Only an accomplished poet like Georg Heym could tastefully write such an absorbing vignette about the dissection of a human body. This early example of expressionist literature (written a year before Kafka’s The Judgement) describes the procedure in the form of a prose poem. Extensive use of literary devices softens the gore and lends a surreal quality to the story. The backstory of love and beauty humanizes the dead man, making the juxtaposition in the final sentence (the dead man quivered in happiness … while the … doctors broke open the bones of his temple) seem all the more powerful. More…
The Daring Young Man on the Flying Trapeze
Set in San Francisco during the Great Depression, this story by William Saroyan describes the final day of a young aspiring writer dying of starvation. His creative inspiration comes from dreams, and the story begins with a stream-of-consciousness list of places, people and scenes he has dreamed about but never encountered. Weak with hunger, he spends the day desperately looking for work. Unsuccessful, he tries to write An Application for Permission to Live. Too weak to complete it, he returns home and surrenders himself to a final dream. Themes include poverty, artistic struggle, pride, alienation, despair, existentialism, sleep and dreams. More…
Valediction
This coming-of-age story by Sherman Alexie was extracted from The Rumpus website. Valediction means the act of saying farewell, and in the story two boys who have been close friends for years break up over an act of shoplifting. They had shoplifted together several times, but when guilt and fear cause the narrator to stop, his friend continues and is caught. Disappointingly, instead of thanking his friend for telling authorities he wasn’t involved in the previous thefts, the narrator cuts him off without a word. There is no valediction. Themes include choices and consequences, crime and punishment, reputation, shame, ingratitude. More…
Speech Sounds
This story from Octavia Butler takes place in a violent, post-apocalyptic world. A virus has killed billions and left most survivors unable to speak, read, write or understand spoken language. Governments and the corporate world have collapsed, there are no police or community services, fuel is scarce. People must fend for themselves. The protagonist, whose husband and children fell to the virus, is contemplating suicide. The desperate woman finds and cruelly loses a new lover, but in the process discovers a renewed purpose in life. Themes: the importance of language, isolation, loneliness, fear, violence, hope. More…
The Griffin and the Minor Canon
It is hard to believe this and our other featured Frank Stockton story (The Lady or the Tiger) were written over 130 years ago. Both have a crisp, modern feel and enough ghoulish humor to satisfy most young readers. This story, which takes the form of a fairytale, involves a friendship between a griffin and hard-working priest. The worried villagers suggest that their visitor dines on the children at an orphanage in the next town, but the griffin thinks the priest is the only one in the area worth eating. Themes: vanity, bravery, dedication, friendship, fear, sacrifice. More…