Dark Muse
12-04-2009, 01:45 AM
Ironically, and quite unplanned I happened to read this story during Thanksgiving Week. It was within a collection of short stories I have, and just so happened to be the next story in the collection I came to right around Thanksgiving time.
This was my second (technically my first as I read it before Mammon and the Archer) O Henry story, and when I read this story I did not even realize it was one of his, as well I hadn't paid that close attention to the authors name when I started reading.
I have to say that thus far I really do like his work though I have only read two stories, I enjoyed both of them a great deal and find that he truly is a master and clever craftsman with his stories.
One of the things of which I enjoy in his stories is there is something of an almost charming quality about them, even when the stories themselves are not always what one would call upbeat or completely optimistic.
I found there was an underlined humor within the irony of this story. It was a story about two men whom were so sit within their ways, and their routine, that ultimately they both ended up killing themselves when they could have saved each other, if either of them had been willing to speak up instead of feeling it so necessary to fulfill what they saw as their obligation to each other.
Much like with Mammon and the Archer, there is something within this story that is endearing and yet disturbing at the same time which really makes one thing. On the one hand it is admirable the way in which the men whom are near strangers to each other, put each other before his own personal comfort, but on the other hand it is almost cowardly the way neither is willing to come forth and tell the other the truth about their current states which would have been the difference between life and death.
This was my second (technically my first as I read it before Mammon and the Archer) O Henry story, and when I read this story I did not even realize it was one of his, as well I hadn't paid that close attention to the authors name when I started reading.
I have to say that thus far I really do like his work though I have only read two stories, I enjoyed both of them a great deal and find that he truly is a master and clever craftsman with his stories.
One of the things of which I enjoy in his stories is there is something of an almost charming quality about them, even when the stories themselves are not always what one would call upbeat or completely optimistic.
I found there was an underlined humor within the irony of this story. It was a story about two men whom were so sit within their ways, and their routine, that ultimately they both ended up killing themselves when they could have saved each other, if either of them had been willing to speak up instead of feeling it so necessary to fulfill what they saw as their obligation to each other.
Much like with Mammon and the Archer, there is something within this story that is endearing and yet disturbing at the same time which really makes one thing. On the one hand it is admirable the way in which the men whom are near strangers to each other, put each other before his own personal comfort, but on the other hand it is almost cowardly the way neither is willing to come forth and tell the other the truth about their current states which would have been the difference between life and death.