The Necklace

The Necklace (1884) ~ Guy de Maupassant


Beauty equalises females
From a male point of view

But an attractive woman
Scourged with the shabbiness of poverty
And longing to shine
Aches for a wardrobe
Beyond her reach

Such a woman was Madame Loisel

One night of giddy 
Ecstatic illusion 
Became
Ten years of squalid debt

A debt 
Bound in
Ironic
Reverse
Illusion

GOODREADS REVIEW

The Necklace and Other Short Stories by Guy de Maupassant
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

(This review focuses on The Necklace, originally published in the French newspaper Le Gaulois in 1884.)
The beauty of Madame Loisel was born to poverty. Little did she know that for one night, for one cloud of happiness, she would sink deeper into the bowels of poverty. Diamonds betrayed her; ignorance tainted her dreams and mocked her. A short story that could easily recycle into 21st century social column news.

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The Discovery of the High Lama

The Discovery of the High Lama (2009) by Sushma Joshi (ebook on Short Stories)
The spin of apparent circumstance settles into a life purpose for one and a humbling experience for another.


Dead Rose Tigerbalm in the Insight Bar

So far from the studies of Boston

Strumming lop-sided chords on the guitar

A Kathmandu backwater 

So far from marketed fortunes

A potato stuffed mentality
Ripe for
Chopping boards

And remote
Elusive 
Mongolia

Bigyan thought he was on a quest for
Enlightened
Black belt success

But the Enlightened One decided
Other
Wise

GOODREADS REVIEW

The Discovery of the High Lama by Sushma Joshi
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Elusive be "the simple science of inner knowledge" for those burdened with bookish academics; for those who have concocted their own template of superiority. While his "friends" travel to Boston or Australia to seek mercenary, intellectual status, Bigyan, with his black belt in kyo-kushin karate, travels from Kathmandu to Mongolia to compete. He wins a silver medal and stumbles into the delighted welcome of monks. A bizarre, but fascinating sequence of circumstantial scenarios give birth to a multi-faceted awakening.

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Linking to:
Poets United - Poetry Pantry

The Three Strangers

Review on Litfy

I have just read "The Three Strangers" (1883) by Thomas Hardy - one of the stories in the collection Stories by English Authors.

In the pastoral, rain drenched world of night outside Casterbridge unfolds the mysterious connection of three strangers who drop by a shepherd's hut!

A beautiful short story etched with the subtle tensions of questions!

Quotes

Description bristles with substance - Five miles of irregular upland, during the long, inimical seasons, with their sleets, snows, rains, and mists, afford withdrawing space enough to isolate a Timon or a Nebuchadnezzar; 

Atmospheric alliteration - surging hiss of the flying rain on the sod

Always get the feeling with Hardy that a passing comment on Nature has another level of foreshadowing or  "insinuation".
The house was thus exposed to the elements on all sides.

First stranger - light satire - his gait suggested that he had somewhat passed the period of perfect and instinctive agility, 

Suspicious riddles keep the mystery flowing - The man at the table took up the hedge-carpenter's remark, and added smartly, "True; but the oddity of my trade is that, instead of setting a mark upon me, it sets a mark upon my customers."

Beautiful imagery - Beyond all this winked a few bleared lamplights. 

A reality becomes a legend - In brief, the bass-voiced man of the chimney-corner was never recaptured.

Imagine singing

By a fire with a hangman

One rainy deep night

GOODREADS REVIEW

  The Three Strangers, and an Imaginative Woman by Thomas Hardy
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I have read the short story The Three Strangers (1883).
In the pastoral, rain drenched world of night outside Casterbridge unfolds the mysterious connection between three strangers who drop by a shepherd's hut!
A beautiful short story etched with the subtle tensions of suspicious connections, a wheelwright, a hangman and another all gathered round a fireplace of questions!
Another glorious vignette of Hardy's Wessex!

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The Big Little Book of Happy Sadness Quotes

The Big Little Book of Happy Sadness (2008) ~ Colin Thompson - author and illustrator


QUOTES

George lived alone with his grandmother and an empty place where his mother and father should have been.

Most Friday afternoons on his way home from school, in that time before the weekend when lonely people realise just how lonely they are, George visited the dog shelter.

The last cage was where the dogs no one wanted went for a final week before their journey to heaven. George felt at home there. 

In the dark gloom, he found a place where everything seemed lonelier than he was. 


Comment:
On the surface, the quotes paint a gloomy world, yet there is a feeling that this particular place may hold the key to a brighter world for more than George.


Linking to:
Quote It Saturday

The Big Little Book of Happy Sadness Begins

The Big Little Book of Happy Sadness (2008) ~ Colin Thompson is the author and illustrator.
This view is on the inside of the book just before the story begins.


Opening words:

George lived alone with his grandmother and an empty place where his mother and father should have been. 

George’s grandmother was a kind lady, but she was very old and the two of them spent most of their lives on different planets.


Comment:
Clearly from the opening words, the young boy has a very deep, hollow sense of loneliness that needs filling with love quite urgently.


Linking to:
Book Beginnings on Fridays

The Big Little Book of Happy Sadness

The Big Little Book of Happy Sadness (2008) - Colin Thompson


George is just a young boy
Without his parents
But blessed with a loving grandmother
A grandmother who means well
But just doesn't quite live on
A young boy's planet 

A young boy needs a friend
Who understands
Who feels
Who relates to
Loneliness

Jeremy
A dog
Cast in the last dark cage
In a dog shelter
Waiting for a heavenly journey
Desperately needs a friend
Who understands
Who feels
Who relates to
Being unloved

 By some wink of circumstance
A dog cursed with just three legs
Links the boy and his grandmother in
A happy
Kind of sadness

GOODREADS REVIEW

The Big Little Book of Happy Sadness by Colin Thompson
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Who could imagine that a 3 legged dog close to heaven, (where those unloved wait for their time according to some humans), would unite a grandmother and a young boy and give the boy his first taste of unconditional love and a glowing sense of being. Sadly, the happy moments seem to become a little overly dramatised right at the end of the book. Perhaps there could have been another journey on the horizon!

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The Red Piano

The Red Piano (2008) - Andre LeBlanc
NOTE: This is based on a true story.
Andre interviewed Zhu Xiao-Mei in April 2007.
She is now a virtuoso pianist.


A camp
Lost between
Inner Mongolia
And China

Music
Playing music
Secretly
The only way to keep a child's senses
Untangled
Unbarbed

Just wired

She secures the notes on
Fragile
Re-used
Paper

Transportable testimony of
Hope

Someday
Far away
She will erase
Five years of
Invisibility
Exile

And play the music of

Freedom...

Someday...

So far away....


PREVIOUS POSTS ON THE RED PIANO
The Red Piano Quotes
The Red Piano Begins

GOODREADS REVIEW

The Red Piano by André LeBlanc
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Manual labour for children during China's Cultural Revolution was a time of abyssmal darkness for creativity. Just how dark and negative that time could be is demonstrated by The Red Piano. Unless of course, that child is Zhu Xiao-Mei, longing to find her voice playing the piano. Quietly she rebelled, determined to let her music be heard. How she rebelled evolves into a mesmerising, humbling story.

My poetic review is on my Songlines on the Winds blog.

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Linking to:
dVerse ~ Poetics ~ Beautiful Sadness
Poetry Pantry ~ Poets United