Featured Stories
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The central theme of this humorous story by John Gardner is to respect the views of one’s elders. A dragon ravages a medieval kingdom with some modern touches (clocks, novels, cars and cigars). When the king’s knights and wizard prove ineffective, he calls a town meeting to ask for ideas, promising his daughter’s hand and half his kingdom to anyone who can slay the dragon. After the two older sons of a wise cobbler ignore their father’s advice and fail, their nervous younger son heeds his words and succeeds. Other themes include social class, honor, and courage (overcoming one’s fears).
As in real life, many folktales have protagonists who attain riches and/or happiness by questionable means. Bluebeard, Charles Perrault’s serial killing nobleman, obviously deserves his fate. However, it is also hard to see how his last wife, who first rejected him based on his looks, seemingly only married him for his riches, and then betrayed his generosity and trust by entering a forbidden room, deserves a “happily ever after” future. Themes include judging by appearances, greed, vanity, betrayal of trust and justice. One question remains: if the beard made women and girls run away, why didn’t Bluebeard shave it off?
Set shorty after Philippine liberation at the end of World War 2, this rather intense story by Nick Joaquin deals with the uneasy relationship between a Filipino family recovering from the trauma of the war and an American soldier visiting the grave of an uncle who died during the Spanish-American War. The major theme is cultural relativism: how misunderstandings can arise when people of different races and upbringings interpret events purely from their own cultural perspective or expectations. Both parties fall for this trap. Other themes include connections between past and present, colonialism, Puritanical idealism, self-reflection and awareness.
This story from Haruki Murakami paints a bleak picture of the troubled lives of a young woman (Junko) and the middle-aged artist (Miyake) who befriends her. The pair bond over bonfires Miyake constructs on a beach. Both appear to be trying to escape unstated traumas from their past, and could possibly be suffering from PTSD. Their lives are contrasted with that of Junko’s boyfriend, a carefree surfer and musician. Set a month after the devastating 1995 Kobe earthquake, major themes include the meaning and uncertainty of life and, of course, death. Other themes are artistic inspiration, family, emptiness and suicide.
In this coming-of-age story by Doris Lessing, the fifteen-year-old son of an Afrikaner farmer is so confident in his physical prowess and invincibility that every morning, before his parents wake up, he sneaks out of his house and goes hunting alone. One day he witnesses a negative side to hunting when he comes across a young buck with a broken leg suffering as it is devoured by ants. The experience teaches him that for anyone, including himself, death can come at any time. Themes include hubris, the harsh reality of nature, mortality.
In this story by Pearl S. Buck, an elderly Chinese woman brought to America by her son has difficulty adjusting to her new environment. With no English and a distaste for American ways she feels isolated, with no purpose in life. Things change when she meets a kind-hearted but “ugly” friend of her daughter-in-law who is worried about becoming Sheng nü (a left-over woman). Despite the language barrier and her inability to get around, she sets out to find her a husband. Themes include identity, tradition, cultural adaption, alienation and isolation, loneliness, respect, the nature of beauty, compassion, kindness.
The central theme of this story by Rabindranath Tagore is the dehumanization of women under India’s patriarchal social structure. When a farmer murders his wife in a fit of rage, his brother asks his wife to take the blame, promising to testify that she did it in self-defence. In court she denies this, pleads guilty, and is sentenced to hang. For her, love and hope died when her husband asked her to lie and she saw death as preferable to a life of misery. Other themes include poverty, exploitation, jealousy, betrayal, the unpredictable consequences of a lie.
In this lesser-known story by Algernon Blackwood, a playful girl accompanying her convalescing mother on the Italian Riviera rolls an olive across a restaurant floor to see who it chooses. A young man picks it up and takes it to his room. That night, he has an erotic dream featuring the girl, naked fauns, nymphs and satyrs, and an encounter with God. He meets the girl the next day and they begin a passionate affair during which she repeats several things she said and did in the dream. Themes include fate vs. chance, love, the supernatural.
