It was 10:32 am. I had just placed the fig tart inside the fridge and I was having my second coffee, a freddo espresso, when I noticed your post. I spend 32 minutes watching parts of the Long Short-story Night. You put me in such a great dilemma! Should I combine the fresh fig tart with a
“Kevin Barry Kleftiko”( “Robber’s Lamb” as it is literally translated) or with a
“Petite Filet Mignon à la Michel Faber”?
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“Kevin Barry Kleftiko”: This Irish boy with the bad hair cut should have become an actor. Look at his face, the posture, the voice. He is a very good reader and he communicates so well with the audience. His story lifts you up…Where? “Across the rooftops”, of course. The story, written in 2011,is based on the use of language; the use of the right, precise words; it’s a
LANGUAGE EXERCISE, which reminded me a similar scene from
Ian McEwan’s “On Checil Beach”(published in 2007).We simply have different characters set in a different place with a different outcome.. “Across the rooftops” is a very good story indeed, but not that original?! Not for someone like Kevin Barry who wants to claim the NOBEL Prize?!
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“Petite Filet Mignon à la Michel Faber”: What could I say about this middle age Man with the moist glass eyes with his “Paradox” ? It’s no paradox though (for Him) that he places his right hand on his waist. Habit? Anxiety? Back pain? But it’s paradox for the rest of us, because not only he repeats it
4 times (at minutes 51,13 - 52,27 - 52,57 and 55,33),but because with this posture, he spoils the presentation of his reading, if you think that the 2 characters are having this conversation while they are sitting down on a sofa. His reading lasts 9 minutes, which means that an average reader would need 5-6 minutes to go through his story. I don’t know whether “Paradox” has been published; it would have been quite paradox for me, because is this a short-story?
This is a snapshot of a small part of a ‘paradoxical reading’ in the Long Night of the Short-story. Now, why are these people clapping? Well, don’t ask Me. Ask them.
Every story is a window which allows us to see the writer; to understand the reasons he writes, to discover his fears and insecurities, to sense some of his passions. Whenever
Michel Faber introduces me to a family or a child, it feels like he wants to introduce me to Himself.
I could see his longing to re-construct his past; I could see his longing to re-catch all the ‘temps perdu’ from his childhood years. In his last
“Book of the Strange New Things”,the Oasans behave like children; they bear the innocence, the openness and the originality that children have.
If the Oasans are invited to discover a Human Religion, then we are invited to discover through their world a New Cosmic Religion.
“Paradox” is a story of
ideas. It would have been more interesting if the conversation, the confrontation occurred between the father and the child
(clash of generations) and not between the couple. Does Michel Faber expect me to believe that any woman, any curious woman coming from EVE, like this optician(!!), would meet a man, start dating him, fell in love, move in together, get married, steal his sperm, carry his unwanted child for 9 months, give birth and rise this little girl until she is now 6(?) years old and NEVER discover his pornography or notice before this interview?!!!!What? This is the paradox bit.
Oh,no! This is the stupid bit.
This short-story as a case study is STUPID! Then the protagonist gave this interview when he was 19 and he is 52 now. What has he been doing for the past, let’s say 30 years? Except of course from keeping his sperm from hungry women and posing as a ‘prophetic philosofa ’? Yes, you read well:
‘Prophetic Philosofa ’. Let me get something straight with Michel Faber, Irvine Welsh, Julian Barnes and the whole lot.
I am so FED UP with all these messed up alcoholic junkies and depressed cowards. I simply do NOT empathize with apathetic characters, like them. And I NOT like short stories where the author spends 7 out of 9 minutes talking with the character’s voice, while he uses the rest 2 to describe us how he feels, what he truly thinks and speak with his inner voice. So “Paradox” is an original but too short and shallow story for my reading taste, but it has all the potential to search, discover and be discovered… Then again, don’t take my opinion too seriously, because who I am? Just a philological cook in a Mediterranean island.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=-6qZ9A6GFikOh, God! What’s the time?
Why does the bell toll? Is it an invitation or a farewell? Is it for a celebration or a funeral?
Maybe it’s just a WAKE UP CALL?!
