Read the full story here.
Prose fiction
“James Church”‘s Inspector O Novels: An Appreciation
I don't think we're meant to learn specific lessons from O and his adventures. We're meant to experience the North Korean mind—if only to understand how impossible it is for us to understand. O's humanity is at once familiar and alien.
This Week in Prose Fiction and Poetry
Short Fiction Willful Murder from Raffles: The Amateur Cracksman (1899) by E. W. Hornung “In short, our most successful escapades would prove the greatest weariness of all in narrative form; and none more so than the dull affair of the Ardagh emeralds, some eight or nine weeks after the Milchester cricket week. The former, however, had a sequel that I would rather forget than all our burglaries put together.” Whitefoot by Wendell Berry “Her name was Peromyscus leucopus, but she did not know it. I think it had been a long time since the mice around Port William spoke English, let alone Latin. Her language was a dialect of Mouse, a tongue for which we humans have never developed a vocabulary or a grammar. Because I don’t know her name in Mouse, I will call her Whitefoot.” The Hog Lot Shooting by Ellen Gray Massey, originally published online at Frontier Tales Magazine. “Ocie Tulley frowned as she handed the neatly typed and bound manuscript back to the young man who was eagerly awaiting her opinion. “Lies,” she said.” Bridesicle by Will McIntosh, the 2010 Hugo Award winner for Best Short Story, originally published in Asimov’s Science Fiction. “Once she’d let
Is Hollywood Unusually Prone to Coincidences? And Why Won’t ‘True Grit’ Be Getting Much Respect in Europe?
On WND, Erik Rush doesn’t think the wholesale promotion of minority actors to command positions on highly-rated TV shows is just a coincidence: An interesting phenomenon has recently come to light … suggesting that at least one faction in Hollywood is attempting to directly influence public opinion as regards President Obama. If this is true, it goes far beyond simply carrying the water for those with whom they are ideologically kindred, as described in Negrophilia. . . . . In order to to counter the perception of ineptitude that has come about associated with Obama and his lack of leadership skills, an effort seems to have been made to portray blacks in high places as competent leaders in dramatic roles. To be fair, some of these occurrences took place prior to Obama actually taking office, but a good case could be made that it was the intent of these organizations to prepare the American public for the leadership of a black individual via positive portrayals of black leaders. I would contend that America needed no such preparation, but that’s another issue. The stronger argument exists in these concerned parties making their efforts in the face of Obama’s subsequent plummeting popularity.
TAC Fiction Review
Let’s call it the after-Christmas Merry Christmas issue (or maybe the Boxing Day issue). After all, Dickens noted at the end of A Christmas Carol, the day Christ is born is a day we should keep in our hearts all through the year. Therefore … This week’s issue focuses, naturally, on Christmas stories, particularly those of the mysterious variety. As Mike Gray notes, in his review linked below, “Some of the finest mystery authors regard the Yuletide season as the perfect opportunity for crime.” It is fascinating that so many writers regale us with tales of nefarious activity built around the day God came to us as a babe wrapped in swaddling clothes. Could it be because mysteries generally present us with good breaking through our limited perceptions and eventually triumphing over evil? Whatever the reason, there is nothing quite like settling in next to a roaring fire, perhaps wrapped in that new Snuggy your beloved bestowed on you, with a good whodunit. In his introduction to a collection of supernatural and mysterious tales, titled simply Stories, Neil Gaiman shared a question he was asked about what he might inscribe on a wall located in a library’s children’s area. He
Book Review: ‘Murder for Christmas’
By Mike Gray Somehow criminality and Christmas have a perverse affinity for one another, as amply demonstrated in Thomas Godfrey’s Murder for Christmas (1982; reprinted 2007). Some of the finest mystery authors regard the Yuletide season as the perfect opportunity for crime; real life criminals concur, since there is known to be a spike in property theft, including pickpocketing, whenever crowds gather at this time of the year. Sadly, for some people this joyous season could prove so depressing that they contemplate more serious actions (e.g., “Back for Christmas,” “Mother’s Milk,” “Christmas Party,” “Death on the Air,” “Markheim,” and hilariously in “Ring Out, Wild Bells”); but more often the criminal impulse finds expression in simple theft—essentially stealing gifts instead of receiving them (e.g., “The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle,” “The Adventure of the Christmas Pudding,” “Dancing Dan’s Christmas,” “The Adventure of the Dauphin’s Doll,” and many others in this anthology). (1) “Back for Christmas” (John Collier): You’ve heard of “the perfect murder,” haven’t you? The killer here believes he’s thought of everything—but he fails to allow for seemingly trivial, mundane matters . . . and love. Filmed for TV (Alfred Hitchcock Presents) in 1956 with John Williams. (2) “Mr. Big”
‘A Corpse in the Koryo’ Offers Fascinating, Troubling Glimpse at North Korea
A Corpse In the Koryo is an excellent mystery for grown-ups not afraid of sorrow and futility, and anyone interested in a glimpse into the world’s most closed and secretive society. It’s not an easy read, as the reader needs to pay close attention both to spoken words and silences.
Book Review: ‘Fen Country’
Fen Country (1979) is fun and games, Edmund Crispin style. Just over two dozen stories culled mostly from a British newspaper (the EVENING STANDARD), a few from EQMM and WINTER’S CRIMES, most of them averaging five pages, and all of them entertaining. As Crispin noted in Beware of the Trains, stories of this length can only aspire to the depth of an anecdote, with characterization and emotion taking second place to plot; even so, the author rarely disappoints. Besides, reading Crispin offers the chance to learn new words (how about “esurient”)? An enthusiastic blurb writer (his enthusiasm equally divided between the author and the people who write his paychecks) introduces us to Fen’s country in remarks on the dust jacket flaps: Here’s riches! Twenty-six detective stories by the great Edmund Crispin — a splendid hoard, if sadly posthumous. Most of them feature his don-detective, Gervase Fen, and/or his almost equally sharp-witted friend and (unofficial) colleague, Inspector Humbleby of Scotland Yard. And all of the stories are as taut as a highly strung bow, and score a remarkable series of bull’s-eyes. They turn upon a fine assortment of clues —dandelions and hearing aids, Sunday pub closing in Wales, a bloodstained cat,
Criminous Nonsense from O. Henry
The man best known to posterity as O. Henry was born William Sidney Porter in Greensboro, North Carolina and died in New York City, which he had come to love as a “Bagdad-on-the-Subway.” From his arrival in New York until his death roughly eight years later (sadly, from complications of alcoholism), he found more than enough material in that bustling metropolis for his stories. He once observed: “You can’t write a story that’s got any life in it by sitting at a writing table and thinking. You’ve got to get out into the streets, into the crowds, talk with people, and feel the rush and throb of real life—that’s the stimulant for a story writer.” (He should’ve taken his own advice.) Porter was an acknowledged master of the clever twist ending, and his stories were in vogue several decades after his demise; it was only when revisionist critics began to deconstruct his works that his reputation went into eclipse. Regardless of what the critics have said, however, the reading public has continued to demand O. Henry’s writings, and most if not all of his more than 600 stories are still in print. What’s surprising about several of Porter’s stories is
TAC Fiction Review
A weekend’s worth of reading – short fiction, reviews, commentary, criticism, news and miscellaneous other bits from around the publishing world. Highlighting this week’s Review is Andrew Klavan’s short story “The Windows.” It is the first short story ever published by in the Manhattan Institute’s City Journal. Andrew’s story is a fascinating exploration of real world threats and personal paranoia. Let’s hope City Journal continues presenting quality short fiction, such as this, alongside its excellent selection of political and cultural essays. Another item that might interest American Culture readers is Gerald Howard’s essay, titled “Never Give An Inch.” Tin House, the literary journal that originally published it, subtitled the article, “The Working Class Meets the Literary Class.” Howard’s essay opens a topic that demands greater exploration. Short Fiction The Windows by Andrew Klavan “During his life — that’s how he thought about it: back in the old days, during his life — he had had a reputation as a hard case, a tough guy.” May Day by F. Scott Fitzgerald “All through the long spring days the returning soldiers marched up the chief highway behind the strump of drums and the joyous, resonant wind of the brasses, while merchants and
TAC Fiction Review
“The first reading of some literary work is often, for the literary, an experience so momentous that only experiences of love, religion or bereavement can furnish a standard of comparison. Their whole consciousness is changed. They have become what they were not before…what they have read is constantly and prominently present to the mind… mouth over their favourite lines and stanzas in solitude. Scenes and characters from books provide them with a sort of iconography by which they interpret or sum up their own experience.” -C. S. Lewis, An Experiment in Criticism Short Fiction Celebrity by W. S. Moore, III The Idyll of Red Gulch by Francis Bret Harte Markheim by Robert Louis Stevenson An Imaginative Woman by Thomas Hardy Amy Foster by Joseph Conrad Reviews Built To Last – “William Trevor’s story collection is frequently melancholy, concerned with loss and disappointment, but warmed with radiant moments of grace or acceptance.” Sunset Park by Paul Auster – “An estranged father-son relationship is the center of novel that examines how what we take for granted can come apart.” Commentary and Criticism Making Moral Sense of Joseph Conrad’s Lord Jim The Quotidian of Love – “Revisiting the short fiction
‘This Perfect Day’ — A Libertarian Novel
by Mike Gray On the MisesDaily blog, Jeff Riggenbach discusses an anti-utopian novel by Ira Levin: “It’s evident from even the most cursory glance at Levin’s third novel that he was exposed in one way or another to Rand’s ideas about politics. It’s evident also that he had a rare insight into the kinds of obstacles any libertarian movement based on such ideas would have to overcome if it were to enjoy any substantial success.” Riggenbach cites a 1998 article by Ralph Raico: “The action begins in the year 141 of the Unification, the establishment of global government, which finally led to consolidating all the world’s super-computers into one colossal apparatus lodged deep below the Swiss Alps. Uni-Comp classifies and tracks all the “Members” (of the human Family), decides on their work, residence, and consumption goods, whether they will marry and if so whether they will reproduce, and everything else.” But This Perfect Day is about more than just the triumph of the machines; in many ways it anticipates the all-too-human push for universal “health care,” which of necessity entails the curtailment of individual freedoms: There is no warfare in the world of the
Recent Comments