Daniel Halpern - The Art of the Tale: An International Anthology of Short Stories

,

THE ART

OF THE TALE

An International Anthology

of Short Stories

edited by Daniel Halpern

P E N G U I N B O O K S

PENGUIN BOOKS

THE ART OF THE TALE .

Daniel Halpern's poems, translations, fiction, and articles have appeared in many publications. He teaches in the Graduate Writing Division of Columbia University and is Editor of Antaeus and Editor-in-Chief of The Ecco Press.

His most recent collections of poems are Foreign Neon (1991) and Selected Poems (1994).

PENGUIN BOOKS

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First published in the United States of America by Viking Bsnguin Inc. 1986

Published in Efenguin Books 1987

13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20

Copyright Daniel Halpern, 1986

All rights reserved

Grateful acknowledgment is made for permission to reprint the short stories in this anthology as follows:

"The Sacrificial Egg" from the book Girls at War and Other Short Stories by Chinua Achebe. Copyright 1972, 1973 by Chinua Achebe. Reprinted by permission of Doubleday & Company, Inc.

"The Bound Man" from The Bound Man by Use Aichinger. Copyright 1956, renewed 1984 by Use Aichinger. Copyright 1954 by S. Fischer Verlag, Frankfurt am Main. Reprinted by permission of

Farrar, Straus and Giroux, Inc. and S. Fischer Verlag.

"Little Whale, Varnisher of Reality" from The Steel Bird and Other Stories by Vasily Aksenov, translated by Susan Brownsberger (Ardis, 1979).

Copyright 1979 by Ardis. Reprinted by permission.

"Hair Jewellery" from Dancing Girls by Margaret Atwood.

Copyright 1977, 1982 by O. W. Toad, Ltd. Reprinted by permission of Simon & Schuster, Inc., and Jonathan Cape Ltd.

"Everything" by Ingeborg Bachmann. From Das Dreissigtse Jahr} R. Piper & Co.

Verlag, Munich 1961. By permission of Joan Daves.

"Going to Meet the Man" from the book Going to Meet the Man by James Baldwin.

Copyright 1948, 1951, 1957, 1958, i960, 1965 by James Baldwin.

Reprinted by permission of Doubleday & Company, Inc.

(ftges 817-820 constitute an extension of this copyright page.) LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING IN PUBLICATION DATA The Art of the tale.

Bibliography: p.

1. Short stories. 2. Fiction20th century.

I. Halpern, Daniel, 1945

PN6120.2.A75 1987 808.83'] 87-2529

ISBN o 14 00.7949 1

Printed in the United States of America

Except in the United States of America, this book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher's prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

for ITALO and CHICHITA CALVINO

Unlike the novel, a short story may be,

for all purposes, essential.

J O R G E LUIS B O R G E S

Acknowledgments

For their considerable and conscientious work on this anthology, I would like to thank Lea Baechler,

Kathleen Reddy, and Melora Wolff. I would also like to thank Jeanne Wilmot and Dana Cowin for their

thoughtful reading of the stories, and Arthur Monke of the Bowdoin College Library for making hospitable those rooms where much of the reading for this volume was accomplished. And, again, for her unfailing good taste and supportive presence, my editor Elisabeth Sifton.

Contents

Introduction Daniel Halpern

xi

The Sacrificial Egg Chinua Achebe

The Bound Man Ilse Aichinger

Little Whale, Varnisher of Reality Vasily Aksenov

Hair Jewel ery Margaret Atwood

Everything Ingeborg Bachmann

Going to Meet the Man James Baldwin

The Child Screams and Looks Back at You Russel Banks

Cortes and Montezuma Donald Barthelme

Jacklighting Ann Beattie

First Love Samuel Beckett

Action Wil Be Taken Heinrich Bl

Do Stay, Giraffe Wolfgang Borchert

The Aleph Jorge Luis Borges

This Way for the Gas, Ladies and Gentlemen Tadeusz Borowski

Cowardice Abdeslam Boulaich

A Distant Episode Paul Bowles

Greasy Lake T. Coraghessan Boyle

Ceil Harold Brodkey

Seven Floors Dino Buzzati

The Adventure of a Traveler Italo Calvino

The Adulterous Woman Albert Camus

Children on Their Birthdays Truman Capote

Fat Raymond Carver

The Country Husband John Cheever

Quenby and Ola, Swede and Carl Robert Coover

Bestiary Julio Cortzar

The Haile Selassie Funeral Train Guy Davenport

The Cloak Isak Dinesen

The Hunter E. L. Doctorow

I Look Out for Ed Wolfe Stanley Elkin

Communist Richard Ford

The Dol Queen [1969] Carlos Fuentes

The Chosen Husband Mavis Gal ant

Order of Insects Wil iam Gass

The Mother Natalia Ginzburg

The Life of the Imagination Nadine Gordimer

Two Gentle People Graham Greene

Why I Transformed Myself into a Nightingale Wolfgang Hildesheimer

One Arm Yasunari Kawabata

Let the Old Dead Make Room for the Young Dead Milan Kundera

Gogols Wife Tommaso Landolfi

The Habit of Loving Doris Lessing

The Chal enge Mario Vargas Llosa

The Conjurer Made Off with the Dish Naguib Mahfouz

The Last Mohican Bernard Malamud

Eyes of a Blue Dog Gabriel Garcia Marquez

The Pilgrimage Wil iam Maxwel

First Love, Last Rites Ian McEwan

The Deal Leonard Michaels

Patriotism Yukio Mishima

Jewel ery Alberto Moravia

Doctor Safi Mohammed Mrabet

Spring in Fialta Vladimir Nabokov

Naga R. K. Narayan

The Tryst Joyce Carol Oates

Sister Imelda Edna OBrien

The Artificial Nigger Flannery OConnor

A Set of Variations on a Borrowed Theme Frank OConnor

Nomad and Viper Amos Oz

The Suitcase Cynthia Ozick

The Contest Grace Paley

Suicides Cesare Pavese

The Saint V. S. Pritchett

Eventide James Purdy

The Replacement Alain Robbe-Gril et

Rain Merc Rodoreda

In the Garden Leon Rooke

Talpa Juan Rulfo

XXI Nathalie Sarraute

Henne Fire Isaac Bashevis Singer

Unguided Tour Susan Sontag

Children Are Bored on Sunday Jean Stafford

A Friend and Protector Peter Taylor

Death and the Maiden Michel Tournier

Beyond the Pale Wil iam Trevor

Separating John Updike

Im Your Horse in the Night Luisa Valenzuela

No Place for You, My Love Eudora Welty

Five-Twenty Patrick White

Hunters in the Snow Tobias Wolff

Big, Black, Good Man Richard Wright

The Best of Everything Richard Yates

Biographical Notes 806

Introduction

Some aficionados of the short story would date the moment from the publication of Jorge Luis Borges's Ficciones or Vladimir Nabokov's first translated stories; others from the impressive volumes of collected stories that began to appear by such writers as Isaac Bashevis Singer, Graham Greene, Eudora Welty, V. S. Pritchett, John Cheever, Jean Stafford, Nadine Gordimer, and Gabriel Garcia Marquez; or in our recognition of the magnitude of Flannery O'Connor's achievement. Still others would locate that moment in the works of Julio Cortazar, Tommaso Landolfi, Juan Rulfo, R. K. Narayan and Italo Calvino, who picked up and extended the agreed-upon qualities of the folktalefantasy and legend. But regardless of whose pen fired the important moment, there seems to be general agreement that a serious revival of the short story is under way, as if at this particular juncture in the parlous history of our race we especially need its singular purity and magic, its devotion to the crucialthough often eccentric and enigmaticmoments in human life. And yet how fickle we serious readers of fiction must seem to the practitioners: one year we are conned by critics into believing that our story writers have turned to the novel because the market for stories has evaporated; and then, as we peruse our favorite paper of a late Sunday morning over good coffee, we discover the novel has died.