SOUNDTRACK:
[READ: December 8, 2020] “Parnassus on Wheels” [excerpt]
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 8. Christopher Morley, author of The Haunted Bookshop and Parnassus on Wheels (from which this story is drawn), died in 1957 and was unavailable for comment.
As I started this story I thought, why do people write stories in an old-fashioned dialect? It seems weird and out of character with contemporary writers. I didn’t realize until a bit of the way through the story that was, indeed, an old story (over 100 years old!).
It is also an excerpt from what I expect is a long book, so it was frustrating to have it build up and then just end. However, it does end in a strangely satisfying way as well. (more…)
I Just Read About That... 