i really liked marquez' s short stories.. i can't remember one in particular, but i can say they impressed me.
i really liked marquez' s short stories.. i can't remember one in particular, but i can say they impressed me.
Some of my favorites:
Bulwer Lytton The Haunter and the Haunted
O.Henry Roads of Destiny
Robert Louis Stevenson The Bodysnatchers
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle The Speckled Band
Ambrose Bierce An Incident At Owl Creek Bridge
Stephen Vincent Benet The Devil and Daniel Webster
Edgar Allan Poe The Tell-Tale Heart
Last edited by Pendragon; 09-27-2006 at 05:53 PM.
Some of us laugh
Some of us cry
Some of us smoke
Some of us lie
But it's all just the way
that we cope with our lives...
Anything, really, by Ray Bradbury--but especially "The Veldt" and "The House of Usher."
'...A cast of your skull, sir, until the original is available, would be an ornament to any anthropological museum. It is not my intention to be fulsome, but I confess that I covet your skull.' --Dr. Mortimer, The Hound of the Baskervilles
Um. The Fall of the House of Usher is by Poe...
But ditto on Ray Bradbury's The Veldt. I also like The Illustrated Man .
Last edited by Pendragon; 09-29-2006 at 09:57 AM.
Some of us laugh
Some of us cry
Some of us smoke
Some of us lie
But it's all just the way
that we cope with our lives...
Hi Pen, I happen to like The Illustrated Man too. As a matter of fact, it is my first Bradbury'sOriginally Posted by Pendragon
.
The Killers by Hemingway, and the rest of Hemingway's
Actually Pen, Ray Bradbury wrote a story titled that too. It's futuristic and is set on Mars. It's creepy and fantastic. x)
'...A cast of your skull, sir, until the original is available, would be an ornament to any anthropological museum. It is not my intention to be fulsome, but I confess that I covet your skull.' --Dr. Mortimer, The Hound of the Baskervilles
YES! Great to see another Cortázar enthusiast. He's undeservedly unknown outside of the Spanish speaking world as he's really at the same level of literary achievement as Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Borges (no kidding, he really is that good), although I've heard that the existing English translations don't do him much justice (he must be incredibly hard to translate, but surely they can do better than what's out right now). "Continuidad de los parques" is totally amazing, it reminds me of an Escher painting, although I think the best has to be "El perseguidor", the terrific semi-biography of Charlie Parker. "La noche boca arriba" is amazing as well. "Final del juego", "Las armas secretas," and "Todos los fuegos el fuego" are all amazing short story books. I've been meaning to have a go at "Rayuela" as well, but I need to have quite a bit of spare time for that as I hear it's quite difficult. The concept of it is fascinating, though... a novel that can be read twice, in different orders? No one else has thought of that.
"No one can retell the plot of a Cortázar story; each one consists of determined words in a determined order. If we try to summarize them, we realize that something precious has been lost."
- Jorge Luis Borges
"Anyone who doesn't read Cortázar is doomed. Not to read him is a serious invisible disease which in time can have terrible consequences. Something similar to a man who has never tasted peaches. He would quietly become sadder... and, probably, little by little, he would lose his hair."
- Pablo Neruda
Anyway, as far as more familiar names go, I absolutely adore Hemingway's "A Very Short Story". I don't know why, but this one really hits me more than any other Hemingway short story I've read, more even than The Killers (which, to be quite frank, I might need someone to explain it to me, but I just don't get why it's supposed to be so great) and The Snows of Kilimanjaro (I don't count The Old Man and the Sea as I consider that to be more of a novella, although that one's amazing not for its content but for the way it's written... it's a poem in prose, and one of the greatest poems ever at that). It's so short but it has so much meaning in it. To me it's the best representation of Hemingway's economization and also a good summary of his general reccurring themes.
Just to give you all a quick taste of Cortázar:
"The Continuity of Parks"
He had begun to read the novel a few days before. He had put it aside because of some urgent business conferences, opened it again on his way back to the estate by train; he permitted himself a slowly growing interest in the plot, in the characterizations. That afternoon, after writing a letter giving his power of attorney and discussing a matter of joint ownership with the manager of his estate, he returned to the book in the tranquility of his study which looked out upon the park with its oaks. Sprawled in his favorite armchair, its back toward the door--even the possibility of an intrusion would have irritated him, had he thought of it--he let his left hand caress repeatedly the green velvet upholstery and set to reading the final chapters. He remembered effortlessly the names and his mental image of the characters; the novel spread its glamour over him almost at once. He tasted the almost perverse pleasure of disengaging himself line by line from the things around him, and at the same time feeling his head rest comfortably on the green velvet of the chair with its high back, sensing that the cigarettes rested within reach of his hand, that beyond the great windows the air of afternoon danced under the oak trees in the park. Word by word, licked up the sordid dilemma of the hero and heroine, letting himself be absorbed to the point where the images settled down and took on color and movement, he was witness to the final encounter in the mountain cabin. The woman arrived first, apprehensive; now the lover came in, his face cut by the backlash of a branch. Admirably, she stanched the blood with her kisses, but he rebuffed her caresses, he had not come to perform again the ceremonies of a secret passion, protected by a world of dry leaves and furtive paths through the forest. The dagger warmed itself against his chest, and underneath liberty pounded, hidden close. A lustful, panting dialogue raced down the pages like a rivulet of snakes, and one felt it had all been decided from eternity. Even to those caresses which writhed about the lover's body, as though wishing to keep him there, to dissuade him from it; they sketched abominably the fame of that other body it was necessary to destroy. Nothing had been forgotten: alibis, unforeseen hazards, possible mistakes. From this hour on, each instant had its use minutely assigned. The cold-blooded, twice-gone-over reexamination of the details was barely broken off so that a hand could caress a cheek. It was beginning to get dark.
Not looking at each other now, rigidly fixed upon the task which awaited them, they separated at the cabin door. She was to follow the trail that led north. On the path leading in the opposite direction, he turned for a moment to watch her running, her hair loosened and flying. He ran in turn, crouching among the trees and hedges until, in the yellowish fog of dusk, he could distinguish the avenue of trees which led up to the house. The dogs were not supposed to bark, and they did not bark. The estate manager would not be there at this hour, and he was not there. He went up the three porch steps and entered. The woman's words reached him over a thudding of blood in his ears: first a blue chamber, then a hall, then a carpeted stairway. At the top, two doors. Noone in the first room, noone in the second. The door of the salon, and then, the knife in his hand, the light from the great windows, the high back of an armchair covered in green velvet, the head of the man in the chair reading a novel.
"In the sunset of dissolution, everything is illuminated by the aura of nostalgia, even the guillotine."
- Milan Kundera, The Unbearable Lightness of Being
where can i find online textx of cortazar's short stories translated in English. my spanish is very limited
Would you happen to know which of Bradbury's collections the story is in? I have a giant book with 100 of his stories and it isn't in there, and I don't recall ever reading it in any other collection either. And that's strange, because he's a great writer, and I love his stories! I'd like to read this one!
Isaac Asimov's Wendel Urth stories are great, and his ghost story Legal Rites is a fine twist ending!
Some of us laugh
Some of us cry
Some of us smoke
Some of us lie
But it's all just the way
that we cope with our lives...
It's in the Illustrated Man book, under "Fall of the House of Usher"--got the name a bit wrong at first, sorryIt's great.
'...A cast of your skull, sir, until the original is available, would be an ornament to any anthropological museum. It is not my intention to be fulsome, but I confess that I covet your skull.' --Dr. Mortimer, The Hound of the Baskervilles
Is it the first story in the Illustrated Man? Something to do with the lion? Sorry, I read the book long time a go. One of my fav stories in the book is the story of the astrounouts floating in space..an accident happened and one by one they died..I forgot the title.It's in the Illustrated Man book, under "Fall of the House of Usher"--got the name a bit wrong at first, sorry
The lion one is "The Veldt." I don't have my copy of the Illustrated Man with me, so I can't remember where it is in the order D: But I'm pretty sure it's also in the Martian Chronicles.
I know the astronaut one you're talking about Sub, and I'm so annoyed at myself because the title's on the tip of my tongue and I can't say it! I hate it when that happens.
Another really good short story Ray wrote is called "A Sound of Thunder." I actually think they made that one into a video game x)
'...A cast of your skull, sir, until the original is available, would be an ornament to any anthropological museum. It is not my intention to be fulsome, but I confess that I covet your skull.' --Dr. Mortimer, The Hound of the Baskervilles
Metamorphosis by Kafka is amazing.
Also Jonathen Swifts short stories ar good.
And dont forget the Canterbury Tales, especially a Knight's Tale.
Ohh almost forget the Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde
Posting Permissions
Reply With Quote
