One of the best short story collections of the 20th century
The Burning Plain is a collection of fifteen short stories by Mexican author Juan Rulfo, originally published in 1953 under the Spanish title of El Llano en llamas. Rulfo is widely considered by his countrymen to be Mexico’s greatest author, even though he only published two books of fiction during his lifetime, this collection of stories and the novel Pedro Páramo.
The stories in The Burning Plain take place in rural Mexico, around the time of the Revolution of 1910, and often focus on the harsh aspects of peasant life. While some of the stories are very specifically Mexican, others are so stark and devoid of detail that their time and place are indeterminate. Common to all is a harsh, desolate landscape whose inhabitants struggle to eke out a living, some by coaxing a meagre crop from the arid soil, others by violently wielding a gun or machete. Poverty and murder permeate these stories, and death is a ubiquitous presence that Rulfo treats with an alternatingly bleak and comic fatalism.
Rulfo’s writing style is as sparse and severe as the land he depicts. No one can say as much with as few words as Juan Rulfo. His characters are often just the faint outline of human beings, his stages set with but a few rocks and trees, yet from these paltry ingredients he manages to craft complex narratives that vividly capture the drama of human existence. His prose is terse and stark, almost crude in its poetic simplicity, yet he also uses modernistic literary devices such as switching from first to third person in mid-story or alternating simultaneous stream-of-consciousness narratives. When Rulfo employs such techniques, it never feels gratuitous or forced, but always effortless and vital to the tale being told. The plots often start out deliberately obscure, sometimes frustratingly so, then slowly coalesce and develop like a figure emerging from a fog.
Reading this collection is like strolling through a gallery of masterpieces. The stories are consistently excellent throughout. In the bluntly titled “We’re very poor,” a flood inundates a rural village, washing away a cow belonging to the narrator’s sister. Without that cow for her dowry, her family fears she will become a “bad woman” like her sisters. In “Tell them not to kill me!”, an elderly man awaits his impending execution, grasping for a shred of hope, as he recalls his past 40 years as a fugitive and the murder that led to his downfall. In the bleak but powerful “No dogs bark,” an old man, carrying his grown son on his back, stumbles through darkness in search of medical attention, lamenting the trouble brought about by his son’s evil ways. “Remember” starts out as a folksy anecdote, with the narrator detailing the personality quirks of his home village’s inhabitants. It then slowly and unexpectedly escalates into an account of a brutal killing. If there’s one brilliant gem to be singled out from this treasure chest it would probably be “Talpa.” Tamilo, whose body is covered in mysterious, disgusting sores, convinces his wife and his brother (or sister, perhaps; I don’t believe Rulfo ever specifies) to take him on a pilgrimage to the Virgin of Talpa, little knowing that the two are carrying on an affair behind his back.
The Burning Plain is a landmark work, not only of Latin-American literature but of literature in general. I can’t think of a better collection of short stories overall. Even for those who have absolutely no interest in Mexico, its history or its culture, Rulfo’s stories transcend their setting to offer profound and unblinking insight into the universal human condition.
Stories in this collection
Macario
They gave us the land
The Hill of the Comrades
We’re very poor
The man
At daybreak
Talpa
The burning plain
Tell them not to kill me!
Luvina
The night they left him alone
Remember
No dogs bark
Paso del Norte
Anacleto Morones
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A noir thriller with moral and psychological depth
Joseph Timar, a naive young Frenchman, travels to Gabon, a French colony in West Africa, to work for a lumber company. When he gets there, he discovers the position is not actually available yet, so he finds himself with nothing better to do than hang out at a hotel in Libreville, associating with the other whites residing there. Soon after his arrival a black boy is murdered, and though suspicion points toward the innkeeper’s attractive wife, Timar becomes involved with her anyway.
Though Georges Simenon is primarily famous for his Maigret series of detective novels, he is also well respected for what he called his “romans durs,” more serious literary novels often dealing with psychological themes, of which this book is an example. Tropic Moon is in fact a mystery story and a noir thriller, but the instances of crime and punishment take a back seat to the setting in which they take place. Though Timar enters Gabon with romantic notions about the glamor of the exotic Dark Continent, Simenon indulges no such illusions. His portrait of Africa is viscerally stark. Tropic Moon blatantly depicts the everyday injustices of the colonization of French West Africa. Though this may have been shocking to the audience of 1933, when the book was first published, today the fact that European empires exploited the resources of their third-world territories and oppressed the inhabitants of those territories is common knowledge. Nevertheless, through the direct matter-of-factness of Simenon’s descriptive prose, the reader finds himself inescapably effected by the palpable racism permeating the events of the book. The mystery story is what propels the book forward, enticing the reader to greedily gobble up each successive chapter, but the racial tension is ever-present just beneath the surface. The contemporary reader is not so much shocked by the racism as gradually suffocated by it. “They were whites, and they did whatever they wanted to—because they were whites.” The French characters in this book take what they want when they want it, whether it’s a piece of fruit, a centuries-old tree trunk, a native girl’s virginity, or the life of a black boy. We watch as Timar incrementally loses the inexperience and idealism of his youth, becoming ever more acclimated to the injustice and barbarism around him. The real mystery becomes whether he will completely succumb to the callous, brutish attitude of his white peers, or rise above their bigotry and assert his humanity.
Tropic Moon is a riveting thriller, set within a startlingly vivid slice of time and place. Although it takes you down dark roads you may not want to travel, the ride is captivating. Once I picked the book up, Simenon had me from page one, and I didn’t want to put it down. At a scant 133 pages, those with an adequate chunk of free time will want to read the whole book in one sitting.
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The Tropics as Wild West
South Sea Tales is a collection of eight short stories by Jack London, first published in 1911. It is the first of his collections in which all the stories are set among the islands of the South Pacific. This region of the globe would become predominant in the writings of the second half of his career, much as the first half of his career was dominated by stories of the Klondike Gold Rush. In the stories included here, London paints a picture of life in the South Seas that is far from a tropical idyll. He shows us a brutal world in which the native islanders and their white oppressors are constantly at each other’s throats.
The stories take place in the Solomon Islands, Fiji, Tahiti, the Paumotus, and elsewhere throughout Polynesia and Melanesia. Many of the natives make their living gathering the natural fruits of the sea, including pearls, and must deal with white traders who continually try to swindle them. White corporations own plantations on the islands, where they harvest copra (coconut meat), cocoa, sugar cane, or other agricultural exports. White men’s boats known as “blackbirders” patrol the island coasts, gathering up cheap labor to work these plantations. Once signed on, the islanders are held in indentured servitude and brutalized by their masters. London depicts these slaves as constantly trying to kill their masters, steal their goods, and escape. When these attempts take place, the whites slaughter them mercilessly and indiscriminately.
London displays little sympathy for the brutalized natives here. In fact, he treats the violence and killing with an almost comic nonchalance, much in the way that stories set in the Wild West often make light of gunfights and hangings. The unfortunate difference between the two genres, of course, is that what we’re talking about here is racial violence, black vs. white. In some of the stories, the natives are depicted as little more than a relentless tide of savages who must be exterminated in order to defend the white man’s life and livelihood. The story entitled “The Inevitable White Man,” for example, begins with a conversation about manifest destiny, then goes on to glorify a man whose only discernible talent is the shooting of blacks. Modern audiences are likely to find such tales off-putting, if not downright offensive.
Luckily, three of the stories break from this pattern and redeem the collection somewhat overall. These three exceptions focus primarily on conflicts between man and nature. “The House of Mapuhi” tells the story of a native who discovers a giant pearl on a remote atoll. Three white traders vie for the prize, all of whom try to swindle the pearl diver. All deals are off, however, when the island is devastated by a hurricane. In “The Seed of McCoy,” a ship with a hold full of flaming cargo pulls up to Pitcairn Island. There they are met by a descendant of the Bounty mutineers who offers to guide them to another island with a suitable port, in hopes that they can save their ship before it burns up entirely. In “The Heathen,” by far the most positive story in the book, a trading vessel sails into the heart of a hurricane. The two survivors of the disaster, the white narrator and a native Bora Boran, form a close, lifelong friendship.
These three worthy stories provide some relief from the relentless brutality. As a collection overall, however, South Sea Tales leaves the reader with the impression that London was a master of adventure storytelling who could have used a little sensitivity training.
Stories in this collection
The House of Mapuhi
The Whale Tooth
Mauki
“Yah! Yah! Yah!”
The Heathen
The Terrible Solomons
The Inevitable White Man
The Seed of McCoy
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Another great collection of Polish short fiction
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| Boleslaw Prus |
As is apparent from the title, this is the second volume in a series collecting the short stories of Polish authors. This collection, with English translations by Else C. M. Benecke and Marie Busch, was originally published in 1916.
The book leads off with two stories by Adam Szymanski, “Maciej the Mazur” and “Two Prayers.” Both depict the lives of Polish political exiles and colonists in Siberia. In Szymanski’s portrayal, Siberia is a bleak, frozen place inhabited by lonely souls who desperately seek each other out for any opportunity to share their memories, both good and bad, of the former lives they led in the beloved mother country. “The Chukchee” by Waclaw Sieroszewski is also set in Siberia, but deals with the indigenous population. A Polish colonist meets with a band of the nomadic Chukchee people, in hopes of opening a trading relationship with them. After the tribe departs his village, he joins a missionary expedition through treacherous terrain to visit the native people at their home camp in the remote tundra.
The bleak atmosphere that permeates this book is not confined to Siberia, but is applied to the small towns and rural villages of Poland as well. In “The Trial” by Nobel Prize winner Wladyslaw Reymont, when a mob of peasants discover the thieves who have been committing robberies in their village, they take the law into their own hands, trying and sentencing the accused with their own brutal brand of jurisprudence. Stefan Zeromski’s “The Stronger Sex” tells of a poor, idealistic doctor who opens a practice in a small provincial town. The overwhelming ignorance, superstition, and conservatism of the peasant populace deadens his intellect and robs him of any professional drive he once possessed. He is shaken from his lethargy one night, however, when he is informed that a school teacher in the next town has taken deathly ill.
The longest and best piece in the book is a 100-page novella by Boleslaw Prus entitled “The Returning Wave.” Gottlieb Adler is a self-made man who worked his way up from nothing to a position of wealth. As owner of a textile factory, he is the primary employer in his small town. Adler allows his son Ferdinand to live an idle, self-indulgent life. When the young man racks up tremendous debts, Adler transfers them to his factory laborers through economizing measures which extend the workers hours and lower their wages. Under his iron hand, however, the workers begin to show signs of unrest. This is an excellent piece of literature reminiscent of some of the best works by Emile Zola and Honoré de Balzac.
I don’t read Polish, so I can’t critique the translation, but I will say that at times the English prose is a bit awkward and hampers readability. Occasionally the text could use some clarification in simple matters like who’s speaking in a conversation or which direction a character is moving. This is more evident in the works of Szymanski and Sieroszewski, but not much of a problem in the Reymont or Prus entries. This collection has no introduction and only very limited footnotes, so you are expected to know the historical context behind these stories. American readers unfamiliar with Polish history may have to consult Wikipedia to get their bearings. These stories are worth the extra work, however. If you enjoy naturalistic literature of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, you will find that the Polish offerings in this series deserve a distinguished place in the canon of world literature.
Stories in this collection
Maciej the Mazur by Adam Szymanski
Two Prayers by Adam Szymanski
The Trial by Wladyslaw Reymont
The Stronger Sex by Stefan Zeromski
The Chukchee by Waclaw Sieroszewski
The Returning Wave by Boleslaw Prus
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White-collar crime in 19th century France
This novel follows the exploits of Aristide Saccard, a financial wheeler-dealer in Second Empire Paris. His former wealth wiped away by investment schemes gone bad, Saccard looks for his next big windfall. Luckily, he meets a neighbor, Hamelin, an engineer with grand designs to develop railroads, mines, dams, and shipping companies in the Middle East. The engineer and the financial wizard join forces to make both their dreams come true. Saccard founds the Universal Bank to fund Hamelin’s projects, and it becomes all the rage in the Paris Bourse (stock market). While Hamelin’s intentions are noble, Saccard’s primary interest in the venture is personal financial gain and self-aggrandizement. In order to push up his company’s value, he manipulates figures illegally and lies to his investors.
Saccard is a personification of the greed and opportunism rampant in France at the time, and his unwise investors personify that period’s growing mania for financial speculation. It’s amazing how relevant the book is to this day. The Universal Bank could just as well be named Enron or Worldcom, and foreign investment in the Middle East is certainly a current concern. Another issue that Zola tackles in this book is anti-Semitism. Though Zola himself was not an anti-Semite, he makes Saccard a hater of Jews in order to depict the mind-set of many Parisians at that time. One of the functions of Saccard’s Universal Bank is to create a repository of Catholic money to rival the Jewish-owned banks, an actual goal of some Parisian businessmen of the time. Regardless of the historical social commentary, one can enjoy this novel purely for its intricately-drawn characters and its insights into human nature. I would caution that some of the financial strategy can be a little difficult for people (like me) who are not fully versed in the world of stocks and bonds.
This book is the 18th book in Zola’s twenty-novel Rougon-Macquart series. Zola first introduced us to the character Aristide Saccard back in the second volume of the series, La Curée. L’Argent (a.k.a. Money) is a much better book than La Curée (a.k.a. The Kill), and it is not necessary to read that prior volume in order to understand or enjoy this book. By Zola standards I would not call this novel a masterpiece, but it’s an excellent novel and deserves to be read.
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The epic that launched a genre
If you enjoy tales of knights, castles, and kings, then you owe a huge debt to Sir Walter Scott. A literary superstar and pop culture phenom in his day, this master of the historical novel was instrumental in reviving the public’s interest in medieval times. With the publication of Ivanhoe in 1820, Scott created the sword-and-chivalry genre that is now represented by countless books, movies, TV shows, and Renaissance fairs.
The story of Ivanhoe takes place at the end of the 12th century. While his knights return from a failed crusade to the holy land, King Richard the Lionheart is held captive in Austria. In his absence, his brother Prince John rules England with an oppressive and avaricious hand. The Normans, having conquered England in 1066, continue to treat the native Saxons as second class citizens in their own lands. One powerful Saxon noble, Cedric of Rotherwood, maintains a defiant attitude toward the Norman oppressors. He has even disinherited his son, Sir Wilfred of Ivanhoe, for serving the Norman King Richard. Cedric acts as guardian to Lady Rowena, a beautiful Saxon maiden, whom he hopes to marry off to a Saxon prince. Her heart, however, belongs to Wilfred of Ivanhoe. After an exciting tournament of jousting and melee, a group of Prince John’s Norman minions led by Sir Brian de Bois-Guilbert, a fierce Templar Knight, captures Cedric and his retinue for nefarious reasons and holds them captive in the Castle of Torquilstone. To free them from the clutches of the Normans, a ragtag band of fellow Saxons lead a desperate attack on the castle.
This is a rich, deep story with dozens of characters and a complex plot. Even Robin Hood and Friar Tuck make supporting appearances. Also included in Cedric’s party are two Jews, Isaac of York and his daughter Rebecca, a mysterious beauty who practices the healing arts. The undeserved persecution of the Jews is one of the main themes of the novel, and Scott shows a great deal of sympathy for their plight. Rebecca forms one corner of a love quadrangle with Ivanhoe, Rowena, and Brian de Bois-Guilbert, yet her devotion to the faith of her ancestors places an impenetrable wall between the Jewish maiden and the gentile man she loves.
The main problem with Ivanhoe is that it peaks in the middle. The siege of Torquilstone is really the highlight of the book, but when it’s over there’s still half a novel left. The plot of act two has the potential for an equally high level of drama, but gets sidetracked with several chapters of long conversations that just seem to lead circuitously to foregone conclusions. The back half of the book is satisfying, but lacks the drama and excitement of the front. It all leads to an ending which is a bit anticlimactic. Nevertheless, even in its dullest moments, Scott’s prose is a joy to read. Each sentence is an elegantly crafted exemplar of the English language, and perfectly captures the romantic atmosphere of the middle ages. With so much epic grandeur, a story like this runs the risk of getting bogged down by its own pompous gravity, but Scott never fails to inject a refreshing dose of humor into the proceedings.
Though it dabbles in folklore and myth, this is no fantasy novel. The story of Ivanhoe is firmly grounded in English history. There are plenty of thick woods, clammy dungeons, and fog-shrowded bogs, but you won’t find any dragons, sorcerers, or supernatural apparitions. Ivanhoe is a great read for anyone who enjoys historical novels or adventure fiction. Its epic story and remarkable characters are truly unforgettable.
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Ambitious in scope, inconsistent in execution
Tom Thomson was a Canadian landscape painter, active from around 1907 until his untimely death in 1917. He was associated with the painters known as the Group of Seven, and is considered by many of his countrymen to be one of the most important visual artists in the history of Canada. In this book, artist George A. Walker has created a wordless narrative of Thomson’s life and death comprised of 109 wood engravings. The mysterious circumstances surrounding Thomson’s drowning in Algonquin Park have led to the formation of various theories as to the ultimate cause of his death, including murder. In the book’s three-page introduction, Tom Smart very briefly summarizes these theories. He then goes on to compare the life of Thomson to the Epic of Gilgamesh, which seems a bit of a stretch. More satisfying is the equally brief afterword by Walker in which he discusses the influence of Thomson’s art upon his own work.
Pre-equipped with an interest in the subject matter, a love of Thomson’s paintings, an enthusiasm for woodcut illustration and pictorial narrative, and a limited familiarity with Walker’s prints, I expected to like this book a lot more than I did. The illustrations included here exhibit a consistency in style but an unfortunate inconsistency in quality. Not all are as compelling and attractive as the cover image. The couple dozen really excellent prints in the book make one wonder why so many of the others look rushed, poorly thought out, or crudely executed. The sinewy stroke of Walker’s engraving tool is most effective when emulating Thomson’s landscape paintings, but when applied to figures and faces it often yields misshapen heads and limbs. There are moments of brilliance throughout, like a wooden chair emerging sublimely from a shadow, or a conglomeration of rough, structural strokes that coalesce into a locomotive. Overall, however, the book left me with the feeling that I would have preferred to see a collection of 109 landscape prints.
Walker succeeds in capturing and infectiously transmitting Thomson’s love for the natural world. As for the storytelling, however, without prior knowledge of Thomson, the images alone would not suffice to convey the story of his artistic career and demise. Due to the nonverbal nature of wordless narrative, ambiguity is an inherent quality of the woodcut novel. At times, however, Walker crosses the line from ambiguity to a lack of visual clarity, and the reader finds himself asking questions like “What's that he's holding in his hand?” or “Who’s that second figure supposed to be?” These are questions one never needs to ask from the wordless novels of Lynd Ward, Frans Masereel, or Laurence Hyde.
Despite my reservations, Walker should be commended for keeping the art form of the woodcut novel alive. This book is beautifully designed. The typography, layout, and paper choices, coupled with Walker’s at times beautiful artwork, make for a stunning package. Unfortunately, he seems to have bit off more than he could chew with this entry into pictorial literature. On the one hand, Thomson’s story is perhaps too big to be told in 109 illustrations; on the other hand, the overall quality of the art would have benefited from fewer images. Walker admirably navigates the waters between this rock and hard place, but does not emerge unscathed.
See the publisher’s web site for more images from the book:
http://www.george-walker.com/Tom_Thomson/Thomson.html
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