Crying was delicious

This is a quote from the story Big Blonde by Dorothy Parker.

Quote by Dorothy Parker, “To her who had laughed so much, crying was delicious.”

Have you read this book? I’d love to hear your thoughts in a comment below!

If you’re interested, you can read an excerpt from another story from Dorothy Parker here.

Collection of short stories – Summary

Here is the book summary from Goodreads:

Three brilliant tales by a master storyteller: ‘Big Blonde’, ‘The Sexes’ and ‘Dusk Before Fireworks’.

W. Somerset Maugham on Parker: ‘Dorothy Parker has a wonderfully delicate ear for human speech …. Her style is easy without being slipshod and cultivated without affectation. It is a perfect instrument for the display of her many-sided humour, her irony, her sarcasm, her tenderness, her pathos.’

Copyright © 1929 by Dorothy Parker.

You can find more details here on Goodreads and on StoryGraph.

A very good-looking young man

Excerpt from Dusk Before Fireworks by Dorothy Parker

Photo by Lauren J | Accessed on Unsplash.com

This is an excerpt from the story Dusk Before Fireworks by Dorothy Parker.

He was a very good-looking young man indeed, shaped to be annoyed. His voice was intimate as the rustle of sheets, and he kissed easily. there was no tallying the gifts of Charvet handkerchiefs, art moderne ash-trays, monogrammed dressing-gowns, gold key chains, and cigarette-cases of thin wood, inlaid with views of Parisian comfort stations, that were sent him by ladies too quickly confident, and were paid for with the money of unwitting husbands, which is acceptable any place in the world. Every woman who visited his small, square apartment promptly flamed with the desire to assume charge of its redecoration. During his tenancy, three separate ladies had achieved this ambition. Each had left behind her, for her brief monument, much too much glazed chintz.

The glare of the latest upholstery was dulled, now, in an April dusk. There was a soft blue of mauve and gray over chairs and curtains, instead of the daytime pattern of heroic-sized double poppies and small, sad elephants. (The most recent of the volunteer decorators was a lady who added interest to her way s by collecting all varieties of elephants save those alive or stuffed; her selection of chintz had been made less for the cause of contemporary design than in the hope of keeping ever present the wistful souvenirs of her hobby and, hence, of herself. Unhappily, the poppies, those flowers for forgetfulness, turned out to be predominant in the pattern.)

The very good-looking young man was stretched in a chair that was legless and short in back. It was a strain to see in that chair any virtue save the speeding one of modernity. Certainly it was a peril to all who dealt with it; they were far from their best within its arms, and they could never have wished to be remembered as they appeared while easing into its depths or struggling out again. All, that is, save the young man. He was a long young man, broad at the shoulders and chest and narrow everywhere else, and his muscles obeyed him at the exact instant of command. He rose and lay, he moved and was still, always in beauty. Several men disliked him, but only one woman really hated him. She was his sister. She was stump-shaped and she had straight hair.

On the sofa opposite the difficult chair there sat a young woman, slight and softly dressed. There was no more to her frock than some dull, dark silk and a little chiffon, but the recurrent bill for it demanded, in bitter black and white, a sum well on toward the second hundred. Once the very good-looking young man had said that he liked women in quiet and conservative clothes, carefully made. the young woman was of those unfortunates who remember every word. This made living peculiarly trying for her when it was later demonstrated that the young man was also partial to ladies given to garments of slap-dash cut, and color like the sound of big brass instruments.

The young woman was temperately pretty in the eyes of most beholders; but there were a few, mainly hand-to-mouth people, artists and such, who could not look enough at her. Half a year before, she had been sweeter to see. Now there was tension about her mouth and unease along her brow, and her eyes looked wearied and troubled. The gentle dusk became her. The young man who shared it with her could not see these things.

Have you read this story? I’d love to hear your thoughts in a comment below!

Collection of short stories – Summary

Here is the book summary from Goodreads:

Three brilliant tales by a master storyteller: ‘Big Blonde’, ‘The Sexes’ and ‘Dusk Before Fireworks’.

W. Somerset Maugham on Parker: ‘Dorothy Parker has a wonderfully delicate ear for human speech …. Her style is easy without being slipshod and cultivated without affectation. It is a perfect instrument for the display of her many-sided humour, her irony, her sarcasm, her tenderness, her pathos.’

Copyright © 1929 by Dorothy Parker.

You can find more details here on Goodreads and on StoryGraph.

But nothing is lasting

This is a quote from the short story The Overcoat by Nikolai Gogol, translated by Ronald Wilks.

Quote by Nikolai Gogol, “But nothing is lasting in this world. Even joy beings to fade after only one minute.”

Have you read this story? I’d love to hear your thoughts in a comment below!

If you’re interested, you can read an excerpt from the book here.

The Overcoat – from a collection of short stories – Summary

Here is the book summary from Goodreads:

Nikolai Gogol was born in the Ukraine in 1809. Vladimir Nabokov wrote of his work that “after reading Gogol one’s eyes may become gogolized, and one is apt to see bits of his world in the most unexpected places.” He died in 1852 after subjecting himself to a severe regime of fasting. “The Overcoat” and “The Nose” are two of Gogol’s finest works. “The Nose” is a masterpiece of comic art, and “The Overcoat” is considered one of the greatest short stories ever written.

Copyright © 1842 by Nikolai Gogol.

Translated by: Ronald Wilks

You can find more details here on Goodreads and on StoryGraph.

A very important person

Excerpt from The Overcoat by Nikolai Gogol

Photo by Filip Bunkens | Accessed on Unsplash.com

This is an excerpt from the short story The Overcoat by Nikolai Gogol, translated by Ronald Wilks.

One of them, who was deeply moved, decided he could at least help Akaky Akakievich with some good advice. He told him not to go to the local police officer, since although that gentleman might well recover his overcoat somehow or other in the hope of receiving a recommendation from his superiors, Akaky did not have a chance of getting it out of the police station without the necessary legal proof that the overcoat was really his. The best plan was to apply to a certain Important Person, and this same Important Person, by writing to and contacting the proper people, would get things moving much faster. There was nothing else for it, so Akaky Akakievich decide to go and see this Important Person.

What exactly this Important Person did and what position he held remains a mystery to this day. All we need say is that this Important Person had become important only a short while before, and that until then he had been an unimportant person. However, even now his position was not considered very important if compared with others which were still more important. But you will always come across a certain class of people who consider something unimportant which for other people is in fact important. However, he tried all manners and means of buttressing his importance. For example, he was responsible for introducing the rule that all low-ranking civil servants should be waiting to meet him on the stairs when he arrived at the office; that no one, on any account, could walk straight into his office; and that everything must be dealt with in the strictest order of priority: the collegiate registrar was to report to the provincial secretary who in turn was to report to the titular councillor (or whoever it was he had to report to) so that in this way the matter reached him according to the prescribed procedure. In this Holy Russia of ours everything is infected by a mania for imitation, and everyone apes his superior. I have even heard say that when a certain titular councillor was appointed head of some minor government department he immediately partitioned off a section of his office into a special room for himself, an ‘audience chamber’ as he called it, and made two ushers in uniforms with red collars and gold braid stand outside to open the doors for visitors—even though you would have a job getting an ordinary writing desk into this so-called chamber.

This Important Person’s routine was very imposing and impressive, but nonetheless simple. The whole basis of his system was strict discipline. ‘Discipline, discipline, and … discipline’ he used to say, usually looking very solemnly into the face of the person he was addressing when he had repeated this word for the third time. However, there was really no good reason for this strict discipline, since the ten civil servants or so who made up the whole administrative machinery of his department were all duly terrified of him anyway. If they saw him coming from some way off they would stop what they were doing and stand to attention while the Director went through the office. His normal everyday conversation with his subordinates simply reeked of discipline and consisted almost entirely of three phrases: ‘How dare you? Do you know who you’re talking to? Do you realize who’s standing before you?’

However, he was quite a good man at heart, pleasant to his colleagues and helpful. But his promotion to general’s rank had completely turned his head; he became all mixed up, somehow went off the rails, and just could not cope any more. If he happened to be with someone of equal rank, then he was quite a normal person, very decent in fact and indeed far from stupid in many respects.

But put him with people only one rank lower, and he was really at sea. he would not say a single word, and one felt sorry to see him in such a predicament, all the more so as even he felt that he could have been spending the time far more enjoyably.

One could read this craving for interesting company and conversation in his eyes, but he was always inhibited by the thought: would this be going too far for someone in his position, would this be showing too much familiarity and therefore rather damaging to his status? For these reasons he would remain perpetually silent, producing a few monosyllables from time to time, and as a result acquired the reputation of being a terrible bore. This was the Important Person our Akaky Akakievich went to consult, and he appeared at the worst possible moment—most inopportune as far as he was concerned—but most opportune for the Important Person.

Have you read this story? I’d love to hear your thoughts in a comment below!

The Overcoat – from a collection of short stories – Summary

Here is the book summary from Goodreads:

Nikolai Gogol was born in the Ukraine in 1809. Vladimir Nabokov wrote of his work that “after reading Gogol one’s eyes may become gogolized, and one is apt to see bits of his world in the most unexpected places.” He died in 1852 after subjecting himself to a severe regime of fasting. “The Overcoat” and “The Nose” are two of Gogol’s finest works. “The Nose” is a masterpiece of comic art, and “The Overcoat” is considered one of the greatest short stories ever written.

Copyright © 1842 by Nikolai Gogol.

Translated by: Ronald Wilks

You can find more details here on Goodreads and on StoryGraph.

Holding hands

Excerpt from Moving Parts by Prabda Yoon (ปราบดา หยุ่น)

Photo by Farrinni | Accessed on Unsplash.com

This is an excerpt from the book Moving Parts by Prabda Yoon (ปราบดา หยุ่น), translated by Mui Poopoksakul.

“Can I hold your hand?” Just last Saturday evening, the boy had gone to see a movie, and he’d picked up the line from a cutesy love scene.

The girl sat there awhile, charmed by the idea, before she gave her answer with enthusiasm: “Sure, take it.”

She gave him her left hand.

He took it nervously.

And then the girl sprinted off, disappearing into the luscious glow of the evening sun, leaving the boy to sit there in a tangle of emotions, staring at the third hand he held in his right hand. No one had ever given him their hand so nonchalantly before. Happy? Sure, he could say he was happy, because he’d had a secret crush on the girl for months. Being in possession of her hand surely meant that he’d managed to chisel away a few layers of brick from the wall separating their personal spaces.

But the happiness dissipated in no time, replaced instead by anxiety.

He didn’t know how to behave toward the girl’s hand no that he had it.

As the dusky sky set in, the boy decided to go home.

“Hurry up and have a shower, sweetie. I’ve got dinner ready,” his mother caught sight of him coming in just after she heard the front door shut. She was standing in the kitchen, peeling yellow-fleshed oranges. Her eyes toggled back and forth very quickly from her son to the fruit, but she was eagle-eyed enough to spot the foreign object in his hand. She immediately did a double take, turning her head with a whoosh. “And whose hand have you got there, huh?”

“A friend from school’s, Mom.” Although his account was not precisely truthful, it didn’t quite fall under the category of a lie either. But when he added out of nervousness that “sh—he lent it to me”, well, now he was toeing a mighty fine line between sin and innocence.

Have you read this book? I’d love to hear your thoughts in a comment below!

Moving Parts – Summary

Here is the book summary from Goodreads:

Surreal and puncturing short stories from the Thai master of the form.

In a pink-walled motel, a teenage prostitute brings a grown man to tears. A love-struck young boy holds the dismembered hand of his crush, only to find himself the object of a complex ménage à trois. A naked body falls from the window of a twenty-story building, while two female office-workers offer each other consolation in the elevator…

In these wry and unsettling stories, Prabda Yoon once again illuminates something of the strangeness of modern cultural life in Bangkok. Disarming the reader with surprising charm, intensity and delicious horror, he explores what it means to have a body, and to interact with those of others.

Copyright © 2002 by Prabda Yoon (ปราบดา หยุ่น).

Translated by: Mui Poopoksakul.

More details can be found on Goodreads and on StoryGraph.

The Blind Woman Without a Toe

Photo by Nong V | Accessed on Unsplash.com

This is an excerpt from the book Apple & Knife by Intan Paramaditha, translated by Stephen J. Epstein. The book is a collection of short stories, and this is from the first short story called “The Blind Woman Without a Toe.”

Come. Come, child. Sit by me. Are you sure you want to hear how I became blind? Oh, it’s a scary tale, child. So much blood was shed, like when an animal is sacrificed. It was an awful event involving someone very close to me. You may know of her. I was butchered. Yes, you could say that. And I even butchered myself. My eyes were pecked out by a bird. They say it was a dove from heaven, but it was actually a black crow straight out of hell. I screamed. I begged it to stop. But my shrieks were drowned out by its caws. It got to the point that you could no longer tell what was flowing, tears or blood. The crow only heeded its owner and she wasn’t satisfied until my eyes were hollow sockets.

Long ago, before I became blind, I lived with my mother and my two younger sisters. The youngest wasn’t my biological sister. She was my stepfather’s daughter. Her name was Sinderlarat. You’ve heard of her, haven’t you? She is already legendary, so maybe you won’t believe what I’m about to tell you. Sin – that’s what we called her – was so dirty, she looked like she had powdered herself with soot. And she really did live in the attic. I won’t deny it (thought I regret it, since that’s where she colluded with the thing that granted her powers). What I want to do is correct history. History has killed me off in favour of her, who people say lived happily ever after. You want to know the real truth? Sin is dead. I’m the one who survives.

Yes, we were unfair to her. We ordered her to do the heavy work. When she wanted to go to the ball, we threw rice in every corner and wouldn’t let her leave the house until she had gathered all of it in a bowl. Of course, it was wasted labour, but at that point we didn’t know she was being helped by a spirit, that accursed Fairy Godmother. That’s the story you’ve heard? Well, now I’ll tell you something different.

Have you read this book? I’d love to hear your thoughts in a comment below!

Apple & Knife – Summary

Here is the book summary from Goodreads:

Inspired by horror fiction, myths and fairy tales, Apple and Knife is an unsettling ride that swerves into the supernatural to explore the dangers and power of occupying a female body in today’s world.

These stories set in the Indonesian everyday – in corporate boardrooms, in shanty towns, on dangdut stages – reveal a soupy otherworld stewing just beneath the surface. This is subversive feminist horror at its best, where men and women alike are arbiters of fear, and where revenge is sometimes sweetest when delivered from the grave.

Dark, humorous, and vividly realised, Apple and Knife brings together taboos, inversions, sex and death in a heady, intoxicating mix.

Note: It’s important to understand that some stories require a trigger warning.

Copyright © 2018 by Intan Paramaditha.

Translated by: Stephen J. Epstein

More details on Goodreads can be found here.

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