Short Story September: How Can One Finish Writing

How Can One Finish Writing by Matyas Dunajcsik

Matyas Dunajcsik is a very talented young writer, he writes in a very attractive classical style. As I’ve read this short story at the first time, I find it fascinating, how he re-writes a famous scene of the movie Sindbad (it based on the short stories of Gyula Krudy), the one with the meat-soup.

The protagonisst of this story are Tamas, the writer and Helena, the Woman (and Muse).

„She always received me in the kitchen, since she kept her lovers beyond the bedroom door, where I had no entry.”

, says Tamas. They talked about his works, about the differences between novel and essay. There is an allegory in this story, a simile through the whole text, writing is like loving, loving is like writing, Helena knows the art of loving, that’s why she gives advises Tamas, how to write, what to write, and the title of this story is rather about how to end an affaire, even if it’s that strange and a bit Platonic, like this. The text is avaible online, among other texts by young and talented European writers.

Short Story September: To lie or not to lie

Jobb labbal megbotlani mint nyelvvel [Its better to make a slip of the foot than of the tounge] by Gyula Krudy.

The character Sindbad in Krudys short novels is like an old Don Juan, and the stories are nostalgic, bittersweet remembering of the great loves and affairs, of womans and girls.

This story is about two women, Mrs. Rip, an educated, smart and noble woman with legendary beautiful legs, and a young phone operator girl, who listens all the conversations of Sindbad with other women, and falls in love with the man. Also Sindbad finds the situation exciting, but when he meets the girl, the magic is over.

He tells after many many years this story to Mrs. Rip, but she doesn't want to belive it happened nothing between the man and the girl, so Sindbad feels it would have been better to lie something, because women want to hear only what they find fancinating.

Adventures of Sindbad on amazon>>>

About the movie "Szindbad" on imdb>>>

Short Story Steptember: Death and the Journalist

Death and The Journalist by Gyula Krudy

It' s one of the most popular short storys by the famous Hungarian author Gyula Krudy (click here to read the post "author of the week")

It bases on the story of the last night of a journalist before his duel with a retired colonel of the Hussars. It's like a death sentence to the poor, pitiable journalist, Titus Finehouse.

He spends his last night (with his advance in his pocket) in a good restaurant, and he talks with people, who watch him as a sensation. He is the most interessant man in the city this evening. But nobody thinks what does it really mean, this man maybe die tomorrow, nobody cares with his feelings. I think, that's the mean of this story.

This short story is tipically a Hungarian short story, it bases on a grotesque anecdote (at the end there is a surprising - or even not surprising - turn of the story), and we can read about the tipically bohemians, the kings and queens of the nightlife at the turn of the century in Budapest.

This story is avaible in translated version among other classic Hungarian stories online at this site>>>

Enjoy it!

Short Story September: Funes

Funes the Memorious by Jorge Luis Borges

It was the first shorts story by Jorge Luis Borges I’ve ever read. Maybe not the best choice, I can hardly find out what he wanted to say with his story.

The story is about a strange young man, Imreneo Funes. We know from the first paragraph, this man has died, and the narrator want to write about it something, something like a necrology. In the first sentence we don’t know of course, why he speak about remembering so strangely. We’ll get the solving later.

The narrator tells us, that he met only three time Funes, and the main point of this short story is the description of a night Funes talks about himself to the narrator.

Remembering, it’s really an important word in this story. Funes has got an incredible good (a perfect?) memory, but he is standing at home, in his bed as a result of an accident. Maybe this story is about the possibilities and the limits of the human nature at the same time.

Hurray, a new challenge

Somehow it's funny.
I just finished my last post with the title short stories , and now I found a new challenge about them:

THE SHORT STORY CHALLENGE
September 1-30. 2008.

I decided to join it inmediately.
I love short stories and I love challenges.

I started to read non-Hungarian litblogs only just few months ago, and I used to watch these blogs always a bit envy, because there are so many great challenges, mostly started unfortunately in January 2008.

But this is a new one, and I'm glad to find it.