Stories from the Twilight Zone by Rod Serling

Suspense never goes out of style
This collection contains six short stories from the classic early-1960s television series The Twilight Zone. Each tale is a prose adaptation written by Rod Serling—the show’s creator, head writer, and host—based upon a script he originally wrote for the show. The book also includes very brief introductions to the stories by his daughter Anne Serling which give a few details about the production of each episode. I was never a religious watcher of the show, but as a teenager in the ‘80s I subscribed to Twilight Zone Magazine, an excellent pulp anthology that featured horror, fantasy, and all-around weird stories by authors both classic and contemporary, including Twilight Zone scripts by Serling. When I stumbled upon this inexpensive ebook, I hoped it would bring back some of the excitement I felt when a new issue arrived on my doorstep.

Unfortunately, the first two stories did little to reinforce my hopes. “The Mighty Casey” and “Escape Clause” are both humorous tales. The former is about a miraculous pitcher who saves the Brooklyn Dodgers from a dismal season. The latter is the nth variation on the sold-his-soul-to-the-devil chestnut. In both cases, the humor has not held up well over the last half century. The dialog definitely reads like it was written for a soundstage, and is riddled with antiquated slang that doesn’t even score points as nostalgia or kitsch. These were surely clever stories for their day, but today’s reader will find them mildly amusing at best.

Where the funny stories fail, however, the serious and scary stories succeed. “Walking Distance” is an absolute masterpiece. A depressed New York City ad exec longs for the comfort and simplicity of his boyhood summers. Through the magic of the Twilight Zone, he finds you literally can go home again. It’s a very touching and poignant piece that keenly captures the regret of lost youth. Any reader over 30 will find it quite moving. Another excellent classic is “Where Is Everybody?”, which was the very first episode of the show. It’s about a young man who wakes up in the middle of a road with no memory of who he is or where he’s from. He wanders into a small town only to find it bereft of inhabitants, as if everyone had just abandoned the place moments earlier. In this disturbing tale, Serling brilliantly evokes the insanity that can be generated by isolation.

Two other solid selections round out the collection: “The Fever” and “The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street.” Both start out a little hokey and contrived, but Serling skillfully ramps up the intensity until the narratives snowball into higher and higher levels of shock and awe. What might have been mediocre stories are saved by stunning, over-the-top endings. I’m not familiar with these particular episodes, but these dark tales contain violent scenes that surely must have been tuned down for television.

Serling is undoubtedly one of the greatest writers in the history of television. Each week on The Twilight Zone, he put a whole new fictional universe on the small screen and continually pushed the envelope of what the medium was capable of. The fact that the show is firmly ensconced in a cycle of perpetual reruns is a testament to his great talent and creativity. This book is a testament to how well his work has held up over the past 50 years. The best of these stories transcend pulp fiction to qualify as genuine literature.

Stories in this collection

The Mighty Casey 

Escape Clause 

Walking Distance 

The Fever

Where Is Everybody? 

The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street 

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Peter Schlemihl by Adelbert von Chamisso

The man who sold his shadow
Peter Schlemihl is an 1814 novella written by Adelbert von Chamisso. Though born in France, von Chamisso lived most of his life in Germany after his aristocratic parents fled the French Revolution. Peter Schlemihl has been translated into English under a variety of titles, such as The Man Who Sold His Shadow or The Marvellous History of the Shadowless Man, either of which gives a more precise indication of the story’s contents. The narrative opens with Peter disembarking a boat in an unnamed country. He arrives with letter of recommendation in hand at the home of a Mr. Jones, who at that moment happens to be entertaining some guests. Among them is a mysterious thin man in a gray coat who offers to buy Peter’s shadow in exchange for a bottomless purse that dispenses gold coins. Peter jumps at this seemingly fortuitous offer and accepts the bargain. The stranger takes possession of his shadow, folds it up, tucks it in his coat, and departs. Peter soon finds however that life without a shadow isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, despite his limitless wealth. Everywhere he goes he is persecuted and reviled for his lack of umbrage.

Traditional in its prose but surprisingly modernist in its unconventionality, Peter Schlemihl resembles what Balzac might have come up with if he wrote scripts for The Twilight Zone. The shadow is obviously a metaphor for something, but what exactly that may be remains unclear. Von Chamisso clarifies later in the book that it doesn’t represent Peter’s soul. Could the sold shadow be analogous to lost innocence, lost youth, lost integrity? The author never gives you enough clues to grab and hold onto in order to decipher the puzzle. Peter’s shame at his shadowlessness, and the lengths he goes to in an effort to conceal it, make one consider the skeletons we all have in our closets, those shortcomings that we do our best to conceal from others as we interact with the world.

The story rambles on in unexpected directions, as if von Chamisso just improvised the whole thing. It goes on far too long, unfortunately. The first chapter is fascinating, but by the time you get to the end the story has become tiresome. The final chapter is truly bizarre, baring little relation to what came before. It calls to mind some of the more absurd writings of Voltaire, like Candide or Micromegas. Absurdity is welcome in literature, of course, but there has to be some kind of consistency to that absurdity—some method to the madness—otherwise it just seems pointless. The idea of a man selling his shadow is an indelible image, but it’s not enough to make the reading of this story worthwhile. Von Chamisso’s vision was incredibly innovative for a writer of two centuries past, but sometimes innovation just isn’t enough.
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Waverley by Sir Walter Scott

Important and influential, but antiquated and tedious
Sir Walter Scott’s Waverley is often regarded as the first historical novel in western literature, at least in our modern sense of the term. When it was published in 1814, it became the first blockbuster bestseller in the English language. Scott published the book anonymously and went on to publish a whole series of historical novels “by the author of Waverley,” before finally revealing his identity. Though undoubtedly an extremely influential work, Waverley is unlikely to inspire in today’s reader the same enthusiasm that it generated in those readers of two centuries ago.

The story takes place during the Jacobite uprising of 1745, when Scottish Highlanders tried to restore the Stuart family, in the form of “Bonnie Prince Charlie,” to the throne of England, which at that time was in the hands of George I of the House of Hanover. Edward Waverley is a young man from southern England. His father works for the government of Hanover, while his uncle and benefactor, a wealthy Baron, sympathizes with the Stuart cause. Edward’s upbringing is far from strict, and he develops a propensity for idle daydreaming. When he reaches manhood, his family decides that the best course of action for a young man seeking direction in life is to join the military. Edward dutifully acquiesces, but soon takes an extended leave of absence from his regiment to visit a friend of his uncle’s, Baron Bradwardine, in Scotland. When some of the Baron’s cattle are stolen by highlanders, Edward goes on a mission to recover them. In doing so, he makes the acquaintance of some highland clansman, is introduced into their customs, and begins to sympathize with their ideas of rebellion.

This book is perfect for a movie adaptation or a Classics Illustrated comic book because there’s only about two or three sentences of plot in each chapter. The rest is all decorative window dressing, historical context, snippets of poetry, and tangential asides. Scott interrupts the narrative often to directly address the reader, a convention that was all the rage 200 years ago but is apt to inspire groans and eyerolls from the 21st-century reader. To be fair, there are some engaging and entertaining moments in the book’s second half, but you have to plod through a whole lot of unnecessary digression to get there. Back in Scott’s day, fiction was generally considered to be fare for intellectual wimps, which is perhaps why he felt the need to cram the book with so much historical detail, poetic verse, and folklore. By doing so, he made great strides in legitimizing the novel, raising it to a level of highbrow prestige previously reserved for poetry and philosophy.

Waverley is one of the most important books in the history of the novel. Its influence can be felt in almost any novel that’s been written since. This is most apparent, of course, in the historical fiction and adventure genres, beginning with writers like James Fenimore Cooper, Alexandre Dumas, Victor Hugo, and Henryk Sienkiewicz, and continuing to this day. Even literary realism, so antithetical to Scott’s Romanticism, could not have existed without the foundation he built. The problem with Waverley is that most readers of today will find the pupils’ writings far more enjoyable than those of the master. Scott’s writing makes even Cooper look hip and now. Scott himself went on to write much better books. Waverley isn’t in the same league as his classic Ivanhoe, though it’s better written and less boring than his other well-known novel of the Scottish highlands, Rob Roy. The western literary tradition owes a huge debt to Scott. At times, while slogging through the most tedious portions of Waverley, it feels like you’re doing exactly that—paying a debt.
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The Mercenaries by H. Beam Piper

Not one of Piper’s best
“The Mercenaries” is a short story by science fiction writer H. Beam Piper. It was originally published in the March 1950 issue of the pulp magazine Astounding Science Fiction. The story takes place in 1965. After the dropping of the atomic bomb, the world has been divided amongst four superpowers. The next big arms race is already underway. All are competing to be the first to put a man on the moon, for the purpose of establishing a fortress there. In this alternate future, scientists form their own independent think tanks and hire themselves out to the highest bidder, essentially functioning as independent nations in their own rite. The story follows one of these mercenary scientific teams as they work through the problems of manned spaceflight. When the leader of the team discovers that, much to the discontent of his employers, one of its nine members is leaking information to the Communists, he sets out to discover and apprehend the mole.

Though essentially it has the plot of a mystery story, Piper doesn’t put a whole lot of effort into the mystery itself. It ends up being about as complicated as a typical case one might find in the files of Encyclopedia Brown. Piper is far more concerned with the world he’s created and its historical and political details. Fortunately, creating alternate worlds is what Piper does best, and he’s one of the best at what he does. In this particular story, however, there’s too much sci-fi window dressing and not enough meaty plot. At times it seems like Piper’s intention is merely to see how many proper nouns he can cram into a single sentence. The unique nature of the scientific team’s political autonomy brings up some interesting legal and ethical issues towards the end, but they’re neither as thought-provoking nor as entertaining as what Piper usually delivers.

Fans of Piper’s work may be interested in knowing that this story is one of the “Hartley yarns,” meaning that it takes place in the same fictional universe as an earlier story, “Time and Time Again,” which featured a character named Hartley. That character is briefly mentioned in “The Mercenaries,” but the two stories are so loosely connected that it’s not necessary to have read that earlier story before reading this one. Readers new to Piper, however, would be better off reading “Time and Time Again” simply because it’s a superior story to this one. Although it’s certainly not bad, “The Mercenaries” is not one of Piper’s better efforts. As an alternative I would recommend reading something from his Paratime series, like “Police Operation,” or his Terro-Human Future History series, beginning with “The Edge of the Knife.”

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A Dead Woman’s Wish by Emile Zola

Baby steps toward Naturalism
A Dead Woman’s Wish is an early work by Emile Zola. It was first published in 1866 as a serial in the journal L’Événement, under the French title of Le Voeu d’une morte. The publisher discontinued the serialization due to poor sales. Supposedly there was a whole second part to the novel that was planned but never completed. Regardless, the work as it stands now is certainly a complete novel, and it’s hard to imagine how it could have been dragged out much longer.

As a young child, Daniel Raimboult is orphaned by a catastrophic fire. Left penniless and alone, he is also cursed with an ugliness which will become a source of ridicule throughout his life. A wealthy girl from the neighborhood takes pity on this unfortunate child and becomes his anonymous benefactress, sponsoring his education. When Daniel approaches manhood, his guardian angel reveals her identity as Madame de Rionne and invites her young ward into her home. Daniel is overcome by love and reverence for this mothering figure, and to reside under her roof is for him a veritable paradise. His joy is short lived, however. Despite her wealth, Madame de Rionne has not led a happy life. She is trapped in a loveless marriage, and at the age of thirty she is stricken by a fatal illness. On her deathbed, she confides her dying wish to Daniel, the only person she can trust. She asks him to watch over her daughter Jeanne, who is then six years old. He must see that she leads a good life, sticks to a virtuous moral path, and finds the happy marriage that Madame de Rionne herself never had. Daniel vows that he will devote his life to fulfilling this last request.

This work was written prior to Zola’s development of the mature, naturalistic style that he would employ in later works like Thérèse Raquin and the novels in the Rougon-Macquart series. The plot of this book is a throwback to Romanticism, and utterly predictable. The moment each character is introduced, the reader immediately has an inkling of his or her predestined fate. For a melodramatic morality tale, however, this novel is skillfully written and not without its moving moments. The plot may be overly romanticized, but a nascent Naturalism can be found in the details. Zola’s pessimistic attitude permeates the book. The virtuous hero is surrounded by a supporting cast riddled with greed, conceit, and cynicism. At Madame de Rionne’s funeral, for example, Daniel is the only one who mourns sincerely. For everyone else, the ceremony is either a sham, an inconvenience, or a joke. Later in his career, Zola was often admonished by critics for concentrating on the ugly side of life. This book proves that his jaundiced view of society was developed early.

It’s not too difficult to figure out why this serial novel was prematurely yanked from circulation. It's hard to imagine the readers of Zola’s day gobbling up a story that’s such a total downer. Daniel is the only character remotely worth rooting for, and we so rarely see him happy. When he’s performing his avowed duty as Jeanne’s moral conscience, he displays all the sternness and severity of a fundamentalist minister. The final chapter offers some uplifting relief from all the dourness, but not enough to make the book an enjoyable read. That said, however, this depressing fare is preferable to some of the fluffier pieces Zola produced early in his career. A Dead Woman’s Wish is a prepubescent stage in the evolution of the author’s later, greater masterpieces. Diehard fans might like it, but they won’t love it.
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World’s End by Upton Sinclair

The education of Lanny Budd
In the 1940s, Upton Sinclair wrote an immensely popular series of eleven novels starring Lanny Budd. Lanny, the son of an American arms manufacturer, is born and raised in Europe, where he receives a cosmopolitan upbringing that leaves him well-versed in foreign languages, fine arts, and the leisure activities of the rich and famous. Throughout the series, Lanny not only witnesses but participates in many major historical events during and between the two World Wars. Along the way he interacts with many famous celebrities and important political figures. Through the life and adventures of Lanny, the series provides readers with an in-depth examination of early 20th-century world history, as viewed through Sinclair’s liberal lens. World’s End, published in 1940, is the first novel in the series. It covers Lanny’s adolescence during World War I.

When we first meet Lanny, he is at a boarding school in Switzerland studying, of all things, modern dance. When not in school he lives with his mother, Beauty Budd, on the French Riviera, just down the road from Cannes. His parents are divorced. His father, Robbie Budd, head salesman for the family munitions business, makes frequent visits to Europe on business. Like many young men, Lanny is trying to find himself. He can’t decided whether to follow his father in the family business, or to chart a course of his own. He spends many of the early chapters traveling around Europe with his mother and her jet-setting friends. Then World War I breaks out and rains on everyone’s parade.

I had heard great things about the Lanny Budd series—Albert Einstein, George Bernard Shaw, and H. G. Wells were big fans—but I was a little disappointed with this first installment. I think much of the problem lies in the fact that Lanny is a teenager, so the novel must occupy itself with adolescent concerns, like learning the facts of life, losing one’s virginity, and coming to terms with the responsibilities of impending adulthood. Sinclair somehow manages to make even World War I seem boring by concentrating too much on the exploits of Beauty’s rich socialite friends. One wise choice the author makes is making Lanny’s two best friends from school a Brit and a German, thereby providing three differing perspectives on the war. Also to the book’s benefit, Lanny gains an awareness that his privileged upbringing is not the norm, and he starts to develop a consciousness of class issues. He begins to consider the merits of socialism vs. capitalism, which of course is the major theme running through Sinclair’s life’s work. Famous figures stop by for brief appearances: Anatole France, Isadora Duncan, Lawrence of Arabia, Lincoln Steffens, not to mention all the important heads of state. Only in the book’s final third does it live up to expectations in its coverage of world affairs, as it examines the peace conferences that followed World War I, and the wheeling and dealing in the future of nations that occurred there. Still, those pertinent scenes are interspersed with a lot of soap opera drama.

I don’t wish to make World’s End sound like a bad book, because it’s not. It does, however, feel more like a prelude of things to come rather than a complete novel in itself, even though it’s 740 pages long. It lays the groundwork for what’s to come in this acclaimed series, and for that I’m glad I read it, but don’t expect to be blown away by it. The decisions made, agreements reached, and deals struck in Paris at the end of the First World War had important ramifications for the world’s future, which will no doubt be explored later in the series. Lanny will move on to bigger, better, and more interesting things, but here he’s still just a kid.
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Stories by Foreign Authors: German I by Paul Heyse, et al.

The lighter side of German lit

Paul Heyse

This is the first of two volumes devoted to German literature in the Stories by Foreign Authors series. The ten-volume series, published by Charles Scribner’s Sons in 1898, provides an overview of European literature in the late 19th century. This volume consists of six works of short fiction, translated into English, by six German authors. While other books in the series favor naturalism and realism, this volume tends to lean more towards romanticism.

The book leads off with its most recognizable name, Paul Heyse, who won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1910. Unfortunately, his entry, “The Fury,” is the weakest in the book. A young Italian boatman ferries a priest and a beautiful young woman to the isle of Capri. The title refers to the nickname of the woman, an independent shrew with no interest in marrying. The story is pure romanticism, utterly predictable, and thus rather boring.

Though German literature may be known for its angst-ridden sturm und drang, the editors of this volume choose to showcase more lighthearted fare. In “The Bookbinder of Hort” by Leopold von Sacher-Masoch, the title character, a Hungarian Jew, moonlights as a ghost writer of love letters. “The Egyptian Fire Eater” by Rudolph Baumbach is a humorous tale about a boy who loves the theatre so much he would do anything to get on stage. It’s a very descriptive piece, with little plot. The longest story in the book, Heinrich Zschokke’s “Adventures of a New-Year’s Eve” is a farcical romance in which a poor gardener trades places with a mischievous prince for one wacky night. It’s like a movie you might see after midnight on TCM, starring Tyrone Power or Ronald Colman. For what it is, it’s a skillfully crafted tale, but the century-old humor is not about to cause a stir among today’s reading audience.

There are, however, two very good selections here that are worthy of note. “The Philosopher’s Pendulum” by Rudolph Lindau is the best piece in the book. A man reconnects with an old friend from his youth, only to find his former classmate much changed. Having suffered disappointments and heartbreak, this long-lost companion has developed his own brand of stoicism by which he expects nothing from life and actively strives for a state of emotional indifference. It’s a thought-provoking premise, and the characters and plot are quite engaging. Stylistically, it calls to mind the novels of Hermann Hesse or Knut Hamsun. Of all the pieces in the book, this one feels the least antiquated.

Another exceptional offering is E. T. A. Hoffmann’s “The Cremona Violin.” An eccentric lawyer, when he’s not exhibiting extremely bizarre behavior, spends his spare time collecting and building violins. One day a beautiful young woman with an angelic singing voice enters his life, causing everyone to speculate what her connection might be to this aged nut. The story is very Balzacian—convoluted and incredible, but also riveting and fun.

Overall, this collection is a mixed bag of the worthwhile and the undistinguished. For readers who appreciate premodernist literature—romanticism, naturalism, early realism—the Stories by Foreign Authors series is a good way to introduce yourself to some new authors. This volume will appeal primarily to those with more romantic inclinations.

Stories in this collection

The Fury by Paul Heyse 

The Philosopher’s Pendulum by Rudolph Lindau 

The Bookbinder of Hort by Leopold von Sacher-Masoch 

The Egyptian Fire-Eater by Rudolph Baumbach

The Cremona Violin by E. T. A. Hoffmann 

Adventures of a New-Year’s Eve by Heinrich Zschokke 

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