More clunkers than classics
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| W. Clark Russell |
International Short Stories: English is the second volume in a trilogy of books edited by William Patten and published by P. F. Collier & Son in 1910. The first volume of the series featured American stories, and the third book French. This English volume features stories by English authors, of course, but as is often the case with these sorts of literary anthologies (as seen in Scribner’s Stories by English Authors series), the word “English” as used here is take to be synonymous with “British” as the book includes Scottish authors (Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Robert Louis Stevenson, Sir Walter Scott, J. M. Barrie), at least one Irish author (Samuel Lover), and perhaps a Welshman or two for all I know. Though Patten dipped back into the 19th century when editing the volume, it doesn’t appear to be intended as a Greatest British Literature of All Time anthology, but rather just a collection of what might be pleasing to a 1910 audience. With a few exceptions, most of the selections tend to be lighthearted fare that might be expected to inspire relaxing fireside chuckles.
To the 21st-century reader, the authors listed in the table of contents represent a mixture of famous immortals and obscure unknowns. In general, not surprisingly, the household names turn in the best selections. Conan Doyle is represented by a non-Sherlock Holmes piece, “The Secret of Goresthorpe Grange,” a comic tale about a recent purchaser of a medieval fortress who tries to find a ghost to haunt to place. “The Stolen Body” by H. G. Wells also deals with the paranormal, but from a more serious perspective. J. M. Barrie, author of Peter Pan, provides a pair of humorous tales, “My Brother Henry” and “Gilray’s Flower Pot,” the latter of which is a hilarious yarn told by a narrator who regrets having promised to water his friend’s plants. Sir Walter Scott’s “The Two Drovers,” about two cattlemen fighting over a patch of grass, escalates into a moving drama. Charles Dickens’s “Dr. Manette’s Manuscript” is like a cross between an Edgar Allen Poe story and The Count of Monte Cristo, with a lot of Les Misérables-style invective against the nobility. Robert Louis Stevenson, William Makepeace Thackeray, and Wilkie Collins are represented by mediocre entries that are far from their best work. Rudyard Kipling’s story “The Courting of Dinah Shadd” is just plain bad, dull, and annoying, though I must confess I’ve never been a fan of his work, which always seems low on plot and loaded with tedious “atmosphere.”
Among the second-tier authors of English lit, Charles Reade’s novella-length crime story “The Knightsbridge Mystery” is admirable for its legal and psychological authenticity. “Three Thimbles and a Pea” by George Borrow is a fun look into the profession of a shell-game con man. W. Clark Russell, known for his sea stories, offers up what he knows best with “The Lazarette of the ‘Huntress,’” an engaging tale about a stowaway. It may be adventure genre fiction, but it’s probably the best selection in the book.
Though I’ve tried to point out what’s good about the collection, the fact is there’s more bad than good here. The jokes fall flat in two of S. R. Crockett’s seemingly pointless tales of country priests. Samuel Lover’s “The Burial of the Tithe” is an interminable slog through phonetically rendered Irish dialect, with little payoff. Too many of the stories settle for quaintness and cheeky laughs. There’s too few serious entries like those of Scott, Dickens, or Wells. There’s also a tendency by many of these authors to wallow in medievalism while their counterparts in France were moving on to realistic depictions of the modern world. As a whole, neither the American nor the English volumes of International Short Stories really impressed me much. A glance at the table of contents for the French volume leads me to believe it will be far superior to this one.
Stories in this collection
The Two Drovers by Sir Walter Scott
Mr. Deuceace by William Makepeace Thackeray
The Brothers by Edward Bulmer Lytton
Doctor Manette’s Manuscript by Charles Dickens
The Caldron of Oil by Wilkie Collins
The Burial of the Tithe by Samuel Lover
The Knightsbridge Mystery by Charles Reade
The Courting of Dina Shadd by Rudyard Kipling
The Sire de Maletroit’s Door by Robert Louis Stevenson
The Secret of Goresthorpe Grange by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
A Change of Treatment by W. W. Jacobs
The Stickit Minister by S. R. Crockett
The Lammas Preaching by S. R. Crockett
An Undergraduate’s Aunty by F. Anstey
The Sillhouettes by A. T. Quiller-Couch
My Brother Henry by J. M. Barrie
Gilray’s Flower Pot by J. M. Barrie
Mr. O’Leary’s Second Love by Charles Lever
The Indifference of the Miller of Hofbau by Anthony Hope Hawkins
The Stolen Body by H. G. Wells
The Lazarette of the ‘Huntress’” by W. Clark Russell
The Great Triangular Duel by Captain Frederick Marryat
Three Thimbles and a Pea by George Borrow
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High on variety, low on satisfying mysteries
When one thinks of detective fiction, two subgenres tend to come to mind: the cerebral clue-and-reveal mysteries of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Agatha Christie, or the two-fisted, hard-boiled gumshoes of the Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler set. The Detective Megapack, published in 2013 by Wildside Press, does cover both with the Sherlock Holmes adventure “The Five Orange Pips” and two stories by Hammett, “Arson Plus” and “The Assistant Murder.” Editor John Gregory Betancourt and his crew at Wildside, however, seem to have made a deliberate effort here to broaden the definition of the detective genre to include just about anything involving a crime. In fact, not all of the 30 stories collected here even feature a detective. This envelope-pushing approach even extends to the plots of many of the stories, which go out of their way to subvert the conventions of the genre to the point where that very subversion becomes a cliché. In an inordinate number of the entries included here, if it’s a murder mystery, the victim isn’t really dead. If the story involves theft, it’s not really robbery but insurance fraud. After being hit with these “surprise” twists enough times, the reader finds himself longing for good old-fashioned straightforward mysteries where bad guys commit crimes and detectives solve them.
As is often the case with Wildside’s Megapacks, the selections included in this collection are a mixture of short stories and full-length novels. The success of such a collection often depends on the quality of its longer entries. Fortunately, the longest selection included here, taking up almost a quarter of the ebook, is Monsieur Lecoq, an absolutely outstanding detective novel from 1869 by Emile Gaboriau. Unfortunately, like many lengthy 19th-century novels, Monsieur Lecoq was published in two volumes, and this Megapack only includes the first volume, so you only get half the story! Another novel-length entry, The Rome Express by Arthur Griffiths (1896), is also pretty good, while Richard Harding Davis’s novella In the Fog (1901) and R. Austin Freeman’s novel The Red Thumb Mark (1907) are among the collection’s strongest pieces.
The Detective Megapack offers a mix of both classic and contemporary writers, and in general the older works are of better quality. It’s hard to go wrong with Edgar Allen Poe’s masterful work “The Murders in the Rue Morgue” (1841), widely considered the first modern detective story. Catherine Louisa Pirkis’s “The Murder at Troyte’s Hill” from 1893, starring pioneering female detective Loveday Brooke, also stands out from the pack. Among the mid-range, chronologically, are plenty of mediocre specimens of pulp fiction. Though Johnston McCulley wrote some great stories in his day, “Thubway Tham, Fashion Plate” (1920), is not one of them. The title character is a pickpocket with a lisp, not a detective, and the story is not a mystery but rather a silly piece of fluff in which Tham buys some fancy clothes. As for the more recent authors, most of them go the hard-boiled route and end up writing what come across as overdone C-grade movie scripts. David Dean, however, proves himself a rare talent head and shoulders above his peers with his 2011 story “Tomorrow’s Dead,” an excellent thriller that deserves a Hollywood adaptation.
Having read and reviewed several of these Megapacks, this is one of my least favorites. Overall, this collection just proved too inconsistent, and the editors seem to have concentrated more on the diversity of the selections than on their quality. The ebook is certainly worth its low price, but many of the stories aren’t worth your time.
Stories in this collection
(Some novella-length works have been reviewed individually. Click on titles below.)
Arson Plus by Dashiell Hammett
It Tore the Laugh from My Throat by Meriah L. Crawford
The Taggart Assignment by Vincent Starrett
Tomorrow’s Dead by David Dean
The Flaming Phantom by Jacques Futrelle
Message in the Sand by John L. French
The Assistant Murderer by Dashiell Hammett
All’s Well That Ends Well by C.J. Henderson
The Red Thumb Mark by R. Austin Freeman
Monsieur Lecoq by Emile Gaboriau
The Murders in the Rue Morgue by Edgar Allen Poe
Hell-Bent for the Morgue by Don Larson
Death of the Flute by Arthur J. Burks
Oh Fanny by Raymond Lester
Clancy, Detective by H. Bedford-Jones
The Tattooed Many by William J. Makin
Trigger Men by Eustace Cockrell
Butterfly of Death by Harold Gluck
My Bonnie Lies . . . by Ted Hertel
Thubway Tham, Fashion Plate by Johnston McCulley
The Murder at Troyte’s Hill by Catherine Louisa Pirkis
The Affair of the Corridor Express by Victor L. Whitechurch
Secret Suggestion by Vincent H. O’Neil
The Five Orange Pips by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Black Sunrise by Jack Halliday
The Lion’s Smile by Thomas W. Hanshew
The Nail by Pedro de Alarçon
The Rome Express by Arthur Griffiths
In the Fog by Richard Harding Davis
Officer Down by Robert J. Mendenhall
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More nuggets of genius from a master storyteller
After becoming addicted to the Complete Short Fiction of Clifford D. Simak series, I have come to expect great things from Simak. Volume Ten, The Shipshape Miracle and Other Stories, is the seventh book in the series that I have read (I’m not going in order), and I am continually blown away by Simak’s profound speculative imagination and prodigious talents as a writer. Volume Ten proves to be another exceptional collection. This volume contains only nine stories, as opposed to the usual ten to twelve, but that actually works in its favor because almost all the selections are substantial, fully realized works of fiction. The title selection is the shortest entry in the book and the only story that feels like it could have benefited from a little more development. Though Simak is famous for his science fiction, like all volumes in the series, this one contains a western, and this time it’s a full-length novella. “The Gravestone Rebels Ride by Night!,” is a great western mystery thriller with tense action scenes reminiscent of some of Randolph Scott’s better films.
Moving on to the sci-fi, another excellent entry is “Paradise,” which is one of the short stories that would later form part of Simak’s 1952 novel City. It depicts a future in which mankind explores Jupiter by assuming the non-humanoid form of the planet’s native inhabitants. This is a complicated piece in an intricate puzzle, and may require some prior knowledge of the grander City narrative to fully appreciate. “The Money Tree” is exactly what it sounds, a story about a tree that grows money. As he always does so well, Simak builds upon this simple premise and takes it to unexpected places. “Shotgun Cure” employs a familiar Simak motif: benevolent alien “missionaries” who come to solve Earth’s problems. In this variation they offer to cure all illness and disease, one should be wary of strangers bearing gifts. In “How-2,” machinery has replaced so much human labor, providing such an excess of free time, that people have become ridiculously obsessed with do-it-yourself projects. Simak artfully lampoons the DIY movement, while entering into a thoughtful debate about the humanity of robots. In “Eternity Lost,” mankind has developed the ability to prolong life for centuries, but it is a privilege reserved only for a select few. Here Simak conducts an insightful examination into the ethical issues raised by immortality.
There really are no weak links here. “The Shipshape Miracle,” about a sentient spacecraft, is a little too brief to fully satisfy, but it’s still a strong concept. “Rim of the Deep,” a story about future undersea colonization, is an early work of Simak’s, published in 1940. It feels a bit like an early work, but it entertains with its flavor of good old-fashioned pulp fiction adventure.
The final selection in the book, “Immigrant,” may be the longest novella I have encountered in this series, but it is well worth the extra reading time. After years of diligent study, one lucky man is selected among the elite earthlings allowed to immigrate to the planet Kimon, home to an alien culture more advanced than humankind. Previous immigrants have described Kimon as a paradise, but what is the Kimonians’ motive for courting settlement? It is a thoughtful mystery, spooky at times, but Simak doesn’t settle for easy answers. It is a perfect way to cap off an excellent collection. Having read half of the Complete Short Fiction series so far, I’ve found that even the worst volumes are very good, and the better ones, like this one, are outstanding.
Stories in this collection
The Money Tree
Shotgun Cure
Paradise
The Gravestone Rebels Ride by Night!
How-2
The Shipshape Miracle
Rim of the Deep
Eternity Lost
Immigrant
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Tragicomic family saga of 20th-century China
Life and Death Are Wearing Me Out, published in 2006, is a historical novel by Chinese writer Mo Yan, who won the 2012 Nobel Prize in Literature. It chronicles the lives of one Chinese family through the second half of the twentieth century, but it is far from a conventional period epic. In fact, it is likely to be one of the oddest novels you’ll ever read.
The story is told as an extended conversation between two narrators, one of whom on several occasions dies and undergoes reincarnation. Ximen Nao is a landowner in the agricultural district of Northeast Gaomi Township. He is a wealthy and respected member of the community until the Communist Revolution, when he is executed so his land can be redistributed. When the novel opens, Ximen Nao is in the underworld, being tortured by the demon minions of Lord Yama, the judge in charge of assigning reincarnations. His soul is sent back to Earth in the body of a donkey, born in the very same village where he previously resided. While a donkey, he maintains some of his human intelligence and is able to observe and interact with his descendants and former neighbors. At the same time, he also adopts the nature of a donkey, concerns himself with donkey matters, and socializes with his fellow donkeys. This cycle of reincarnation continues throughout the book, as Ximen Nao comes back successively as an ox, pig, dog, monkey, and finally as a human child who serves as one of the narrators. Admittedly, this is disorienting at first. As the novel goes on, however, Mo Yan leaves enough bread crumbs for the reader to follow the trail of what’s going on, and after a while one really appreciates this unique manner of storytelling.
As a donkey, Ximen Nao becomes the property of Lan Lian, one of his former tenant farmers, who has married Ximen Nao’s former concubine and is now raising Ximen Nao’s children. While all the farmers of Gaomi Township, under Chairman Mao’s urging, are joining the local farming cooperative, Lan Lian defiantly chooses to remain an independent farmer. As the village’s sole holdout, he (and his donkey) suffer great persecution for this decision. Though often told in a satirical manner, the novel vividly brings to life the paranoia and vindictiveness of the Cultural Revolution, when anyone accused of displaying remotely capitalist tendencies could be punished by their vigilante neighbors. The novel spans the years 1950 to 2000, so Mo Yan later gets the opportunity to apply his biting wit to China’s recent transformation towards capitalism.
Life and Death Are Wearing Me Out is really a fascinating look at Chinese history and a fun read loaded with dark humor. The book’s one major fault is that it is just too long. Lengthiness itself is not a fault, but there is definitely some fat that could be trimmed here. The midsection, in particular, sometimes makes overly protracted digressions into the animal lives, replete with feces and sex jokes. One must admit, however, that when Mo Yan tries to be funny, he truly is funny. It is admirable the way he effortlessly weaves lowbrow profanity into his epic literary narrative. In real life, Mo Yan grew up in Gaomi, and he playfully inserts himself as a supporting character in the book, a troublemaking problem child who grows up to be an overrated writer.
For all its laughs, however, the overall arc of the novel is ultimately tragic, as we watch members of the family and community meet with disappointment, dishonor, and death. The book contains some profoundly moving scenes of emotional power that belie its predominantly satirical bent. Together the light and the dark, the high and the low, the comedy and the tragedy, all add up to a truly memorable reading experience.
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Dining room tales of murder and larceny
In the Fog is a novella by Richard Harding Davis, one of America’s most popular writers in both journalism and fiction from the 1890s through the First World War. Published in 1901, In the Fog is a mystery story, or rather three mystery stories. On a foggy London night, a small group of gentlemen gather at an exclusive club and swap stories over the dinner table. The book is divided into three somewhat lengthy short stories, each of which is told by a different patron of the club, yet all of which relate to the same people and events. Together these three tales, combined with the goings-on among the members of the club, form an intricate and innovative mystery.
When the men in the club—some regulars, some strangers—begin to engage in small talk, it is revealed that one of the gentlemen—Sir Andrew, a member of Parliament—is a fan of detective fiction. This inspires a visiting American naval attaché to reveal a mysterious adventure he undertook the previous evening. Out walking in London, he became lost in the impenetrable fog and wandered into a random house seeking directions. There he stumbled upon two dead bodies, apparently murdered just moments before his arrival. The naval attaché provides a detailed account of his unusual experience, thereby giving his listeners the opportunity to speculate on the identity and motive of the murderer. In turn, two other speakers step up to relate their own narratives pertaining to persons involved in the case. Davis does a fine job of drawing the reader into the atmosphere of the club, as if you were sitting at the lamplit table in evening dress, enjoying the warmth of the fireplace and sipping a Scotch with the storytellers.
The biggest problem with In the Fog is that the second story is almost completely pointless. Its relationship to the main narrative of the murder mystery is only tangential. It is so irrelevant, in fact, that upon completion of the story, one of the characters in the club even pipes up to ask, Why did you waste my time with this? The third story, however, returns to the murder and gets things properly back on track. Davis caps his novella off with a clever ending that ties all the loose ends together into an ingenious package. The resolution of the mystery involves about four or five twists, some of which are surprises and some of which aren’t. Depending on the reader, the conclusion may inspire a shocking eureka moment, a satisfying chuckle, or an I-should-have-known eye roll.
Though In the Fog was published during the heyday of Sherlock Holmes, to his credit Davis doesn’t settle for the detective-fiction template established by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, but pushes the envelope to make the genre his own. With the exception of its (perhaps deliberately) meandering mid-section, In the Fog is a well-crafted piece of mystery fiction. It may not be as baffling as some of the better cases of Sherlock Holmes, but it is certainly well worth a read.
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Blood on the tracks
The Rome Express, originally published in 1896, is a mystery novel by British author Arthur Griffiths, a former military officer and war correspondent who went on to become a prolific author of Victorian crime fiction. The title refers to the express train that runs from Rome to Paris, with the story taking place in the latter city. As the train approaches Paris, a dead body is discovered on board. At some point during the last hundred miles or so, a man has been murdered—stabbed to death in his sleeping compartment. Since the last portion of the journey was a nonstop stretch, the train car makes a convenient “locked room” setting for the crime. The list of possible suspects consists of the eight or nine people—passengers and staff—who were present in the car during the timeframe of the murder. Upon arrival in Paris, these individuals are detained by the police for interrogation, and the railroad car that served as the scene of the crime is sidetracked for inspection.
The investigation is led by a French detective named Floçon, who seems to be competent in his duties but displays a blustering personality that makes him out to be somewhat of a buffoon in the story. One of the interesting and unusual things about this novel, however, is that it doesn’t concentrate solely on the detective’s efforts to solve the case. Instead, it switches focus between different members of its ensemble cast. In fact, a couple of the suspects take it upon themselves to assist the police in the investigation. Not surprisingly, Griffiths sets up an Englishman to be the main protagonist. Today’s readers may find it hard to sympathize with Sir Charles Collingham, however, as he continually acts under an antiquated code of chivalry which asserts that (a) women (of good birth, breeding, and financial means) are incapable of committing a criminal act, and (b) even if I a woman did commit murder, to imprison her would be ungentlemanly, as it is a man’s duty to provide comfort and solace to a lady at every opportunity. His myopically sexist and classist attitude quickly gets annoying, and once you figure out the author shares the views of his character it leads to a certain degree of predictability in the plot that follows.
On the plus side, The Rome Express has its fair share of surprising twists and clever touches, but I certainly wouldn’t want to oversell it. There isn’t a whole lot of brilliant detective work going on here. Clues, confessions, and conclusions have a tendency to just fall conveniently into place for the investigators who seek them. For all its faults, however, this novel does manage to mildly entertain. I would put it on a par with some of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s non-Sherlock Holmes mysteries, most of which certainly weren’t his best work.
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