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This series on the short fiction I'm reading is occasionally serendipitous, as with this week, taking an event around the world and then launching off in a tangential direction. I've also gone back and illustrated previous weeks' posts with photos and illustrations found on Flickr.
Katsushika Hokusai The Great Wave Off Kanagawa 1830
Anonymous, 'The Last Man' (BLACKWOOD'S MAGAZINE, MARCH 1826)
A man inexplicably wakes up on a desolate, far future, dying Earth. A tidy little tale that imparts a sense of Gothic dread, and one that's rarely anthologised.
Blake Butler, 'The Many Forms of Rain' (SCORCH ATLAS, 2009)
I'm now half way through Scorch Atlas and as a collection of linked stories it's extraordinary. The apocalypse Butler describes is a complete one, ie. because it's both outer and inner and is therefore existentially terrifying. This story provides an idea of the extremes to which Butler takes things and it's a place your mind does not want to go.
Sadegh Hedayat, 'The Darkroom' (c. 1933)
Hedayat may still be the best known contemporary Persian writer even sixty years after his suicide, and censorship aside I wonder why that is. This story is about an encounter with a man who wants nothing more than darkness, seclusion and a return to the womb. Hedayat takes you to the edge of someone's personal abyss here, but for once he doesn't drop you in it.
Haruki Murakami, 'Super Frog Saves Tokyo' (GQ, JUNE 2001)
From his 2000 short story collection after the quake and set in February 1995, the month that followed the Kobe earthquake (I'm sure many Japanese writers will be doing something similar after the last week's events). A man who has cheated death in a shooting is visited by a frog who claims he can prevent a major earthquake from hitting Tokyo – it's surreal, slightly science fictional and with some easily understood inner workings. I re-read it this week because I imagined it would work quite well as a catharsis and it does, and while not the best story in the collection it's certainly the most fun.
Katsushika Hokusai The Great Wave Off Kanagawa 1830
Anonymous, 'The Last Man' (BLACKWOOD'S MAGAZINE, MARCH 1826)
A man inexplicably wakes up on a desolate, far future, dying Earth. A tidy little tale that imparts a sense of Gothic dread, and one that's rarely anthologised.
Blake Butler, 'The Many Forms of Rain' (SCORCH ATLAS, 2009)
I'm now half way through Scorch Atlas and as a collection of linked stories it's extraordinary. The apocalypse Butler describes is a complete one, ie. because it's both outer and inner and is therefore existentially terrifying. This story provides an idea of the extremes to which Butler takes things and it's a place your mind does not want to go.
Sadegh Hedayat, 'The Darkroom' (c. 1933)
Hedayat may still be the best known contemporary Persian writer even sixty years after his suicide, and censorship aside I wonder why that is. This story is about an encounter with a man who wants nothing more than darkness, seclusion and a return to the womb. Hedayat takes you to the edge of someone's personal abyss here, but for once he doesn't drop you in it.
Haruki Murakami, 'Super Frog Saves Tokyo' (GQ, JUNE 2001)
From his 2000 short story collection after the quake and set in February 1995, the month that followed the Kobe earthquake (I'm sure many Japanese writers will be doing something similar after the last week's events). A man who has cheated death in a shooting is visited by a frog who claims he can prevent a major earthquake from hitting Tokyo – it's surreal, slightly science fictional and with some easily understood inner workings. I re-read it this week because I imagined it would work quite well as a catharsis and it does, and while not the best story in the collection it's certainly the most fun.
Favourite short story of the week: J.G. Ballard's 'The Enormous Space' (INTERZONE #30, JULY–AUGUST 1989), concerning a suburban man who goes off the deep end by completely cutting himself off from the world. It's not online but if you have an hour to spare you might be knocked out by the extraordinarily good BBC film adaptation with Antony Sher.
