Short Story Quest: Revisiting, Revising and Revamping Sleeping Beauty

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The Once Upon a Time Challenge has certainly broken my no book buying rule, I have a selection of retold fairy-tales and a few non-fiction books about fairy-tales winging their way to me via amazon at the moment.
I have spent today reading versions of Sleeping Beauty. From what is believed to be the inspiration for the Grimms version Basile's 'Sun, Moon and Talia' and Perrault's 'Sleeping Beauty in the Woods' to versions of the tale set in our modern world with a Sci-Fi twist to them.

Giambattista Basile's 'Sun, Moon and Talia' tells of a young girl who falls into a deep sleep after having a piece of flax from a spindle wedged under her fingernail. Locked in a castle in a deep sleep she is visited by a king, and eventually two children who suck at her fingers dislodging the flax and thus waking her. From this their entreats a tale of jealousy and violence. Perrault's version 'Sleeping Beauty in the Woods' is far closer to the well known version with the fairies warning that a spindle will cause her harm and the whole castle being laid to sleep with her and awoken when her prince arrives.
For the Grimm's version of the tale I went to Maria Tatar's 'The Anotated Classic Fairy Tales' this version is the disney version we all grew up with, finishing with Sleeping Beauty (or Brair Rose as she is called in this version) awakening. Unlike the two previously mentioned stories their is no jealousy and violence, and no canibalism and rescue at the hands of older women. Tatar's version is accompanied by notes about various versions, as well as selections of art which has been used to depict the tale over the years.

I then went onto read two retellings from the collection 'Black Swan, White Raven' and one from 'My Mother she Killed Me, My Father he Ate Me'. The first 'The Black Fairy's Curse' by Karen Joy Fowler I think I will need to read again. It was very short and started with a woman escaping into the woods on horse back, the fast pace has her escaping up a tree and then she is suddenly with a man by a river. These seem a dream-like imagining, which later has her waking up with a man above her who she fears. I really enjoyed the pace and the way each iamge was created, but need more time to think over what was happening.
'Snow in Dirt'by Micheal Blumlein had a very different feel to it, and certainly had my favourite opening:

It can happen. Once a lifetime it should. I found the girl of my dreams in the garden. She was covered by dirt. I was digging a hole [....] She was hidden in soil, tucked between roots, still as a statue, beautiful.

Discovering this secret beauty, loner Martin takes her into his home. Gradually after days of wondering he takes her to the hospital to run tests - she is a conundrum they can't understand. When one day she suddenly wakes up he marries her, and then begins their life. Unlike a fairy tale, all is not happiness, but then it isn't all bad either.
The final version I read 'A Kiss to Wake the Sleeper' by Rabih Alameddine, features a first person narrator who is a watcher of all the happens. The girl is sent to the forest, to be treated by the sleeping beauty in an attempt to free the girl from a world trapped inside a protective bubble. The story led to a sexual encounter - fairly vividly described, which I wasn't expecting in the slightest. A clear tale of sexual awakening with violent overtones.

The Sunday Salon: Short Story Quest

As part of the Once Upon a Time V challenge I'll be posting reviews of short stories at the weekend set in a fairytale, mythical, fantastical or folkloric world. Recommendations are always much appreciated, as are comments.



photo credit
Ardour by Jonathon Keats
I read this interpretation of the Russian snow maiden Snegurochka whilst I was reading a bunch of Russian fairy tales this week, see this post I wrote yesterday, this had to be my favourite so I thought it deserved its own post.
Each winter the peasants tell the same story of the sightings of the beautiful girl in the woods, a girl covered in just a light dusting of snow who quickly disappears from sight. Each man craves to seduce her, for not only does she offer perfection and mystery she also is the release from the harsh winter into spring. Any man able to find and seduce her, and thus allow the fields to be harvested and the snows to melt, is rewarded by the king with a year off of work.
Yet one year Ardour goes from the desired to the hunted. For, suddenly one year she turns on the men and allows no one to seduce her. The winter draws on season after season, bringing with it hunger, death and disease, she has become a vengeful monster out to wreak havoc.
The king offers rewards of a life time escape from work, but no man is able to tame her until an unlikely Prince comes along.
This story’s telling was beautifully woven, and reminded me of the early African folk tales when stories were told to explain the things that man did not understand such as the passing of the seasons. This is certainly a story I’ll be coming back to read time and again, as with all good fairy tales.
The story can be found in the collection My Mother She Killed Me, My Father He Ate Me’, ed. Kate Bernheimer.




In my search for the Snegurochka I found this cool website where they write and publish free retellings of fairytales. Go check it out.

Short Story Sunday and a Novella

Last year I barely read any short stories, like poetry and plays short stories are something I love but they tend to get abandoned in the crush of big old novels.
I'm aiming to read more, and hopefully post each Sunday about one. There did use to be a Short Story Sunday feature but I can't find anything up to date so I'll just keep myself company.

'The Daughters of the Late Colonel' by Katherine Mansfield
The death of their dictatorial father leaves Josephine and Constatine lost and bewildered. Not from sadness, but from merely knowing what to do. Every adecision they need to make, every action they take is laboured with fear of the father. Would he approve? Will he hate them?
Motherless and unmarried the girls have been ruled by a tyrannical father and maid, friendless and unworldly the young women are orphaned in a world which they barely know.

I really enjoyed this short story, I wanted to shake the girls and give them some bravery and strength.

'Anthem' by Ayn RandLast night I managed to knock a novella off the tbr pile, and one perfect for the dystopia challenge.

Anthem is set in a world in which children are brought up in a centre rather than with their families, taught only the basics at school and then assigned a work placement for life. The main characters in this novella discover an unknown place, a place linked to the time before. They sneak to this place as often as possible, discovering not just the thrill of doing what is not allowed but also the thrill of knowledge and discovery. For the first time they are able to think for themselves - just so long as no one finds out.
Written in first person in a series of reflective journal entries we gradually see the constraints of the society, as well as the things that are gradually being learnt, things we take for granted.

Snow Day Reading

I'm now on my third day off of school due to the snow, and as it is still snowing fairly hard I think I may be off again tomorrow! TYpical England! I'm liking being on and loving the snow but wish it would brighten up a little so I could get some decent pictures, the light is poor so the few picures I took turned out boring.
I've used my time to create a scrapbooking page - something I haven't done in ages, waste tons of time on the net and two read two books.


The Celestial Omnibus by E.M Forster which I thought was a novella, but then discovered was a collection of short stories, so not applicable for the novella challenge. I dipped in and out of the collection this morning and have to say that out of the 6 stories I loved four of them, gave up on one and skimmed through the last.
The stories all feature mystical worlds or happenings, with a heavenly feel to them. 'The Other Side of the Hedge' is a lovely little story about the race that life is and its end. My other favourite was 'The Celestial Omnibus' about a young boy with horrid parents who travels on a magiacal omnibus up to a world filled with authors and characters from novels, poems and mythology.



I also sat down and read 'The Magician's Nephew' by C.S Lewis which will be able to count for the November (I'm a few days late) Novella Challenge. I have the Chronicles of Narnia in one big book, and I'm hoping to tackle one story a week, and then move on to other children's classics that I somehow missed.
I have read this before and enjoyed it just as much this time. I love the idea of the yellow and green rings, the world of Narnia and when the animals plant the Uncle thinking he is a tree.

I've been told I'm expected to complete work at home today, so I should really tackle the stack of homework sat on the stairs. I'm also planing on reading Shiver by Maggie Stievater a book that I saw reviewed on lots of blogs last year, the wintery weather certainly feels like the perfect time for a wolf novel.

Once Upon a Time IV: Short Story Weekends

For this weeks Short Story I went back and visited a site which I love but haven't looked at in ages, The Endocott Studio. The site features lots of mythical and fantastical short stories, poems, images and articles and is well worth checking out.

I only have time to read one story today, so chose 'The Boy Who Was Born Wrapped in Barbed Wire' by Christopher Barzak.
The young boy is born not only surrounded by barbed wire but with the wire actually growing out from his skin. As a result of his birth his mother dies and he is left alone with just his solitary beekeeping father. The father is a distant man, never able to touch his son for fear of getting hurt. The boy becomes an outcast until their is a revival at the local church and the local woman all decide that his sould needs saving.

Once Upon a Time IV: 'Snow, Glass, Apples' by Neil Gaiman

Mirror available here - isn't it gorgeous!


Neil Gaiman is a god!
I sat down to read 'Snow, Glass, Apples' a (free to read) short story by Neil Gaiman, expecting it to be good and it was far better than just good.
Gaiman twists and turns the Snow White story in his own wicked way. The story is a monologue by the 'wicked' Step-Mother with her take on her daughter. Snow White, no longer a figure of innocence is feeds off her father and the people of the forest, heart removed she survives.
Whether you like short stories or not you should definately go and read this. Thanks to Mee who blogged about this story yesterday.

Do you know of any online stories which would work for the Once Upon a Time IV Challenge?

The Little Things in Life: A story, and some poetry and fables.

This week I've read a few bits and pieces which aren't big enough to have a post each but I thought I'd like to share them with you.



The Star Above the Forest by Stefan Zweig this has to be the most wonderfully written short story that I have ever read. Zweig depicts the moment that a waiter falls passionatly in love with a lady who he can never tell of his love let alone have. Knowing that she will soon leave and he won't get sight of her again he sets out to commit suicide.
Zweig's language is stunning, the suicide is wonderfully and subtly portrayed showing the mans deep desire to die for love of another rather than the love of himself. I have copied part of a paragraph
so you can see how beautiful the language is:

"... it was one of those seconds in which thousands of hours and days of rejoicing and torment are held spellbound, just as all the wild force of a forest of tall, dark, rustling oak trees, with their rocking branches and swaying crowns, is contained in a single tiny acorn dropping through the air."

This story is to be found in Amok and Other Stories, published by Pushkin Press.



Whilst browsing poetry in the Oxfam bookshop I came across this miniscule book of poems, and had to have it for its size and the little sketches and poems contained within. The 'Parson and Poet' is a tiny, both in size and page numbers, collection by Robert Herrick, a seventeenth century British poet. This tiny 18 page book is filled with verse, epitaphs and odd lines of poetry. The main themes seem to center around the idea that life is short so enjoy it while you can.
An example of the poetry contained:
To the Virgins, To Make Much of Time



Polish Fables: Bilingual Edition by Ignacy Krasicki (trans. Greard T. Kapolka). I grabbed this from the library the other day when I was searching out poery. The fables are similar to Aesop's Fables in many ways, although apparently many can be read as a response to the first partition of Poland (about which I know nothing). Despite this it is clear to say that the messages often focus on the strong taking advantages of the weak.
Ignacy Krasicki published these poems in their original form in 1779, yet it is interesting to see how many of them still relate to the modern world.
Here's a taster:

The Flattering Mirror
When she looked in the mirror at her reflection
The girl was pleased that it lightened her complexion
When her friend came by, much plainer than she,
She saw that it made her less ugly.
That the neighbor was pleased just gave the girl fits,
So she shattered the flattering mirror to bits.

The Sunday Salon: Short Story Sunday RIP III

Autumn finally seems to have arrived in the last few days, the mornings and evenings are freezing but the days are warm as long as you are stood in the sunlight. I was awoken by the winds yesterday morning t around half six and thought that it was a perfect time to start my RIP III reading with a short story.

'The Duchess at Prayer' - Edith Wharton, from The Ghost Feeler: Stories of Terror and the Supernatural SPOILER ALERT

First line:

Have you ever questioned the log shuttered front of an old Italian house, that motionless mask, smooth, mute, equivocal as the face of a priest behind which buzz the secrets of the confessional?

And so the story begins. In the Italian house a beautiful bride was once brought, a bride who was simply a possession, a being her husband saw but twice a year. She spent her days joyously dressing up, dancing, sewing and making music. At the beginnnig she had a campanion in her husbands cousin, but her jealous husband soon had him removed when he discovered her happiness. Undaunted she carried on filling her time with pleasure in the company of her serving women, and them alone. In the crypt an ancient relic, the leg of a Saint lays, the women spends her time in prayer and devotion to this relic.
One night her husband returns unexpected with a marble statue of the woman, he insists that the statue is placed over the crypt as he cannot bare the knowledge of her devotion. In a meal that evening the mistress dies, and a year later a new wife enters the home. When the husband finally dies the statue of the first wife is finally revealed, her face is tortured and has the look of a scream of pain across its face.

Orbis Terrarum Short Story Mini Challenge: Finishing Europe

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I've got into a bit of a rut with this so thought I needed to give myself a push and finish Europe so I can get to Africa, I have a lovely looking collection of North African stories sitting ready to be read.

After having been to France, Germany, Poland and Prague I now need to head in the direction of Africa.

First stop Austria:
Country Doctor by Franz Kafka
The local Doctor is called out to an emergency in the middle of a freeing snowy night, going outside he discovers his own horse has died from the cold. He sends out the maid to search for another horse, although no locals will lend a horse the maid brings back a stranger with a horse led carriage. What does the stranger want in return? The maid.
The story then grows strange with the doctor rushing off to the patient and everyone waiting for the diagnosis. I'll let you read it to discover how it ends - you'll find a free online copy if you click the title.

Next stop Italy:
We're taking a different route this time and reading an Italian fairytale, 'Parsley Girl' taken from Angela Carter's Book of Fairy Tales.

In the middle of the winter a woman has cravings for Parsley, none can be found any where except in the Holy Sisters' Garden. She first went and took a sprig, and then some more or the third visit she took a whole handful, it was then that she was approached by a nun who said:
' "Take all the parsley you want, but when you've had your baby you must call him Parsley-Boy if he's a boy or Parsley-Girl if she's a girl, and when your baby grows up you must give it to us. That is the price of your parsley." '
The mother thought nothing of this until one day the girl was snatched from the garden and taken by the 'nuns' to make a casserole.
The main ingredient of the casserole? Parsley-girl. The nuns were witches in disguise. As with all good fairytales the spritly child finds a way to overcome the witches and become the hero of the tale.

A quick pit-stop in France:
Take from the same fairytale anthology is the French version of 'Little Red Riding Hood.'
The traditional fairytales originally were told by adults for adults, they are bawdy and far more violent than the Disneyfied version that we know today. This version of Little Red follows that story we know till the end when Little Red takes off her clothes and jumps into bed next to the wolf disguised as her gradmother. After all the 'What big .... you have...' lines the Wolf 'threw himself upon Little Red Riding Hood and gobbled her up too.'

The final destination, Spain:
Another fairytale this is one that I found by doing a Google search The Water of Life.
Two brothers and their sisters decide to better their lives by building a palace. After a party to celebrate their beautiful palace a young man tells them the the palace is missing something: the water of life, a beautiful tree and a singing bird and the only way to get these things is to go up the mountain.
The eldest sets off leaving a knife behind which will shine if he is well and be covered in blood if he is not. Half way up the mountain he meets a giant and asks for directions, he is told:
'Many have passed by seeking those treasures, but none have ever come back; and you will never come back either, unless you mark my words. Follow this path, and when you reach the mountain you will find it covered with stones. Do not stop to look at them, but keep on your way. As you go you will hear scoffs and laughs behind you; it will be the stones that mock. Do not heed them; above all, do not turn round. If you do you will become as one of them. Walk straight on till you get to the top, and then take all you wish for.'
The next day the knife is bloody. The next brother decides to go and rescue his brother, but he befalls the same fate. Finally the sister decided to take her chance on the moutain and she is much more successful having followed the giants orders.

This challenge is still open for people to join, if you fancy reading 10 short stories from 10 different coutries come and sign up here

Orbis Terrarum 2009: Short Story Mini Challenge: Prague

I'm continuing my armchair travels and have moved on to the next country on my way Prague.
An Odd Story by Karel Tichy can be found here at the wonderful Words Without Borders.
This story focuses on the transformation of families due to the persecution of the Jewish in the Old Czech Republic.
Karl is brought up in his fathers shop, successful but with a wealth that is hidden and never spoken of. His German nanny and housekeeper secretly Christians him. When the war strikes his parents are forced onto trains destined for the concentration camps, but Karl stays, changing his name, to live with his German nanny.

Where else have I been:
France
Germany
Poland


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Want to join me in this mini challenge? Look here

Orbis Terrarum Short Story Mini Challenge: Poland

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So far I journeyed from France to Germany and now I'm setting foot in Poland. As the last two stories have been classics I thought I'd mix things up a little and read a modern story I found here at the wonderful Words Without Borders

The Knight by Olga Tokarczuk
This is a strange story, its about being in a relationship and both knowing that everything isn't working, that your out of synch, both alone and yet neither person is able to break the relationship up.
The couple go away to a cold cottage beside the sea, a fairly good description of their relationship, cold but locked tight trying to keep out the truth that is battering them every second they are together.
Its a simple story but worth reading for the detail, the small things that manypeople will be able to empathise with having been at that point too.

The Sunday Salon: Short Story review and other related stuff

It's been a strange old day weather wise here in England, this morning was raining so hard and cold I put the heating on, then I popped to the supermarket and boiled, the sun had dried all the puddles in a matter of hours and now the sky looks just about ready to burst again.
In terms of reading I seem to be falling really behind again, I joined a new gym and have been spending more time there than at the last one, I had a reading funk for a while and I have so many reading commitments I'm reading 4 or 5 books at one and have a massive pile that needs tackling.
This week I'll hopefully finish: an audiobook The Absolutely True Story of a Part Time Indian (fantastic), Inkheart (fantastic), The Lost Dog (mmm haven't got into it yet and its a bookring so need to speed up), The Hard Facts of the Grimm Fairy Tales (due back to the library next weekend) and The Bonesetter's Daughter (a bookcrossing read-a-long that finishes Saturday).
I also didn't realise that Carl's Once Upon a Time Challenge finished in June, I was convinced it was July so I have to finish Inkheart plus 2 other books for that in the next 2 weeks!


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The Orbis Terratum Short Story Mini Challenge as some of you may have read I'm hosting this mini challenge for Bethany's Orbis Terrarum challenge. Participants need to read 10 short stories from 10 different countries, between June 1st and Sept 1st. Prizes will be avaliable at the end of the challenge.
As I like to test myself I'm trying to see how far around the world I can get. Today I'm visiting Germany the second country on my travels.

How Old Timofei Died with a Song by Rainer Maria Rilke
Opening line: "What a real joy it is to tell stories to a paralyzed person."
The narrator in this tale reguarly tells stories to a local paralysed man. In this story she tells him how in the past stories where alive, they were kept alive by being passed orally from person to person, commited to memory and passed along to the next generation. The narrator claims that once a story is no longer remembered and can only be told through reading it in a book it is no longer alive.
Timofei was the villages storyteller, he remembered all the oldest stories and went through the town passing on stories to everyone in hearing distance, when Timofei had children only oe of them had the gift of storytelling, the others like the others in the village forgot what they had been told. Timofei saw it as his sole responsilbilty to pass on each and every story to his son so the community's stories could still live on.

I'm looking for more participants, so if you'd like to join a challenge that you could complete in a day or use to take you on your travels this summer see here for further details


See what I read when I 'visited' France here

SS: 'The Necklace' by Guy de Maupassant

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I'm starting in France and seeing if I can jump from one country to the next to see how far around the world I can get.

'The Necklace' written in 1884 is a tale with a moral.
It starts with the introduction of a pretty young woman, "born as through an error of destiny" into a poor family. She has no hopes of becoming rich, of marrying a wealthy man or having all the things she wished for. Knowing this she marries a poor man and settles unhappily into life.
Life changes when her husband brings home an invite for a ball, they scrape together enough money for her to have a suitable dress, and she borrows a diamond necklace from a friend as she is desperate not to appear poor to the other women.
Arriving home after being declared the most beautiful woman at the ball she realises the necklace is missing. With no hope of finding the necklace a replacement must be brought at great cost and debt to the couple. They hand over the replacement necklace hoping the friend will never know the difference.
Now they really know what a life of poverty and drudgery is.

My first short story read for the Orbis Terrarum Short Story Mini Challenge (which I happen to be holding right here)

My Thoughts: 2 for 1

I'm being lazy and posting two reviews in one post - its been a lazy day, only 25 papers marked (I was aiming for 100), I joined a new gym but still haven't popped out to cancel the new one, most of the day has been spent dwindling time away.

I did however finish a book and read a short story.

The Polysyllabic Spree by Nick Hornby.
This is one of the many Nick Honby article collections that has been doing the rounds on the blogsphere lately so I had to pick it up to see just what all the fuss was about.
Hornby writes each month in Believer magazine about his thoughts on his months reading, along with comments about Arsenal football club (I support their rivals), his children and friendships with other authors.
The articles are generally short, witty and make some interesting comments on reading. However I was shocked that at the end of the collection I hadn't even written down one book title to search out.
I did enjoy the collection but won't be racing out to pick up the next book in the collection for a while yet.
Challenges:
999 (Non Fiction)
Non-Fiction 5


Now for the short story.

'When I Was A Witch' by Charlotte Perkins Gilman
opening line:
"If I had understood the terms of that one-sided contract with Satan the Time of Witching would have lasted longer - you may be sure of that."
The narrator having oe of those bad days where nothing turns out makes a wish. A wish that the horseman she has just witnessed thrashing his horse could feel the pain he inflicted whilst the horse went free from pain. She is a little shocked when she sees the horseman wince and rub his head but thinks nothing of it.
The next day she makes another wish that all the cats which are trapped in the city die peacefully, and that anyone harming a horse is inflicted with an equal amount of pain. She gradually realises that these whimsical wishes are coming true and starts to make more and more wishes.
After exposing the lies in newspapers, making parrots tell the truth to their owners and killing off unhappy dogs Perkins-Gilman gets her narrator to express a wish that she herself was fighting for. She says:
"I thought of all the other women, the real ones, the vast majority, patiently doing the work of servants without even a servants pay - and neglecting the noblest duties of motherhood in favour of house-service; the greatest power on earth, blind, chained, untaught, in a treadmill."

I really enjoyed this story and I'm looking forward to reading more of the works in this collection

My Thoughts: The Secrets of a Fire Kig by Kim Edwards

Isn't the cover gorgeous!

I've been dipping into this book of short stories for the last couple of months and I have to say I loved the vast majority of them. Eacg story is vastly different: people living in a secret society; the discovery of gold; rat stories and a housewife who befriends Marie Curie to give but a few examples. The writing in each story is rich, creating pictures to feed your mind.

I have read a few negative reviews elsewhere on the net but most of those people seem to want Edwards to replicate The Memory Keeper's Daughter. For me this showed that she had more to her. I loved The Memory Keeper's daughter but it was a 'Jodi Piccolt' novel, heart wrenching but not well written in a literary sense. These stories hint that a literary novel could be brewing.

Read it if you love dipping into short stories.

Dewey's 24 hour read-a-thon: An Elegy for Easterly by Petina Gappah

Pages read total: 751 (+ 66 pages of picture books)
Books read: Finished Bel Canto by Ann Pratchett, read What I Was by Meg Rosoff, The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway, An Elgy for Easterly, Mrs Biddlebox (pic book) and The Viewer by Gary Crew
Total reading time: approx 12 hours


I woke up fairly tired this morning after 4 hours sleep but picking up this book soon had me awake and interested again.

An Elegy for Easterly is a collection of short stories all revolving around different people from Zimbabwe, people of all classes suffering from similar problems.
Presidents wifes left to suffer after the husband dies of AIDS, families cheated by neighbours who borrow money to eascpe to the Western World, women unable to have children who are judged by all, families seeing yet another young daughter marrying a man with AIDS who has already buried two wifes.
The themes are recurring: AIDS, deception, corruption, the black market and the ever increasing prices and political promises that can reck a nation.
I never read short stories one after another as I find that they merge into one another, but with this collection each character was held seperately in my mind, each life story complete in itself.
A collection I would definately recommend to others.

Challenges:
2009 Pub Challenege
100 Shots of Short
A-Z Title
Orbis Terrarum
999 (African Reads and short story collection)
Olympic Challenge

Once Upon a Time III : Short Story Weekend II

Silver or Gold by Emma Bull can be found here on the fantastic Endicott pages.

This story is part folktale part fairytale, just as I like them.
Moon Very Thin is at the end of her training as a witch when Alder Owl, her teacher, is drawn to going away in search of the missing prince. Moon is uncomfortable with staying alone, and has the task of banging on the journey drum each night at sunset to call Alder Owl on in her journey. It is this drum call that allows her to know the Alder Owl is safe, but when one night the drum fails to sound Moon has to set out on a journey of her own in search of her teacher.
This is a journey of growth and self knowledge.
You should go and check it out yourself, it is long but definately worth the time and effort. The last paragraph is worth it just for itself, I would have copied it here but it would just spoil the story. Go have a read!

Last weeks:
Short Story Weekend:
GodMother Death


Check out Short Story Sunday, held here

Short Story Weekend: Godmother Death by Jane Yolen

My first short story read for Carl's Once Upon a Time III challenge.

You think you know this story. You do not.

You think it comes from Ireland, from Norway, from Spain. It does not. You have heard it in Hebrew, in Swedish, in German. You have read it in French, in Italian, in Greek.

It is not a story, though many mouths have made it that way.

It is true.

How do I know? Death, herself told me. She told me in that whispery voice she saves for special tellings. She brushed her thick black hair away from that white forehead, and told me.

I have no reason to disbelieve her. Death does not know how to lie. She has no need to.

Death is tapped on the shoulder one day and asked to be the Godmother to a peasant child just about to be born. Shocked at the request she complies and promises to look after her godson when he becomes a man.
Despite his peasant background Death transforms the young man into a world famous doctor, a doctor who knows just who will die and who will not. For years this is successful until the doctor is rushed to the side of a beautiful dieing princess, struck by her beauty he tries to trick Death.

This story can be found on the wonderful Endicott Website here

Short Story: The Camel's Back by F. Scott Fitzgerald

This is the third story I have read by F. Scott Fitzgerald and I'm really starting o love his style, this is another story from the collection Tales of the Jazz Age. The story starts in this assured manner:

The glazed eye of the tired reader resting for a second on the above title will presume it to be merely metaphorical. Stories about the cup and the lip and the bad penny and the new broom rarely have anything, to do with cups or lips or pennies or brooms. This story Is the exception. It has to do with a material, visible and large-as-life camel's back.

Mr. Perry Parkhurst is one of the key players in his small society, always fashionable and good looking he is a young man with a happy future ahead of him. In love with Betty Medill, a girl who's looks belong in the movies he decides that their private engagement needs to be brought into the open and the marriage declared. Yet when he arrives on her doorstep with this proposal they bicker and he is left alone and single.
In a fit of lonliness Perry decides to party at the biggest social event in the area, the Townsend's circus themed fancy-dress party. As he is looking for a costume at the last minute he ends up attending the party dressed as a camel. His ex, Betty, falls in love with this absurd costume, giving dances and flirting with this unknown man. From his hidden vantage point Perry gets to see Betty as all the other men in town see her, as a flirt and he becomes the centre of her attention.
As the evening ends the two people with the best costumes are awarded, both Betty and Perry win and a 'fake' marriage ceremony is issued by the local minister, yet this wedding turns out to be all to real and the camels true identity is discovered. To see how Betty reacts grab a copy of the text.

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Short Story Monday: 'Reunion' by John Cheever

This is going to be very short and sweet as I have to spend my evening working (bleurh!). Rather tha reading a short story I listenened to one from The New Yorker's short story podcast (if you click here you can also listen to the short story or even subscribe to the podcasts for free.

'Reunion' is a very short story, lasting only around 7 minutes. The story tells of a young man meeting his father for the first time in three years. His father offers to take him out for dinner. His father's attitude to every person he meets who he considers of a lower status than him is a disgrace, he is rude, ignorant and arrogant obviously feeling power with every person he manages to belittle.
This story is well worth a listen, especially because the man reading it, Richard Ford, has such a lovely voice and intonation. Check it out!

Plus check out my much more prolific short story reading from yesterday here