In this story by Sinclair Lewis, twins Jasper and John Holt couldn’t be more different: Jasper, a well-dressed, respectable bank teller and admired member of a community theatre group; John, a disheveled, reclusive religious fanatic and admired member of an obscure religious cult. Yet they are the same person, a skilled actor carrying out an elaborate bank heist. The robbery goes off perfectly… “Jasper” mysteriously disappears, and John, who no one suspects, has the money. All goes well until John’s conscience causes him to descend into madness. Themes include crime, dissimulation, social class, religious zealotry, guilt, madness, atonement, despair. More…
The Whimper of Whipped Dogs
This horror story from Harlan Ellison uses magical realism to explain a crime: the 1964 murder of Kitty Genovese. Newspapers at the time (incorrectly) reported that 38 people, none of whom did anything to help, witnessed her stabbing. Here, a witness to a particularly brutal murder senses an evil presence. She later learns that it was a form of black mass, and joins the demonic cult as a means of survival. Themes include negative aspects of city life (competitive pressure, lack of connection, loneliness), behavioral effects of city life (depression, insensitivity, anger, rudeness, aggression, violence), supernatural (demonic) forces, and cultism. More…
The Invention of Morel
This story by Adolfo Bioy Casares is in the form a diary by a Venezuelan fugitive who, after a hundred days hiding on a deserted Pacific island, is disturbed by what appear to be a group of tourists. He watches them for several days and becomes infatuated with a “gypsy-like” woman in the group. When he approaches her, she (and later the other tourists) act as if he doesn’t exist. In reality, it is she (and they) who don’t exist and his dying wish is to join them. Themes include isolation, love, obsession, metaphysics (illusion vs. reality), scientific hubris, immortality. More…
The Sisters
Several themes in this story by James Joyce (paralysis, corruption and abuse of authority) are said to represent major issues facing both Ireland and its Catholic Church in the early 1900s. The story, which takes place shortly after the death of a Catholic priest, is narrated by a boy who was friends with and mentored by the cleric. He is angered by insinuations the priest was involved in a scandal but also feels “freed”, presumably because he can resume a normal boyhood. Other themes include religion, secular vs. religious education, fall from grace, mental illness, loneliness, death, “freedom”. More…
The World Goes On
The tragic inferno that destroyed five high-rise apartment blocks in Hong Kong last month brought this story by László Krasznahorkai to mind. Unable to get images of the September 11, 2001 World Trade Center collapse out of his mind, a narrator struggles to find adequate language to come to terms with the event. He concludes that the root cause was an “immeasurably vast” destructive power that arrived on earth simultaneously with humans and releases itself in cycles of destruction and new beginnings Themes include the limitations of language in dealing with apocalyptic events, the cyclical nature of destruction and renewal. More…