[your suggestion(s) here]

[Dunpeal]

what is the best... [name/category here] you have ever read??

the best...
- short story?
- poem?
- novel?
- play?

also... anyone out there know who was the first author to write about Robin Hood?? Paul Creswick, is it?

[mike401]

Best...

Short story: "A Very Old Man With Enormous Wings" by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Not sure why, it just sticks out in my mind.
Poem: "Tintern Abbey" by William Wordsworth. My favorite poem usually depends on the mood, but this poem was one of the first to really open my eyes to poetry, so I'll say this one.
Novel: Hmmm...I just finished "Ulysses" by James Joyce and it was amazing, nothing like it. I liked "The Sun Also Rises" by Hemingway, um...man this is hard.
Play: So predictable, but "Hamlet." If not that, "Henry IV, part i." Hotspur is one of my favorite characters for some reason, but the soliloquies in "Hamlet" are terrifyingly good. I'm not copping out, I swear :)

[simon]

Is the very old man with enourmous wings where an old man everybody thinks is an angel is locked into a chicken coup?

[crisaor]

Yep, that's the one.

[Isagel]

I think I will have to try and find that one. What is the book called?

[crisaor]

Isagel, the book is called Ojos de Perro Azul (Eyes of a Blue Dog). I don't know if it has been published in english in its original format, maybe you can find the tale in a single edition. Anyway, you can read it online here:

http://www.angeltowns.com/members/shortstories/garciamarquezoldman.html

[Monica]

best short stories are Julio Cortazar's stories, can't really give the title in English
poem... something by Poe, perhaps "A Dream within a Dream"
novel - undoubtedly "Foucault's Pendulum" by Eco (perhaps it's getting boring about my writing about Eco the whole time, but he's really great, trust me)
play- I'd say Shakespeare's "Hamlet" or "The Tempest"

[Isagel]

Thank you Crisaor! the link doesn´t work right now, but I´ll "google" and see what I can find.

[crisaor]

best short stories are Julio Cortazar's stories, can't really give the title in English
I don't like Cortazar very much, he keeps building up stories and details and he never concludes them. I'd take Borges over Cortazar anyday.

Isagel, I tried the link today again, and it works. If it still doesn't work for you, I've tried to attach the file. Check it out.

[simon]

I agree with you on the lack of conclusion crisaor. Cortazar always seems to leave his stories without every really saying much. But maybe that is part of his point, that it is hard to know what is really going on, why things happen and so on, but that doesn't make for very interesting literature.

[Miranda]

One of my favourite short stories is Chekhov's 'Sleepy' in which a little girl being treated like a slave is not allowed to sleep by her 'master' and must take care of a crying baby, night and day. Eventually she goes mad and strangles the baby. Chekhov tells the story of how the little girl drifts in and out of the edge of sleep in such a masterful way you can feel her exhaustion. Katherine Mansfield stole this story, though I can't remember what she called it. Chekhov's original version is far better and I dont know why she bothered. Another great story of Chekhov's is 'A Dreadful Night'. I am sad that I don't have this story, but from memory: In Russia at the time, it was customary for people to leave their keys above the door. A friend comes to visit another and finding him out, discovers the key and lets himself into his friends house. As his eyes get used to the darkness, he makes out an unusual and unexpected shape of something not usually in the room...which he suddenly realises is a coffin. He takes fright and runs and finds some other friends..and so the story goes. I won't tell the end cos it would spoil it for anyone not having read it before.

One of my favourite ghost stories is 'Whistle and I'll Come to You,' by Mr James.I think most frightening are those normal every day which take on sinister shapes, forms and connotations during cold dark nights when you wake and can't get to sleep again. The imagination can play havoc with the sound of the wind in the trees or an owl crying in the twilight hours - or a shadow on the wall - or something hanging on the door. I think that Whistle and I'll come to You has this sort of atmosphere. A man finds an old whistle on a beach and puts it in his pocket, then begins to notice something - a kind of nondescript sheet, following him. Then something continually disturbs his sleep and he thinks there is another occupant in the spare bed in the room where he has taken lodging, only to find that though this bed is in a great tangle in the morning...only he has been sleeping in the room - and so it goes on

The film that scares me most is really laughable...The Legend of Hell House' and I mean the original and not any remake. I watched this when I was little and it scared me so much that even now as an adult, watching it awakens the same terror and though it's so corny - crazily enough I end up sleeping with the light on if I should watch it..so I don't.

What is the most scariest story/book/film that you ever read/saw?

[crisaor]

I agree with you on the lack of conclusion crisaor. Cortazar always seems to leave his stories without every really saying much. But maybe that is part of his point, that it is hard to know what is really going on, why things happen and so on, but that doesn't make for very interesting literature.
I agree with this. He's a fine writer, no doubt about it, but his work doesn't call me at all.

The film that scares me most is really laughable...The Legend of Hell House' and I mean the original and not any remake. I watched this when I was little and it scared me so much that even now as an adult, watching it awakens the same terror and though it's so corny - crazily enough I end up sleeping with the light on if I should watch it..so I don't.
That is an interesting observation. Most of the times, when a movie is supposed to be scary, I find it incredibly funny, like American Psycho, to name an example. I guess that the only time when you get to see scary movies is when you're little. After a few years, there's no fiction capable of scaring you. That's what reality is for.

[Miranda]

I think you are right in a way Crisaor, reality is much more scary. When it comes to 'scaredness' I reckon I'd take the top prize. But when it comes to movies, I think it's the hidden things that appeal to your imagination that scare most and maybe this is why things frighten us most as children..our imaginations are then running riot.

I don't think horror films work because the things that are suppose to scare are so obvious. I think this is why books are often more frightening - because the imagination comes into play, instead of the scary sequences being handed to you on a plate. But as I said I'm a scary person...and another film that will make you howl -and which makes my kids howl - but which makes me have to sleep with the light on is ..er...I don't know if I can say this cos you will laff your head off...'Night of the Living Dead'. All those mouldy men iwith bits dropping off, trying to get out of the cellar!