SOUNDTRACK:
[READ: December 4, 2020] “Guided Tour”
This year, S. ordered me The Short Story Advent Calendar. This is my fifth time reading the Calendar. I didn’t know about the first one until it was long out of print (sigh), but each year since has been very enjoyable. Here’s what they say this year
Like we always do at this time: the Short Story Advent Calendar is back for 2022. We had such a great time last year working with our first-ever guest editor, the one and only Alberto Manguel. This year, however, we’re bringing things back to basics. No overarching theme or format, just 25 top-class short stories, selected in-house, by some of the best writers in North America and beyond. It’s December 4. Please enjoy this interview (from Fail Better) with Steven Millhauser, author of Martin Dressler, responsibly..
I have read a lot of stories by Millhuaser, although I had not read this one before. I tend to like his stories although I have noticed that sometimes there’s something about them that really sticks out for better or worse).
This one didn’t really have a component like that exactly. It was just so singularly fascinating as to make me wonder what made him think of it.
So the guide tour of the title is a tour of the route that the children of Hamelin took when the pied piper came back to get them–after the adults of Hamelin refused to pay him for ridding the town of the rats.
As a good guided tour, many details are given about the surroundings. Everything is made to look like it would have back in the day. But everything, including the excrement (animal and human) is fabricated for realism.
The tour guide keeps counting his charges making sure no one is lost. He also clearly delights in his retelling of the story, how the piper has returned in anger. Imagine the music that he plays this time. Surely it cannot be the same music that he played to attract the rats. The children are compelled to follow the music. The parents are compelled to do nothing.
They cross through town, through a meadow, through a forest and to a mountain. The guide is calm and polite, making sure that everyone is rested and caught up. Making sure that no one is lost. This is an AuthentiTour after all.
This story seemed surreal to start with and it got even more so, but it was very compelling all the way through.
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