The Riddle Master’s Game, Patricia McKillip’s trilogy consisting of The Riddle Master of Hed, Heir of Sea and Fire, and Harpist in the Wind is a negleThe Riddle Master’s Game, Patricia McKillip’s trilogy consisting of The Riddle Master of Hed, Heir of Sea and Fire, and Harpist in the Wind is a neglected masterpiece of the heroic fantasy genre, containing brilliant attributes that set it apart as a first-rate fantasy epic. Its world building is superb, featuring a land with deep and detailed history, much lost in time’s mist, slowly unfolding its mysteries as the tale progresses. Its characters are complex and compelling, and includes strong, well drawn female characters (a rarity in the fantasy genre in the 1970s). Its magic is distinctive, relying heavily on illusion and charm, shape changing into beasts, and the ritualized solving of the land’s mysteries. And it makes bold storytelling choices that adds to its unique charm.
On its surface this trilogy follows the tropes established by Tolkien. There’s a reluctant, unlikely hero, a menace creeping across the land, and a quest at the end of an Age - yet it doesn’t feel in the least derivative. Much of its unique feel, I suspect, was inspired by a reliance on Welsh mythology. While there are no direct parallels between it and the tales in the Welsh Mabinogion, both convey the same feeling, of a world where the miraculous and the mundane exist side by side as a matter of accepted course, where music, knowledge, and craftsmanship are the conduits of magic, and where the lords of the land are tied to it in both mystical and physical ways. Both for these reasons, and because of her lyrical, dream like style, McKillip's Riddle Master’s Game is probably closer to Evangeline Walton's Mabinogion Tetralogy than any other works in the fantasy genre.
The Riddle Master’s Game is truly one of the great epics of the fantasy genre. It is a mystery that I cannot riddle out just why this outstanding work remains so obscure. If you haven’t yet read it, I envy the discovery that lies before you....more
The cover captured me. I was 12 or 13 when I came across Sir MacHinery in a used bookstore, and I was intrigued by the eclectic team of characters on The cover captured me. I was 12 or 13 when I came across Sir MacHinery in a used bookstore, and I was intrigued by the eclectic team of characters on that cover. A couple of kilted Scotsmen, one in a constable’s hat and the other toting a machine gun flanked the group, with witch, wizard, and some guy who looked like Gabe Kaplan from Welcome Back Kotter in the middle, being led by a small robot, a brownie, and a cat! Man, I had to read it!
Yeah, it wasn’t exactly Tolkien, but it was simple, fast moving YA fantasy. The Gabe Kaplan dude was an American scientist, Simon Smith, who had come to a remote Scottish castle to finish making his cutting edge robot. (Said castle had no electricity! I missed that plot fail as a kid.) No sooner does he finish his robot than a couple of brownies, mistaking it for a small knight, recruit it to fight an ancient evil. Somehow Merlin pops in, and team science plus magic is off to save the world!
No one will ever add this book to any 100 Best Fantasies list, but as a middle schooler I loved it. It had great atmosphere, a simple plot, and that fascinatingly incongruous crowd of characters. I mean, robots and Merlin, and Scotsmen, oh my! It still makes me smile. ...more
This is my first reread of The Time Machine since my mid teens, over four decades ago. Back then, I was just beginning to explore science fiction, andThis is my first reread of The Time Machine since my mid teens, over four decades ago. Back then, I was just beginning to explore science fiction, and responded to it simply as a pretty cool SciFi tale. Rereading it now, I’m able to appreciate it on so many more levels. Wells was doing a lot with this short book, and he did it elegantly.
Not only is The Time Machine among the earliest examples of science fiction literature, but it is the granddaddy of all modern time travel tales. Wells made the mold, right down to the devise of the use of a machine to travel in time, which has become ubiquitous. This by itself makes the work significant.
Yet The Time Machine is much more. It is a powerful political parable of the consequences of the stark economic inequities between the capital class and the working class. The Eloi and the Morlocks of Wells’s far future represent the grim endgame of the propertied class’s callous disregard for the well-being of the working class that Wells observed in Victorian Britain. His socialist conscience was on full display in this short novel, so much so that it can almost be considered a work of political philosophy as much as an Ur-SciFi novel.
Wells constructed his tale with such skill that, despite its heavy moral, it never comes across preachy or didactic. Its framing story puts us at a bourgeois, Victorian dinner party, where several men, identified only by their occupations, are discussing new scientific theory. It is here that the time traveler introduces first his theory, and then his model of a time machine. The following week, at another dinner party, the time traveler enters gaunt and disheveled, claiming to have just returned from travel in time. He regales the incredulous table with the fantastic tale of his journey, little caring that his companions obviously do not believe him. Every detail of this framing story, and story told within it works elegantly, down to the detail of leaving all the men, including the time traveler, anonymous, thus focusing all on the story being told. It is not by accident that this early science fiction tale from the Victorian Age has become a classic, and is still read on its own merit today.
Bret Harte was once one of America’s most famous and respected writers. Today, he is remembered chiefly for just two of his stories — The Luck of RoarBret Harte was once one of America’s most famous and respected writers. Today, he is remembered chiefly for just two of his stories — The Luck of Roaring Camp and The Outcasts of Poker Flat — tales of California’s wild gold camps and their denizens. He fell from grace in the literary world because his stories were seen as sentimental and romantic, out of fashion by the end of the 19th century.
Harte’s writing was never quite that simple, though, a fact that is evident in these two stories that are still read. True, his plots were sentimental, his characters romantic (he created tropes used for a century — shifty prospector, cool, gentlemanly gambler, hooker with a heart of gold), and his dialect, according to Mark Twain, never existed outside Harte’s imagination. But when you read these two, skillfully written tales, you see that much of Harte’s technique subverts the surface romanticism.
Harte used an ironic, detached narration that served to keep the reader at arm’s length from his characters. It also allowed him to inject subtle cynicism and ironic humor that subverted the easily visible romanticism of the surface plot.
In The Luck of Roaring Camp, Harte tells the story of an orphaned infant adopted by the rough men of the camp, and how this softened and refined them, brought to the surface the better natures of these hard men. Yet when you look closely, you see first that the men of the camp still rejected both traditional, religious morality and the rigid family values of the times. They voted to keep women out of the camp, relying on a nursing she-ass as the babe’s mother rather than risking their male fraternity, and there is no inkling of any spiritual repentance. If you pay attention, you will notice broad clues (including the name they gave the orphaned babe — Thomas Luck) that their primary interest in the child was as a lucky talisman to be closely guarded against outsiders — a good luck charm that changed the fortunes of the camp. The seeming romanticism of the story is clearly trumped by its cynicism.
The Outcasts of Poker Flat is less humorous, and its cynicism more clearly visible than its companion story. Though it initiated two of the most enduring tropes of American Western mythos — gentleman gambler hero and hooker with a heart of gold — it lead from the start with cynicism about traditional morality. The vigilance committee that drove the pathetic group of immoral outcast from their midst is clearly shown to be acting out of self interest and undeserved self righteousness. The gambler, John Oakhurst, has won a great deal of their money. The two prostitutes could not have plied their trade without the participation of the good men of Poker Flat.
But Harte went well beyond his surface cynicism in this story. He subverted the very tropes that he created. He revealed in his tragic ending not so much that a fallen woman can have good in her, but that the people judging her are wholly unable to adequately access their own standards of judgment. (The innocent young girl Piney, found with the prostitute Duchess, was strongly implied to be pregnant out of wedlock.) And John Oakhurst, the gambler hero, cool and collected, is revealed to be dependent on the energy of others, staying with the weaker outcasts not so much out of altruism, but from his own need:
”The thought of deserting the weaker and more pitiable companions never, perhaps, occurred to him, yet he could not help feeling the want of that excitement that singularity enough, was most conducive to that calm equanimity for which he was notorious.”
With his last line of the story, Harte called Oakhurst “the strongest, and yet the weakest of the outcasts of Poker Flat.” Here he subverted his trope in plain sight.
These skillfully crafted tales capture hearts with their sentimental romanticism, while engaging minds with their complex, subversive cynicism. Perhaps that’s why they endure among the quintessentially great American stories. ...more
**spoiler alert** ”But there’s a jug on the table and a case in hand, and I never left a jug or a case half finished in my life.”
The Devil and Daniel **spoiler alert** ”But there’s a jug on the table and a case in hand, and I never left a jug or a case half finished in my life.”
The Devil and Daniel Webster tells a tale in the folk tradition of clever men challenging the devil in contest. Here, the historical figure of Senator Daniel Webster is portrayed as a bigger than life, nails-tough New England folk hero, a canny lawyer with a preternatural talent for oratory. He takes on the devil in a courtroom challenge to save the soul of his neighbor, a hard luck farmer who made a deal with the devil and requested the great man’s help to break his contract.
The story is both humorous and patriotic, though, unlike some patriotic tales, it acknowledges national faults. The devil claims American citizenship, saying:
”When the first wrong was done to the first Indian, I was there. When the first slaver put out for the Congo, I stood on her deck…Tis true the North claims me for a Southerner, and the South claims me for a Northerner, but I am neither. I am merely an honest American like yourself.”
The devil conjures up a court of the damned — twelve men and a judge from among the most infamous figures of American history — Simon Girty and Walter Butler (notorious loyalists during the Revolution) Teech the bloody pirate, King Philip, Indian chief from the original Indian war, etc. And as judge, Justice Hawthorne, the unrepentant hanging judge from the Salem witch trials. Yet all, as Webster demanded, Americans.
Against this judge and jury, Webster was unable to prevail on the facts of the case, so resorted to his oratory to move the jury, waxing eloquent on the meaning of being an independent man:
”There was sadness in being a man, but it was a proud thing, too, and he showed what the pride of it was till you couldn’t help feeling it. Yes, even in hell, if a man was a man you’d know it. And he wasn’t pleading for any one person anymore, though his voice rang like an organ. He was telling the story and the failures, and the endless journey of mankind.”
And, of course, as this is an outsmart the devil tale, Webster moved the hearts even of the damned of the jury. Walter Butler speaks for them saying:
”Perhaps tis not strictly in accordance with the evidence, but even the damned may salute the eloquence of Mr. Webster.”
This short tale is a classic of its type, and in addition to the tropes already mentioned, piles on a lot of New Hampshire Yankee flavor. I rate it 3 1/2 stars, rounded up for both its fame and the sentiment that I hold for it from my youth....more
It All Depends was one of the books on my older brother’s book shelf that fascinated me as a little kid. It’s mod cover (this book was published in 19It All Depends was one of the books on my older brother’s book shelf that fascinated me as a little kid. It’s mod cover (this book was published in 1969) and the many cartoons in the same style throughout the text drew me to it even though the material was over my head at the time.
This book was aimed at Christian teens, with explanations and answers about the “New Morality.” Its emphasis is on explaining Evangelical purity ethics to teens facing temptation from the sexual freedom of the ‘60s, but it was also the very first place I encountered the term “situational ethics,” so it did go a bit beyond its central focus on sexual morality.
The book tried hard to be hip in its presentation, both in it’s language and it’s many cartoon examples. It certainly made an impression on my preteen brain. So much so that more than 50 years later and a lifetime spent as a heathen atheist it still pops into my mind occasionally, probably at least in part because it was the first place I encountered the subject of S. E. X. Three stars just because it was memorable for me....more
**spoiler alert** ”Life is for the strong, to be lived by the strong, and, if needs be, taken by the strong.”
First read this heart pumping adventure t**spoiler alert** ”Life is for the strong, to be lived by the strong, and, if needs be, taken by the strong.”
First read this heart pumping adventure tale nearly 50 years ago as a middle schooler. It’s a story that sticks with you. At the time I’m pretty sure my sympathies were likely with big game hunter Sanger Rainsford, if for no other reason than, as the prey, he was the underdog of the story.
Turns out, being the underdog is the only thing Rainsford has to recommend him. He’s arrogant, and lacks the imagination to see that his game might feel anything, even fear: ”Bah! They’ve no understanding!” “Even so, I rather think they understand one thing — fear — the fear of pain and the fear of death.” “Nonsense!” laughed Rainsford. On top of that, he is sorta stupid. When he hears gunshots coming from out in the fog, he stands on the yacht rail to try to hear better, and falls overboard when he drops his pipe. Sure he’s resourceful once General Zaroff makes him his prey, but perhaps only marginally better than the lesser men that the General hunted. Rainsford, after all, didn’t win the game, Zaroff lost it through his own hubris. (Zaroff actually tracked Rainsford down that very first night, but decided to extend the game by not finishing him then.)
General Zaroff is a far more interesting character. A suave, refined Russian aristocrat living in gothic splendor on an isolated tropical isle with his pack of hounds and giant, deaf-mute Cossack manservant, his manners, his table, and his wine are all impeccable. Sure, he’s a psychopath and absolutely obsessed with hunting his human prey, but he’s far more engaging and honest than the strong but dull Rainsford.
In the end, even Rainsford’s moral high ground of valuing human life is proven a hypocrisy, as he ends up doing to Zaroff exactly what he accused the General of doing to others. Only being put into Rainsford’s perspective and our natural inclination to favor the underdog will have you pulling for the dull Rainsford over the fascinating Zaroff....more
It was a while ago, in the days when they used to tell stories about creatures called the Selkie Folk.
Robbie Henderson, the protagonist of this excitiIt was a while ago, in the days when they used to tell stories about creatures called the Selkie Folk.
Robbie Henderson, the protagonist of this exciting YA novel is 12 years old — the same age I was when I first read A Stranger Came Ashore. The combination of uncanny foreboding, unfamiliar folklore, and adventure entranced me then, and it’s memory has stuck with me all these years. I passed the book on to my son when he was around 12, and he loved it. And here I am, old enough to be Robbie’s Old Da, reading it again and finding it is still an excellent tale.
Mollie Hunter weaved an enthralling tale of a mysterious stranger who came ashore one of the Shetland Islands during a storm that foundered a ship. Robbie’s family and the rest of the islanders assumed him the sole survivor of the wreck, but Robbie and his wise Old Da suspect that he is more than what he seems, and fear that he may be a serious danger.
Hunter here combined the folklore of the Shetlands and Scotland, with a focus on the Selkie Folk (a sort of wereseal) with a surprisingly detailed description of Shetland life and customs. She folded this all into her exciting tale of young Robbie’s quest to save his sister from the fate the uncanny stranger would bring her. With the knowledge given him by his Old Da, and the help of a sinister school master, Robbie must challenge the power of the Great Selkie himself. The tale comes to its thrilling climax on the celebration of Up Helly Aa, backlit by the eerie Northern Lights — the Merry Dancers. ...more
”It seemed to him wholly unsatisfactory, and yet very lovely — the only really beautiful picture in the world.”
Leaf by Niggle is a short, melancholy a”It seemed to him wholly unsatisfactory, and yet very lovely — the only really beautiful picture in the world.”
Leaf by Niggle is a short, melancholy allegory. Both tone and subject are utterly unlike Tolkien’s more familiar, high fantasy works. It’s the story of a little man, Niggle, whose vision far exceeded his limited talent. His passion to work on his personal masterpiece was frustratingly, continually interrupted by his obligations. And when his time to make that unpleasant journey we all eventually have to make came, he was utterly unprepared for it, and his project was left incomplete. What follows is a bureaucratic purgatory, a time of refreshing redemption, and an appreciation of both the unrealized vision and the small but fine work left behind.
I originally discovered this story in my first burst of seeking out all things Tolkien after reading The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings in the late ‘70s. It was collected in The Tolkien Reader, a collection of Tolkien’s odds and ends — poems, short stories, essays, and nonsense songs. Leaf by Niggle impressed me far and above anything else in that collection, at least in part because it was so unlike his other work. It is poignant and melancholy, almost haunting, and shows more clearly than his other work his strong, Catholic influence....more
I’m trying to make my Goodreads lists as accurate a reflection of my lifetime reading as possible. Every once in a while something will remind me of aI’m trying to make my Goodreads lists as accurate a reflection of my lifetime reading as possible. Every once in a while something will remind me of a book that I read decades ago that I had totally forgotten about. This is one of those times.
I read Gore Vidal’s Caligula as a raging hormones teenager, in service to those raging hormones. It is a pornographic novel using historical reports of Caligula’s decadence and perversion to appeal to what we euphemistically call “prurient interests.” I don’t remember how I got ahold of this sordid little book, or how I hid it from my parents.
Despite the prominence of Gore Vidal’s name on its cover, he did not write it, and had (almost) nothing to do with it. Vidal had been working on creating a screenplay for Bob Guccione with the working title “Gore Vidal’s Caligula.” Vidal’s vision for the screenplay differed significantly from Guccione’s (who wanted to make a high production value porno), and consequently, Vidal removed his name from the project. What this book actually is is a novelization of Guccione’s movie, Caligula. Vidal didn’t write a word of it....more
I have reviewed the three volumes that comprise The Lord of the Rings — The Fellowship of the RingFirst Read 1978
Second Reading 1999
Third Reading 2023
I have reviewed the three volumes that comprise The Lord of the Rings — The Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers, and The Return of the King — each separately. This review of the work entire is to share my thoughts on where and how this work fits into our literary culture.
Tolkien’s cultural impact is undeniable. The Lord of the Rings became a touchstone to the Flower Power generation, when many a hippie scrawled the graffiti “Frodo Lives!” as a tribute to their obsession. In the 1970s, Tolkien’s work was behind the boom of heroic fantasy as a genre publishing phenomenon, as publishers rushed to find Tolkien clones to feed an insatiable market. Ralph Bakshi’s animated 1978 film, The Lord of the Rings, though it made a profit, disappointed fans, who had to wait for Peter Jackson’s trilogy of live action films a generation later before Hollywood elevated Tolkien’s work into a fully realized and lasting pop culture megalith.
What is often overlook about The Lord of the Rings, rather, is its literary impact. Tolkien was an officer in The Great War, and was clearly affected by that dramatic conflict. Yet he is rarely mentioned alongside the generation of writers who were shaped by that war and went on to shape 20th century literature. Hemingway, Cummings, Dos Passos, are all widely seen as being shaped by their experiences in the First World War, and their breaking away from the old romantic forms of literature is viewed as pivotal in shaping what literature would become in the 20th century. Tolkien’s war experience sent him on another path. He reinvented the romantic forms rather than abandoning them. The mythological epic that he created reimagined the old forms, keeping the romantic tradition alive and refreshed in a generation that had largely turned away from it in favor of Modernism. Though rarely acknowledged in academia, Tolkien rescued the romantic tradition and passed it on for the enjoyment of the children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren of the generation who abandoned it....more
This was my weekend to put up and trim the tree and festoon the house with Christmas cheer. Among the boxes of decorations was this beautiful, Dover PThis was my weekend to put up and trim the tree and festoon the house with Christmas cheer. Among the boxes of decorations was this beautiful, Dover Press facsimile of the original 1848 copy of this Christmas classic. It includes the original illustrations, a portrait of Clement Moore, and a short Life of Moore by Arthur N. Hosking. In its appendix it contains a facsimile of the original manuscript of the poem.
This poem, along with Dickens’ Christmas Carol, went a long way toward defining the shape of our modern holiday. It is known, beloved, recited, set to music, and despite being nearly two centuries old, is still a living piece of our Christmas tradition. This beautiful facsimile of the 1848 edition has become part of my own tradition, displayed every Christmas season with the rest of the holiday decor. ...more
The Tolkien Companion was part of a gift set I received as a kid. I had discovered and rabidly consumed The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings in paperbThe Tolkien Companion was part of a gift set I received as a kid. I had discovered and rabidly consumed The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings in paperback edition. My enthusiasm for them was such that my mother gifted me with a hard bound set of Tolkien which included The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, as well as The Silmarillion, Humphrey Carpenter’s authorized biography of Tolkien, and this book. They became the heart of my growing library, and over 40 years later they are still with me.
The Companion isn’t the sort of book you read cover to cover. It’s a Tolkien reference book, with alphabetical entries for all the unique people, places, and things in his massive universe. I randomly opened it to M and see: Mablung: A scout for Faramir’s Rangers of Ithilien during the War of the Ring. Maggot: See Farmer Maggot. And so on. Most readers of Tolkien know all the major players from The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, but this guide traces out every obscure name and place throughout all of Tolkien’s works then published.
The Tolkien Companion provides pleasant perusing. It also served me well over the years when I was searching for appropriate sounding names for characters or places in D&D campaigns. While I seldom take it down from its shelf anymore, noticing it there still brings a smile and a flood of happy memories. ...more
With The Mysterious Stranger Mark Twain created a twisted morality play. Angel Satan (nephew and namesake of the Falle“Dream other dreams and better!”
With The Mysterious Stranger Mark Twain created a twisted morality play. Angel Satan (nephew and namesake of the Fallen One) befriends three boys in a 16th century Austrian village, Eseldorf (German for Donkeytown). In this backwards and superstitious village, he proceeds to school the boys on the ridiculousness of religion, the meanness of human life, the principles of determinism, and above all, the valuelessness of “the moral sense.” He creates a pageant of wonders, miraculously proving his points again and again, despite the boys unwillingness to believe his harsh lessons.
Despite the 16th century Austrian setting, Eseldorph feels just like the little Missouri towns Twain grew up in and wrote of. Theodor and Seppi could just as easily be Huck and Tom. And the angel Satan is a transparent mouthpiece for delivering Twain’s own skeptical and misanthropic world view. Setting the story across the ocean and three hundred years in the past did little to hide that Twain was savaging the cultural institutions and hypocrisy of his own time and country.
Twain wrote several versions of this story, none of them fully completed, and it was patched together and published after his death. The haphazard way it was put together hardly matters, though. It has no consistent plot, and the characters exist only as vehicles to deliver Twain’s sad and bitter sermon.
Read The Mysterious Stranger, if for nothing else, for Satan’s final message to Theodor. When I first read it as a young teen it shook me, and even now, forty-five years later and knowing what was coming it was a powerful and thought provoking ending....more
This was my mother’s book, and I think she got it from her parents. It was published in 1929, and contains a selection of famous poets as well as poetThis was my mother’s book, and I think she got it from her parents. It was published in 1929, and contains a selection of famous poets as well as poets that were famous at that time who have since been largely forgotten. It was definitely geared toward popular taste rather than The Literati, but it’s refreshing to remember a time when there was a popular taste for poetry.
I first read this volume through when I was working on a poetry project in my eighth grade English class. It was among the first volumes of poetry I read, and automatically gets four stars for introducing me to the form....more
An early effort from Alistair MacLean, who churned out 29 thrillers in his career, this book impressed me when I read it at 15. A spy adventure novel,An early effort from Alistair MacLean, who churned out 29 thrillers in his career, this book impressed me when I read it at 15. A spy adventure novel, set in Cold War Hungry in the years directly after the Hungarian Uprising, it was the first book of its kind that I’d read.
I was considerably less impressed this time around. There are a few good action/suspense scenes, but even those get repetitive as the author goes through multiple, improbable capture and escape scenarios. The action scenes were drowned in a sea of excess verbiage, as far more space was given to long monologues on political philosophy, and preaching sermons on ethical morality. I resorted to skimming to finish this reread. ...more
This is the collection that introduced me to O. Henry when I was in middle school. Of these sixteen tales, several are absolute masterpieces, enduringThis is the collection that introduced me to O. Henry when I was in middle school. Of these sixteen tales, several are absolute masterpieces, enduring stories that define his brilliance — The Last Leaf, The Gift of the Magi, After Twenty Years, The Ransom of Red Chief, and A Retrieved Reformation. Filling out the rest are strong tales no less entertaining though less famous. One, in particular, (Roads of Destiny) appealed greatly to the budding romantic in sixth grade me, and re-reading it now, almost fifty years later, reminded me of that long forgotten thrill.
The Last Leaf: ”So to quaint old Greenwich Village the art people soon came prowling, hunting for north windows and eighteenth century gables and Dutch attics and low rents. A fair young artist lays sick in her gabled room, morbidity fixated on her own death. An old man, her neighbor, a cantankerous failure of an artist, obsessed by the masterpiece he will someday paint, makes a great sacrifice to save her. This is one of O. Henry’s best — an absolute masterpiece of sentimentality with one of his most successful twist endings. 5 ⭐️
The Gift of the Magi: A poor young couple, struggling to survive in a New York tenement, make serious sacrifices to give each other meaningful gifts for a happy Christmas. Quite possibly O. Henry’s best known and most loved tale, with one of his more brilliant twist endings. 5 ⭐️
The Green Door: A tale of adventure in the city. A young man is twice given a handbill bearing a cryptic, enigmatic message — “The Green Door” — unlike all the other handbills being distributed. Feeling mysteriously chosen, he finds the door of green, knocks, and discovers a damsel in distress in the form of a starving shop girl. He rescues her, a spark is struck, but what of the mysterious handbill? 4 ⭐️
Roads of Destiny: A romance of fate. A young, provincial shepherd and would be poet takes to the road headed to Paris hoping to make his fame with his verse. The road forks into three branches, and we learn the poets fate upon each branch that he might take. ”The wolves, perceiving that difficult poems made for easy mutton, ventured from the woods and stole his lambs. David’s stock of poems grew longer and his flock smaller.” 4 ⭐️
The Ransom of Red Chief: A kidnapping goes awry when the 10 year old “victim,” delighted by the adventure of it, torments his captors with rough play and unending, pestering questions. The kidnappers must reevaluate their plans, as their calculations change from how much they can get to how soon they can get rid of him. Classic fun! 5 ⭐️
Sound and Fury: An author dictating to his amanuensis is driven to distractions by her continual misunderstandings, corrections, and other interruptions. Slight but funny. 3 1/2 ⭐️
The Handbook of Hyman: A tale of a pair of Western pards courting the same gale. One uses romantic poetry, the other a book of facts and statistics. Guess who prevailed? ”Let us sit on this log at the roadside,” says I, “and forget the inhumanity and ribaldry of the poets. It is in the glorious columns of ascertained facts and legalized measures that beauty is to be found. In this very log that we sit upon is statistics more wonderful than any poem.” 3 ⭐️
The Halberdier of the Little Rheinschloss: A Bavarian style eatery hires a man to stand on the their landing in an old halberdier getup. The man in the suit is a mystery. Throw in some arrogant rich swells who come to dine, a proposition of marriage, and a bet to decide it all. The tale is told by a malapropist waiter. And, oh yes, there is a broken cigar case. 3 1/2 ⭐️
The Defeat of the City: A variant of “You can’t take the country out of the boy” tale. The sophisticated Manhattan lawyer visits his country farm home, taking with him for the first time his elegant, aristocratic bride. 3 ⭐️
After Twenty Years: My favorite of all O. Henry tales. A man who left New York to make his fortune in the West comes back to keep a promised appointment made twenty years before with his childhood chum. When they meet, they discover that life took them in startlingly different directions. 5 ⭐️
A Retrieved Reformation: Jimmy Valentine is the prince of safe-crackers. When casing a bank, he falls in love with the banker’s daughter, changes his name, goes straight, opens a business, and is about to marry his sweetheart. But when a little girl is accidentally locked in the bank safe Billy is faced with losing his cherished new life when he is the only one who can rescue her. 5 ⭐️
Friends in San Rosario: A sharp faced new bank examiner thinks he’s discovered major irregularities in old Major Tom’s bank. The Major, facing the music, spins the examiner a long winded tale of explanation that delves twenty years into the past, and hinges on the debts true friends bear each other. 4 ⭐️
One Dollar’s Worth: A Texan tale of the Law, judgement, revenge, counterfeiting, shootouts, and serendipitous mercy. 4 ⭐️
A Ramble in Aphasia: An overworked lawyer wanders off from his busy life, an apparent victim of memory loss. 3 ⭐️
The Poet and the Peasant: ”The morals of this story have somehow gotten mixed. You can take your pick; Stay on the farm, or Don’t write poetry.” 3 ⭐️
The Robe of Peace: What monastic contemplation and a NYC swell fashionista have in common. 3 ⭐️...more
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