I found Be Fruitful and Multiply in the collection that keeps on giving, From Ink Lake. Medeleine Ferron was a French-Canadian writer. One site states that she was born in Trois-Rivières, Quebec. Another says she was born in Louisville, Quebec, about 34 km from Trois-Riviéres. The second site is from BookRags and the biography there is substantial. She lived a long life and had several published works. They were all written in her native French. The short story I read was an English translation of the original French work. I’ve discussed translated works a few times before. If I knew it was a translation and where to get the original work and it was maybe seven years ago, I might have tried to read it in French too. As it was, Be Fruitful and Multiply was an quick little synopsis of the life of the unnamed main character.
I have nothing against unnamed main characters. I’ve ready many stories where the main character is never named. My issue was that this story felt like an overview of someone’s life. The first thing that hits you is that the “woman” being married is 13. Her husband is 18. The ages are shocking, but I thought, at least the husband wasn’t 43. Her life then becomes all about family. She is described as a cog in the machine. Without her husband, she doesn’t know how to identify herself.
After her husband is gone, she visits her children, but there are 22 of them scattered across several provinces and a few in the States. She has a hard time keeping track of them and her grandchildren and great-grandchildren. In the end, it seems as though the author is trying to create sympathy for the main character, but all I could really think was that the entire situation seemed a bit crazy. Not just the age of the woman when she was married or that she just seemed to manufacture children, but that these children are passing her from one to the next and she has a difficult time keeping it all straight. I supposed this is where the sympathy from the reader is supposed to come it, but I just didn’t feel it. I don’t know if it’s Ferron’s style or the style of the translation. It was short, easy to read and boring.
Thanks to John Mutford at The Book Mine Set for hosting Short Story Monday.
The Beggarwoman of Locarno is a short story by Heinrich von Kleist. Kleist is more famously known for his stories Michael Kohlhaas and The Marquise of O–. He was a German Romantic, first making a name for himself with his plays; he was also a poet and novelist.
The Beggarwoman of Locarno is surprisingly, a ghost story. I didn’t know it would be. It was a great little story about the punishment suffered if you don’t show charity to the poor. It was an easy read, which I did expect, having read The Marquise of O—. As I mentioned in a previous post, I don’t know if the likability of the writing style comes from the author or the translator. What I do know is that I enjoyed the story immensely. I hope, with this story, Kleist was able to teach a few rich men how to be nicer to the poor.
A copy of the text can be found here.
The post was written in conjunction with Short Story Monday hosted at The Book Mine Set.
Does Franz Hohler’s The Giants In The Parkade count as a short story? It’s only six sentences! It was translated from the German by Jeff Kochan for the Winter 2009 issue of PRISM international. This is one time where I am sure the translation is accurate and couldn’t really affect the feeling of the story. I re-read the story a couple times (it being so short, it really wasn’t inconvenient.) Hohler packed a lot into six seemingly simple sentences. The giants had purpose and resolution. The reader could actually get a sense of who the giants were.
In the same issue of PRISM, there is another story of Hohler’s, The Creation. This story is a whopping eleven sentences. Somehow it felt more like a story than Giants In The Parkade. These two extremely short short stories got me to thinking, with stories this short, how many does he have to write to publish a collection? Or do they get mixed in with his novels and poetry? I wish that Wikipedia had more to say about him. His website is entirely in German, so I can’t find easy answers to these questions.
[This post was written in conjunction with Short Story Monday hosted by The Book Mine Set]
I’m not even sure where to begin. I finished The Helmet of Horror a lot faster than I thought I would. It only took two days; I couldn’t put it down. I could have read it in one if I had the time. I’m thinking about it now, even considering re-reading it. There’s so much symbolism and philosophical thought I’m certain I missed. I’m never sure with translations, whether to attribute the readability to the author or translator, but the language was engaging and easy to follow. The concept however, is all Victor Pelevin.
The Helmet of Horror is a modern re-telling of the myth of Theseus and the Minotaur. For those that don’t know, Theseus has to find his way out of a labyrinth while being pursued by a Minotaur. He uses a magic ball of string to find his way out and kills the Minotaur. There’s more to the myth that you can find here.
The novel is written entirely in dialogue, but without any of the characters actually speaking to each other. It takes place in an internet style chatroom. I say “internet style” because they actually aren’t on the internet; they can’t access anything with their computers except the chatroom. Their only interaction with anyone is through the computer screen; there are no voices or faces. They can’t share any personal information, not even their names. Each person is assigned a pseudonym, which they can’t change.
ASIDE: You can see what I mean with a preview from Google Books. I just discovered it as I was looking for an image of the front cover to add to this post. I tried a few other books out. It has previews for quite a few. I think I might use this in the future. I vaguely remember some kind of legal thing in the news about Google and publishers. Well, hopefully they’ve solved that problem.
There are mysterious moderators. There is a search for Theseus. Who is Asterisks? There is religion, philosophy and an incomprehensible Helmet of Horror. There is no proof than anyone the characters “speak” with is real.
Victor Pelevin’s The Helmet of Horror is a great addition to the Myth Series. Unlike the last Myth book I read, this one makes me eager to read another.
