The Chaser

by John Collier

She will want to know all you do... All that has happened to you during the day. Every word of it. She will want to know what you are thinking about, why you smile suddenly, why you are looking sad...

A tale of desire, manipulation and obsession...

Genres: Short Stories, Fiction, Young Adult, Read For School, 20th Century, Classics

4 pages, Unknown Binding

About the author

John Collier was a British-born author and screenplay writer best known for his short stories, many of which appeared in The New Yorker from the 1930s to the 1950s. They were collected in a 1951 volume, Fancies and Goodnights, which is still in print. Individual stories are frequently anthologized in fantasy collections. John Collier's writing has been praised by authors such as Anthony Burgess, Ray Bradbury, Neil Gaiman and Paul Theroux. He was married to early silent film actress Shirley Palmer.

Reviews

[samar_reads · Rating 4 out of 5]

This one was really good and I loved the irony that it has..

Be careful what you wish for because, at the end, that might not be what you really want.

I guess this sums up the story!

[Ahmed Ejaz · Rating 2 out of 5]

**2 stars**
This short story is about love potion and I didn't like its effects.

[Federico DN · Rating 2 out of 5]

Be careful what you wish for.

A love-stricken young man wants to buy a love potion to charm certain lady. After a difficult search he finally finds the old merchant, in a very shady place. To his luck, the price is cheap, but the cost may be high!

Meh. I understand where this was going, but didn't make much impact for me anyway. It was a cool idea though, certainly had potential; maybe not the best delivery.

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PERSONAL NOTE :
[1960] [4p] [Fiction] [2.5] [Not Recommendable]
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★★★☆☆ Evening Primrose. [3.5]
★★☆☆☆ The Chaser [2.5]

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Ten cuidado con lo que deseas.

Un joven enamorado quiere comprar una poción de amor para enamorar a cierta dama. Después de una difícil búsqueda finalmente encuentra al viejo comerciante, en un muy sombrío lugar. Para su suerte, el precio es barato, ¡pero el costo puede ser alto!

Meh. Puedo entender hacia dónde iba esto, pero igual no tuvo demasiado impacto sobre mí. Aunque cabe decir que era una buena idea, ciertamente tenía potencial; quizás no fue la mejor entrega.

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NOTA PERSONAL :
[1960] [4p] [Ficción] [2.5] [No Recomendable]
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[Emma Wells · Rating 1 out of 5]

Judge me not for reading a 4 page book and marking it off on good reads to try and meet my target …. Forgive my sins

[Chérie On Top]

no reading short stories to catch up on the challenge is not cheating, shut up

[Eg · Rating 4 out of 5]

Reflected some mysterious power of potion (love potion) as well as the chaser who is a "life cleaner". An interesting approach to get the feeling that the reader and author does know the other meaning of potion that Allan Austen (protagonist) doesn't know.

[Mahesh · Rating 4 out of 5]

Don't chase ideals live life fully.
Becareful what you wish for because what you wish is may not be the thing what you really need

[Maria Wallingford · Rating 4 out of 5]

When I want to tell a writing class about perfect short stories, I often go to The Chaser by John Collier.

It's the story of a lovesick young man hunting for magic means to win the poor unfortunate object of his obsessions. He'll get what he deserves, but only at the tragic expense inflicted on what he purports to love.

The Chaser has a wonderful, punchy anecdotal quality, and the style of fairy tale yarn is so deceptively simple that it could grace the pages of a children's book. Yet it also tells a vast human truth in very few words. Comedy and pathos, the contrast of wise age and callow youth... cruelty disguised as philanthropy or love. It's worth the four minute read just for these clever contrasts.

It makes you think beyond the read though.

One especially brilliant aspect of The Chaser is the use of time. Read it and then map out the time periods of the actual happenings rather than the short episode in the spooky shop that's narrated. The tale goes so far before and so far after what's actually told. We have the whole cycle of a love story from beginning to end - and it's a lifetime. Add in the likely events leading to the shopkeeper's activity and it could span several lifetimes.

In John Collier's The Chaser we're also given something particularly miraculous about storytelling - a POV opportunity that is different from the one being told. I call it "emergent story" and it's something I like to experiment with in my own work. In this case, the sympathy we feel for the lady of the story gives us good reason to reimagine the work from her point of view - and it is a shocking and horrific fate.

[Yomna Saber · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love it! Human beings can be so vulnerable when they desperately want something and very manipulative when they start abusing one another. It's a magnificent, succinct and amazing piece of writing.

[Luthfi Ferizqi · Rating 4 out of 5]

I understand after reading the views of other readers. So, in essence, Alan is likely to buy the poison potion for $5,000 because initially buying the love potion for only $1 will result in a love life filled with misery and obsession.

[Christine Lee · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Chaser -
(slang) A person who seeks out sexual partners with a particular quality: (slang) A tranny chaser.
The chaser can also refer to a mild drink accompanying a shot of whiskey/vodka/hard liquor.

The protagonist is literally chasing after a particular woman, using whatever dangerous means to keep her at his will. The story warns us we will eventually come back for a chaser (mild drink) to wake up from the drunken state of love if we go so far as to look for ways to intoxicate the subjects of our desires...because we will be looking right back at our own ugly state of drunkenness.

[Ruhi · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was about a man, Alan, who is in love with a woman who doesn't feel too passionately about their relationship. Alan then goes to visit a potion dealer who tells him about the different types of potions he has. However, the one Alan is interested in is the love potion...

I think that the theme of the story is, be careful what you wish for because, at the end, that might not be what you really want.

[Classic reverie · Rating 5 out of 5]

After watching John Collier's "The Chaser"in an adaptation on the Twilight Zone, I decided to read this extremely short story to compare; the TV version shows more of the couple and also what the short story only intimated, if you wish for something you may later regret and might be paying a higher price later on, not just financially but emotionally.

I did not read this edition but from a collection of his work.



💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢SPOILER ALERT💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢

The story starts and ends with a man named Alan seeing a so called "sorcerer" about his extreme passion for Diane who plays him a fool, so a " love potion" is wanted despite the warning giving by the seller, but before he gives the price, he keeps telling Alan about the antidote for 5 thousand dollars, which would clean the person out= death, the "love potion" cost $ 1. You are left with the idea that Alan will be back but that is an uncertainty. In the Twlight Zone, summarized below, he bought the antidote but could not give it. Beware what you wish for!

May 13, 1960 season 1, episode 31
From Wikipedia;
"Mr. Roger Shackelforth. Age: youthful twenties. Occupation: being in love. Not just in love, but madly, passionately, illogically, miserably, all-consumingly in love - with a young woed Leila, who has a vague recollection of his face and even less than a passing interest. In a moment, you'll see a switch, because Mr. Roger Shackelforth, the young gentleman so much in love, will take a short, but very meaningful journey into the Twilight Zone.

Plot
Roger Shackleforth is desperately in love with Leila, an aloof tease who plays cat-and-mouse with his affections. A stranger hands him the business card of an old professor named "A. Daemon", who c an help with any problem. Roger visits Daemon, who after some resistance and suggestions that Roger will regret it, sells him a love potion for $1. Roger administers it in a glass of champagne; Leila falls madly in love with him and marries him, but soon her love becomes stifling. Roger returns to the professor to buy his "glove cleaner" (really a poison), for $1,000, all of Roger's savings. Daemon cautions Roger that the "cleaner" is odorless, tasteless, and completely undetectable, but must be used immediately and completely, or the user will lose his nerve and never again have the courage to try it. After Roger leaves, the professor muses, "First, the 'stimulant'... and then the 'chaser'."

When he gets home, Roger prepares a glass of champagne with the new potion. Just as he is about to give Leila her drink, she reveals that she is pregnant; Roger is shocked and drops both glasses. He tells himself he could not have gone through with it anyway, then passes out. On Roger's terrace, Daemon relaxes with a cigar, and after puffing a smoke ring that turns into a heart, disappears.

Closing narration
Mr. Roger Shackelforth, who has discovered at this late date that love can be as sticky as a vat of molasses, as unpalatable as a hunk of spoiled yeast, and as all-consuming as a six-alarm fire in a bamboo and canvas tent. Case history of a lover boy, who should never have entered the Twilight Zone."

[Anatoly · Rating 5 out of 5]

A young and poor man came to the seller of a love potion. He needs to get this potion for a girl - his lover, and it costs only one dollar - but for some reason, the old merchant tells him something completely different …

This story is funny. It is good for making predictions both optimistic and pessimistic, depending on what you are focusing on in the reading.

Here is the link to the text of the story:
http://ciscohouston.com/docs/docs/gre...

[Cheesybeans · Rating 4 out of 5]

The irony of the short story really astonished me. Took me a while to comprehend the novella. I enjoyed it so much! The story was not very descriptive but the conciseness, ambiguity, but at the same time, the clarity of the message of the story awed me. Easy to read while possessing such a powerful and fathomless moral.

[Benjamin · Rating 4 out of 5]

We read this as a reading exercise in EFL class. I think it was a great little read and it created a great space for short story analysis in class. I was pleased with class participation/ engagement.

[delfii · Rating 3 out of 5]

(audiolibro)

Cuando en una historia se utiliza la obsesión como en este, me llama mucjo la atención.
Éste en especial fue muy bueno, desde mi punto de vista me pareció muy loco el punto al que una persona llegaría por amor, o "capricho"

[Phoenix · Rating 3 out of 5]

Strange, though I was expecting at least a little more plot.

[Endless · Rating 4 out of 5]

Love blinds. evidently exposed in this Piece.

[Forked Radish · Rating 4 out of 5]

Beware of bargains.

[سهيلة رمضان · Rating 5 out of 5]

A different and subtle perspective about love.

[Mike Jozic · Rating 4 out of 5]

Clever.

[生姜 · Rating 2 out of 5]

it’s not bad writing but doesn’t do anything interesting with its premise

[Bora · Rating 4 out of 5]

Aşk yok olmak diyor biri.

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5

[Nour Yehia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Reading short stories for college assignments, but this one is really good. I like the irony in it.

[Liam James · Rating 4 out of 5]

Oh, sheer genius, set up so perfectly. And what is it, a mere two pages I think? Heavens, to compose a beginning, middle, and end that resounds so thoroughly, in two pages! Let's start with Alan, "nervous as a kitten." Ha! Of course he is. But the old man doesn't seem so bad at first does he; sort of like an aloof uncle. But our skepticism, albeit wan at this point, has nevertheless already been awakened. Indeed, we noticed the name was "obscurely" written on the door, and now we're made aware of the apartment, empty of furniture, just that old man and his forbidding bottles behind him. Alas, then we hear of the glove cleaner. So convincingly does the old man talk of it; of course lives need cleaning sometimes! Mine does right now! But I digress, we read on and hear of the love potion. Oh, I'd be lying if it didn't, just for a moment, intrigue me. To be able to have anyone, or that special someone, that one who never had the time, so utterly devoted to you. But when we finally see the potion: "a tiny, rather dirty looking phial," we recoil just a bit. We start to put two and two together, for, all the while we've been wondering why he's been blathering on and on about this glove cleaner and its cost. Then, when he says, "au revoir" even the mortally daft say to themselves, "better off alone." And oh, I finally understand, only now, the real lesson, the underlying meaning as it were. It is thus: one can't alter fate. One manipulates only to his own peril, I've learned this lesson myself of late. It is a terrible, terrrible, thing to learn. But as Beck says at the beginning of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, "Everybody's gotta learn sometime."

[Gabriela · Rating 1 out of 5]

¿?

[Susan Molloy · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a plot that keeps one ooo-ing and ahh-ing over the twist, and an ending that surprises.
This is a Twlight Zone episode, too.

💥 Recommended.
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