Adventures in the Skin Trade

by Dylan Thomas

1966. 115 pages. Paperback book with pictorial cover. Pages and binding are presentable with no major defects. Minor issues present such as mild cracking, inscriptions, inserts, light foxing, tanning and thumb marking. Overall a good condition item. Paper cover has mild edge wear with light rubbing and creasing. Some light marking and tanning.

Genres: Fiction, Short Stories, Poetry, Classics, Literature, British Literature, Horror

115 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1955

About the author

Dylan Marlais Thomas (1914-1953) was a Welsh poet who wrote in English. Many regard him as one of the 20th century's most influential poets.

In addition to poetry, Thomas wrote short stories and scripts for film and radio, with the latter frequently performed by Thomas himself. His public readings, particularly in America, won him great acclaim; his booming, at times, ostentatious voice, with a subtle Welsh lilt, became almost as famous as his works. His best-known work includes the "play for voices" Under Milk Wood and the celebrated villanelle for his dying father, "Do not go gentle into that good night." Appreciative critics have also noted the superb craftsmanship and compression of poems such as "In my craft or sullen art" and the rhapsodic lyricism of Fern Hill.

Reviews

[James · Rating 5 out of 5]

one of the best memories of my life is waking up on a strangers couch, finding this in a second hand book store, and spending the rest of the day lying on the grass with a bag of grapefruits, reading this in the sunshine

[Greg · Rating 2 out of 5]

Me feel dumb reading stories in book. Me do not like feeling dumb, so me give book two stars... The book begins and ends with stories that are very absurdly British. They could have possibly shown up somewhere in Waugh, or maybe K. Amis early body of work. They could have also shown up in something later like B.S. Johnson and not felt out of place. They were good like that. All of the filer stories though I couldn't make heads of tails of. I think not being Welsh added to my confusion. They all take place near something called Jarvis, they have characters that are in multiple stories. Sometimes these characters are dead sometimes they aren't, or maybe they aren't dead or aren't alive. I don't know. They are very poetic, but poetic but a teenager with a great lyrical grasp and excellent imagery but who lives to throw dirty dirty things in when he feels action should be happening (or is it happening?). I don't know what the hell's going on actually in any of these stories, except there may or may not be dead people, and witches and illicit fucking. Or maybe not. I don't get it, and I felt like I was reading just to get done with the book, but I'm sure it's just my dumbness.

[Cailin Deery · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dylan’s idea is that you shed skins as you pass into new stages, and it’s only when you look back that you realize you’ve shed a skin. Although it’s unfinished, it doesn’t really matter. It’s the story of one skin in the process of molting.

So, ‘Adventures in the Skin Trade’ is Dylan Thomas’ unfinished novel – his foray into prose – which is a wonderful glimpse into his lovely, coarse sense of humor. The first story of the collection (the unfinished novel) reminds me of ‘a Confederacy of Dunces’ for its unconventionality and absurdity. The characters artlessly and immediately behave as they would with the people most familiar to them. I wish it were more common to encounter such vulnerability.

Later stories are moments in time, dreamlike for their improbability, and there’s a generous application of allegory throughout. ‘Enemies’ may be my favorite for its festering wilderness, living earth, sinister animation, fright, omens and darkness of the unknown. The collection of ‘Enemies,’ ‘The Visitor,’ ‘The Lemon,’ and ‘the Burning Baby’ very much reminded me of ‘Outer Dark.’ You have incest, premonition, themes of dystopia and more Biblical allegory than you’ll know what to do with.

‘The Visitor’ has the atmosphere of a Malick film with a focus on the life unseen in hard scrabble and empty fields. It reads like a distillation of Tree of Life.

[Steven Godin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Much prefer Thomas the poet, but I sometimes forget that he was also an impressive short story writer too.

Faves here were—

The Visitor
The Orchards
The Horse's Ha
A Prospect of the Sea
Prologue to an Adventure
The Followers

[Lukáš Palán · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ddiwrnod da.

To je velšsky dobrý den. A rhyw rhefrol je anální sex. Není divu, že Dylanovi Thomasovi z tohoto jazyka vybuchlo v makovici a psal takovoudle halucinogenní prózu. V téhle náloži, která vyšla u Rubata, zaujme a pobaví hlavně první třetina, ve které je něco jako děj a hlavní hrdina má na prstu naraženou flašku. To znám. Já ji mám pořád naraženou na držce. Poté následují kratší povídky, kterou jsou většinou tak ezoterický, že bejt to delší, tak se změním v blatouch. Nicméně i v těchto lyrických flákách Dylan Tomáš vykouzlí nějakou tu zajímavou kombinaci slov a za to mu uděluji 7,82 bodů z 10.

[Kristen Godar · Rating 4 out of 5]

You'll either love it or hate it. It will prove a satisfying journey for those who recognize and appreciate the piercing beauty of dischordance when achieved with plan and purpose. This collection contains two of the most unsettling and lovely pieces of short fiction I've ever read. If you like the conventional - linear, literal fiction that does not leave you changed in some way - then you can safely assume this book will not be on your list of favorites.

[Chris · Rating 4 out of 5]

I had the feeling, the entire time I was reading this collection, of having my head underwater while someone tries to tell me a story: I can make out the general gist, and some things sound really interesting and different from what I would expect, but really I am never quite sure I know what the other person is saying, and no matter how many times I ask them to repeat it, it's always going to be just as hard to make out.
That being said, there were about three-quarters of these stories that I was really into. Thomas's four themes here: sex, witchcraft (nature), Catholicism (anti-nature), and drinking, happen to be some of my favorite subjects. Thomas also writes with both a sense of humor and a dark, grim sense of reality, even in some of the more absurd of the stories (the title story, for sure).
Overall, a great collection, with one or two clunky experiments that I didn't feel worked as well. Challenging, but worthwhile.

[Tom · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book emphasizes just how ahead of his time Dylan Thomas was. His zany poetic narrative descriptions of the settings, the people, and their social interactions in this book is still in my opinion being mimicked today, probably accidently or sub consciously by many authors. Unaware of where it all started. Despite its age there something still very fresh about it. The frustrating thing is that its an incomplete piece of work, and for that reason, it feels like you are just getting a glimpse of something that could have been so much more. For me it felt a bit like I had been reading an extract from a novel when it was all over.

[Aaron Puerzer · Rating 3 out of 5]

A little disappointing after being blown away by Thomas's prose collection Portrait of the Artist as a Young Dog. The unfinished novel (Adventures in the Skin Trade) was really good and funny— would have loved to see it finished. The very short stories that took up the rest of the book, however, were really abstract. They sounded more like poems in prose— fascinating and full of imagery, but hard to latch onto. I think this collection will warrant a more attentive reread at some point in the future.

[Bas]

Enigszins bizar verhaal waarin de hoofdpersoon het ouderlijk huis verlaat en in Londen het avontuur zoekt. Mix van novelle en koortsdroom.

[Kristiana · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 - First two parts the strongest. I can see why Thomas didn't carry on with it in the end.

[Frederik Jacobs · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ik dacht dat ik intussen wel wat gewend was, maar de eerste paar bladzijden leken soms onleesbaar. Blij dat ik me erdoor heb geworsteld, want eens het verhaal op dreef is kan je alleen maar denken: zonde dat deze roman nooit is afgewerkt, want het had een meesterwerk kunnen zijn.

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was unprepared.

The title story and unfinished novel is a picaresque about a young man who leaves home and moves to London looking for a woman he has the barest connection to. His adventures are fairly absurd and non-sensical. The other characters are cartoonish and bizarre, though the author manages to capture the simultaneous feelings of uncertainty and invincibility you feel as a young man of privilege entering society.

The rest of the stories are dark and Weird. Thomas taps into the tradition of macabre supernatural fantasy. Some of the stories are Dunsanian in their dreamy fairy tale atmosphere, but decidedly more sinister. In "The Enemies", we meet a mysterious couple living in a remote valley, who are maybe witches.

While the tone of many of the stories reminded me of Algernon Blackwood or H.P. Lovecraft, Thomas touches more on pure horror. I skimmed over a few dull ones, but there were a number of dark gems. In "The Lemon" we are treated to a psychotic surgeon, and in "The Burning Baby" we have supernaturally motivated incest, a murderous changeling, and a baby is literally burnt. In "The School for Witches" we are treated to a demonic birth (and some lines seem to have made it into the song "Kiss Me" by Sixpence None The Richer).

[Dustin · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a book that I will be returning to again and again: it contains within each dense sentence an endlessly evolving experience of demiurgical vision that cannot be fully digested in a single reading. Within these stories the transcendent word is a buried treasure; abounding symbols map the way; ancient stories echo through the pages and new myths are born through the resonance. Like the narrator of these stories, the reader must continually search for the elusive meaning of the experience with the eyes of a dream; and once found, the experience must be translated and reinvented in the conscious mind.

[Nickie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Great title and opening line: "... only one person was awake in the street, and he was the quietest." No coincidence that the main character's called Samuel Bennett as it reads very like a Samuel Beckett. Just a fragment of a novel, he never finished it. The kind of book that academics find hilarious, but only raises the odd wry smile in most everyone else. Nice language, but I'm getting a bit sick of reading books that are heavy on description and light on story...

[Merciful · Rating 5 out of 5]

Having recently re-read Thomas's brilliantly evocative short story, The Dress, about an escaped lunatic pursued through the Welsh countryside at night, I realized I was long overdue to return to this entire collection. Highly recommended.

[Beverley Wakefield · Rating 4 out of 5]

I had a hard time rating this one. The content is 3 stars, the delivery is five stars. This compilation of short stories reads like a series of poetic dreams. Imagery is vivid, evocative and rich. Plot lines are nearly non-existent.

[Geoff Winston Leghorn Balme · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ghoulish, hilarious, mundane, magical, and at turns impenetrable. A dour world of witches and weirdness galore as well as a few regular nobodies just wandering aimlessly in the rain looking in windows for entertainment.
There’s nothing quite like it.

[Roberto M · Rating 4 out of 5]

Le parole dei racconti scorrono fluenti come rivoli d'acqua che s'insinuano in ogni anfratto e dopo un attimo sono stati sostituiti da altra acqua. Come se niente fosse realmente importante ma sempre vissuto come fosse quanto di più importante. E il reale e l'immaginario vivono delle stesse parole che li evocano.
Interessantissima la testimonianza, riportata in prefazione, dell'amico Vernon Watkins che illustra le intenzioni di Thomas dietro il progetto narrativo incompiuto: "Il personaggio centrale, Samuel Bennet, avrebbe dovuto finire in ogni sorta di avventure proprio a causa della sua quieta passività e della sua tendenza innata ad accettare qualsiasi situazione. Era un personaggio che accettava la vita in ogni suo aspetto, come un bambino che fosse divenuto libero e padrone di sé stesso. Non avrebbe avuto denaro, effetti personali, bagagli di vestiti; sarebbe stato libero dai pregiudizi della civiltà. E la vita gli si sarebbe fatta incontro. La gente gli si sarebbe fatta incontro, e gli avrebbe portato la vita. Sarebbe stata gente strana, molto strana. Ma chiunque venisse, qualunque fosse stata la situazione, lui avrebbe proseguito. Poi, a un certo punto, un momento imprevedibile, si sarebbe guardato alle spalle e avrebbe scoperto di aver cambiato pelle. Nel progetto originale di Dylan, per quel che posso ricordare, ci dovevano essere sette pelli. Alla fine del racconto il protagonista sarebbe rimasto nudo."

--------------------------------

Polly si chinò sulla mano di Samuel e lui le guardò dentro la scollatura. Lei se ne accorse, ma non si raddrizzò né si mise una mano sul vestito; alzò la testa e lo fissò negli occhi. Mi ricorderò sempre di questo, egli si disse. Nel 1933 una ragazza stava cercando di togliermi una bottiglia dal mignolo della mano sinistra mentre io le guardavo dentro la scoillatura. Durerà più a lungo di tutte le mie poesie e tutti i miei guai.
.
.
Samuel si stropicciò gli occhi per scacciare la notte e vide gli uomini neri ballare con le loro donne, farle volteggiare tra verdi sedie di vimini, tra il distributore di frutta e il bigliardo. Alcune delle donne erano bianche, e ballando fumavano e scrutavano la stanza, senza accorgersi di ballare, come se le braccia che le circondavano fossero attorno alla vita di altre donne: i loro occhi erano per gli estranei che entravano, e facevano i serrati movimenti della danza come donne nell'atto dell'amore, guardando al di sopra delle spalle degli uomini le proprie facce remote e impassibili in uno specchio. gli uomini erano tutti denti e sedere, con la vita stretta e le spalle larghe, in doppiopetti rigate e scarpe lucidissime, tutti senza età e senza rughe, vogliosi di bella vita, orgogliosi, silenziosi e cordiali e affamati. Si dimenavano in quella cantina fumosa sotto il centro del mondo, alla musica di un tamburo e un pianoforte suonati da due pallidi ragazzi bianchi che muovevavno continuamente le labbra. Mentre George Ring guidava Samuel in mezzo ai ballerini in direzione del bar passarono accanto a una macchina e Samuel ci mise dentro un penny per avere un limone. Ne uscirono uno scellino e sei pence.

[Ostap Bender · Rating 2 out of 5]

I really wish Dylan Thomas had finished the title story to this collection, Adventures in the Skin Trade. It really shows him at his best, with elements of comedic inner dialogue (ala Joyce), absurdity (Kafka), adventurousness (Kerouac), and coming of age existentialism (Salinger), all flowing effortlessly. He started it before WWII and never got back to it afterwards, but it was enjoyable despite that.

Unfortunately in many of the other short stories here, he gets into too much religious allegory and apocalyptic visions, and his poetic, dream-like style is overdone, rendering his prose somewhat opaque.

4.5 stars to Adventures in the Skin Trade which starts the collection.
4.5 stars to The Followers which ends the collection, though I had read this before separately.
4 stars each to After the Fair and The True Story, which are the second and second to last stories.
Yikes on the other 17 stories, all generally 5-10 pages long.

Quotes; just this one on memory:
“Polly bent over Samuel’s hand and he saw down her dress. She knew that he was looking, but she did not start back or spread her hand across the neck of her dress; she raised her head and stared at his eyes. I shall always remember this, he said to himself. In 1933 a girl was pulling at a bottle on the little finger of my left hand while I looked down her dress. It will last longer than all my poems and troubles.
‘I can’t get it off,’ she said.
‘Take him up to the bathroom then and put some soap on it,’ said Mrs. Dacey, in her dry, neat voice. ‘And mind it’s only his bottle.’”

[denudatio_pulpae · Rating 3 out of 5]

"Płoń, dziecię, nędzne ciało, marne ciało, ciało, ciało, chore, smutne ciało, ciało nieczystego łona, spal się znów na popiół [...]. I niemowlę zajęło się ogniem."

"Szkoła czarownic" to opowiadania z mrocznym, niepokojącym klimatem, jednak nie sugerujcie się cytatem, który wybrałam - jakoś przesadnie obrzydliwie, plugawie i potwornie nie będzie. Powieść gotycka z dobrodziejstwem inwentarza to też nie ten kierunek. Historie te bardziej przypominają ludowe legendy, pełne są jednak niedomówień, symboli, surrealizmu, często brakuje im wyraźnego zakończenia. Zamiast koszmarnej grozy poczujemy raczej subtelną magię, siłę natury i mistyczny cykl istnienia, a wszystko to doprawione szczyptą zła.

Styl w jakim są napisane te historie wymaga od czytelnika chwili spokoju i ciągłego sporego skupienia. Pierwsze opowiadania podobały mi się bardzo, chyba najbardziej to pt. "Drzewo". Później, szczególnie po opowiadaniu "Płonące dziecko", z którego jest wybrany przeze mnie cytat, było odrobinę słabiej. Pod koniec jednak znów znalazło się kilka lepszych historii, oczywiście w mojej opinii. Szczególnie tytułowe opowiadanie "Szkoła czarownic" oraz "Stanik od sukni" przypadły mi do gustu.
7/10

[Tony Lawrence]

I didn’t know about this short - unfinished - Thomas novel, until I found this lovely circa 1960’s paperback in a charity shop. It consists of 3 chapters, originally conceived as a 7 part semi-autobiographical comic adventure. The ‘skins’ are the layers of Samual Bennett’s civilised carapace, leading I assume to both a nakedness and an unburdened sensualness … although to be honest he starts as a fairly blank canvas, a young man travelling from a stifling and boring life in South Wales(?) to London with prospects of a new job in publishing. However, he mostly wants to do nothing, to let fate, events and adventures happen to him by accident. He quickly finds a richly comic set of acquaintances to guide him and exploit his innocence. They in turn find a man willing to be undressed (literally in the early encounter with ‘Pretty Polly’). It’s all over too quickly, but it is a fun, and shows a glimpse of a possible Joycean writing style and form. That said, he seemed to have abandoned this project early, in favour of the harder but more rewarding poetry and prose that he is most famous for.

[Andrew Shutes-David · Rating 3 out of 5]

"Image! All image!" exclaims an AitST character, as if in dutiful summary of these beautiful plotless stories // evasive, lyrical, dreamlike // drinking, vague sex and/or illusive metaphors that compare writing to sex, weird dreams // 3.0: 1.0, 3.6, 1.3, 2.8, 5.0, 4.0 // I purchased this at a used bookstore after finding it as part of a book scavenger hunt that I was playing with my wife; I was intrigued by the handwritten inscription on the inside front cover: "If you light a fire for a man, he's warm for a day. If you light a man on fire, he's warm for the rest of his life." It took me at least a year to finish the book, so I can't say for certain whether these lines actually originate with Dylan Thomas--the sentiment seems Thomasy and fire seems to spread through many of these stories, yet I can't recall Thomas saying anything quite so directly.

SUMMARY // 3 ADJECTIVES // WARNINGS FOR KIDS // RATING: SETTING RATING, PLOT RATING, CHARACTER RATING, WRITING RATING, IDEAS RATING // OTHER WORDS

[Chris · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this book many many years ago, yet it came back to me forcefully when I set out to write my own autobiography.
How well does a young man do when he burns his sisters love letters, shatters his mother's precious china and boards the first train in, while they still sleep?
I'm glad Thomas didn't finish the book. Maybe he never intended to.

Living and rolling with the unknown is a powerful choice. How else can one lift oneself above the dross, the glitz and reliance on what is always temporary and already in decay before we reach for it.

Maybe, it is not until one looks back and sees how little it was all about, that he steps inside Thomas' moccasins and wishes, if only I'd been braver.

[Justin Labelle · Rating 4 out of 5]

Funny and odd with strange juxtapositions.
Thomas comments on a variety on social classes, nick nacks and society as a whole.
Life is strange and then you die may very well be the take away here.
A young man wants to become and artist and doesn’t want to allow himself with any easy escape routes.
The novel follow this young man as he seeks to establish a new life in a new city.
Upon arrival he encounters strange people in a diner, rooms filled, literally to the ceilings, with furniture, bathrooms packed with birds, and some late night escapades.
This is famously a fragment and incomplete but it shows potential and it’s never less than entertaining.
Here’s a great ride here only we’re never given the opportunity to figure out the destination.

[Jackie Carreira · Rating 4 out of 5]

As a novel, I can sort of understand why Thomas's publisher wasn't keen to release it. But as an insight into the mind and workings of the author, it's really fascinating. Parts of the book haven't aged well, but there are also bits of genius along the way. I read a very old hardback copy that only had the title story in it, and that itself was unfinished and hadn't been messed about with by future editors, and I'd recommend trying to get hold of that version, if you can. But it's probably really mostly for either serious fans of Dylan Thomas, or those (like me) who are fascinated by the way an author's mind works.

[Persephone Abbott · Rating 5 out of 5]

I mean it is plain as the cute nose on Moses' baby face. For God's sake, give him a bottle. Thomas is obviously a poet who could tell a story and finely. The youthful anxiety having a tantrum in the china closet, touring the world in a train station, survival menaced by the furnishings of all of society, the innocence of nursery rhymes in a bar and in a taxi and in a bar and the hooting songs of pastures transported to cellars in the drunken city and I wonder where it would have gone next. And that's okay, besides Dylan Thomas recorded the chapters and these are to be found on YouTube.

[Gareth Williams · Rating 4 out of 5]

A pleasure to find something else by the wonderfully talented and dead too soon, Dylan Thomas. It may only be a fragment of a novel but there are enough turns of phrase to keep a fan happy. characters abound as always, with Thomas populating his first hours in London with the kind of improbable people he saw everywhere.
Having burnt his bridges at home he drifts into a London life far removed from his life at home in Wales, and yet, albeit through the avatar of his main character, he remains the at odds, awkward, diffident yet determined drifting layabout poet!

[Madeline · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a country-boy-goes-to-the-city story. At the station Samuel got his finger stuck in a beer bottle which he carried around d with him for the rest of the story. He also met some distinctly odd people and was introduced to the seamier side of London.
Thomas had an amazing facility with language and this little book was no exception. We definitely get into Samuel's head as he first experienced the big city and allowed it to absorb him.

[Josh Berthume · Rating 5 out of 5]

If the horror in Lovecraft came from the Old Testament instead of the eldritch cosmos, and then was written as a team effort by E B White and Neil Gaiman, you’d end up somewhere near the neighborhood of this collection of Dylan Thomas’ prose.

It is weird in here, and well-built. The language has that tell-tale liquid-beauty quality in the imagery that you get when a great poet decides to slum it in prose for a bit.