Category Archives: Stories

BOOKS: “HK24” by The Hong Kong Writers Circle

Posted on by
Reply
HK24: Twenty-Four Hours of Hong Kong Stories (Hong Kong Writers Circle Anthology Book 13)HK24: Twenty-Four Hours of Hong Kong Stories by Stewart McKay
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Publisher Site – Hong Kong Writers Circle

This collection of twenty short stories is connected by the theme of events taking place in a single day in Hong Kong. Besides this commonality of setting, there is no other connective tissue between the stories. Tonally, the pieces range from hilarious to tragic. There are suspenseful genre fiction stories as well as realist literary fiction (i.e. telling the story of work-a-day characters engaged in events of everyday life.)

I found “Mummy, Daddy, Angry Birds” by Carsten John and “Rent” by Sharon Tang to be the best humor pieces, and “Egrets” (Paul Clinton Corrigan,) “Help Yourself” (Edmund Price,) and “Joss” (Dimple Shah) to be the most thrilling and intriguing dramatic pieces. All the stories were well-crafted, but some did stand out more than others. A few of those realist pieces that explored “mundane” expat life in Hong Kong made for engaging and distinctive reading. And Hong Kong is uniquely situated for tales of an urban shaman or a Triad shooting.

This is the thirteenth volume of a series put out by the Hong Kong Writers Circle. Each volume has a different theme (besides being Hong Kong connected.) Hong Kong is one of those places that is authentically itself, not to be confused with anywhere else, and that offers a great opportunity to build fascinating tales that could only take place there. [I found it interesting that “should I stay or should I go” was a repeated theme across multiple stories.]

I picked this book up as a piece of travel literature for an upcoming visit to Hong Kong (I make sure to read a work of literature from every country I visit — provided I can find anything translated.) I’d highly recommend this book for readers interested in short fiction with that distinctive Hong Kong flavor. I intend to look into other volumes in the series, myself.

View all my reviews

PROMPT: Book from Childhood

Posted on by
Reply

Do you remember your favorite book from childhood?

Green Eggs and Ham is the earliest children’s book that made an impression — mostly for its catchy lyricism. Robinson Crusoe was the first story that resonated.

On Tourists & Travelers [Free Verse]

Posted on by
Reply 
A tourist looks back fondly upon 
      A favorite destination;
 A traveler is always at it. 

A tourist loathes travel hiccups;
 A traveler calls them stories.

A tourist jumps from one
      Postcard vista to the next;
 A traveler moves through the world.

A tourist collects knicknacks & geegaws;
 A traveler collects experiences.

A tourist, between sights, seeks
      A life experience as close to 
      Their homelife as possible.
 A traveler wants a life experience
      As close to local as possible.

A tourist has a favorite meal;
 A traveler assumes he hasn't
      Crossed paths with it yet.

A tourist leaves nothing to chance;
 A traveler embraces the spontaneous.

A tourist takes comfort as a main course;
 A traveler uses it like a condiment.

BOOKS: “Chinese Folktales for Language Learners” by Vivian Ling and Peng Wang

Posted on by
Reply
Chinese Folktales for Language Learners: Famous Folk Stories in Chinese and English (Free online Audio Recordings)Chinese Folktales for Language Learners: Famous Folk Stories in Chinese and English by Vivian Ling
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Publisher Website

As the title suggests, this is a collection of fifteen Chinese folktales presented bilingually in a manner optimized to language learners. To clarify the “optimized for language learners” comment, these stories are paced differently than they would be if the central objective was to entertain. That old writerly chestnut of “show don’t tell” is often violated and the stories are kept short and sweet in a way that can feel like they sprint through critical moments. This is not criticism. I think it is the best way to give individuals learning Mandarin (or presumably Mandarin speakers learning English) a user-friendly book that doesn’t feature dense blocks of text and overly complicated language. (Note: it’s also not bad for those who just want the quick and dirty version of these tales.)

Each of the stories includes a section with some background information on the history and cultural elements behind the stories (stories which display a range of realism and are from distant times,) a list of terms and phrases in English and Chinese, and a brief set of questions to help the reader develop deeper insight into the stories. These ancillary features are all quite useful to the student of language.

As stories, some of these folktales are more compelling than others. A number of them are dry, but what they lack in intrigue they make up for in insight into the history and culture of China. And some of the stories, e.g. “Judge Bao Takes on the Emperor’s Son-in-Law,” are fascinating.

I’d highly recommend this book for those who are trying to learn Mandarin, but it would also serve those who wish to learn some Chinese folklore in a condensed and readable format.

View all my reviews

Willow, Won’t You? [Blank Verse]

Posted on by
5 
When I see some willows -
 down by water's edge,
  drooping in the moonlight,
 or swaying in the breeze -

I think of Blackwood's tale
 of Danube canoers
  who land upon an isle
  to camp among the willows.

And will the willows that
 I see, mark wicked ground,
  and what will they become
 when darkness makes its stand?

It's such a pretty tree...
 now all but ruined for me,
  and that is story's power
 to sweeten or to sour.

For those interested in reading the referenced story:

The Willows by Algernon Blackwood — free at Project Gutenberg

Five Great Yarns from Kahlil Gibran’s The Madman

Posted on by
2
The MadmanThe Madman by Kahlil Gibran
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Project Gutenberg Page

The Madman is a collection of poems and short fiction (often micro-fiction) of a philosophical nature. The protagonist claims he became a madman when a thief broke into his house and stole his masks, the masks that people wear to fit into society and appear “normal.” Beyond the thread created by this mad character, the entries meander along, each with its own moral and with little discernible overarching plot.

There are many clever stories in this collection, offering food-for-thought on religion, philosophy, and psychology. I’ll discuss five of my favorites:

“The Sleepwalkers” A mother and daughter are both sleepwalkers. When they are somnambulating, they speak to each other in horribly cruel terms, but when they wake up, they display (at least a veneer of) love and affection. Besides demonstrating the nature of the aforementioned masks, the loss of which gets one designated “crazy,” this story encourages the reader to discern the differences between conscious and subconscious mental activity.

“War” This one presents an analogy for war in which a thief breaks into the wrong building, walks into a machine, pokes his own eye out, and then takes the building owner to court seeking “justice” for his lost eye. The craftsman / shop-owner says he can’t lose an eye because he won’t be able to do his work, but he knows a neighboring craftsman who could have his eye removed without great loss of productivity. This story builds upon the well-known “An eye for an eye…” Bible verse with the added absurdity of violence being doled out randomly and without concern for whether the victim had anything to do with the events in question.

“The Wise King” A disgruntled witch poisons a city well with a substance that makes drinkers insane. The King avoids the well water and is spared insanity. However, the townspeople begin to plot against the king because, in their insanity, they believe him (as one who acts differently) to be insane. The king eventually drinks the well water in order to come back into synch with his subjects. This entry speaks to the arbitrary nature of classification of sane and insane, an idea that has been discussed in modern times by mental health experts such as R.D. Laing.

“The Two Cages” A bird is caged next to a lion. The bird’s confidence provides the central lesson, knowing they’re both imprisoned separately, the bird refers to the lion as “fellow prisoner.” The power dynamic has changed from that of the jungle. Perhaps, the bird has even happily exchanged its freedom — either for safety or to tear the lion down a little.

“The Eye” In this story, the other sense organs mock the eye after it comments upon how grand a mountain is. The ear can’t hear the mountain and the skin can’t feel the mountain. Therefore, the other senses assume that the eye is either lying or is delusional. This tale speaks to the risk of denying something based on one’s own limited perception.

This book was originally published in 1918 and is in the public domain (most places.) It’s definitely worth the short time investment required to read it.

View all my reviews

Of Samurai & Cats: Issai Chozan’s Neko no Myōjutsu

Posted on by
2

Cat & Lantern (1877) by Kiyochika Kobayashi

BACKGROUND: Issai Chozan’s Neko no Myōjutsu (“Eerie skills of the Cat”) was published in the book Inaka Sōji in 1727. It’s an example of dangibon, a light-hearted form of instructional short story, a form for which Issai Chozan is said to have been one of the originators. On the surface a story of rat-catching cats, in reality it’s a lesson in strategy and philosophy of combat.

SYNOPSIS: I’ll include citations and links below, so you can read the story in its entirety, should you choose to do so. But for now, a brief synopsis: A samurai, Shoken, has a rat in his house, and it’s driving him crazy. Shoken’s housecat is terrorized by the rat. The samurai brings in the best rat-catching cats from the neighborhood, and each is soundly defeated by the rat. Shoken decides to take matters into his own hands, chasing after the rat with a wooden sword (bokken,) but the rat evades each attempted strike and, ultimately, bites the samurai on the face. Finally, Shoken brings in a legendary elder cat from across the city, a cat who doesn’t look like much, but who effortlessly evicts the rat from Shoken’s house. The balance of the story is a conversation between the successful old cat and three of the skillful younger cats who’d failed to catch the rat (as well as with Shoken.) Each of the three explains its approach to achieving victory, and in turn the master cat explains the limitations of each one’s approach. The old master goes on to explain how when he was younger, he’d met a tomcat who slept all day, and yet no rat would come within miles of it. He asked how the tomcat achieved this, but the tomcat was unable to explain it.

THE LESSON: The first cat, a young black cat, explained that it was a master of technique. The black cat was agile and strong in movement of all kinds and practiced diligently to streamline and perfect all of its techniques. The old cat pointed out that focus on technique still left the black cat with too active a mind, thinking too much about how it would defeat its opponent. The master went on to say that there is value in technique, but it can’t be allowed to be the extent of one’s abilities. He emphasized that one’s clever actions must be in accord with the Way.

The second cat, a tabby, proudly proclaimed that all of its effort went into building its energy or spirit (ki, also called chi,) and that it could defeat most rats with a gaze (though not the one in question.) The old master explained that spirit is a fine thing but being too conscious of it hurt the second cat’s ability. The master went on to say that one can never be sure that the opponent won’t have more spirit than one, and so complete reliance on ki can lead one to a defeat.

The third cat, a gray one, said that its philosophy relied on yielding and never forcing a fight. The old master explained that this was a misunderstanding of the principle of harmony, and that this kind of yielding was a man-made contrivance that was not in accord with nature and often led to muddiness of the mind. While the old cat goes on to say that none of these elements (technique, ki energy, or yielding) is without value, it’s clear as he continues that the answer isn’t as simple as being a combination of them, but rather requires a completely new way of being, of experiencing and perceiving the world.

To Shoken, the old cat explained the importance of not thinking of swordsmanship as a means to defeat an enemy but, rather, a means of understanding life and death. The old cat went on to discuss mushin (i.e. “no mind,”) a serene state of mind that allows one to be flexible to whatever comes along. The old cat emphasized the importance of eliminating distinctions of object and subject through a process of self-realization and explained that the process of seeing into one’s being one can trigger satori (sudden enlightenment.)

CITATIONS:

Matheson Trust for Comparative Religion translation, available online at: https://terebess.hu/zen/neko.pdf

Ozawa, Hiroshi. 2005. The Cat’s Eerie Skill. Essence of Training in Japanese Culture: Technique Acquirement and Secret of Kendo. Online at: https://tenproxy.typepad.jp/recent_engagement/files/essence_of_training_in_japanese_culturee.pdf

Suzuki, D.T. 1959. The Swordsman and the Cat. Zen and Japanese Culture. New York: Pantheon Books. pp. 428-435

Wilson, William Scott. 2006. The Mysterious Technique of the Cat. The Demon’s Sermon on the Martial Arts. Tokyo: Kodansha International

BOOK REVIEW: The Storyteller’s Handbook by Elise Hurst

Posted on by
Reply
The Storyteller's HandbookThe Storyteller’s Handbook by Elise Hurst
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Amazon.in Page

Out: June 14, 2022

This is a book, but not one that one reads but rather one that one writes. It contains more than 50 imaginative and fantastical artworks intended to help creative parents build their own stories, while helping their children learn to become storytellers. There is a forward by Neil Gaiman (who has worked with the artist on previous occasions) and an introduction by Hurst, but otherwise there’s almost no text.

The animate subjects of the book are children and animals, but not just any animals. They are mis-sized, misplaced, mythical, imaginary, anthropomorphized, and extinct creatures in search of a clever explanation for their existence and behaviors. The usual suspects of our beloved stories are most well-represented: bears, lions, foxes, rabbits, birds, and fish – for example. But there are also less well-known creatures: mollusks, a mantis, kangaroo, koala, and armadillo. The settings are also designed to fuel the imagination: oceans, hot air balloons, impossibly floating places of all sorts, cities of gothic and fantastical architecture.

If you’re looking for a storybook where you have a graphic prompt to trigger your own story, this is a beautifully illustrated example of such a work.


View all my reviews

BOOK REVIEW: A Bad Business by Fyodor Dostoevsky

Posted on by
2
A Bad BusinessA Bad Business by Fyodor Dostoevsky
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Amazon.in Page

This collection gathers six pieces of Dostoevsky’s short fiction, each brilliant in its own way. The stories vary in length and genre, but share an interesting insight into humanity.

“A Bad Business” is about a high-ranking official who decides to wedding crash one of his underlings. Like the third story in this collection, it’s the psychology that makes this tale compelling. The lead character vacillates between feeling empowered by his host’s deferential behavior and feelings of embarrassment and regret over violating norms. While it might sound like an unrelatable story, the psychological foibles shine through recognizably.

“Conversations in a Graveyard (Bobok)” is largely as the title describes, and is one of the speculative fiction pieces.

Much like the first story, “A Meek Creature” deals in subject matter that may seem unrelatable to today’s reader, but one will recognize the state of mind that drives the story. It’s about a middle-aged man who marries a teenaged girl. The story revolves around the young wife’s death, and attempts to reconcile her demise, which leads him into a dismal territory of self-discovery.

“The Crocodile” is the one piece that doesn’t at all suffer from being dated. While the details may feel retro, this absurdist dark comedy story remains both hilarious and meaningful. The underlying theme is disappointment that economic considerations have come to rule the world, but the story doesn’t beat one over the head with the politics, but rather lets the absurd situation of a man being swallowed whole by a crocodile do the work.

“The Heavenly Christmas Tree” reminded me of the fairytale “The Little Match Girl,” and is a heartfelt Christmas tale.

“The Peasant Marey” is the story of a prisoner having a flashback of the kindness of a neighborhood peasant in his childhood. It’s written in an autobiographical style. I don’t know how much license was taken, but I do know that Dostoevsky did spend time in prison as does the story’s lead.

This collection is well worth reading by any lover of short fiction.

View all my reviews

BOOK REVIEW: Best Fairy Stories of the World ed. by Marcus Clapham

Posted on by
Reply

Best Fairy Stories of the WorldBest Fairy Stories of the World by Marcus Clapham
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Amazon.in page

 

This book collects sixty-two well-known fairy and folk tales. While the bulk of the stories are European, there are a few entries from Indian, Japanese, Aussie, Slavic, and Middle Eastern folklore. There are several stories which will be familiar to all readers (often by virtue of their Disney adaptations,) such as: “Aladdin and the Wonderful Lamp,” “Beauty and the Beast,” “Cinderella,” “Jack and the Beanstalk,” “Sleeping Beauty,” and “Snow White.” There are others that are widely known as go-to bedtime stories, e.g. “Little Red Riding Hood,” “Goldilocks and the Three Bears,” and “The Three Little Pigs.” Then there are others that are likely to be – at most – vaguely familiar to any reader who is not a specialist in global oral storytelling traditions, some because they are anachronistic and relate less well in the modern world and others because they are not well-known in the Western world (e.g. Japanese and Indian stories.)

For the most part, the selection of tales is not surprising. As mentioned, the collection is European-centric with all but about a dozen entries being from Europe. However, given the book is directed toward the English-speaking market, that narrow focus is to be expected. In fact, stories from the Brothers Grimm and Hans Christian Anderson together make up about one-third of the included works. Some readers may take umbrage that the proposed “Best Fairy Stories of the World” includes examples from so little of the world (ignoring Africa, the Western Hemisphere, and the vast majority of Asia, altogether.)

What is strange about the collection is that there are just a few pairs of stories for which both stories in the pair are structurally identical. I’m not talking about having a common theme or moral. The common objectives of these stories often result in them having thematic overlap, but that is not necessarily a problem for readers. For example, there are several “rags to riches” type stories. However, these stories are widely different in story events and characters, such that reading them does not leave one with the feeling of having reread the same story. Instead, I’m talking about instances like the inclusion of both “Rumpelstiltskin” and “Tom Tit Tot.” In both of these stories, the lead is charged with a task they cannot complete, and some magic creature comes along and says they will do the work and, if the person can guess their name, it’s a done deal, but if they can’t guess their rescuer’s name, they will be owned by said savior. Even how the two stories’ endings unfold is identical except in the finest granularity of detail. On one hand, I can see how including overlapping tales would give readers some indication of how these tales spread and became adapted by other cultures. However, on the other hand, I would have preferred that the editor selected the better of the two and use the freed-up space to include, say, some Native American or African stories.

I enjoyed this collection. It took me back to my youth, and also exposed me to some stories with which I was unfamiliar. I do believe the title could have been better worded because to call these the best in the world and then to make them almost entirely from northern Europe could be interpreted as being pretty conceited. However, I doubt there was any such conceit, just a desire to sell stories that would appeal to a particular readership, and then to hype it in as big a way as possible.

View all my reviews