Stalin's Teardrops: And Other Stories - Hardcover

Watson, Ian

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0575049421 ISBN 13: 9780575049420

Publisher: Victor Gollancz, 1991

Synopsis

A remarkable collection of stories by a writer with great versatility and literary gifts, capable of blending and transcending genres. CONTENTS: Stalin's Teardrops, Gaudi's Dragon, In the Upper Cretaceous, The Beggars in our Back Yard, From the Annals of the Onomastic Society, Lambert Lambert, Tales from Weston Willow, In Her Shoes, The Human Chicken, The Case of the Glass Slipper, The Pharaoh and the Mademoiselle, The Eye of the Ayatollah; 270 pages.

About this title

Reviews

Watson's ( The Flies of Memory ) new collection displays the wide range and subtlety of his short fiction. Although the first two stories are unfocused and somewhat heavy-handed, despite some wonderfully bizarre imagery, the remaining 10 tales are provocative and surprising. Many explore the blurred boundary between objective and subjective reality--in "Stalin's Teardrops" the efforts of Soviet mapmakers to obscure the geographical truth actually create alternative landscapes. Others are flavored with the surreal: in "The Human Chicken" an eight-pound fowl is born to a bemused young couple. The best selections transform traditional story types into new tales. "The Beggars in Our Backyard" is a thinly disguised allegory that avoids tendentiousness, managing to provide both entertainment and social commentary. "The Pharaoh and the Mademoiselle" might have been a typical tale of an Egyptian curse, but Watson's idiosyncratic approach makes it truly unusual; half the story is related from the point of view of a set of tiny figurines and the other half takes the form of a play. From the regional flavor of "Tales from Weston Willow" to the quirkiness of "From the Annals of the Onomastic Society," these stories offer a wealth of diverse, intelligent reading.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Another story collection from the prolific Watson (Salvage Rites, Evil Water, Slow Birds), this one comprising 12 tall tales published between 1985 and 1990. The longest piece here is brilliantly conceived: a company of Ushabti, tiny clay figurines placed in the sarcophagus of a pharaoh as his attendants, explore their sarcophagus-universe, then attempt to revive their dead master; what makes no stylistic or literary sense, and irredeemably flaws the story, is Watson's introduction of some investigating Egyptologists in the form of a play and, worse, chanting blank verse. Also noteworthy: the impressively imagined title yarn, which probes the strange consequences arising from deliberately distorted maps but all too soon meanders off into unfathomable byways; and a persuasive yarn that features the surrealist architect Gaudi. Elsewhere, three clumsily obvious metaphors (time travel and race hatred; rich vs. poor; a human chicken becomes chancellor of Oxford University) irritate rather than uplift; a jailer physically and psychically absorbs his prisoners; an English village hides odd goings-on; Sherlock Holmes ponders Cinderella, to astonishing effect; and an ayatollah's eyeball elicits only routine irony. Amazingly inventive--but too often inattentive or downright eccentric in the execution. -- Copyright ©1991, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Edition details

• Publisher: Victor Gollancz
• Publication date: 1991
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0575049421
• ISBN 13: 9780575049420
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1