Il-Parabboli tal-Imġienen

by Keith Borg

Għajnejja bdew jidraw id-dalma. Fejn qiegħed? Kont mal-art, ċangatura naħseb, inxomm u ntiegħem it-trab.

Rat karta fuq sidri u ġabritha. Kitba mħanżra miktuba b’demm għadu frisk …

Erġajt ħassejt iż-żarżir ġo widnejja, did-darba b’aktar saħħa. Tagħrix u gdim irqiq mat-tanbur ta’ widnejja. Daż-żarżir bdejt inħossu anke fi griżmejja u ħassejtni qed nifga bil-mod il-mod.

Fid-dar trijangulari kienet tgħix mara trasparenti donnha magħmula mill-ispag.

Waqajt għarkopptejja ħdejha, nilheġ u nxomm ħlewwitha. Demgħa kaħla żżerżqet mill-għajn xellugija.

X’jiġri meta borża tal-plastik ma tkunx kuntenta b’ħajjitha?

Stejjer fejn insibu villaġġ stramb, inkontru mad-divin (forsi), Repubblika mnejka, ċess, sess u tuffieħ. L-għajnejn moħbija li dejjem josservaw il-fraġilità tal-bniedem.

Keith Borg jippreżenta ġabra ta’ stejjer qosra li jiskomodaw il-ħsieb, li jaħsdu u jniffdu lir-ruħ. Stejjer surreali li jilagħbu bl-ispag tar-realtà u l-fantasija.

144 pages, Paperback

Published January 1, 2021

Reviews

[Robert · Rating 4 out of 5]

Every Halloween season, I make it a point to read at least one scary book so I thought I might as well check out Keith Borg’s debut collection of short stories, Il-Parabboli tal- Imġienen (Parables of the Insane). The cover alone reminds me of the rock people scenes in Return to Oz so theoretically it’s an apt choice.

These 10 stories are not filled with things that go bump in the night (bar one about cockroaches), it certainly is a sinister collection which displays some of the cruelties that the human being is capable of. All these stories have a nightmarish quality to them, while dreams and nightmares feature in the narrative as well.

There are a lot of highlights: Opening story L-Attur Famuż (the famous Actor) is straight from the Roald Dahl school of the grotesque twist ending. Logħba Ċess ( Chess Game) is about unrequited love, The Seventh Seal and also supports a rather nasty conclusion. Inkontru (Meeting) is about a barista who meets existential crises ridden Jesus. There’s also a story from a bag’s point of view. It may sound absurd but it’s pulled off well.

However it is the final story Repubblika (Republic) which Keith Borg reveals his more experimental, and political (although one could say that all stories have political elements to them) side as this vignette style piece is a jab, more a skewering, of Malta during the Prim Minister’s resignation – once again there’s a twist in which the book ends on a high point.

I had a lot of fun reading these stories. Keith Borg’s descriptions a to the point and have a brutal directness, which suits the nightmarish quality. It’s consistent as well, with all 10 stories having some sort merit. Although Keith Borg has written some novellas and poetry before, this first collection shows that this author’s future may take some interesting writing paths.

[Ends of the Word · Rating 4 out of 5]

Maltese oral and folkloric tradition has its own share of horrors: the magical beasts and casual violence of the folktales in Magri's collection; stories of hauntings, ghosts and revenants; the fixation with death and cronaca nera of 19th century pamphlets documenting crimes and executions... Yet, Malta’s Romantic authors seemed less interested in the horrific and supernatural themes which inspired Gothic fiction both in England and on the Continent. In this arid context for lovers of the Gothic, Anton Grasso emerges as the key exponent of the horror genre in Malta. Writing prolifically in the 70s and 80s, against the backdrop of a literary environment with no real “horror” or “Gothic” tradition, and at a time in which other authors were breaking away from the mould of the realist and/or historical fiction of their predecessors, Grasso experimented with horror as a way of exploring themes dear to his contemporaries (such as alienation of the individual, the collapse of established morality, the claustrophobia of the traditional village communities and persecution of the “outsider”). His works cross the gamut of the genre, from folk to body horror, supernatural and occult stories to slasher fiction, realism to the grotesque and, sometimes, the grotesquely farcical.

Though Grasso remains the Maltese benchmark for horror (earning him an inclusion in Valancourt Books’ critically acclaimed World Horror anthologies) other authors have, in the meantime, incorporated tropes of the genre into their works, even if they are not primarily associated with this style. One thinks, for instance, of the fantastic world of the Fiddien trilogy (written by Loranne Vella and Simon Bartolo), the darker works of Trevor Zahra (not only in his works for children, but also in several of his adult short stories, such as “Ħġieġ”) or even Walid Nabhan (in the ghost story “Pamela” in Bejn Bejnejn or the crime novel L-Iżvijati with its deranged killer/narrator).

Which brings me, in a rather roundabout way, to Il-Parabboli tal-Imġienen (“Parables of the Insane”), a short story collection by Keith Borg (b. 1984). This volume of ten, terse short stories was published by Merlin just before Halloween in 2021. The timing was certainly apt, since several of the ten stories in this volume are works of in-your-face shock-and-horror, starting off with L-Attur Famuż (“The Famous Actor”), a tribute to Poe’s “The Pit and the Pendulum”. There are other disturbing tales in this vein, for instance one narrated by a plastic bag (!) – “sex-and-gore” stuff is not really my line, but I must admit that this work stands out because of its original approach.

Other works in this collection are definitely stranger albeit equally discomfiting, blending speculative fiction with philosophical concepts in a manner which, I feel, is quite innovative in a Maltese context. Logħba Ċess (“A Chess Game”), for instance, is a sort of allegory about love, with imagery reminiscent of “The Seventh Seal”. The Borgesian Il-Villaġġ (“The Village”) is purely conceptual: a fable-like narrative whose characters are geometric shapes. Some works are almost playful, featuring absurdist scenarios, including a meeting in a cafe’ with a character who might just (or might not) be the Son of God. In such stories, Borg moves away from outright horror and closer to weird fiction of a more literary/philosophical bent. Yet, the worldview remains the same, characterised by a heavy sense of dread and nihilism, not unlike the cosmic horror of Thomas Ligotti.

The volume closes with Repubblika (“Republic”). With this work, Borg returns to the here and now, with a story inspired by events in recent Maltese history – namely the assassination of Daphne Caruana Galizia, and its aftermath of political uncertainty. Quite ironically (or perhaps not), the work most rooted in reality is also the bleakest of the lot.

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