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Fables
Fables, the second volume to be published of Theroux's short stories, truly among his richest and thought-provoking, is a compilation of among his most imaginative, daring, whimsical, highly inspired, and characteristically unconventional work. It will be followed by the third and last of the triad, Later Stories.
This collection, which includes pieces long and short, including two ballads, has been much anticipated by his faithful readers. In these narratives, Theroux has mastered in the originality of sheer invention the folklorish, even fairy-tale quality, of the moral fable, touching in his chronicles on the tried-and-true plots of romance, mythology, mystery, puzzles, secrets, and questions of intrigue without making any of the pieces didactic or overly doctrinal. We encounter in this gathering an assemblage of little sagas, epics, and apologues an intrepid explorer deep in the Amazon jungle seeking a black orchid for Queen Victoria. A disturbed German violin student undergoes in the course of his lessons a strange and unpredictable response to a rare, priceless instrument. A love story in old China finds two sweethearts in the dire peril of a venomous court intrigue. The ancient linen wrapping of Egyptian mummies leads to a weird conspiracy that takes place, unpredictably, in the state of Maine. The neuroses of a mother-hating son have ghastly consequences in his own marriage. Nothing can match for weird enchantment the wizard-architect named Vinegarfly.
At the turn of every page a surprise awaits in these unforgettable stories, where, in his own right proving a wizard himself of the language, Theroux handles words like Faberg� his eggs, for, in a final analysis, language once again is his subject. As David Bowman observed in the New York Times, "Alexander Theroux . . . is one of America's premier frotteurs, to use a French term the impeccable James Salter applies to someone who 'rubs words in his hand.'"
This collection, which includes pieces long and short, including two ballads, has been much anticipated by his faithful readers. In these narratives, Theroux has mastered in the originality of sheer invention the folklorish, even fairy-tale quality, of the moral fable, touching in his chronicles on the tried-and-true plots of romance, mythology, mystery, puzzles, secrets, and questions of intrigue without making any of the pieces didactic or overly doctrinal. We encounter in this gathering an assemblage of little sagas, epics, and apologues an intrepid explorer deep in the Amazon jungle seeking a black orchid for Queen Victoria. A disturbed German violin student undergoes in the course of his lessons a strange and unpredictable response to a rare, priceless instrument. A love story in old China finds two sweethearts in the dire peril of a venomous court intrigue. The ancient linen wrapping of Egyptian mummies leads to a weird conspiracy that takes place, unpredictably, in the state of Maine. The neuroses of a mother-hating son have ghastly consequences in his own marriage. Nothing can match for weird enchantment the wizard-architect named Vinegarfly.
At the turn of every page a surprise awaits in these unforgettable stories, where, in his own right proving a wizard himself of the language, Theroux handles words like Faberg� his eggs, for, in a final analysis, language once again is his subject. As David Bowman observed in the New York Times, "Alexander Theroux . . . is one of America's premier frotteurs, to use a French term the impeccable James Salter applies to someone who 'rubs words in his hand.'"
- GenresShort Stories
412 pages, Paperback
Published December 1, 2021
3 people are currently reading
100 people want to read
About the author
Alexander Theroux
53 books191 followersAlexander Theroux is a novelist, poet, and essayist. The most apt description of the novels of Theroux was given by Anthony Burgess in praise of Theroux's Darconville's Cat: Theroux is 'word drunk', filling his novels with a torrent of words archaic and neologic, always striving for originality, while drawing from the traditions of Rolfe, Rabelais, Sterne, and Nabokov.
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
August 22, 2022
It was a pleasure appearing on the Books of Some Substance Podcast again. This time, I spoke with my friend David Southard about Alexander Theroux’s Fables, which I helped get published through Tough Poets Press.
You can listen to the podcast here: https://www.booksofsomesubstance.com/...
You can purchase a copy of Fables here: https://bookshop.org/a/81719/97805783...
You can listen to the podcast here: https://www.booksofsomesubstance.com/...
You can purchase a copy of Fables here: https://bookshop.org/a/81719/97805783...
April 29, 2022
A mere twenty-seven years after Dalkey Archive shelved their plans to publish Theroux’s Fables, the collection is finally available from the unstoppable Tough Poets Press, among the finest unburyers of lost classics active today. Opening with the fables previously published in illustrated volumes such as ‘The Great Wheadle Tragedy’—short fancies of doggerel less charming when stripped of their artistic accompaniment—the volume travels mainly to Europe for a series of character studies similarly rich in accumulated detail and Jamesian perceptivity as those in Early Stories. The novella ‘The Curse of the White Cartonnage’ sees two scheming antique hunters seeking to snaffle precious cartonnage from newly arrived neighbours, with invariably parlous consequences. One recurring feature in these stories is Theroux’s love for trivia, ribboning every story with a blizzard of knowledge woven into the tapestry of the characters’ histories, a technique that occasionally detracts from the story, but makes for a truly encyclopaedic and incredibly rich reading adventure in the manner of the sexiest Victorian prolixers. The volume also features several fantastical poems in the fable mould.
December 15, 2021
comes much closer to the heady arcane heights of the cat than the earlier stories did, and they seem less suffering under later additions too (although there is one not-really-veiled dig at fantagraphics, which hints at acrimonious reasons to their being only a former publisher of his now).
the sentences of the strongest stories pulsate and have the classic jagged theroux sentences, but can still falter, for example: in the story set in ancient china the dialogue is written in the teeth grating old fashioned way of representing asian inadequacy in english by eliding words, confusing tenses, but as these characters are supposed to be speaking chinese this choice doesn't make sense and shows a reductive worldview which also applies to the women, are their any wives in this volume who aren't resented?
the sentences of the strongest stories pulsate and have the classic jagged theroux sentences, but can still falter, for example: in the story set in ancient china the dialogue is written in the teeth grating old fashioned way of representing asian inadequacy in english by eliding words, confusing tenses, but as these characters are supposed to be speaking chinese this choice doesn't make sense and shows a reductive worldview which also applies to the women, are their any wives in this volume who aren't resented?
December 13, 2025
Fables is an odd duck. Some of the stories here do indeed fit with the name, others seem to be of an entirely different genre, and yet others are poetry. While humour was the predominant mode of Theroux’s previous collection, Early Stories, and while it hasn’t at all disappeared in Fables, there’s more tragedy and bleakness in the stories collected here. Some of the initial stories were brief and a little light on substance (this is to be expected on account of these having originally been published as illustrated books and only having the text collected here), but soon enough after the rocky start, these gave way to things that truly should be read by everyone.
Of the few narratives in verse, I’ll highlight Zoroaster and Mrs. Titcomb, where an unpleasant fishmonger has an encounter with the supernatural. Titcomb is another delightful caricature of humanity at its most unpleasant, her ill behaviour running the gamut from farting to stabbing her husband. The poem progresses at a clip, in stanzas of four lines, often but not always sticking to an ABAB rhyme, and while I would’ve preferred it commit fully, the other schemes can be just as delightful:
“She was given to farting and endlessly carting/Barrels of sprats to the edge of the quay/Where tikes without waists pleaded weakly for tastes/But she’d pitch the lot right into the sea”
Words and wit in evidence, always. Mrs. Titcomb’s encounter with the stranger that is Zoroaster brings her to a measure of justice, and justice could be seen as a recurring motif in the stories here, justice delivered from up above, whether by the will of God or by karma or by sheer irony. All the stories don’t end with villainy punished, but many do, enough for it to be worth noting, maybe even a key to understanding why these tales are pulled together the way they are. Is that moral character the thing that makes these stories, even the ones that otherwise seem indistinguishable from ordinary literary fiction (as “ordinary” as I’m willing to call Theroux’s work) “fables”?
Consider for example the story Tell Me What Happened, where a widowed cobbler remarries and soon finds his domestic life a misery, as his new wife despises their way of life, the lowness of the status he provides, and begins to turn his children against him the way – sadly – sometimes happens in bad marriages. It is a tale of human pettiness, of yearnings unfulfilled on both sides of the conflict, but realistic in its psychology, not at all a “fable” in its construction, and yet does it not take place in the Alpine landscapes of Europe, where the Brothers Grimm wrote their own tales, does it not feature an undeniably wicked stepmother, does it not end in a moral judgement passed by the tale itself upon that wickedness, the prevailing of justice, long-suffering but undeniable, inevitable? A fable indeed.
Contrast this with Captain Birdeye’s Expedition, a harrowing tale of a British explorer who takes on the jungles and deserts of South America. The horrors of the jungle are on full display here, the endless humidity in the rainforest contrasted with the struggle with thirst in the desert. While many of Theroux’s stories feature travellers far from home, the usual motif is that of being among strangers, not of struggling against the wild. Nature in his stories is most often a place of beauty and refuge from mankind, (like the alpine landscapes of Tell Me What Happened), but here he makes a departure from both for a rare adventure story. He’s no worse at this than his usual fare.
There are a couple of stories in Fables that absolutely take the cake, The Curse of the White Cartonnage, and Song at Twilight: A Fable of Ancient China. The Curse of the White Cartonnage is concerned with two brothers, cheapskates and skinflints extraordinaire, who attempt to woo ladies who moved into their town from Egypt, bringing with them what the two believe to be artefacts of great monetary value. In between their machinations we are treated to not just a character study of them, but of the influence their father, a self-made man who sought to make his living off the land without society’s interference, had on them.
This father calls to mind Allie Fox, from Theroux’s brother Paul’s novel The Mosquito Coast (adapted into a fine film by screenwriter Paul Schrader and director Peter Weir, with Harrison Ford as Fox), another eccentric father who sought to teach his sons how to make their way in the world without society’s support, and who likewise believed the deepest profundity to be found in ice, though Fox wanted to make ice with his own machinery, while Mr. Drogue let nature make it and merely transported and sold it.
While the father seemed like an impressive if misguided man, his two sons show little of his good qualities and all of the bad. The description of their lifestyles, of their penny-pinching ways, their self-imposed low standards of living, their incessant hoarding of things, the way their very speech has changed to accommodate the idea that even words should be sparingly given away, a shorthand of grunts and short utterances that only works thanks to brotherly rapport, these are vividly portrayed people.
Song at Twilight is set in ancient China, during the reign of the first emperor, and concerns a love affair between a vinegar salesman, the girl he loved and who loved him – this is Song – and an unscrupulous family who seeks Song as a bride for one of their sons. The way characters in this story speak could be seen as a stereotype by some, perhaps, as their English is written with an odd syntax, meant to be reminiscent of a more Chinese idiomatic expression. Whether or not this bothers the reader is a matter of hypersensitivity, and such hypersensitive people may miss out on what is without a doubt a high-quality tale of intrigue and the seemingly helpless standing in defiance of greater powers, and, as usual with Theroux, learn a thing or two about his researches on China in the time of the first emperor.
There’s a symmetry to the collection, as both the first and last stories (The Schinocephalic Waif and The Enthronization of Vinegarfly respectively) are concerned with a ruler trying to have something grandiose built and finding it difficult to come upon a design worthy of their vision. Contrasting these two stories also showcases what a huge difference it makes when a story is written to be pure prose and when it’s written to be an illustrated book, the depth and breadth of The Enthronization of Vinegarfly simply leaves The Schinocephalic Waif looking like a drop of paint on an easel next to a finished painting.
The highs of this collection are higher than those of Early Stories, but the lows are lower as well, and on account of the way the meant-to-be illustrated stories fail to translate into pure text, I’m forced to give Fables one less star. That being said, I will reiterate that The Curse of the White Cartonnage and Song at Twilight are such delights that they should not be missed by anyone.
Of the few narratives in verse, I’ll highlight Zoroaster and Mrs. Titcomb, where an unpleasant fishmonger has an encounter with the supernatural. Titcomb is another delightful caricature of humanity at its most unpleasant, her ill behaviour running the gamut from farting to stabbing her husband. The poem progresses at a clip, in stanzas of four lines, often but not always sticking to an ABAB rhyme, and while I would’ve preferred it commit fully, the other schemes can be just as delightful:
“She was given to farting and endlessly carting/Barrels of sprats to the edge of the quay/Where tikes without waists pleaded weakly for tastes/But she’d pitch the lot right into the sea”
Words and wit in evidence, always. Mrs. Titcomb’s encounter with the stranger that is Zoroaster brings her to a measure of justice, and justice could be seen as a recurring motif in the stories here, justice delivered from up above, whether by the will of God or by karma or by sheer irony. All the stories don’t end with villainy punished, but many do, enough for it to be worth noting, maybe even a key to understanding why these tales are pulled together the way they are. Is that moral character the thing that makes these stories, even the ones that otherwise seem indistinguishable from ordinary literary fiction (as “ordinary” as I’m willing to call Theroux’s work) “fables”?
Consider for example the story Tell Me What Happened, where a widowed cobbler remarries and soon finds his domestic life a misery, as his new wife despises their way of life, the lowness of the status he provides, and begins to turn his children against him the way – sadly – sometimes happens in bad marriages. It is a tale of human pettiness, of yearnings unfulfilled on both sides of the conflict, but realistic in its psychology, not at all a “fable” in its construction, and yet does it not take place in the Alpine landscapes of Europe, where the Brothers Grimm wrote their own tales, does it not feature an undeniably wicked stepmother, does it not end in a moral judgement passed by the tale itself upon that wickedness, the prevailing of justice, long-suffering but undeniable, inevitable? A fable indeed.
Contrast this with Captain Birdeye’s Expedition, a harrowing tale of a British explorer who takes on the jungles and deserts of South America. The horrors of the jungle are on full display here, the endless humidity in the rainforest contrasted with the struggle with thirst in the desert. While many of Theroux’s stories feature travellers far from home, the usual motif is that of being among strangers, not of struggling against the wild. Nature in his stories is most often a place of beauty and refuge from mankind, (like the alpine landscapes of Tell Me What Happened), but here he makes a departure from both for a rare adventure story. He’s no worse at this than his usual fare.
There are a couple of stories in Fables that absolutely take the cake, The Curse of the White Cartonnage, and Song at Twilight: A Fable of Ancient China. The Curse of the White Cartonnage is concerned with two brothers, cheapskates and skinflints extraordinaire, who attempt to woo ladies who moved into their town from Egypt, bringing with them what the two believe to be artefacts of great monetary value. In between their machinations we are treated to not just a character study of them, but of the influence their father, a self-made man who sought to make his living off the land without society’s interference, had on them.
This father calls to mind Allie Fox, from Theroux’s brother Paul’s novel The Mosquito Coast (adapted into a fine film by screenwriter Paul Schrader and director Peter Weir, with Harrison Ford as Fox), another eccentric father who sought to teach his sons how to make their way in the world without society’s support, and who likewise believed the deepest profundity to be found in ice, though Fox wanted to make ice with his own machinery, while Mr. Drogue let nature make it and merely transported and sold it.
While the father seemed like an impressive if misguided man, his two sons show little of his good qualities and all of the bad. The description of their lifestyles, of their penny-pinching ways, their self-imposed low standards of living, their incessant hoarding of things, the way their very speech has changed to accommodate the idea that even words should be sparingly given away, a shorthand of grunts and short utterances that only works thanks to brotherly rapport, these are vividly portrayed people.
Song at Twilight is set in ancient China, during the reign of the first emperor, and concerns a love affair between a vinegar salesman, the girl he loved and who loved him – this is Song – and an unscrupulous family who seeks Song as a bride for one of their sons. The way characters in this story speak could be seen as a stereotype by some, perhaps, as their English is written with an odd syntax, meant to be reminiscent of a more Chinese idiomatic expression. Whether or not this bothers the reader is a matter of hypersensitivity, and such hypersensitive people may miss out on what is without a doubt a high-quality tale of intrigue and the seemingly helpless standing in defiance of greater powers, and, as usual with Theroux, learn a thing or two about his researches on China in the time of the first emperor.
There’s a symmetry to the collection, as both the first and last stories (The Schinocephalic Waif and The Enthronization of Vinegarfly respectively) are concerned with a ruler trying to have something grandiose built and finding it difficult to come upon a design worthy of their vision. Contrasting these two stories also showcases what a huge difference it makes when a story is written to be pure prose and when it’s written to be an illustrated book, the depth and breadth of The Enthronization of Vinegarfly simply leaves The Schinocephalic Waif looking like a drop of paint on an easel next to a finished painting.
The highs of this collection are higher than those of Early Stories, but the lows are lower as well, and on account of the way the meant-to-be illustrated stories fail to translate into pure text, I’m forced to give Fables one less star. That being said, I will reiterate that The Curse of the White Cartonnage and Song at Twilight are such delights that they should not be missed by anyone.
October 14, 2023
A few good and shiny examples of rare Theroux wit. But mostly not. I say rare because his humor is an acquired taste, and it can also spoil after a time. The Therouxian works released by Tough Poets Press are glorious in theory but do not compare to the author's two or three magnificent "early" works. I wrote longish reviews of the other two recent short stories collections. This third one disappointed me the most. I like the idea of Theroux writing light-hearted fabulist tales, like Angela Carter or Ducornet, but his conception of "fable" is confusing in my opinion.
The first, shorter pieces are more entertaining morality tales with subtle supernatural elements. But in this volume the author quickly slides back into the accustomed mode of longer, heavily detailed mish-mashes of history, trivia, character lampooning, and questionable subtext. The bulk of the stories here are indistinguishable from those in the other two volumes mentioned and hardly merit the appellation of "fables."
He often seems to be writing around his factoids, such as in the tale of an orchid expert on a quest for a black orchid in South America. The facts are culled from research books and notes and shoehorned into the adventure story. He throws everything into the pot until it runneth over. There are thousands of tidbits he can't help but include in these shoddy frameworks of storytelling, mainly consisting of quirky Americanisms, wisecracks about other cultures, moral judgements, and historical and lexical baubles—while occasionally fascinating, they would have surely been cut by most editors. The connective tissue weakens and the obscure words are distracting. Too often, he throws in biblical quotes, which makes the reader wonder if he is trying to say something about religion, but most of the time it's just another quote amid a few dozen convenient references. The sentences are a mixed bag of excellent observations and queasy authorial sidelines. More times than I could count, a typo or awkward transition rendered a contrived sentence effectless or simply annoying.
The typos have always been a problem, I suspect because of multiple drafts being sent to the publisher while the book was in production. Theroux strikes me as one who does not countenance editorial advice. A lot of authors who do not identify with "genres" do that, producing idiosyncratic works that do not conform to tropes. But Theroux's method is ranging pretty far afield from his comfort zone of Warholic or Darconville. Authors should have a space to publish works that do not resemble what the market demands, but a little editorial feedback can go a long way, despite what some authors are willing to admit.
What you get with these so-called fables are pessimistic, mean-spirited forays into lives, detached from the modern age by centuries. The locales are varied: South America, Russia, Germany, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Egypt, America, and China. When he spoofs a lot of these cultures it is too easy to come off as offensive. His jokes are just not funny to me. So why do I read his stuff?
I find many of his viewpoints intelligent. His satire is rich with textual allusion. There is much to admire in his esoteric vocabulary. The stories are not difficult to understand, merely difficult to enjoy. Like his poetry, which I have perused, there are too many wicked asides. The language delights in making fun of people, yelling out fatty when an overweight character walks on the scene (which is very often). The diction and syntax are expert when they have been polished.
He does not rely on existing fables, but branches out and creates his own definition of the word. There is much imaginative frivolity, and some interesting side quests. His very distant viewpoint, opting for the omniscient in every case, gives the sense of a travel account, of an antiquated mystic's rambling fireside recounting.
"The Oxholt Violin" is a barely veiled history of violins in the guise of a story. The author has a tendency to tack on an ending - usually a violent, unexpected massacre of characters he has been ridiculing. You'll see that happen multiple times in this book.
"Captain Birdeye's Expedition" is rife with convincing details from a bygone era, like a catalogue of arcane remedies and products you might find in a foreign antique shop. His exhaustive research produces some unique moments. He is a consummate list-maker, though the storytelling is nothing to write home about. It may be difficult for some readers to get immersed since it is all telling and no showing, like most pre-1900 stories/ novels. The extremely distant narrator describes events in a way that might be easily construed as the author's own opinions slathering the page. In the end you will likely delight in a few pieces from the collection, but definitely not all of them. I devoured some sections while slogging through others.
"Song at Twilight" was rather like Doblin's "Chinese" novel, The Three Leaps of Wang-Lun, that is, a Chinese allegory written by a Westerner. As someone who loves reading actual Chinese authors, this story was just lame. Trying to pass these characters off as Chinese, describing all of these customs and beliefs, and stitching them into a semblance of a story felt like a nasty jab at a 5000-year-old body of literature he has only skimmed.
One final note: Theroux seems to be skirting the topic of religion. "They say that God is everywhere, and yet we always think of Him as somewhat of a recluse," as he quotes Dickinson elsewhere, also adding "I daresay, an integral part of the possibilities she and I acknowledge is simply the process of seeking Him out." Is he therefore saying that writing is his way of seeking out God? I am tempted to consider that Theroux has written extensively about religious subtexts, but it is difficult to pin down what he is trying to say. Seeking God is also a troublesome idea. Why spend so much time and effort seeking something omnipresent? I would just prefer it if Theroux stopped goofing around and wrote with some sincerity about these topics. Lampooning is only fun until it grows tiresome.
The first, shorter pieces are more entertaining morality tales with subtle supernatural elements. But in this volume the author quickly slides back into the accustomed mode of longer, heavily detailed mish-mashes of history, trivia, character lampooning, and questionable subtext. The bulk of the stories here are indistinguishable from those in the other two volumes mentioned and hardly merit the appellation of "fables."
He often seems to be writing around his factoids, such as in the tale of an orchid expert on a quest for a black orchid in South America. The facts are culled from research books and notes and shoehorned into the adventure story. He throws everything into the pot until it runneth over. There are thousands of tidbits he can't help but include in these shoddy frameworks of storytelling, mainly consisting of quirky Americanisms, wisecracks about other cultures, moral judgements, and historical and lexical baubles—while occasionally fascinating, they would have surely been cut by most editors. The connective tissue weakens and the obscure words are distracting. Too often, he throws in biblical quotes, which makes the reader wonder if he is trying to say something about religion, but most of the time it's just another quote amid a few dozen convenient references. The sentences are a mixed bag of excellent observations and queasy authorial sidelines. More times than I could count, a typo or awkward transition rendered a contrived sentence effectless or simply annoying.
The typos have always been a problem, I suspect because of multiple drafts being sent to the publisher while the book was in production. Theroux strikes me as one who does not countenance editorial advice. A lot of authors who do not identify with "genres" do that, producing idiosyncratic works that do not conform to tropes. But Theroux's method is ranging pretty far afield from his comfort zone of Warholic or Darconville. Authors should have a space to publish works that do not resemble what the market demands, but a little editorial feedback can go a long way, despite what some authors are willing to admit.
What you get with these so-called fables are pessimistic, mean-spirited forays into lives, detached from the modern age by centuries. The locales are varied: South America, Russia, Germany, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Egypt, America, and China. When he spoofs a lot of these cultures it is too easy to come off as offensive. His jokes are just not funny to me. So why do I read his stuff?
I find many of his viewpoints intelligent. His satire is rich with textual allusion. There is much to admire in his esoteric vocabulary. The stories are not difficult to understand, merely difficult to enjoy. Like his poetry, which I have perused, there are too many wicked asides. The language delights in making fun of people, yelling out fatty when an overweight character walks on the scene (which is very often). The diction and syntax are expert when they have been polished.
He does not rely on existing fables, but branches out and creates his own definition of the word. There is much imaginative frivolity, and some interesting side quests. His very distant viewpoint, opting for the omniscient in every case, gives the sense of a travel account, of an antiquated mystic's rambling fireside recounting.
"The Oxholt Violin" is a barely veiled history of violins in the guise of a story. The author has a tendency to tack on an ending - usually a violent, unexpected massacre of characters he has been ridiculing. You'll see that happen multiple times in this book.
"Captain Birdeye's Expedition" is rife with convincing details from a bygone era, like a catalogue of arcane remedies and products you might find in a foreign antique shop. His exhaustive research produces some unique moments. He is a consummate list-maker, though the storytelling is nothing to write home about. It may be difficult for some readers to get immersed since it is all telling and no showing, like most pre-1900 stories/ novels. The extremely distant narrator describes events in a way that might be easily construed as the author's own opinions slathering the page. In the end you will likely delight in a few pieces from the collection, but definitely not all of them. I devoured some sections while slogging through others.
"Song at Twilight" was rather like Doblin's "Chinese" novel, The Three Leaps of Wang-Lun, that is, a Chinese allegory written by a Westerner. As someone who loves reading actual Chinese authors, this story was just lame. Trying to pass these characters off as Chinese, describing all of these customs and beliefs, and stitching them into a semblance of a story felt like a nasty jab at a 5000-year-old body of literature he has only skimmed.
One final note: Theroux seems to be skirting the topic of religion. "They say that God is everywhere, and yet we always think of Him as somewhat of a recluse," as he quotes Dickinson elsewhere, also adding "I daresay, an integral part of the possibilities she and I acknowledge is simply the process of seeking Him out." Is he therefore saying that writing is his way of seeking out God? I am tempted to consider that Theroux has written extensively about religious subtexts, but it is difficult to pin down what he is trying to say. Seeking God is also a troublesome idea. Why spend so much time and effort seeking something omnipresent? I would just prefer it if Theroux stopped goofing around and wrote with some sincerity about these topics. Lampooning is only fun until it grows tiresome.
September 7, 2024
What a marvelous treasure box of a collection this is! Robertson Davies said, ‘The imagination is a cauldron, not a filing cabinet.’ Theroux’s fulminating cauldron is powerful enough to create worlds within worlds. This book of stories is part Grimm, part Nabokov, and all Alexander Theroux. I don’t know of a better prose stylist alive today. His sinuous, word-drunk sentences can pull you up short, snap back like an adder, entertain like mad music, and cure you of your apathy. His work will last longer than red bricks and will continue to reward and delight adventurous readers.
October 9, 2024
nice-to-have compendium of 21 short stories, varying in length from just a few pages up to 50-60, written (I think) mostly in the 1970s-80s. All with a whimsical/fairy-tale feel, and all v.enjoyable to read if you like Alexander Theroux's style (which I very much do). 4 stars for the writing/enjoyment, but only 3 for overall impact as I found most of them lacking in "punch", so 3.5 Stars... but since I have to pick 3 or 4, I'm going for 3 as I expected to be more "wowed".
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