You Don't Make Wine Like the Greeks Did

by David E. Fisher

Unlike some other reproductions of classic texts (1) We have not used OCR(Optical Character Recognition), as this leads to bad quality books with introduced typos. (2) In books where there are images such as portraits, maps, sketches etc We have endeavoured to keep the quality of these images, so they represent accurately the original artefact. Although occasionally there may be certain imperfections with these old texts, we feel they deserve to be made available for future generations to enjoy.

Genres: Fiction

38 pages, Paperback

First published February 20, 2011

About the author

Librarian’s note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.

Reviews

[Debbie Zapata · Rating 3 out of 5]

This story from 1960 presents New York psychiatrist Victor Quink with a situation which he has never met before. Donald Sutherland visits the doctor's office one day. He is a man obviously nervous, fretting about a terrible problem, but he insists he is upset about his wife, who cannot remember that they have to leave New York and return to their home soon. Donald wants Dr. Quink to treat his wife until they can get home to her own doctors. And he grandly explains that 'home' is in the future: the couple had been on a time travel vacation but now Mimi seems to have forgotten about their real lives and insists she will not go back.


Against his better judgment (and possibly out of professional curiosity) Dr. Quink agrees to visit Donald's home and talk with his wife, even though he has already decided that Sutherland himself is the prospective patient. It is when he meets Mimi that things get fuzzy. Mostly due to a huge pitcher of margaritas she has available, but also due to her own story of not being able to remember anything after visiting the restroom on the train eight months ago. She is not even sure that Donald is really her husband, she simply did not know what else to do when he found her in a panic on the train car and took her home with him.

So now what does Dr Quink do? Who is telling the truth? How can he help them? Will they both allow themselves to be treated? And is he really falling in love with Mimi?! What is going to happen here?!

This was a fun story to read, very cleverly put together. I could never decide exactly what the 'real' Sutherland story was: which one was telling the truth, or if neither of them were. It could certainly go both ways right up to the end.

I noticed this book some time ago for the title: You Don't Make Wine Like The Greeks Did. So imagine my surprise when in the course of the first evening at the Sutherland apartment, what Donald actually says is (I have added the bold lettering):

"You make better cigars than we do, I'll say that for the twentieth century," he complimented Victor in the manner of all tourists, as if Victor himself were the cause and not the product of his age. "One of the mysteries of history," he continued, "how a simple technique, like making a good cigar or a good mummy, can be lost once it's been perfected. Always seems to be though. Each age has its secrets. You can't make
wine now like the ancient Greeks did."

Hmmm....very different meanings to those two phrases. Which one tells the truth?

[Susan Molloy · Rating 5 out of 5]

🛸 This was a pretty darn good short science fiction story from 1960 that had a clever, unexpected end. I enjoyed reading it.