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Archive for the ‘Christmas’ Category

Oscar Wilde–“The Young King” (Ireland) [The 2021 Short Story Advent Calendar #24] (1891)

Posted in Alberto Manguel, Canadian Content, Children's Books, Children's Fable, Christmas, Hingston & Olsen, Ireland, Morality, Oscar Wilde, Religion, Short Story, The Short Story Advent Calendar on December 24, 2021| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK:  hiatus

[READ: December 24, 2021] “The Young King”

This year, S. ordered me The Short Story Advent Calendar.  This is my seventh time reading the Calendar.  The 2021 Short Story Advent Calendar is a deluxe box set of individually bound short stories.

As always, each story is a surprise, so you won’t know what you’re getting until you crack the seal every morning starting December 1. Once you’ve read that day’s story, check this link where editor Alberto Manguel is providing daily commentary on each of the stories he selected for this year’s calendar.

I was pretty delighted that Oscar Wilde was selected for this short story (with the caveat that there are hundreds of more recent Irish short story writers to choose from of course).  And it started off with Wilde’s wit with the king’s courtiers needing Etiquette lessons because most of them still had natural manners–a very grave offense.

But then, good lord, this story dragged on so torturously.

A 16 year old lad is named to be the next king.  He was raised by goatherds so he is blown away by the sumptuousness of the castle.  But, as is the case with children’s stories, of which this is apparently one, he has three bad dreams.

Long dreams.  Elaborately detailed and yet rather tedious dreams. (more…)

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José Saramago–“Reflux” [Portugal] (translated by Giovanni Pontiero) [The 2021 Short Story Advent Calendar #23] (1978/translation 2012)

Posted in Alberto Manguel, Canadian Content, Christmas, Death, Giovanni Pontiero, Hingston & Olsen, José Saramago, Portugal, Short Story, The Short Story Advent Calendar, Translation on December 23, 2021| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK:  hiatus

[READ: December 23, 2021] “The Fire Balloons”

This year, S. ordered me The Short Story Advent Calendar.  This is my seventh time reading the Calendar.  The 2021 Short Story Advent Calendar is a deluxe box set of individually bound short stories.

As always, each story is a surprise, so you won’t know what you’re getting until you crack the seal every morning starting December 1. Once you’ve read that day’s story, check this link where editor Alberto Manguel is providing daily commentary on each of the stories he selected for this year’s calendar.

This is the kind of story that unfolds itself, proving to be too big for itself.

It is about a king who feared death.  So he ordered a cemetery to be built in the center of the kingdom with very high walls.  Everyone currently buried would be dg up and moved to the new cemetery.

This takes extensive time and involves many years of building a digging (often with one piece sufficing as an entire body). (more…)

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Hassouna Mosbahi–“Truman Capote” [Tunisia] (translated by William H. Hutchins) [The 2021 Short Story Advent Calendar #22] (2015/translation 2015)

Posted in Alberto Manguel, Breakfast at Tiffany's, Canadian Content, Christmas, Hassouna Mosbahi, Hingston & Olsen, Prostitution, Short Story, The Short Story Advent Calendar, Tunisia, William M. Hutchins on December 22, 2021| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK:  hiatus

[READ: December 22, 2021] “Truman Capote”

This year, S. ordered me The Short Story Advent Calendar.  This is my seventh time reading the Calendar.  The 2021 Short Story Advent Calendar is a deluxe box set of individually bound short stories.

As always, each story is a surprise, so you won’t know what you’re getting until you crack the seal every morning starting December 1. Once you’ve read that day’s story, check this link where editor Alberto Manguel is providing daily commentary on each of the stories he selected for this year’s calendar.

I read this whole story believing it was written by Truman Capote and believing that perhaps (as with many of the other authors in this collection) he originated from a place I didn’t realize.  And that Hassouna Mosbahi was a person or perhaps a place that I’d never heard of.

And I thought it was really weird and meta that Truman Capote was writing about himself and that he was writing about himself as if he were dead.  It seemed like a pretty crazy conceit.

Whoops.

This story is introduced by a narrator who relates his forgetfulness.  He has arrived home in Tunisia, but he’s not sure why.  Eventually he discovers a telegram that informs him his grandmother has died.  While he is in the center city he sees Truman Capote in his white suit and hat. (more…)

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Leo Tolstoy–“The Three Hermits” [Russia] (translated by Leo Wiener) [The 2021 Short Story Advent Calendar #21] (1886/translation between 1862 & 1939)

Posted in Alberto Manguel, Canadian Content, Christmas, Hingston & Olsen, Leo Tolstoy, Leo Wiener, Religion, Russia, Short Story, Supernatural, The Short Story Advent Calendar, Translation on December 21, 2021| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK:  hiatus

[READ: December 21, 2021] “The Three Hermits”

This year, S. ordered me The Short Story Advent Calendar.  This is my seventh time reading the Calendar.  The 2021 Short Story Advent Calendar is a deluxe box set of individually bound short stories.

As always, each story is a surprise, so you won’t know what you’re getting until you crack the seal every morning starting December 1. Once you’ve read that day’s story, check this link where editor Alberto Manguel is providing daily commentary on each of the stories he selected for this year’s calendar.

By the time I saw Leo Tolstoy I was getting a little annoyed by the end of this collection.  Nothing against Tolstoy at all–we should all read him more, but again, I wanted a contemporary writer to get excited by.

And then this story turned out to be exactly the same as Ray Bradbury’s story (obviously Tolstoy was first), but it was less satisfying.

Basically, a bishop is aboard a ship and is told by the pilgrims on board that there’s an island nearby with three very holy hermits.  Naturally the busybody bishop needs to see them to make sure they are praying correctly. So he disrupts the entire voyage, making everyone else delay their travels for at least a full day, so he can be a pain in the ass to these poor hermits.

He tries to teach them about god, but they don’t understand him. (more…)

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Chen Xuanyou–“Ch’ien-niang” [China] (translated by Wayne Schlepp) [The 2021 Short Story Advent Calendar #20] (fl. 779/translation 1990)

Posted in Alberto Manguel, Canadian Content, Chen Xuanyou, China, Christmas, Fairy Tales, Hingston & Olsen, Romance, Short Story, Supernatural, The Short Story Advent Calendar, Wayne Schlepp on December 20, 2021| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK:  hiatus

[READ: December 20, 2021] “Ch’ien-niang”

This year, S. ordered me The Short Story Advent Calendar.  This is my seventh time reading the Calendar.  The 2021 Short Story Advent Calendar is a deluxe box set of individually bound short stories.

As always, each story is a surprise, so you won’t know what you’re getting until you crack the seal every morning starting December 1. Once you’ve read that day’s story, check this link where editor Alberto Manguel is providing daily commentary on each of the stories he selected for this year’s calendar.

As with Homer and Hans Christian Andersen, I am fairly surprised that Manguel went back to the Tang Dynasty (even if it the Golden Age of Chinese literature) to find a story.  Especially since “’Ch’ien-niang’ is a Chinese version of Sleeping Beauty with a twist.”

Ch’ien-niang is a legend that the narrator had often heard of.

Ch’ien-niang was designed to marry Wang Chou.  But Chou was to be sent away instead. (more…)

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Muriel Spark–“A Member of the Family” (Scotland) [The 2021 Short Story Advent Calendar #19] (1985)

Posted in Alberto Manguel, Canadian Content, Christmas, Hingston & Olsen, Muriel Spark, Romance, Short Story, The Short Story Advent Calendar on December 19, 2021| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK:  hiatus

[READ: December 19, 2021] “The Fire Balloons”

This year, S. ordered me The Short Story Advent Calendar.  This is my seventh time reading the Calendar.  The 2021 Short Story Advent Calendar is a deluxe box set of individually bound short stories.

As always, each story is a surprise, so you won’t know what you’re getting until you crack the seal every morning starting December 1. Once you’ve read that day’s story, check this link where editor Alberto Manguel is providing daily commentary on each of the stories he selected for this year’s calendar.

This is the story of Trudy, a young woman who pretends to be much younger in order to win a suitor.

Trudy met the man, Richard, on vacation.  She and her friend Gwen had gone to Austria and after a couple of days they ran into Richard, who had known Gwen for years.  (more…)

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Hans Christian Andersen–“The Travelling Companion” [Denmark] (translated by M.R. James) [The 2021 Short Story Advent Calendar #18] (1835/translation 1930)

Posted in Alberto Manguel, Canadian Content, Christmas, Death, Denmark, Fairy Tales, Hans Christian Andersen, Hingston & Olsen, Short Story, Supernatural, The Short Story Advent Calendar, Trolls, Violence on December 18, 2021| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK:  hiatus

[READ: December 18, 2021] “The Travelling Companion”

This year, S. ordered me The Short Story Advent Calendar.  This is my seventh time reading the Calendar.  The 2021 Short Story Advent Calendar is a deluxe box set of individually bound short stories.

As always, each story is a surprise, so you won’t know what you’re getting until you crack the seal every morning starting December 1. Once you’ve read that day’s story, check this link where editor Alberto Manguel is providing daily commentary on each of the stories he selected for this year’s calendar.

I have mixed feelings about including a Hans Christian Andersen story here.  On the one hand, I don’t think I have ever actually read an HCA story (of course I know many of them).  So on the one hand it was interesting to do so.  But, as with Homer, there was no from the last century and a half in Denmark worthy of inclusion here?

In this story a Poor John’s father dies immediately.  So Poor John sets off with his few belongings to seek his fortune.

The first night he slept under the stars and in the morning gave some coins to a beggar.  Later that night, he happened upon a church and made to sleep there for the night as the weather was worsening. (more…)

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Mavis Gallant–“From the Fifteenth District” (Canada) [The 2021 Short Story Advent Calendar #17] (1979)

Posted in Alberto Manguel, Canada, Canadian Content, Christmas, Funny (ha ha), Funny (strange), Ghosts, Hingston & Olsen, Mavis Gallant, Paris, France, Short Story, The Short Story Advent Calendar on December 17, 2021| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK:  hiatus

[READ: December 17, 2021] “From the Fifteenth District”

This year, S. ordered me The Short Story Advent Calendar.  This is my seventh time reading the Calendar.  The 2021 Short Story Advent Calendar is a deluxe box set of individually bound short stories.

As always, each story is a surprise, so you won’t know what you’re getting until you crack the seal every morning starting December 1. Once you’ve read that day’s story, check this link where editor Alberto Manguel is providing daily commentary on each of the stories he selected for this year’s calendar.

I thought  had read more by Mavis Gallant, but apparently I hadn’t.  This is a light and amusing ghost story, set in the fifteenth district of Paris.

But Gallant has an amusing twist on the concept right from the start.

A deceased soldier says that he is haunted by the entire congregation of St. Michael and All Angels on Bartholomew Street.  Since he received his posthumous purple heart, people await for him to come and receive communion, and the crowd gets larger every year. (more…)

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Moacyr Scliar–“The Dwarf in the Television Set” [Brazil] (translated by Eloah F. Giacomelli) [The 2021 Short Story Advent Calendar #16] (1999/translation 1999)

Posted in Alberto Manguel, Brazil, Canadian Content, Christmas, Dwarfs, Eloah F. Giacomelli, Hingston & Olsen, Moacyr Scliar, Short Story, The Short Story Advent Calendar, Unfunny, Violence on December 16, 2021| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK:  hiatus

[READ: December 16, 2021] “The Dwarf in the Television Set”

This year, S. ordered me The Short Story Advent Calendar.  This is my seventh time reading the Calendar.  The 2021 Short Story Advent Calendar is a deluxe box set of individually bound short stories.

As always, each story is a surprise, so you won’t know what you’re getting until you crack the seal every morning starting December 1. Once you’ve read that day’s story, check this link where editor Alberto Manguel is providing daily commentary on each of the stories he selected for this year’s calendar.

This story made me a little uncomfortable because of the whole “dwarf in the television set” aspect.  Manguel describes it as a fantastic farce, but the whole thing felt weird and unfunny.  Maybe I would have thought it was funny if I read it when it came out.

The dwarf lives inside a gigantic color TV.  The TV is owned by Gastão (who owns a department store with many TVs). (more…)

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Saadat Hasan Manto–“Toba Tek Singh” [India] (translated by Frances W. Pritchett) [The 2021 Short Story Advent Calendar #15] (1955/translation 2005)

Posted in Alberto Manguel, Canadian Content, Christmas, Frances W. Pritchett, Hingston & Olsen, India, Pakistan, Saadat Hasan Manto, Short Story, The Short Story Advent Calendar, Translation on December 15, 2021| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK:  hiatus

[READ: December 15, 2021] “Toba Tek Singh”

This year, S. ordered me The Short Story Advent Calendar.  This is my seventh time reading the Calendar.  The 2021 Short Story Advent Calendar is a deluxe box set of individually bound short stories.

As always, each story is a surprise, so you won’t know what you’re getting until you crack the seal every morning starting December 1. Once you’ve read that day’s story, check this link where editor Alberto Manguel is providing daily commentary on each of the stories he selected for this year’s calendar.

This political story addresses the absurdity of the partitioning that separated India from Muslim Pakistan.

The inmates of lunatic asylums were to be sent to their appropriate countries.  Most of the inmates couldn’t even conceptualize what this Pakistan was.

One of the inmates stood all day long–he never lay down, never slept.  He muttered nonsense syllables about this Pakistan Government.  Eventually the nonsense syllables changed to reflect the Toba Tek Singh Government. (more…)

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