In Angela Carter’s titillating re-telling of Charles Perrault’s Bluebeard, a wealthy, three-times widowed French nobleman marries a seventeen-year-old virtuoso pianist and rushes her away to his secluded castle for a “honeymoon”. When browsing the library, she is shocked to discover his penchant for sadistic pornography. After a passionless consummation that satisfies his desire to have married a virgin, he lays a deadly trap designed to end the marriage. While he is away on business, the woman’s dark newborn curiosity springs the trap, which leads her into his bloody chamber. Themes: manipulation, sexual awakening, depravity, loneliness, curiosity, violence, death. More…
Sardarji
This story by K. A. Abbas uses satire and irony to highlight the madness and futility of the religious riots that killed and displaced millions during the 1947 Partition of India. The Delhi-bred Muslim protagonist not only vilifies Hindus and Sikhs, but also looks down on the crude rustic Punjabi practitioners of his own faith. Like most bigots, he advances no reason for his hatred other than that the three groups have different accents, appearances and customs. Fate plays a cruel trick as an angry mob comes for him. Themes include religious and racial intolerance, fear, violence, sacrifice. More…
That in Aleppo Once…
The title of this Vladimir Nabokov story is an allusion to Shakespeare’s Othello. Several characters reflect those in the famous play, and it shares the same major theme (jealousy). The story is more than the tale of a deceitful, adulterous wife who may have only married the older narrator to escape the German occupation. The narrator’s heartbreak has caused him to question not only his wife’s existence, but also whether life is worth living. His letter is an attempt to unburden himself, and create some hope for the future. Other themes: escape, betrayal, deception, uncertainty, suicide (implied by the title). More…
The Egg
Andy Weir’s The Egg is so thought provoking that I have re-read it several times over the years. The story comprises a conversation between “god” and a dead man about the meaning and purpose of life (to grow his soul through new experiences), and his place in the universe. Other themes (equality, consideration for others, and empathy) are nicely summed up in the paragraph: Every time you victimized someone, you were victimizing yourself. Every act of kindness you’ve done, you’ve done to yourself. Every happy and sad moment ever experienced by any human was, or will be, experienced by you. More…
The Canal
In this story by Richard Yates, two men at a cocktail party learn that their army divisions fought alongside each other during a bloody World War 2 canal crossing. One boasts about his role in the operation; the other is reluctant to share information. As their wives compete to build up their respective husband’s roles in the fighting, readers learn that although the second man performed equally as bravely, due to some mistakes along the way he would rather forget what happened. Themes include memory, conceit, gender roles, glorification of war vs. the reality of war, self-esteem, humiliation and shame. More…