Marc *Dark Reader with a Thousand Young! Iä!*’s Reviews > The Big Book of Classic Fantasy > Status Update

Gogol’s ‘The Nose’ continues to stretch even the editors’ liberal definition of fantasy. It is absurd and weird, but I think in no way fantasy.

A proto-Christmas Carol story by Dickens, in which a miserable oaf is shown scenes of humanity that reform his heart, by goblins.

A lovely French short story about cousins singing that doesn’t go anywhere but at least it’s very short. It ends by listing three composers I had to look up to determine who they were.

A Tales From the Crypt- worthy story of debauchery and doppelgangery from the author of The Last Man.

‘“What are we to call this bonny boy?”

“We must call him,”said the old woman, for though she was but a simple peasant she was quick-witted, “The Luck of the Bean-rows, for it was in our bean field he came to us.

“There could not be a better name,” the old man agreed.’

Yep, no better name exists, that’s just perfect. Much better than Jim.

The original tale of Rip Can Winkle, of whom my entire life I have known only as a guy who slept a long time. I take issue with the author’s use of commas, such as, “The constant recurrence of this gesture, induced Rip, involuntarily,, to do, the same, when, to his astonishment, he found his beard had grown a foot long!”

The story behind The Nutcracker ballet is all kinds of nuts, like a horoscope revealing incredible specifics about how to break an ugliness curse on a princess placed by a mouse and then it's like, "they travelled the world for 15 years and saw such amazing things but I can't tell you about them." It all went down because a king was sad that there wasn't enough bacon in his sausage. 19th-C Germany had good 'shrooms.

Hans-my-Hesgehog: A brothers Grimm story from the part of the German forests where the good mushrooms grow. Drunk folklore. Wtf.

The first story, demonstrates the editor's commitment to a broad scope of stories, with something not exactly of publication quality, although an interesting little tidbit. "Classic" in this book does not mean what most people would think. This will be more academic than expected. That's fine, it will be an experience.

A new reading project for a new year.