In this story by Vasily Aksyonov (Aksenov), a Russian factory worker reviews his life and relationships as he spends a day with his six-year-old daughter while his wife is at a “meeting”. He is growing apart from a once close-knit group of childhood friends, and faces a growing gap with his wife who is completing a doctoral degree and may be having an affair. In an epiphany, he realizes that being there for his daughter as she grows up is the most important thing in the world. Themes include childhood innocence, fatherhood, social relationships, marriage disconnect, deceit. More…
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The Treasure of Abbot Thomas
In this story by M. R. James, a British antiquary comes across an old book written in Latin that tells of a German monastery in which a fortune in gold is believed to have been hidden. He believes the key to the treasure lies on a stained-glass window removed from the Abby and returned to England when the monastery was closed. He finds the window, decodes the message hidden on it and, despite the warning contained in the message, finds the gold. His only problem… dealing with the treasure’s monstrous guardian. Themes include treasure hunting, cryptography, fear, the supernatural. More…
Burning in the Rain
To fully appreciate this story and the book it came from, The House of Hunger, one needs to understand the troubled life of its Zimbabwean author, Dambudzo Marechera. A central motif is the “ape in the mirror,” which increasingly dominates the protagonist’s psyche. This could represent Marechera’s personal demons (mental illness, alcohol, drugs and violence) and/or be a thinly disguised metaphor for the devastating “guerrilla war” that brought Robert Mugabe’s ANU government to power. The latter is symbolized in the penultimate paragraph by the rain (that) sounded like the microscopic commotion of six million little people fleeing a national catastrophe. More…
Things
This story by Sinclair Lewis is a biting satire highlighting one of his most prominent themes… the negative effects of capitalism and materialism in the United States. A young woman’s life is turned upside down when her father becomes instantly rich, buys a mansion, and fills it with expensive “things”. The family enters a new social circle, and she finds herself increasingly alienated from the working-class man who was her constant childhood companion. Over time, their mansion and possessions become a metaphorical prison. Themes include materialism and the pursuit of wealth, ostentation, social status, class consciousness. More…
Don’t Look Now
This Daphne du Maurier story opens with a British couple dining in Venice. The holiday, through which they hope to rebuild their relationship following the death of their young daughter, takes an eerie turn when a fellow diner claims to be able to “see” the spirit of the dead girl sitting between them, and issues a grim warning that they should leave Venice immediately. When a family emergency calls them back home later that day, they take this as the meaning of the warning. The wife leaves the next morning; the husband never does. Themes: grief, the supernatural, scepticism, suspicion/paranoia. More…