I have two volumes of Quiroga stories. I boxed them up this weekend to get ready for moving. Otherwise, I would have read this story. I may have read it before in the 90s. The only I remember involved a giant tick.
This is definitely going on my list to read. Your description reminds me of my favorite book, A Personal Matter, in which a man is struggling internally to take responsibility for his new born who is expected to be brain dead. In the process he tries to get a sympathetic doctor to give the baby sugar water instead of milk to kill it quietly. In this book, the main characterâs struggle is sympathetic though, and he ultimately redeems himself. But it makes me think that there is a third kind of horror that you didnât mention (at least horrifying to me) and that is the primordial fear of your progeny, whom you love, not being able to function as normal humans and the fear of the burden they will place on you for a lifetime. In the book you were talking about, it just seems like that burden twisted the parents who really didnât have what it takes to stand up to that immense responsibility. This is an issue I think about and truly fear myself, and Iâm glad you brought this book to my attention. Thank you!
That third type of horror that youâre describing is a really interesting idea. Iâm wondering about where the line blurs between fear and horror, and youâre giving such an excellent example of that. Who wrote A Personal Matter? I hope your week started well! Best, Jack
Really disturbing story, I would place it with Marcel Schwob's The Sans-Guele as one of the most disturbing short stories I've read. For another modernist who used to occasionally write horror, the Italian writer Tommaso Landolfi is worth seeking out. Great video.
I agree regarding Landolfi, Matthew. Do you have a favorite story from him? I have not heard of Schwob, so I plan to check him out. Thanks for the recommendation! Best, Jack
@@ramblingraconteur1616 Gogol's Wife is a wonderful mix of horror and absurdist humour. But my favourite Landolfi story is called Dialogue on the Greater Harmonies. Here's a synopsis: In "Dialogue on the Greater Harmonies," published in 1937, an unsettled student and poet, Y., tells the narrator how he was taught Persian by an English sea captain. After studying the language and composing three poems in it, Y. realizes he's been conned: the "Persian" he has painstakingly learned is nothing but an imaginary language. Worse still, when confronted, the sailor cannot remember having instructed him. Y. hastily torches his notes and, desperate to discover whether his verses have any artistic worth, goes with the narrator to visit a "great" critic. Their dialogue quickly turns to a deconstruction of creative identity: to the critic, art is relative to the whims of the artist; the narrator and Y. argue that it is an anthropological confluence of history, scholarship, and geography. "Do you mean to say," Y. asks, "that a poem can be a work of art even if there is only one person in the world, only its author, competent to judge it?" "Precisely," the great critic replies.
Landolfi was prolific, but I think he's only had two Eng translations: Gogol's Wife and Words in Commotion-maybe you have one of these. I actually started translating one of his novels a couple of years ago, but life got in the way. Very strange figure. Lot's of amazing stuff to discover with Marcel Schwob, though! The story I mentioned is collected in the Oxford World's Classics anthology French Decadent Tales.
@@anotherbibliophilereads Yes, me too. And while I was reading it, I found myself in a small Italian village called Illasi where there was an historic villa, guarded by dogs, which is said to be connected to the neighbouring medieval castle by underground passages. It was the first time in my life that I felt I had entered the pages of the very book I was reading! Descriptions seemed to match perfectly. Villa Pompei Carlotti is the name, I knew the former caretaker's daughter. I wish I'd kept my copy of the novel, I'd like to re-read it.
I should clarify that this is possibly the most horrifying fictional story I have read. Plenty of nonfiction records dehumanizing horrors.
I have two volumes of Quiroga stories. I boxed them up this weekend to get ready for moving. Otherwise, I would have read this story. I may have read it before in the 90s. The only I remember involved a giant tick.
Feather pillow!, great story
@@felipepiacenza4684 thatâs one to read just before bedtime! The way the mystery is resolved in the last few sentences is something else.
Good luck with the move. I have read a good number of these across the past 5 weeks and have found his horror very effective.
This is definitely going on my list to read. Your description reminds me of my favorite book, A Personal Matter, in which a man is struggling internally to take responsibility for his new born who is expected to be brain dead. In the process he tries to get a sympathetic doctor to give the baby sugar water instead of milk to kill it quietly. In this book, the main characterâs struggle is sympathetic though, and he ultimately redeems himself. But it makes me think that there is a third kind of horror that you didnât mention (at least horrifying to me) and that is the primordial fear of your progeny, whom you love, not being able to function as normal humans and the fear of the burden they will place on you for a lifetime. In the book you were talking about, it just seems like that burden twisted the parents who really didnât have what it takes to stand up to that immense responsibility. This is an issue I think about and truly fear myself, and Iâm glad you brought this book to my attention. Thank you!
That third type of horror that youâre describing is a really interesting idea. Iâm wondering about where the line blurs between fear and horror, and youâre giving such an excellent example of that. Who wrote A Personal Matter? I hope your week started well!
Best, Jack
@@ramblingraconteur1616 it was by Kenzaburo OÄ
Really disturbing story, I would place it with Marcel Schwob's The Sans-Guele as one of the most disturbing short stories I've read. For another modernist who used to occasionally write horror, the Italian writer Tommaso Landolfi is worth seeking out. Great video.
I agree regarding Landolfi, Matthew. Do you have a favorite story from him? I have not heard of Schwob, so I plan to check him out. Thanks for the recommendation!
Best, Jack
@@ramblingraconteur1616 Gogol's Wife is a wonderful mix of horror and absurdist humour. But my favourite Landolfi story is called Dialogue on the Greater Harmonies. Here's a synopsis:
In "Dialogue on the Greater Harmonies," published in 1937, an unsettled student and
poet, Y., tells the narrator how he was taught Persian by an English sea captain. After studying the language and composing three poems in it, Y. realizes he's been conned: the "Persian" he has painstakingly learned is nothing but an imaginary language. Worse still, when confronted, the sailor cannot remember having instructed him. Y. hastily torches his notes and, desperate to discover whether his verses have any artistic worth, goes with the narrator to visit a "great" critic. Their dialogue quickly turns to a deconstruction of creative identity: to the critic, art is relative to the whims of the artist; the narrator and Y. argue that it is an anthropological confluence of history, scholarship, and geography. "Do you mean to say," Y. asks, "that a poem can be a work of art even if there is only one person in the world, only its author, competent to judge it?" "Precisely," the great critic replies.
Landolfi was prolific, but I think he's only had two Eng translations: Gogol's Wife and Words in Commotion-maybe you have one of these. I actually started translating one of his novels a couple of years ago, but life got in the way. Very strange figure.
Lot's of amazing stuff to discover with Marcel Schwob, though! The story I mentioned is collected in the Oxford World's Classics anthology French Decadent Tales.
Landolfi is an interesting author. I read his novel An Autumn Story many years ago.
@@anotherbibliophilereads Yes, me too. And while I was reading it, I found myself in a small Italian village called Illasi where there was an historic villa, guarded by dogs, which is said to be connected to the neighbouring medieval castle by underground passages. It was the first time in my life that I felt I had entered the pages of the very book I was reading! Descriptions seemed to match perfectly. Villa Pompei Carlotti is the name, I knew the former caretaker's daughter. I wish I'd kept my copy of the novel, I'd like to re-read it.