia.
Patricia Kathleen Page is the grand old lady of Canadian literature, an English-born poet who has been publishing since the early 1940s; although she is a prize-winning poet, she has written fiction, as well. Her first book was The Sun and the Moon in 1944; her latest is 2002's Planet Earth, which has been ranked as one of the fifty most essential Canadian books. Though she grew up on the prairie and spent much time in Brazil, she now lives in Vancouver, British Columbia.
Friday, January 13, 2006
"A Mean Teacher" by Mitch Sisskind
What happens when a teacher is more difficult than her most difficult student? Is there any room for forgiveness here? This rather droll story gives us an unlikely glimpse of modern education (circa 1970). Read by Jonathan Strong.
Mitch Sisskind is a licensed gemologist (believe it or not) who is from Chicago but now lives in New York City; he is a former high-school football coach, and a teacher himself. A collection of his stories, Visitations, was published in 1984 by Brightwaters Press. This particular story was originally published in a 1971 collection of experimental fiction called Anti-Story, which is as fine a guide to what the 1960s wrought in the world of literature as any. One wonders what they call "anti-stories" nowadays. Oops, we forgot--that kind of stuff just doesn't get published anymore!
Mitch Sisskind is a licensed gemologist (believe it or not) who is from Chicago but now lives in New York City; he is a former high-school football coach, and a teacher himself. A collection of his stories, Visitations, was published in 1984 by Brightwaters Press. This particular story was originally published in a 1971 collection of experimental fiction called Anti-Story, which is as fine a guide to what the 1960s wrought in the world of literature as any. One wonders what they call "anti-stories" nowadays. Oops, we forgot--that kind of stuff just doesn't get published anymore!
Tuesday, January 10, 2006
"The Sons of Angus MacElster" by Joyce Carol Oates
Due to popular demand, we finally present a story by American author Joyce Carol Oates, which is in its own way a retelling of Ovid's account of Diana and Actaeon. In this story of violent revenge set on Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia in 1923, no one is turned into a stag, though a cruel father does meet more than his comeuppance. Read by Scoot.
By 2010 it is estimated that Joyce Carol's collected works will require new annexes in most public libraries and will number in the hundred-thousands. Seriously, it is hard to imagine a more prolific writer (Asmiov, anyone?), one who has to rely on a couple pseudonyms as well to keep her publishers on their toes. From her one-room schoolhouse in rural New York state to her establishment at the solid center of America's literary scene, Oates has entertained and dazzled readers since the 1960s. Our favorite Oates title: You Must Remember This, Because It is Bitter, and It is My Heart, which is even better than her famous story of a girl gone wrong, Where Are You Going? Where Have You Been?
By 2010 it is estimated that Joyce Carol's collected works will require new annexes in most public libraries and will number in the hundred-thousands. Seriously, it is hard to imagine a more prolific writer (Asmiov, anyone?), one who has to rely on a couple pseudonyms as well to keep her publishers on their toes. From her one-room schoolhouse in rural New York state to her establishment at the solid center of America's literary scene, Oates has entertained and dazzled readers since the 1960s. Our favorite Oates title: You Must Remember This, Because It is Bitter, and It is My Heart, which is even better than her famous story of a girl gone wrong, Where Are You Going? Where Have You Been?
Saturday, January 07, 2006
"Up in the Gallery" by Franz Kafka
Here is the English part of today's bilingual edition, also read by Irmina Haupt. Kafka's story was translated by Willa and Edwin Muir. Time 3:15.
"Auf der Galerie" by Franz Kafka
How about something different today--a bilingual edition? Here is Franz Kafka's little parable in its original German and in its English translation, by Willa and Edwin Muir. Read by Irmina Haupt. Time 2:34.
This tiny squib is one of Kafka's shortest, most dreamlike works, about a circus equestrienne (at last, a chance to use that beautiful word!) who dazzles her audience--and the reader. One feels that the narrator, acting as witness, is brought both to tears and speechlessness by this lovely vision at a public performance.
Irmina Haupt is the pseudonym for a young video artist who has worked and traveled extensively in North America, the Canary Islands, the Middle East, and Europe. Her center of operations is now Munich, where she creates installations for museums and galleries, though probably not like the one in this story! She recently visited the States, though not exclusively to read this story for us; like Kafka himself, she is of Austro-German extraction and apologizes for any confusion due to her semi-Viennese accent. And we think in this description we've been able to mention more geographic locations than any other so far!
This tiny squib is one of Kafka's shortest, most dreamlike works, about a circus equestrienne (at last, a chance to use that beautiful word!) who dazzles her audience--and the reader. One feels that the narrator, acting as witness, is brought both to tears and speechlessness by this lovely vision at a public performance.
Irmina Haupt is the pseudonym for a young video artist who has worked and traveled extensively in North America, the Canary Islands, the Middle East, and Europe. Her center of operations is now Munich, where she creates installations for museums and galleries, though probably not like the one in this story! She recently visited the States, though not exclusively to read this story for us; like Kafka himself, she is of Austro-German extraction and apologizes for any confusion due to her semi-Viennese accent. And we think in this description we've been able to mention more geographic locations than any other so far!
Wednesday, January 04, 2006
"Arabella Hardy" by Charles Lamb
An orphaned girl from the East Indies is entrusted to the care of a ship's first mate, who is the object of much merriment to his mates. In this story, presented much like one side of a magazine interview, we are told of a memorable voyage back to England, where the girl learns valuable lessons about human nature and gender stereotyping. Read by Scoot.
The dry facts about Charles Lamb: Born in 1775, the son of a barrister's clerk. A clerk himself in various offices until his retirement in 1825. Best known works the Essays of Elia and his Letters. On a less statistical note, Lamb had an exceptionally unhappy private life which nonetheless did not impede the many stories, adaptations, essays, and poems which flowed from his gentle-spirited pen.
The dry facts about Charles Lamb: Born in 1775, the son of a barrister's clerk. A clerk himself in various offices until his retirement in 1825. Best known works the Essays of Elia and his Letters. On a less statistical note, Lamb had an exceptionally unhappy private life which nonetheless did not impede the many stories, adaptations, essays, and poems which flowed from his gentle-spirited pen.
Sunday, January 01, 2006
A new year, a new beginning....
Overbooked!
"Stories to Go" is back. After over two months of computer breakdowns which led to virtual nervous breakdowns, we are glad to finally start publishing again. We will try to stay on a schedule of one story a day every three days, with short descriptions of the story, its author, and its reader (when necessary). Eventually we hope to go back and fill in the gaps of previous stories and dates, providing the information and synopses (however short) of all we've been promising.
Thanks to all the readers who have contributed to this site over the past nine months, which allowed us to rest our voices and provide some much-needed variety here. Thanks most to all the listeners who have been tuning in over the past year--for your support, your good wishes, your kind messages, and your willing ears. As a well-known fast-food franchise used to say, "we do it all for you!"
Sorry to those who have had problems with downloading--these are continuing issues, most often with Apple computers, which are beyond our control. All we can suggest is that anyone experiencing problems retry downloading at another time, stream the story off our site or other sites which link from us, look for the podcast on iTunes, or try another computer. We can't go door to door fixing problems, however much we'd like to give personalized readings everywhere!
"Cities and Memory 1 & 2" by Italo Calvino
In somewhat of a break from a tradition, we present 2006's first title: the first two chapters from Italo Calvino's acclaimed Invisible Cities, which actually does read as much if not more like a collection of short stories than a novel, as it is usually labeled. These pages introduce us to Calvino's complex conception of place and time as shaped by memory, interpreted by Marco Polo!
We have seen Calvino on these pages previously, and we are glad to have him back. Did you know he was the son of two botanists and the brother to a well-known geologist, and that he was born in Cuba? Of course, although he traveled around a great deal, he spent most of his life in Italy. There, he specialized in highly intellectualized works that explore the limits of fiction and the boundaries of science and philosophy. Most important of all was his love of language: "Everything can change, but not the language that we carry inside us, like a world more exclusive and final than one's mother's womb," he once said.
We have been keeping Michael Armstrong's recording in cold storage for some months until we were ready to revamp this site, so we are overjoyed to finally unthaw this offering and serve it to you. Michael Armstrong is a writer and educator who divides his time between England, Italy, and America, where he has worked with both graduate students of English and inner-city children. He is especially interested in understanding the nature of human creativity, so it is no suprise that he reveres Calvino. We thank his for his extreme generosity in taking time out of his busy shedule to read for us.
We have seen Calvino on these pages previously, and we are glad to have him back. Did you know he was the son of two botanists and the brother to a well-known geologist, and that he was born in Cuba? Of course, although he traveled around a great deal, he spent most of his life in Italy. There, he specialized in highly intellectualized works that explore the limits of fiction and the boundaries of science and philosophy. Most important of all was his love of language: "Everything can change, but not the language that we carry inside us, like a world more exclusive and final than one's mother's womb," he once said.
We have been keeping Michael Armstrong's recording in cold storage for some months until we were ready to revamp this site, so we are overjoyed to finally unthaw this offering and serve it to you. Michael Armstrong is a writer and educator who divides his time between England, Italy, and America, where he has worked with both graduate students of English and inner-city children. He is especially interested in understanding the nature of human creativity, so it is no suprise that he reveres Calvino. We thank his for his extreme generosity in taking time out of his busy shedule to read for us.
Saturday, December 31, 2005
Wednesday, December 28, 2005
Sunday, December 25, 2005
Tuesday, December 20, 2005
Saturday, December 17, 2005
Wednesday, December 14, 2005
Sunday, December 11, 2005
Thursday, December 08, 2005
Monday, December 05, 2005
Friday, December 02, 2005
Tuesday, November 29, 2005
Saturday, November 26, 2005
Wednesday, November 23, 2005
Sunday, November 20, 2005
Thursday, November 17, 2005
Monday, November 14, 2005
Friday, November 11, 2005
Tuesday, November 08, 2005
Saturday, November 05, 2005
Wednesday, November 02, 2005
Sunday, October 30, 2005
Thursday, October 27, 2005
Monday, October 24, 2005
Friday, October 21, 2005
Tuesday, October 18, 2005
Saturday, October 15, 2005
"Devil Beads" by marina ama omawale maxwell
Story removed by request--sorry! (It was good free publicity, wasn't it?)
Wednesday, October 12, 2005
Sunday, October 09, 2005
Thursday, October 06, 2005
Monday, October 03, 2005
Friday, September 30, 2005
Tuesday, September 27, 2005
Monday, September 19, 2005
"A Conversation with my Father" by Grace Paley
A lovely story about telling stories from a modern American master who has written far too little, but whose political activisim has meant so much. The writer meets her creator and plays a sort of Sheherazade for the dying. Read by Lane Jennings.
More on Grace Paley to come soon...
Lane Jennings is a poet who lives near Washington, D. C.; in his spare time, he is a bookseller, research director of The Futurist magazine, production editor of Future Survey, and author of Virtual Futures.
More on Grace Paley to come soon...
Lane Jennings is a poet who lives near Washington, D. C.; in his spare time, he is a bookseller, research director of The Futurist magazine, production editor of Future Survey, and author of Virtual Futures.
Sunday, September 18, 2005
This site interrupted due to technical difficulties--and laziness
We doubt if anyone out there is waiting with bated breath, but we did want anyone who might stumble upon these pages to know that, due to extreme computer malfunctions, this site is undergoing a temporary hiatus. (We've also been so busy with late-summer visitors that we haven't had a moment free to record anything new.) We promise to come back with a spanking new microphone, the gift of a generous friend, which means better quality recordings for the future!
Don't touch that dial... er, that is don't delete us from your "Favorites" list yet, please!
Don't touch that dial... er, that is don't delete us from your "Favorites" list yet, please!
Tuesday, September 13, 2005
"The Younger Sister's Clothes" by Yasunari Kawabata
Two sisters: one a working woman, somewhat embittered, yet persevering; the other, somewhat sheltered, almost too young to be married, yet dying. More than clothes unite these two in a story of devotion and desire. Translated by Lane Dunlop. Read by Scoot.
"Palm-of-the-hand stories" is what Yasunari Kawabata called his short, journalistic fiction which dealth with everyday life and people in Japan. More information about Yasunari Kawabata to come, one we get all these computer problems sorted out!
"Palm-of-the-hand stories" is what Yasunari Kawabata called his short, journalistic fiction which dealth with everyday life and people in Japan. More information about Yasunari Kawabata to come, one we get all these computer problems sorted out!
Thursday, September 08, 2005
"The Wish" by Roald Dahl
"Step on a crack... " When you were a child, perhaps you played games similar to the ones the boy in this story plays. Let us hope your fate was nowhere as dire as his! Read by Scoot.
We dare not speak the name of the famous book and movie which most people--or at least children--know originates with this Welsh author. Well, maybe we can say James and the Giant Peach. But, like Shel Silverstein or even C. S. Lewis, Mr. Dahl was not your typical children's author, but wrote a great deal for adults as well--and his vision was, in general, every bit as misanthropic and eccentric as that character Johnny Depp most recently played. "Nasty" in its most delightfully British connotation might be apt, as well. Whether much of it is "great" literature (whatever that is) or not, his work is enjoyable, and enjoyably packaged in several short story collections. Now, we're sure the interweb is filled with intimate details of Mr. Dahl's life, but here we refrain. We will tell you that both his daughter Tess and granddaughter Sophie are children's book writers. Research him as you will...
We dare not speak the name of the famous book and movie which most people--or at least children--know originates with this Welsh author. Well, maybe we can say James and the Giant Peach. But, like Shel Silverstein or even C. S. Lewis, Mr. Dahl was not your typical children's author, but wrote a great deal for adults as well--and his vision was, in general, every bit as misanthropic and eccentric as that character Johnny Depp most recently played. "Nasty" in its most delightfully British connotation might be apt, as well. Whether much of it is "great" literature (whatever that is) or not, his work is enjoyable, and enjoyably packaged in several short story collections. Now, we're sure the interweb is filled with intimate details of Mr. Dahl's life, but here we refrain. We will tell you that both his daughter Tess and granddaughter Sophie are children's book writers. Research him as you will...
Tuesday, September 06, 2005
"The Black Sheep" by Italo Calvino
This is a short fable about a country whose ethics, in the end, might not be that dissimilar to the one you live in. In a flock of black sheep, it is of course the white one which stands out. Translated from the Italian by Tim Parks and read by Scoot.
You haven't read Numbers in the Dark, the collection where this story originates? Never read Invisible Cities, either? Haven't even heard of If on a Winter's Night a Traveler? The Baron in the Trees? Surely this can't be true, because Italo Calvino is one of the greatest of Italian writers, of the last century or any other. Folk tales inspired him (he anthologized many himself) and tales of imagination and delight poured from his pen; he also published literary essays and transcriptions of his lectures. Interestingly, he was born in Cuba and fought the Nazi occupation of northern Italy during the Second World War. He died twenty years ago, but his legend, as they say, lives on.
By the way, we really do promise to update this website this week and start publishing again on a more regular basis. At least we'll try to!
You haven't read Numbers in the Dark, the collection where this story originates? Never read Invisible Cities, either? Haven't even heard of If on a Winter's Night a Traveler? The Baron in the Trees? Surely this can't be true, because Italo Calvino is one of the greatest of Italian writers, of the last century or any other. Folk tales inspired him (he anthologized many himself) and tales of imagination and delight poured from his pen; he also published literary essays and transcriptions of his lectures. Interestingly, he was born in Cuba and fought the Nazi occupation of northern Italy during the Second World War. He died twenty years ago, but his legend, as they say, lives on.
By the way, we really do promise to update this website this week and start publishing again on a more regular basis. At least we'll try to!
Thursday, September 01, 2005
"Tropism XV" by Nathalie Sarraute
A young woman encounters a much older man at a dinner party in this anecdotal episode. At first he seems to know everything about England and William Thackeray, but what a bore! Read by Scoot.
Along with Alain Robbe-Grillet, Nathalie Sarraute sought to recreate fiction writing with the nouveau roman. However, she wasn't really French by birth, but Russian, and had trained to be a lawyer, not a writer. Serraute nonetheless became an important fixture of twentieth-century French literature, much influenced by Proust and Woolf and praised by luminaries such as Sartre. This short piece is from her first book of stories, which she called "tropisms." She died at the age of 99 in 1999. Quite enough time to reinvent the novel several times!
Along with Alain Robbe-Grillet, Nathalie Sarraute sought to recreate fiction writing with the nouveau roman. However, she wasn't really French by birth, but Russian, and had trained to be a lawyer, not a writer. Serraute nonetheless became an important fixture of twentieth-century French literature, much influenced by Proust and Woolf and praised by luminaries such as Sartre. This short piece is from her first book of stories, which she called "tropisms." She died at the age of 99 in 1999. Quite enough time to reinvent the novel several times!
Sunday, August 28, 2005
"Kisses" by S. P. Elledge
They fell like rain, affecting everyone they touched. Pity the poor narrator, who has yet to be so blessed. Read by Scoot.
This story by the unknown S. P. Elledge, we have discovered, has recently been published in a collection called Ensemble, available at this link.
This story by the unknown S. P. Elledge, we have discovered, has recently been published in a collection called Ensemble, available at this link.
Wednesday, August 24, 2005
"Evangelist" by Joyce Cary
A bored, misanthropic Englishman's summer vacation no longer cheers him; maybe it's his attitude, and maybe it's the world. Meeting up with an old acquaintance by chance may or may not make him feel better. Read by Scoot.
If you've read The Horse's Mouth, you've read what we consider one of the most inventive (and most undervalued) novels of the twentieth century, and certainly the best about an artist struggling with his failures. (That novel was one of a trilogy centering around the painter Gulley Jimson.) Joyce Cary, born Arthur Joyce Lunel, had once intended to be a painter himself, but got sidetracked by literature and soon began publishing the novels which made him fairly popular up until his death in 1957 (making the cover of Time along the way). Mister Johnson was the first of several novels set in Africa, based in part upon his experiences as a civil servant and soldier in Nigeria and Cameroon before and during World War I. After the war, Cary moved back to Oxford, England, where his novels followed the social and cultural changes of the country.
If you've read The Horse's Mouth, you've read what we consider one of the most inventive (and most undervalued) novels of the twentieth century, and certainly the best about an artist struggling with his failures. (That novel was one of a trilogy centering around the painter Gulley Jimson.) Joyce Cary, born Arthur Joyce Lunel, had once intended to be a painter himself, but got sidetracked by literature and soon began publishing the novels which made him fairly popular up until his death in 1957 (making the cover of Time along the way). Mister Johnson was the first of several novels set in Africa, based in part upon his experiences as a civil servant and soldier in Nigeria and Cameroon before and during World War I. After the war, Cary moved back to Oxford, England, where his novels followed the social and cultural changes of the country.
Monday, August 22, 2005
"No Cure for It" by Thomas Wolfe
A young boy's growing pains, explored and exacerbated by his parents and his doctor. In the end, the boy must choose whose side he is on. Read by Scoot.
We'll be updating the site this week, with all the promised authors' information, fresh stories, and more. Hang in there!
We'll be updating the site this week, with all the promised authors' information, fresh stories, and more. Hang in there!
Thursday, August 18, 2005
"An Account of the Death of Mr Partridge" by Jonathan Swift
An almanac predicts a man's death--and so the man must die. But not before as much humor as possible is milked from the situation, of course. Read by Scoot.
Jonathan Swift wrote Gulliver's Travels, of course... more to come, whenever we get the time!
Jonathan Swift wrote Gulliver's Travels, of course... more to come, whenever we get the time!
Monday, August 15, 2005
"Axolotl" by Julio Cortázar
As in the Mexican salamander or "water dog," a creature with amazing regnerative properties and equally amazing metamorphic qualities... The narrator observes them closely in Paris and perhaps go a bit too far in identifying with his amphibious friends. Read by Sushma Joshi.
Details about Argentine writer Julio Cortázar to come (sorry, we're still traveling!)
Sushma Joshi is a fiction writer, playwright, magazine editor, filmmaker, journalist, and all-round cultural phenomenon from Kathmandu, Nepal. She is currently working on a documentary in Manhattan after a busy summer earning an advanced degree in Vermont. Soon enough she will be back in Asia, working on yet more new and exciting artistic projects.
Details about Argentine writer Julio Cortázar to come (sorry, we're still traveling!)
Sushma Joshi is a fiction writer, playwright, magazine editor, filmmaker, journalist, and all-round cultural phenomenon from Kathmandu, Nepal. She is currently working on a documentary in Manhattan after a busy summer earning an advanced degree in Vermont. Soon enough she will be back in Asia, working on yet more new and exciting artistic projects.
Saturday, August 13, 2005
Thursday, August 11, 2005
"Do You Like It Here?" by John O'Hara
The new boy in a boarding school is grilled by a suspicious master. The boy has been in and out of enough schools to know what he's up against. Read by Jonathan Strong.
We're off hiking! Details about John O'Hara to come...
We're off hiking! Details about John O'Hara to come...
Monday, August 08, 2005
"Powerhouse" by Eudora Welty
Listen! The charismatic, stupendously talented bluesman known as Powerhouse has come to town! Hear him as he pounds the piano, rouses his audience from their complacence, and evolves into a character (based on Fats Waller) you will likely never forget. Read by David Huddle.
Jackson, Mississippi's favorite daughter, Eduora Welty spent most of her life there, from 1909 to 2001. During the Great Depression of the 1930's, she worked as a photographer for the Works Progress Administration, but soon turned her attention to writing. Eventually she became one of America's favorite authors, far outstripping the "Southern Gothic" label she is often tagged with. Although she wrote several novels, including The Robber Bridegroom, The Golden Apples, and The Optimist's Daughter, she is perhaps best known for her short stories, of which this is one of her most popular. You might also remember stories such as "Why I Live at the P.O.," "A Curtain of Green," "The Petrified Man," and "Death of a Traveling Salesman," collected in many different volumes. One Writer's Beginnings, the story of how she matured into a storyteller, was one of her last and most enduring books. After a long and successful life, she left us in the first year of the twenty-first century, leaving behind a beloved reputation and oeuvre.
David Huddle is the James Brown of American literature: the hardest working writer we know. He has expended his considerable creative energies in an amazing variety of forms, from short fiction to novellas to novels to poetry to plays to memoir and essays. Just a few of his many books are La Tour Dreams of the Wolf Girl (a novel), Grayscale (poems), Intimates (short stories), The Writing Habit (essays), and Tenorman (a play). A native of Ivanhoe, Virginia, he now lives in Vermont, where he teaches at the University of Vermont in Burlington. We thank him for taking time out of his busy summer teaching schedule to read this story for us!
Jackson, Mississippi's favorite daughter, Eduora Welty spent most of her life there, from 1909 to 2001. During the Great Depression of the 1930's, she worked as a photographer for the Works Progress Administration, but soon turned her attention to writing. Eventually she became one of America's favorite authors, far outstripping the "Southern Gothic" label she is often tagged with. Although she wrote several novels, including The Robber Bridegroom, The Golden Apples, and The Optimist's Daughter, she is perhaps best known for her short stories, of which this is one of her most popular. You might also remember stories such as "Why I Live at the P.O.," "A Curtain of Green," "The Petrified Man," and "Death of a Traveling Salesman," collected in many different volumes. One Writer's Beginnings, the story of how she matured into a storyteller, was one of her last and most enduring books. After a long and successful life, she left us in the first year of the twenty-first century, leaving behind a beloved reputation and oeuvre.
David Huddle is the James Brown of American literature: the hardest working writer we know. He has expended his considerable creative energies in an amazing variety of forms, from short fiction to novellas to novels to poetry to plays to memoir and essays. Just a few of his many books are La Tour Dreams of the Wolf Girl (a novel), Grayscale (poems), Intimates (short stories), The Writing Habit (essays), and Tenorman (a play). A native of Ivanhoe, Virginia, he now lives in Vermont, where he teaches at the University of Vermont in Burlington. We thank him for taking time out of his busy summer teaching schedule to read this story for us!
Saturday, August 06, 2005
"The Smallest Woman in the World" by Clarice Lispector
Deep in the forests of the Congo, a French explorer discovers--you guessed it. What this tiny woman invokes in those who learn of her varies from houseold to household and from heart to heart. Read by Scoot.
Though she was born in the Ukraine and had first intended to become a lawyer, Clarice Lispector became one of Brazil's most well-known and celebrated writers. This story is translated by another very well-known writer, the American poet Elizabeth Bishop, who was on and off a resident of Brazil herself. You might call "The Smallest Woman," as one critic has, "an ironic study of racism and sexism." But it also reflects the inherent poetry which Bishop must have admired and which made Lispector's books such as Beside the Savage Heart and The Apple in the Dark such successes. (Those of you who have read Roald Dahl's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory might see something here akin to the Oompa Loompas in that book.) Lispector, our sources note, saw snow for the first time in 1947 (she was born in 1920, died in 1977). In 1967 she was severely burned while falling asleep while smoking a cigarette (another reason not to start, kids!). And in 1975 she took part in the Witches' World Conference in Bogota, Colombia. Oh, the things you can discover on the Interweb!
Though she was born in the Ukraine and had first intended to become a lawyer, Clarice Lispector became one of Brazil's most well-known and celebrated writers. This story is translated by another very well-known writer, the American poet Elizabeth Bishop, who was on and off a resident of Brazil herself. You might call "The Smallest Woman," as one critic has, "an ironic study of racism and sexism." But it also reflects the inherent poetry which Bishop must have admired and which made Lispector's books such as Beside the Savage Heart and The Apple in the Dark such successes. (Those of you who have read Roald Dahl's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory might see something here akin to the Oompa Loompas in that book.) Lispector, our sources note, saw snow for the first time in 1947 (she was born in 1920, died in 1977). In 1967 she was severely burned while falling asleep while smoking a cigarette (another reason not to start, kids!). And in 1975 she took part in the Witches' World Conference in Bogota, Colombia. Oh, the things you can discover on the Interweb!
Thursday, August 04, 2005
"The Porcelain Doll" by Leo Tolstoy
The writer, Tolstoy himself, is under the impression that his wife has turned into a porcelain doll. And for a time, they both rather like it. Read by Jonathan Strong.
This story is contained within a letter written by Leo Tolstoy to his sister-in-law Tanya, the model for Natasha in War and Peace. The letter was begun by Tolstoy's wife, Sonya, half a year after they were married, but finished by Leo himself. (Perhaps Sonya really had turned into a porcelain doll--for a while, at least!) The first winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature, Tolstoy was perhaps the greatest writer and thinker of nineteenth-century Russia. His epic novel War and Peace covers nearly two-thousand pages, but this tiny story is contained within only three. You of course know or have heard of Anna Karenina and Resurrection, his other two novels, and most likely know, too, that he wrote numerous novellas, war stories, an autobiography, and plays. At the end of his life he gave up fiction for religious philosophy, but not before having already been a huge influence on all Russian (and world) literature to come.
Jonathan Strong needs no introduction here, but you can check out reprints of some of his older books at xlibris.com.
This story is contained within a letter written by Leo Tolstoy to his sister-in-law Tanya, the model for Natasha in War and Peace. The letter was begun by Tolstoy's wife, Sonya, half a year after they were married, but finished by Leo himself. (Perhaps Sonya really had turned into a porcelain doll--for a while, at least!) The first winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature, Tolstoy was perhaps the greatest writer and thinker of nineteenth-century Russia. His epic novel War and Peace covers nearly two-thousand pages, but this tiny story is contained within only three. You of course know or have heard of Anna Karenina and Resurrection, his other two novels, and most likely know, too, that he wrote numerous novellas, war stories, an autobiography, and plays. At the end of his life he gave up fiction for religious philosophy, but not before having already been a huge influence on all Russian (and world) literature to come.
Jonathan Strong needs no introduction here, but you can check out reprints of some of his older books at xlibris.com.
Tuesday, August 02, 2005
"Crazy Robin" by Mary Wollstonecraft
If you love dogs, this frankly sentimental story, written quite a long while before Old Yellar, may elicit a tear or two from you. The rustic hermit so beloved by the early Romantics here has a heartwrenching backstory and no future whatsoever. Read by Scoot.
Though known primarily today as the mother of Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin Shelley (the creator of Frankenstein, of course), Mary Wollstonecraft was a leading progressive writer of her day who sometimes illustrated her problems with society in fictional form. Two of her more important feminist treatises are Thoughts on the Education of Daughters (sadly, she died soon after the birth of her own) and A Vindication of the Rights of Women. It was thanks to brave thinkers such as herself that the Age of Enlightenment was, well--so enlightened. One wishes she could run for election today, had she not died in 1797, but one could say her spiritual daughters are changing politics as we know it even as you read this.
Though known primarily today as the mother of Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin Shelley (the creator of Frankenstein, of course), Mary Wollstonecraft was a leading progressive writer of her day who sometimes illustrated her problems with society in fictional form. Two of her more important feminist treatises are Thoughts on the Education of Daughters (sadly, she died soon after the birth of her own) and A Vindication of the Rights of Women. It was thanks to brave thinkers such as herself that the Age of Enlightenment was, well--so enlightened. One wishes she could run for election today, had she not died in 1797, but one could say her spiritual daughters are changing politics as we know it even as you read this.
Sunday, July 31, 2005
"Conversation Piece" by Louise Bogan
Two couples share cocktails in an atmosphere of brittle comraderie. The more they drink, the looser the talk. Read by Jonathan Strong.
Although primarily known as a poet, Down Easter Louise Bogan also published fiction, some of it in the magazine for which she also was poetry editor, The New Yorker. (She held that post for 38 years.) Bogan was a very private person who disdained confessional poetry--and we assume, fiction--but who loved the poetry of Theodore Roethke. She was born in 1897 but by 1970 called it quits in this world.
Jonathan Strong has written at least a couple of poems in his life, but concentrates on fiction these days.
Although primarily known as a poet, Down Easter Louise Bogan also published fiction, some of it in the magazine for which she also was poetry editor, The New Yorker. (She held that post for 38 years.) Bogan was a very private person who disdained confessional poetry--and we assume, fiction--but who loved the poetry of Theodore Roethke. She was born in 1897 but by 1970 called it quits in this world.
Jonathan Strong has written at least a couple of poems in his life, but concentrates on fiction these days.
Friday, July 29, 2005
"A Brown Woman" by James Branch Cabell
Pitiable poet Alexander Pope woos a country lass, but she has different ideas. His friend, the poet and playwright John Gay, is no help, either--but there may be good material here! Read by Scoot.
Unknown to most readers today save for his novel Jurgen, Virginian James Branch Cabell was an enormously popular and prolific novelist in his time (1879-1958). You might call his work "fantastic fiction," but it is more literary than that sounds, and his influence on later fantasy and sci-fi authors has been profound--though his own work is much more in the high romance realm. One might never guess that his work once caused him to be dragged into court on an obscenity issue... you'll have to read more to find out what we're talking about here.
Unknown to most readers today save for his novel Jurgen, Virginian James Branch Cabell was an enormously popular and prolific novelist in his time (1879-1958). You might call his work "fantastic fiction," but it is more literary than that sounds, and his influence on later fantasy and sci-fi authors has been profound--though his own work is much more in the high romance realm. One might never guess that his work once caused him to be dragged into court on an obscenity issue... you'll have to read more to find out what we're talking about here.
Wednesday, July 27, 2005
"A, B,and C--TheHuman Element in Mathematics" by Stephen Leacock
Anyone who's ever had to solve one of those bothersome "story problems" in a math class could find much to be amused by in this bit of levity. Here, the characters A, B, and C discover that the sum is sometimes greater than its parts. Read by Scoot.
Visit the Stephen Leacock Museum at Old Brewery Bay in Canada, and you'll discover more about the writer than we could possibly put here. While you're in Canada, watch out for Leacock Peak in the Yukons, Leacock Park on Lake Simcoe, the Leacock Addition and the Leacock Room at McGill University, the Leacock Hotel at Couchiching Beach Park, and the Leacock Memorial Home nearby--all named after the Anglo-Canadian humorist, economist, educator, and public speaker. That's how popular he was and is, not just Up North, but all around the English-speaking world. A kind of Canadian Mark Twain (who Leacock wrote a book about), the writer (here we'll end soberly, if not a bit glumly) lived from 1869 to 1944.
Visit the Stephen Leacock Museum at Old Brewery Bay in Canada, and you'll discover more about the writer than we could possibly put here. While you're in Canada, watch out for Leacock Peak in the Yukons, Leacock Park on Lake Simcoe, the Leacock Addition and the Leacock Room at McGill University, the Leacock Hotel at Couchiching Beach Park, and the Leacock Memorial Home nearby--all named after the Anglo-Canadian humorist, economist, educator, and public speaker. That's how popular he was and is, not just Up North, but all around the English-speaking world. A kind of Canadian Mark Twain (who Leacock wrote a book about), the writer (here we'll end soberly, if not a bit glumly) lived from 1869 to 1944.
Monday, July 25, 2005
"A Dry Spell" by Einar H. Kvaran
A government store clerk waits out a prolonged dry spell by philosophising about death with his colleagues. Little does he realize how near actual death is to him. Read by Jonathan Strong.
This story was written one-hundred years ago, when Einar H. Kvaran was approximately 49 years old. (He died in 1938.) Kvaran was of a generation of Icelandic students and scholars who became prominent in the burgeoning regional arts movement of that country around the turn of the twentieth century; he was a journalist and editor who also wrote all types of fiction, as well as poetry and plays. This story may show a tinge of the moralism which eventually overwhelmed Kvaran's work, when he became more interested in the hereafter than the here-and-now. Oh, well, it's still nice to finally have an Icelandic writer represented on this site!
Jonathan Strong used to write plays, as well, but nowadays restricts himself solely to fiction. We've told you about him before.
This story was written one-hundred years ago, when Einar H. Kvaran was approximately 49 years old. (He died in 1938.) Kvaran was of a generation of Icelandic students and scholars who became prominent in the burgeoning regional arts movement of that country around the turn of the twentieth century; he was a journalist and editor who also wrote all types of fiction, as well as poetry and plays. This story may show a tinge of the moralism which eventually overwhelmed Kvaran's work, when he became more interested in the hereafter than the here-and-now. Oh, well, it's still nice to finally have an Icelandic writer represented on this site!
Jonathan Strong used to write plays, as well, but nowadays restricts himself solely to fiction. We've told you about him before.
Saturday, July 23, 2005
"On the Train" by Olga Masters
Upon a local train route somewhere in Australia, an observant passenger hesitantly regards the subtle interplay between a young mother and her two young girls. Whether or not she is right to assume certain things, this passenger can only guess. Read by Scoot.
Pambula, New South Wales, Australia is the birthplace of the writer Olga Masters, who lived from 1919 to 1986 and published four books of award-winning fiction in her lifetime (The Home Girls, where this story originates, Loving Daughters, A Long Time Dying, and Amy's Children) and whose fifth book of stories, Rose Fancier, was published after her death. As one might guess from her titles, she specialized in intimate depictions of mothers and their children and the harsh world--often that of rural Australia--which both exhausted and challenged them. Masters was the mother of seven children herself. The collection Australian Short Stories (complex title, isn't it?), edited by Carmel Bird and published in 1991, is the excellent source of this story and other stories to come from "down under." (Oh, dear, thought you'd get away before hearing that cliche, didn't you?)
Pambula, New South Wales, Australia is the birthplace of the writer Olga Masters, who lived from 1919 to 1986 and published four books of award-winning fiction in her lifetime (The Home Girls, where this story originates, Loving Daughters, A Long Time Dying, and Amy's Children) and whose fifth book of stories, Rose Fancier, was published after her death. As one might guess from her titles, she specialized in intimate depictions of mothers and their children and the harsh world--often that of rural Australia--which both exhausted and challenged them. Masters was the mother of seven children herself. The collection Australian Short Stories (complex title, isn't it?), edited by Carmel Bird and published in 1991, is the excellent source of this story and other stories to come from "down under." (Oh, dear, thought you'd get away before hearing that cliche, didn't you?)
Thursday, July 21, 2005
"Silence, A Fable" by Edgar Allan Poe
A demon tells a story of when the terrors of silence fell upon the River Zaire. Yes, that's right--the silence of what we currently call the Congo. Read by Jonathan Strong.
There's little need to introduce this author, who will already be familiar to most readers as the author of more famous stories and poems than even Stephen King could count: "The Tell-Tale Heart," "The Raven," "The Masque of the Red Death," "Murders in the Rue Morgue," "The Cask of Amontillado," and on and one... including our favorite, "William Wilson." (Which Brigitte Bardot and Terrence Stamp starred in a movie version of, yet!) But did you know he was the son of two actors or that he began writing while in the army? Or that he lived in a cottage in the Bronx before drifting back to Baltimore, where he died? Or that Baudelaire, Borges, and Kafka were all among his most ardent admirers? Or that he's not just for Hallowe'en anymore?
This is Jonathan Strong's umpteenth recording for us. We thank him for his patience and the loan of his voice. Check previous entries for more about this prolific author.
There's little need to introduce this author, who will already be familiar to most readers as the author of more famous stories and poems than even Stephen King could count: "The Tell-Tale Heart," "The Raven," "The Masque of the Red Death," "Murders in the Rue Morgue," "The Cask of Amontillado," and on and one... including our favorite, "William Wilson." (Which Brigitte Bardot and Terrence Stamp starred in a movie version of, yet!) But did you know he was the son of two actors or that he began writing while in the army? Or that he lived in a cottage in the Bronx before drifting back to Baltimore, where he died? Or that Baudelaire, Borges, and Kafka were all among his most ardent admirers? Or that he's not just for Hallowe'en anymore?
This is Jonathan Strong's umpteenth recording for us. We thank him for his patience and the loan of his voice. Check previous entries for more about this prolific author.
Tuesday, July 19, 2005
"The Use of Force" by William Carlos Williams
Their daughter may be dying of diptheria, so the parents call in the country doctor, who does all he can to get the girl to cooperate. Consider now the title of this story and ask yourself who is being most forceful in this anecdote of blunt honesty. Read by Scoot.
America loves writers who aren't necessarily fulltime writers, but have another profession that is perhaps more remunerative. That may be one of the reasons William Carlos Williams was successful, for not only was he a poet (and occasional writer of fiction like this, and plays, and novels, and nonfiction), he was a medical practioner for over four decades. Dr. Williams is said to have delivered over two-thousand babies, and he numbered people such as James Joyce, Marcel Duchamp, and Wallace Stevens among his many friends in the arts. One of the true inventers of modernity, he disliked the fancier forms used by another favorite American poet, Robert Frost, preferring to write, as Marianne Moore put it, "plain American which cats and dogs can read." Start, of course, with "The Red Wheelbarrow."
America loves writers who aren't necessarily fulltime writers, but have another profession that is perhaps more remunerative. That may be one of the reasons William Carlos Williams was successful, for not only was he a poet (and occasional writer of fiction like this, and plays, and novels, and nonfiction), he was a medical practioner for over four decades. Dr. Williams is said to have delivered over two-thousand babies, and he numbered people such as James Joyce, Marcel Duchamp, and Wallace Stevens among his many friends in the arts. One of the true inventers of modernity, he disliked the fancier forms used by another favorite American poet, Robert Frost, preferring to write, as Marianne Moore put it, "plain American which cats and dogs can read." Start, of course, with "The Red Wheelbarrow."
Sunday, July 17, 2005
"The Last Leaf" by Katherine Anne Porter
An old servant finds a home of her own at the end of her life. Her former employers discover then what she really meant to them. Read by Jonathan Strong.
Over nine decades, Katherine Anne Porter may not have produced the world's largest oeuvre--but what an oeuvre! Anyone who has read her short stories about her early life in Texas or the novel Ship of Fools (however flawed it is supposed to be) could tell you what a consummate writer she is. She spent much of her life traveling back and forth between Mexico (where she worked on a magazine for a while), the United States, and Europe. Eventually she settled near the District of Columbia. "I shall try to tell the truth," she once said, "but the result will be fiction." Hmm... sounds like she was near Washington.
Jonathan Strong spends his summers teaching fiction writing at the Bread Loaf School of English in the Green Mountains of Vermont. When he is not busy swatting deerflies there in his off-hours, he can be found working on his own fiction--currently a novel half-done. He promises to keep reading steadily for us!
Over nine decades, Katherine Anne Porter may not have produced the world's largest oeuvre--but what an oeuvre! Anyone who has read her short stories about her early life in Texas or the novel Ship of Fools (however flawed it is supposed to be) could tell you what a consummate writer she is. She spent much of her life traveling back and forth between Mexico (where she worked on a magazine for a while), the United States, and Europe. Eventually she settled near the District of Columbia. "I shall try to tell the truth," she once said, "but the result will be fiction." Hmm... sounds like she was near Washington.
Jonathan Strong spends his summers teaching fiction writing at the Bread Loaf School of English in the Green Mountains of Vermont. When he is not busy swatting deerflies there in his off-hours, he can be found working on his own fiction--currently a novel half-done. He promises to keep reading steadily for us!
Friday, July 15, 2005
"Common Prayer" by William Saroyan
One needn't believe in any sort of higher power to appreciate this prose-poem disguised as a story, although it might help to believe in the considerable clout of editors and publishers if one is a poor writer, as William Saroyan was when he penned this. The struggling young scribe from Clay, County, Iowa invokes the greatness of human history--and feels suddenly part of that long march himself. Read by Scoot.
Actually not from Iowa, but a product of Fresno, California, William Saroyan's star might shine a little less brightly than it did some decades ago, when his dazzling collection of short stories all written in one month, The Daring Young Man on the Flying Trapeze, swung into the literary circus of the 1930's, to be followed up by the very popular My Name is Aram and The Human Comedy, among many others. The Armenian-American Saroyan then, and for several decades, personified the second-generation immigrant whose story desperately needed to be told. Notably profligate with his money and his women, Saroyan's prose was alternately good and bad, but his narratives are always bursting with life, poetry, and honesty. In the end, it might have been idealism which killed him, not just the cigarettes.
Actually not from Iowa, but a product of Fresno, California, William Saroyan's star might shine a little less brightly than it did some decades ago, when his dazzling collection of short stories all written in one month, The Daring Young Man on the Flying Trapeze, swung into the literary circus of the 1930's, to be followed up by the very popular My Name is Aram and The Human Comedy, among many others. The Armenian-American Saroyan then, and for several decades, personified the second-generation immigrant whose story desperately needed to be told. Notably profligate with his money and his women, Saroyan's prose was alternately good and bad, but his narratives are always bursting with life, poetry, and honesty. In the end, it might have been idealism which killed him, not just the cigarettes.
Wednesday, July 13, 2005
"Nice Girl" by Sherwood Anderson
If you're wondering if the title is ironic, you've probably read Sherwood Anderson before. If you think that the relationships between Agnes and her married sister and Agnes and her brother-in-law, Tom, who wants a divorce, are complicated, then you must listen to this story that might have been too much even for little ol' Winesburg (this one is set, it appears, in downstate Illinois). Read by Prudence Carter.
For the second time American "modernist" writer Sherwood Anderson graces our pages. Did you know he died in 1941 after contracting peritonitis after swallowing a toothpick in Panama? The things one finds on a random meander through the interweb! Before he died, he was of course a writer who never lived up to the critical and popular success of Winesburg, Ohio, though he certainly kept on trying--in novels such as Death in the Woods and Kit Brandon. Maybe someday if we live long enough we'll read those, too.
A professor of sociology at Harvard, Prudence Carter specializes in the study of education across racial and class lines. Her forthcoming book is Keepin' It Real: School Success Beyond Black and White. She recently spent time studying classrooms in South Africa as well as America. Prudence also plays a mean game of tennis, so watch out.
For the second time American "modernist" writer Sherwood Anderson graces our pages. Did you know he died in 1941 after contracting peritonitis after swallowing a toothpick in Panama? The things one finds on a random meander through the interweb! Before he died, he was of course a writer who never lived up to the critical and popular success of Winesburg, Ohio, though he certainly kept on trying--in novels such as Death in the Woods and Kit Brandon. Maybe someday if we live long enough we'll read those, too.
A professor of sociology at Harvard, Prudence Carter specializes in the study of education across racial and class lines. Her forthcoming book is Keepin' It Real: School Success Beyond Black and White. She recently spent time studying classrooms in South Africa as well as America. Prudence also plays a mean game of tennis, so watch out.
Monday, July 11, 2005
"Chet" by Patrick Parks
Fat, awkward, and a lot less than charming, Chet is tired of being the Hardy Boys' hapless, foolish sidekick, never getting any credit for helping to solve the many mysteries which somehow center upon their home town, Bay City. However, only Chet knows the dark side of the Hardy Boys, even if he can't stop toadying to them--until he haplessly stumbles upon a mystery far too great for those Hardys to figure out. Read by Scoot.
How many authors born and raised in Iowa can you name? Well, Patrick Parks should be one of them--he's been writing stories and novels for many years now, as well as teaching throughout the Midwest. We hope to see more of his work in print some day, as it as fresh and witty and inventive as this story illustrates. Now a resident of St. Charles, Illinois, Pat is also an expert horseman; even now he is way out west, in the middle of a cattle roundup. Seriously!
How many authors born and raised in Iowa can you name? Well, Patrick Parks should be one of them--he's been writing stories and novels for many years now, as well as teaching throughout the Midwest. We hope to see more of his work in print some day, as it as fresh and witty and inventive as this story illustrates. Now a resident of St. Charles, Illinois, Pat is also an expert horseman; even now he is way out west, in the middle of a cattle roundup. Seriously!
Saturday, July 09, 2005
"The Hollow of the Three Hills" by Nathaniel Hawthorne
One of the author's earlier stories, set in the primitive highlands of New England, is hereby presented to you. A mischievous crone conjures up visions from the life of a sorrowing young women. Read by Jonathan Strong.
One of Nathaniel Hawthorne's ancestors had presided over the Salem Witch Trials, so it's no wonder he was enthralled by tales of Puritans pure and not-so-pure and the nature of good and evil. Hawthorne always called his often highly symbolic (so your high school English teacher will tell you) stories "tales" and collected them in several volumes between such novels as The Marble Faun and The Blithedale Romance (no need to mention the even more famous ones here). But Hawthorne wasn't all gloom and doom and black-cloaked colonialists. There must be a good example here somewhere--hmm... We love this aside from Wikipedia, from which we crib so many of our facts about authors: "Edgar Allan Poe wrote important, though largely unflattering, reviews of both Twice-Told Tales and Mosses from an Old Manse." We'll get to you, Mr. Poe...
When he is not busy with his own novels, Jonathan Strong is often to be found lost somewhere in the extensive works of Englishmen Gilbert and Sullivan, whether together or singly. He has redrafted the lost G&S opera, Thespis, which has been produced twice, as well as several other concoctions from the duo which time has left us incomplete. Opera and bel canto have been reoccurring elements throughout his dozen or so novels, so his interests are perhaps not so surprising to his readers.
One of Nathaniel Hawthorne's ancestors had presided over the Salem Witch Trials, so it's no wonder he was enthralled by tales of Puritans pure and not-so-pure and the nature of good and evil. Hawthorne always called his often highly symbolic (so your high school English teacher will tell you) stories "tales" and collected them in several volumes between such novels as The Marble Faun and The Blithedale Romance (no need to mention the even more famous ones here). But Hawthorne wasn't all gloom and doom and black-cloaked colonialists. There must be a good example here somewhere--hmm... We love this aside from Wikipedia, from which we crib so many of our facts about authors: "Edgar Allan Poe wrote important, though largely unflattering, reviews of both Twice-Told Tales and Mosses from an Old Manse." We'll get to you, Mr. Poe...
When he is not busy with his own novels, Jonathan Strong is often to be found lost somewhere in the extensive works of Englishmen Gilbert and Sullivan, whether together or singly. He has redrafted the lost G&S opera, Thespis, which has been produced twice, as well as several other concoctions from the duo which time has left us incomplete. Opera and bel canto have been reoccurring elements throughout his dozen or so novels, so his interests are perhaps not so surprising to his readers.
Thursday, July 07, 2005
"A Golden Picture" by Dazai Osamu
A struggling writer remembers his entitled youth and the family servant who he most abused. Of course, he's changed, even reformed--but is his remorse alone enough? Read by Scoot.
Dazai Osamu died just short of his 39th birthday, in 1948: Now, don't you just hate biographical snippets that begin as dry as that? Actually, it's a bit more interesting than it sounds. Shuji Tsushima, as he is otherwise known, was a wealthy landowner's son whose attempts at committing suicide read a little like Dorothy Parker's poem "Résumé:" sleeping pills, sleeping pills again, hanging, and one might say indirect attempts through morphine and then alcohol. At last, drowning did the trick, and Shuji/Dazai took his latest paramour with him. One shouldn't be surprised to discover his stories are full of suicides and attempted suicides, although they were quite popular in Japan during his life. The novel that is supposed to explain it all is called No Longer Human.
Dazai Osamu died just short of his 39th birthday, in 1948: Now, don't you just hate biographical snippets that begin as dry as that? Actually, it's a bit more interesting than it sounds. Shuji Tsushima, as he is otherwise known, was a wealthy landowner's son whose attempts at committing suicide read a little like Dorothy Parker's poem "Résumé:" sleeping pills, sleeping pills again, hanging, and one might say indirect attempts through morphine and then alcohol. At last, drowning did the trick, and Shuji/Dazai took his latest paramour with him. One shouldn't be surprised to discover his stories are full of suicides and attempted suicides, although they were quite popular in Japan during his life. The novel that is supposed to explain it all is called No Longer Human.
Wednesday, July 06, 2005
Woes Gutenberg never dreamt of
Hello, all! We recently posted this reply to a kind would-be listener who is having problems downloading the mp3 files from this site. If you're having similar woes, please let us know--we're hoping to fix anything that needs fixed soon:
Kind Listener,
... We are very sorry to hear you're having problems downloading stories from the site. Other people have reported similar problems in the past, so you are probably not the only one still having problems. We really couldn't tell you why these problems have occurred; maybe it's our server's fault, or maybe something we've done wrong. Nevertheless, we'll look into the issue some more (last we tried, things were still working fine--for us) and give an update on the site itself. We've been considering a move to another provider (as long as it's cheap or free), and if we do so, we hope these problems will cease. In the meantime, try again maybe at another time of day or by another means and let us know if you've had any success. It's very important that we deliver the promised goods, such as they are!
One more idea: have you tried or are you presently using a podcast "aggregator"? Maybe this is either the cause or the solution to the problem. We'll try checking into this, too, although we're away from home for the summer and these things take time... Good luck with future downloads--and keep listening, if you can!
Scoot, Stories to Go
Tuesday, July 05, 2005
"The Monkey" by Robert Walser
For those fortunate enough to have read John Collier's absolutely stunning novel, His Monkey Wife, the territory may sound familiar: an intelligent simian in love with a homo sapiens, desperately trying to express that passion. In this case, a monkey woos an elegant woman who may--or may not--give in to his advances.
Like many other great writers, Robert Walser ended his life in an insane asylum, having given up on writing but not on long walks through the countryside. He had already written over a thousand short works of prose, several novels (half of which have been lost), and numerous poems--so we know what influenced Kafka and why Hesse was envious. Susan Sontag's introduction to his Selected Stories, translated chiefly by Christopher Middleton, calls the Swiss native "a Paul Klee in prose ... A cross between Stevie Smith and Beckett ... the missing link between Kleist and Kafka." He reminds us of another unique Swiss "outsider" artist, the painter and composer Adolf Wolfi, who also ended his life in an asylum. Maybe now you're beginning to sense that this is a very interesting writer, indeed.
Another very interesting writer is Patricia Powell, a native of Jamaica who now makes her home in the United States. Her novels to date are: Me Dying Trial, A Small Gathering of Bones, and The Pagoda; we are anxiously awaiting her fourth. She has won so many awards and received so many accolades it would be impossible to list them all here, but get to your local bookstore posthaste and start scanning the stacks--you will find her.
Like many other great writers, Robert Walser ended his life in an insane asylum, having given up on writing but not on long walks through the countryside. He had already written over a thousand short works of prose, several novels (half of which have been lost), and numerous poems--so we know what influenced Kafka and why Hesse was envious. Susan Sontag's introduction to his Selected Stories, translated chiefly by Christopher Middleton, calls the Swiss native "a Paul Klee in prose ... A cross between Stevie Smith and Beckett ... the missing link between Kleist and Kafka." He reminds us of another unique Swiss "outsider" artist, the painter and composer Adolf Wolfi, who also ended his life in an asylum. Maybe now you're beginning to sense that this is a very interesting writer, indeed.
Another very interesting writer is Patricia Powell, a native of Jamaica who now makes her home in the United States. Her novels to date are: Me Dying Trial, A Small Gathering of Bones, and The Pagoda; we are anxiously awaiting her fourth. She has won so many awards and received so many accolades it would be impossible to list them all here, but get to your local bookstore posthaste and start scanning the stacks--you will find her.
Sunday, July 03, 2005
"Black Boy" by Kay Boyle
Somewhere on the Atlantic seaboard, a young girl rides her horse in the foam and befriends the African-American teenager who pushes her petulant grandfather along the boardwalk in a wheeled chair. In stories of this vintage, you just know this is going to lead to trouble. Read by Scoot.
Kay Boyle thought she might become either an architect or a violinist before she fell into the disreputable life of a writer. Once she had relocated to Paris (a much better place to lead a disreputable life than Cincinatti, where she had spent the majority of her childhood), she became friends with Harry and Caresse Crosby, whose infamous Black Sun Press published her first collection of stories in a typically elegant edition. Soon she became associated with the avant-garde magazine transition, so it is perhaps a little surprising that eventually she became a regular New Yorker type of gal. But she remained controversial, getting herself blacklisted by Senator McCarthy and railing against America's dubious involvement in Southeast Asia (getting thrown into prison twice for doing so). Both the NAACP and Amnesty International claimed her as a member, and she was making noise all the way up to her death in 1992 at the age of 90. Somehow she got a lot of writing done, too, including poetry (such as This is Not a Letter and Other Poems), short fiction (including Nothing Ever Breaks Except the Heart), novels (Plagued by the Nightingale being representative), and nonfiction (Being Geniuses Together among them).
Kay Boyle thought she might become either an architect or a violinist before she fell into the disreputable life of a writer. Once she had relocated to Paris (a much better place to lead a disreputable life than Cincinatti, where she had spent the majority of her childhood), she became friends with Harry and Caresse Crosby, whose infamous Black Sun Press published her first collection of stories in a typically elegant edition. Soon she became associated with the avant-garde magazine transition, so it is perhaps a little surprising that eventually she became a regular New Yorker type of gal. But she remained controversial, getting herself blacklisted by Senator McCarthy and railing against America's dubious involvement in Southeast Asia (getting thrown into prison twice for doing so). Both the NAACP and Amnesty International claimed her as a member, and she was making noise all the way up to her death in 1992 at the age of 90. Somehow she got a lot of writing done, too, including poetry (such as This is Not a Letter and Other Poems), short fiction (including Nothing Ever Breaks Except the Heart), novels (Plagued by the Nightingale being representative), and nonfiction (Being Geniuses Together among them).
Friday, July 01, 2005
"Witchcraft" by Arthur Machen
The old woman may be odd but innocent... and then again maybe she's not. Mist from the moors pervades this small story of magic most black--or at least a convincing shade of gray. Read by Gerrit Lansing.
If Arthur Machen were alive today, he might be considered "transgressive," even censorable for his boldly sexual themes and unhealthy interest in paganism. In the post-Wildean world of fin-de-siecle England, he was considered dangerously decadent--and was therefore enormously popular, so much so that even today The Friends of Arthur Machen society is a going concern. "The Great God Pan," a tale of a woman who flirts a bit too openly with the goat-heeled god and produces his diabolic offspring, is only one of Machen's most famous works dealing with the occult and the lurid. (Aubrey Beardsley illustrated “Pan,” by the way.) An original member of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn (most famous for spawning Aleister Crowley), Machen probably knew what he was talking about. One might even say that H. P. Lovecroft--don't worry, we'll get to him!--could not have existed if Machen hadn't come along first. Nor could have cult movie The Wicker Man. Why wait til Hallowe'en? On the next dark and stormy night we're going to settle down with Machen's novella “The White People” or novel The Hill of Dreams. And so should you!
Gerrit Lansing wins the Preakness of the "Stories to Go" derby, since this is his third contribution to our humble pages. Although he's primarily a poet of some decades' standing, Mr. Lansing enjoys arcane literature of all sorts and in fact once owned and operated Abraxas Books, a shop in Gloucester, Massachusetts that specialized in "magickal" texts of many sorts. As you read this he is probably working on poems both new and undergoing revision, possibly for a new edition of his renowned collection, Heavenly Tree/Soluble Forest.
If Arthur Machen were alive today, he might be considered "transgressive," even censorable for his boldly sexual themes and unhealthy interest in paganism. In the post-Wildean world of fin-de-siecle England, he was considered dangerously decadent--and was therefore enormously popular, so much so that even today The Friends of Arthur Machen society is a going concern. "The Great God Pan," a tale of a woman who flirts a bit too openly with the goat-heeled god and produces his diabolic offspring, is only one of Machen's most famous works dealing with the occult and the lurid. (Aubrey Beardsley illustrated “Pan,” by the way.) An original member of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn (most famous for spawning Aleister Crowley), Machen probably knew what he was talking about. One might even say that H. P. Lovecroft--don't worry, we'll get to him!--could not have existed if Machen hadn't come along first. Nor could have cult movie The Wicker Man. Why wait til Hallowe'en? On the next dark and stormy night we're going to settle down with Machen's novella “The White People” or novel The Hill of Dreams. And so should you!
Gerrit Lansing wins the Preakness of the "Stories to Go" derby, since this is his third contribution to our humble pages. Although he's primarily a poet of some decades' standing, Mr. Lansing enjoys arcane literature of all sorts and in fact once owned and operated Abraxas Books, a shop in Gloucester, Massachusetts that specialized in "magickal" texts of many sorts. As you read this he is probably working on poems both new and undergoing revision, possibly for a new edition of his renowned collection, Heavenly Tree/Soluble Forest.
Wednesday, June 29, 2005
"A Change of Owners" by Sacheverell Sitwell
Psychologically complex and deeply moving, this story of obsessive maternal love and the desire to escape such smothering may come as a surprise to those who thought they knew what the Sitwells were all about (such as us). Here we have a portrait of suburban English life from the early twentieth century that takes quite a turn from the light, drawing-room fare the narrative is first disguised as, before the mask is dropped. Read by Scoot.
Those marvelous literary beasts, the Sitwells, first terrorized the salons of greater London in the 1920s and flourished all the way to 1988, when the youngest and tamest of the menagerie, Sacheverell, finally succumbed to the ignobility of old age and death. While he is probably the least-known and least-read of the Triplets of Renishaw (the family estate), we find him to be a better prose-writer than his phantasmagoric sister, Edith. (She was the better poet. Osbert was somewhat the bore, wasn't he?) "Sachy" invented a new varient of an old form, the literary essay, instilling it with such poetry and erudition many of his descriptions of all kinds of subjects, both ancient and arcane, might cause one to feel a bit lightheaded. He was an expert in architecture, painting, dance, music, fashion, literature, gardening, travel, history... his knowledge seemed to know no bounds. We suggest you find one of his long out-of-print books under a mouldering pile of Horizons somewhere and get lost in Sacheverell Sitwell's illustrations of the bullfights in Seville or the gothic cathedrals of Saxony or the battles on the steppes during the last world war or Beau Brummel's influence on the Regency or South Seas conch-collectors or...
Those marvelous literary beasts, the Sitwells, first terrorized the salons of greater London in the 1920s and flourished all the way to 1988, when the youngest and tamest of the menagerie, Sacheverell, finally succumbed to the ignobility of old age and death. While he is probably the least-known and least-read of the Triplets of Renishaw (the family estate), we find him to be a better prose-writer than his phantasmagoric sister, Edith. (She was the better poet. Osbert was somewhat the bore, wasn't he?) "Sachy" invented a new varient of an old form, the literary essay, instilling it with such poetry and erudition many of his descriptions of all kinds of subjects, both ancient and arcane, might cause one to feel a bit lightheaded. He was an expert in architecture, painting, dance, music, fashion, literature, gardening, travel, history... his knowledge seemed to know no bounds. We suggest you find one of his long out-of-print books under a mouldering pile of Horizons somewhere and get lost in Sacheverell Sitwell's illustrations of the bullfights in Seville or the gothic cathedrals of Saxony or the battles on the steppes during the last world war or Beau Brummel's influence on the Regency or South Seas conch-collectors or...
Monday, June 27, 2005
"A Good Man is Hard to Find" by Flannery O'Connor
Due to time constraints and the random "let's read the shortest thing in the nearest available book" nature of this website, it is not often that we get to present one of our absolute favorite short stories, but here is one today. This is a narrative, about a family of ugly Americans who meet Death in the form of an outlaw named The Misfit, which seems both years ahead of its time both in its violence and social critique, and as ancient as a medieval allegory of the Devil and divine redemption. Actually, it's a heck of a lot more fun than that sounds. Read by Elizabeth Leavell.
When she was a little girl, Mary (Flannery) O'Connor owned a chicken that could walk backwards; her pet got written up in the local papers and life was "all downhill from there," as she put it much later. Towards the end of her days, she raised peacocks (a few of which survived until the 1980s, when the last of them was eaten by foxes) and other exotic birds, as well as ducks, geese, and chickens. These are not the most important facts about her too-short life, but they do give some of the flavor of her self-aware eccentricity and comic take on the serious matters of life. She described herself as a "pigeon-toed only child with a receding chin and a you-leave-me-alone-or-I'll-bite-you complex," but of course she was one of the greatest American writers of the 20th century--normally we'd hesitate to put "American" there, but she is so homespun-American in accent and style, it seems appropriate. See our previous offering from O'Connor, "A Late Encounter with the Enemy" for furthur inconsequential details.
Not unlike her fellow Georgian, Elizabeth Farley Leavell has a love for birds and the quirky nature of mankind. She deals with its quirks every day as a teacher and writer and lives on a very old farm in rural New England, where she battles the mosquitos between long walks among the sand dunes of the nearby beach. People say she can tame a bucking bronco, hunt squirrels with her hound dog, plant rare orchids, and discover another great unknown folk artist, all before a hearty vegetarian breakfast. She also loves to read.
When she was a little girl, Mary (Flannery) O'Connor owned a chicken that could walk backwards; her pet got written up in the local papers and life was "all downhill from there," as she put it much later. Towards the end of her days, she raised peacocks (a few of which survived until the 1980s, when the last of them was eaten by foxes) and other exotic birds, as well as ducks, geese, and chickens. These are not the most important facts about her too-short life, but they do give some of the flavor of her self-aware eccentricity and comic take on the serious matters of life. She described herself as a "pigeon-toed only child with a receding chin and a you-leave-me-alone-or-I'll-bite-you complex," but of course she was one of the greatest American writers of the 20th century--normally we'd hesitate to put "American" there, but she is so homespun-American in accent and style, it seems appropriate. See our previous offering from O'Connor, "A Late Encounter with the Enemy" for furthur inconsequential details.
Not unlike her fellow Georgian, Elizabeth Farley Leavell has a love for birds and the quirky nature of mankind. She deals with its quirks every day as a teacher and writer and lives on a very old farm in rural New England, where she battles the mosquitos between long walks among the sand dunes of the nearby beach. People say she can tame a bucking bronco, hunt squirrels with her hound dog, plant rare orchids, and discover another great unknown folk artist, all before a hearty vegetarian breakfast. She also loves to read.
Saturday, June 25, 2005
"Webbing" by Ian Frazier
A typically bland New Yorker-style story is invaded by quite another type of story in this comic skit. The all-American backyard suburban barbecue may never be the same again. Read by Scoot.
From Hudson, Ohio to Manhattan to Montana, Ian Frazier has found ripe material for his own style of humor, which has more than a dash of Jarryesque absurdity to it, wherever he goes. Naturally, he publishes frequently in The New Yorker, but he could sometimes just as well be publishing in the avant-garde Parisian reviews of 1900 or in punk fanzines of the 1980s or in the hyper-hypertextual world of 2010. If he invents an effective time machine, he might be doing all just that soon. Or already has. No doubt you'll see his books everywhere you go now you've read this.
From Hudson, Ohio to Manhattan to Montana, Ian Frazier has found ripe material for his own style of humor, which has more than a dash of Jarryesque absurdity to it, wherever he goes. Naturally, he publishes frequently in The New Yorker, but he could sometimes just as well be publishing in the avant-garde Parisian reviews of 1900 or in punk fanzines of the 1980s or in the hyper-hypertextual world of 2010. If he invents an effective time machine, he might be doing all just that soon. Or already has. No doubt you'll see his books everywhere you go now you've read this.
Thursday, June 23, 2005
"Jeeves Exerts the Old Cerebellum" by P. G. Wodehouse
Mauve shirts. The Sporting Times. A place called Pounceby Gardens. Another place, a tea-and-bun shop near the Ritz. Valets, horse-racing, and and an attack of the gout. Obviously, we're in Bertie and Jeeves territory. How utterly British of us. Right-o, old chap, carry on. Read by Timothy Wagner.
Even today Sir Pelham Grenville Wodehouse epitomizes certain conceptions of upper-class England in the 1920s, though he continued building his reputation for several decades after that. The well-known humorist also wrote several other "story cycles" and innumerable novels, plays, lyrics, and "stand-alone" short stories. We like what the "P. G. Wodehouse Appreciation Page" has to say about the great satirist: "Throughout his stories, Wodehouse presents a view of the world which differs from -- his fans would say, improves upon -- the focus most people have. For a variety of reasons, pigs, newts, and statues of the Infant Samuel at Prayer play significant roles in the Wodehousian view, while such things as death, taxes, and work are crowded towards the O. P. wings."
Timothy Wagner is an actor, artist, and academician who will soon be teaching in Sachsen-Anhalt, Germany. Perhaps not unlike Bertie Wooster, he is a great enthusiast of the theater, a discerning balletomane, and an ardent bibliophile who also follows the opera world and the torrid, tragic lives of divas both young and dead. Alas, he is merely American, a native of Maryland--but we'll forgive him that. After all, none of us is British here!
Even today Sir Pelham Grenville Wodehouse epitomizes certain conceptions of upper-class England in the 1920s, though he continued building his reputation for several decades after that. The well-known humorist also wrote several other "story cycles" and innumerable novels, plays, lyrics, and "stand-alone" short stories. We like what the "P. G. Wodehouse Appreciation Page" has to say about the great satirist: "Throughout his stories, Wodehouse presents a view of the world which differs from -- his fans would say, improves upon -- the focus most people have. For a variety of reasons, pigs, newts, and statues of the Infant Samuel at Prayer play significant roles in the Wodehousian view, while such things as death, taxes, and work are crowded towards the O. P. wings."
Timothy Wagner is an actor, artist, and academician who will soon be teaching in Sachsen-Anhalt, Germany. Perhaps not unlike Bertie Wooster, he is a great enthusiast of the theater, a discerning balletomane, and an ardent bibliophile who also follows the opera world and the torrid, tragic lives of divas both young and dead. Alas, he is merely American, a native of Maryland--but we'll forgive him that. After all, none of us is British here!
Tuesday, June 21, 2005
"The Passion Considered as an Uphill Bicycle Race" by Alfred Jarry
Be prepared for some delightful blasphemy this solstice day, although one could also say that this wildly imaginative retelling of the Christian "passion" may be far from Mel Gibson's, but oddly respectful, all the same. Only Alfred Jarry could have combined his lust for bicycling with the "Greatest Story Ever Told" -- the greatest, that is, perhaps, until this one! Read by Scoot.
Some interesting facts about Alfred Jarry: The second run of his iconoclastic play, Ubu Roi, was done with marionettes. He loved wearing gaucho pants and a paper shirt with a painted tie. He lived between two floors of his apartment house (if you've seen Being John Malkovich, a movie that had to have been inspired in part by Jarry's brand of absurdity, you'll know what we mean). He indulged in absinthe, opium, and shooting pistols at random in the busy streets of Paris. He once painted himself completely green. He founded the science of 'Pataphysics, without which Zippy the Pinhead would be lost. All before he died at 34 in 1907. Oh, yes, and he was also a writer whose fierce satirism and bewildering rule-breaking have yet to be rivalled.
Some interesting facts about Alfred Jarry: The second run of his iconoclastic play, Ubu Roi, was done with marionettes. He loved wearing gaucho pants and a paper shirt with a painted tie. He lived between two floors of his apartment house (if you've seen Being John Malkovich, a movie that had to have been inspired in part by Jarry's brand of absurdity, you'll know what we mean). He indulged in absinthe, opium, and shooting pistols at random in the busy streets of Paris. He once painted himself completely green. He founded the science of 'Pataphysics, without which Zippy the Pinhead would be lost. All before he died at 34 in 1907. Oh, yes, and he was also a writer whose fierce satirism and bewildering rule-breaking have yet to be rivalled.
Sunday, June 19, 2005
"Poldi" by Carson McCullers
Everything one could hope for in a story by Carson McCullers--sensitive characters in sensitive circumstances, set against a backdrop of classical music. Poldi, a budding cellist, captures the hopeless young heart of impressionable Hans. Read by Jonathan Strong.
"She dignified the individual, especially life's losers." So said the New York Times about the writer from Columbus, Georgia whose characters, such as Frankie in The Member of the Wedding or Mick Kelly from The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, are self-appointed "losers" adrift in a world they are perhaps too sensitive to forgive. Like Flannery O'Conner (whose works are in some ways similar) she died young--but we won't say Carson McCullers died totally unfulfilled, for she left behind beautiful novels and heartrending short stories that live on through the world's readers.
Jonathan Strong, the author of nearly a dozen novels (most recently published being A Circle Around Her), lives surrounded by eight thousand classical lp records. He is currently working on a novel about an opera singer at the end of her career, tentatively titled Obscurity. Look up his books at your local bookstore, on the dreaded Amazon, or elsewhere!
"She dignified the individual, especially life's losers." So said the New York Times about the writer from Columbus, Georgia whose characters, such as Frankie in The Member of the Wedding or Mick Kelly from The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, are self-appointed "losers" adrift in a world they are perhaps too sensitive to forgive. Like Flannery O'Conner (whose works are in some ways similar) she died young--but we won't say Carson McCullers died totally unfulfilled, for she left behind beautiful novels and heartrending short stories that live on through the world's readers.
Jonathan Strong, the author of nearly a dozen novels (most recently published being A Circle Around Her), lives surrounded by eight thousand classical lp records. He is currently working on a novel about an opera singer at the end of her career, tentatively titled Obscurity. Look up his books at your local bookstore, on the dreaded Amazon, or elsewhere!
Saturday, June 18, 2005
"The Shape of Things" by Truman Capote
A sad, quiet story about the not-so-great side of the so-called "Greatest Generation" of World War II. Strangers on a train. An American South much more gritty than "gothic." A study in style--and substance. Read by Scoot.
Truman Capote--surely you know Truman! From the day he had stories accepted by three magazines at once to the day he died in 1984, he was just as much of a character, eventually beloved by talk-show hosts and discriminating readers alike, as any of the many eccentrics he wrote about. We will not mention the famous lisp or the famous fedoras. Or even all that bad press he got from his friends in the Hamptons and Studio 54. We will state that the new collected stories is a must-have and will prove once and for all that despite all the smoke-screens he was one damned fine writer. (Though we'll never figure out Beat the Devil.)
Truman Capote--surely you know Truman! From the day he had stories accepted by three magazines at once to the day he died in 1984, he was just as much of a character, eventually beloved by talk-show hosts and discriminating readers alike, as any of the many eccentrics he wrote about. We will not mention the famous lisp or the famous fedoras. Or even all that bad press he got from his friends in the Hamptons and Studio 54. We will state that the new collected stories is a must-have and will prove once and for all that despite all the smoke-screens he was one damned fine writer. (Though we'll never figure out Beat the Devil.)
Wednesday, June 15, 2005
"How the World was Saved" by Stanislaw Lem
Never, never, never need nature negate nor nullify negligible, nonexistent "n" nouns now! If you have no idea what that alliteration alludes to, perhaps you best listen to this tale of a robot simply trying to do exactly what its master wants it to do. Read by Scoot.
Stanislaw Lem is one of the most amazing writers you'll ever read, so you might as well start now, perhaps with his robotic story cycle, The Cyberiad. (It's very funny and very smart.) Solaris, though the most well-known of his novels, is hardly the best of his work--work which is sometimes a sort of meta-meta-metafiction that simply must be read to be believed. One simply can't think the same after reading such things! Now, never, never, never call him "merely" a science-fiction writer, though he is a scientist, philosopher, and one of the greatest writers, if not the greatest, to have come from his native Poland.
Stanislaw Lem is one of the most amazing writers you'll ever read, so you might as well start now, perhaps with his robotic story cycle, The Cyberiad. (It's very funny and very smart.) Solaris, though the most well-known of his novels, is hardly the best of his work--work which is sometimes a sort of meta-meta-metafiction that simply must be read to be believed. One simply can't think the same after reading such things! Now, never, never, never call him "merely" a science-fiction writer, though he is a scientist, philosopher, and one of the greatest writers, if not the greatest, to have come from his native Poland.
Sunday, June 12, 2005
"Tobermory" by Saki
If cats could talk, would you really want to know what they're thinking? (No jokes about getting catty, please.) Read by Gerrit Lansing.
Whether known as H. H. Munro or Saki, this English yarn-spinner has kept generations entertained with his pithy, crafty, even cruel tales. Although many people think he took his name from The Rubáiyát, others say it is after a species of unpredictable South American monkey. By any name, the unpredictable, Burmese-born, English-raised writer (whose mother was killed by a rogue cow) specialized in the kind of stories readers of all ages loved to encounter in newspapers, magazines, and bound volumes as he traversed from one end of Europe to the other. His famous last words, uttered in a foxhole in 1916, were, "Put that damn cigarette out!" Before anyone was able to complain of his using a preposition at the end of a sentence, he was dead.
Cat-fancier Gerrit Lansing is another writer you simply must meet through his poetry, if you're not already one of the many, many people fortunate enough to already know him in person. He lives in a somewhat Gothic (well, maybe not exactly Gothic) manse (well, maybe not exactly a mansion) overlooking the sea.
Whether known as H. H. Munro or Saki, this English yarn-spinner has kept generations entertained with his pithy, crafty, even cruel tales. Although many people think he took his name from The Rubáiyát, others say it is after a species of unpredictable South American monkey. By any name, the unpredictable, Burmese-born, English-raised writer (whose mother was killed by a rogue cow) specialized in the kind of stories readers of all ages loved to encounter in newspapers, magazines, and bound volumes as he traversed from one end of Europe to the other. His famous last words, uttered in a foxhole in 1916, were, "Put that damn cigarette out!" Before anyone was able to complain of his using a preposition at the end of a sentence, he was dead.
Cat-fancier Gerrit Lansing is another writer you simply must meet through his poetry, if you're not already one of the many, many people fortunate enough to already know him in person. He lives in a somewhat Gothic (well, maybe not exactly Gothic) manse (well, maybe not exactly a mansion) overlooking the sea.
Saturday, June 11, 2005
"Rose Coloured Teacups" by A. S. Byatt
A tale of three generations of women, a sewing machine, and the ghosts that hover at the edge of memory. Memory, nostalgia, and the impossible past collide in this pithy study of time and transition. Read by Scoot.
Just google "A. S. Byatt" and be amazed by how much you find out about her and her many works. Or go to her own home page at www.asbyatt.com. Or read the jacket copy to books such as Babel Tower or Degrees of Freedom or Angels and Insects. Or see the movie based on her book Possession (no comment on its quality!). Or just sit down and read The Matisse Stories or the novel Still Life and discover the writer at her source.
Just google "A. S. Byatt" and be amazed by how much you find out about her and her many works. Or go to her own home page at www.asbyatt.com. Or read the jacket copy to books such as Babel Tower or Degrees of Freedom or Angels and Insects. Or see the movie based on her book Possession (no comment on its quality!). Or just sit down and read The Matisse Stories or the novel Still Life and discover the writer at her source.
Monday, May 30, 2005
"Hartford After Work" by Jack Kerouac
Perhaps we're stretching things a bit to call this picturesque travelogue of urban life a "short story," but it does have all the acuity of time and place Kerouac's always semi-factual fiction has, so who's to quibble? We see grubby, gritty mid-20th century Hartford through the eyes of a visionary writer and someone who felt as one with and yet separate from those teeming mobs on the city's streets. Read by Neil Miller.
On The Road is of course where everyone starts in a discussion about Jack Kerouac, but in fact he'd been writing and publishing for some time before that novel eventually made him famous enough to drive him crazy. His first couple of novels, unpublished and published, were much more conventional than the speeding, careening joyride of his most popular works, and yet they carried a full load of "promise." In his fairly short life the Lowell, Massachusetts native of French-Canadian extraction produced such a volume and variety of work one can soon see why "beatnik" is the most limiting apellation one could give him, rest his soul.
We last heard journalist and teacher Neil Miller giving voice to Hemingway's clean, well-lit cafe; even as you listen to this, Neil is deep within a southwestern cavern, doing research on his latest book. If he comes out alive, you may find that book on shelves near you some time in the next year or two. In the meantime, his upcoming revision of his history survey, Out of the Past, should tide us all over.
On The Road is of course where everyone starts in a discussion about Jack Kerouac, but in fact he'd been writing and publishing for some time before that novel eventually made him famous enough to drive him crazy. His first couple of novels, unpublished and published, were much more conventional than the speeding, careening joyride of his most popular works, and yet they carried a full load of "promise." In his fairly short life the Lowell, Massachusetts native of French-Canadian extraction produced such a volume and variety of work one can soon see why "beatnik" is the most limiting apellation one could give him, rest his soul.
We last heard journalist and teacher Neil Miller giving voice to Hemingway's clean, well-lit cafe; even as you listen to this, Neil is deep within a southwestern cavern, doing research on his latest book. If he comes out alive, you may find that book on shelves near you some time in the next year or two. In the meantime, his upcoming revision of his history survey, Out of the Past, should tide us all over.
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