I was introduced to Paul Theroux's work many years ago by his train books. I have read all of them through the years starting with "The Old Patagonian Express" when it came out in 1979 in hardback. I was so impressed with it that I gave it out as presents to friends and then read the rest of his travel books over the years. They remain my favorite books on train travel. I have always considered the author to be a very gifted writer and his prose is very wonderful to read.
The book that I am taking Theroux's short stories from is the following:
"The Pen/O'Henry Prize Stories: The Best Stories of the Year 2009" Edited by Laura Furman Anchor
The 22 small stories in this book are very small, often just three paragraphs long. Theroux states: "The essence of fiction writing-and travel writing too, is storytelling." The author states his influence is folk and fairy tales and this is evident in these wonderful quick and short stories.
The author said he likes to collect them and has about a hundred of them which he likes to call "Long Story Short" because that is the expression story tellers often use when recounting them. He feels that this form is one of the oldest forms of literature in the world and often told at leisure by people sitting around a fire.
Many of them are told in first person and take on the persona of different people who live assorted lives. Because the stories were so short, detail was not necessary so it would seem to be fun for a writer to create and fun for a reader to read because the author put enough in to make them very interesting. I could see people leaning forward in a circle around a fire to listen to these stories. Some of the protagonists were men, some women and all of the stories were believable.
The only question that I had in my mind was whether or not they were published as one block of stories or published in assorted publications? Would a publication print such short stories all by itself? I tended to think they were published as one block.
great post
ReplyDelete