| Genre: Short stories, Fiction
The Captain of the Polestar tells about the mysterious and untimely end of Nicholas Craigie, the captain of the ship called The Polestar, as recorded by the ship’s doctor in his diary. I have to say that I found this quite a vague story – only hints about the captain’s former life and an illusion someone has seen. I mean, we sort of know the beginning (the captain had been very deeply in love with a girl, and then she died) and the end (the captain dead), but we have almost no idea what happened in between or how that particular ending came into being. I think a little more information would have been nice :) |
J. Habakuk Jephson’s Statement is the written confession of a doctor that was a passenger of Marie Celeste, a ship found mysteriously deserted, telling the story of the fate of the missing people.
Fully plausible (not very probable but possible) and with no unnatural elements, the story is vaguely disappointing for me, as I was expecting given the parallel with Mary Celeste. While in real life I am sure there is a perfectly plausible explanation of Mary Celeste’s lack of crew, at least in a book you’re supposed to be allowed to let your imagination run wild :P
The Great Keinplatz Experiment is, as the title states, the story of an experiment of Professor von Baumgarten’s. He was a passionate researcher in the field of mesmerism (studying “the soul and the mysterious relationship of spirits”). Convinced that when the body is in a state of catalepsy the soul wanders away, and that only souls can see other souls, he wants to prove his theory by hypnotizing one of his students (one Fritz von Hartmann, a very party-loving fellow) and then self-hypnotizing himself, hoping that their two souls would meet. A large crowd of people gathers to see the experiment, only to be very disappointed when the two wake up stating that they do not remember anything. Little does anyone know at thins point about the main result of the experiment: the wandering souls had mistakenly changed places, the professor’s soul being in the body of Fritz and viceversa.
I found this quite a fun little story, only a wee bit too short, as not too many things have time to actually happen. Nevertheless the ones that do are quite amusing, especially when the two meet again after the experiment and each finds the other one rather familiar and each wonders why the other is wearing his own clothes :)
The Man From Archangel is a story told by John M’Vittie, an ex-attorney turned scholar and living in near-solitude on his little land strip near the sea. One night a storm sunk a ship and the only survivor was a young Russian girl John rescued and took home with him. Only after a while he finds out that the ship’s captain was also alive and that he claimed the girl as his own (though she didn’t even want to hear about him). John sees the girl’s reticence and doesn’t let the man take her away, even though, in time, he gets a bit of a soft spot for him, seeing how deep his (the captain’s) love for the girl was.
A short but sort of interesting story, only with a bit implausible sort-of-happy ending. The captain may have loved the girl dearly but given that he has also taken her from the side of the man she loved I doubt his courting her would have ever been successful – then again, who knows.
That Little Square Box also takes place on a ship, this time one traveling from America to the British coast. Our hero is an average gentleman (a bit of a coward) who overhears two passengers talking, one showing another a box with a sort of trigger. Our guy gets rather scared thinking the box a bomb and the two people some fanatics bent on blowing up the ship. He spends an awful day thinking that probably the next evening will be his very last, but nevertheless he doesn’t have the courage to actually do something about it (like for example saying something to the captain of the ship). That night, to his intense horror, he notices the two guys with their box getting ready to pull the trigger – he gives up his cowardice and runs to them (calling them names and telling them of Cain), when to his enormous surprise the box that had scared him so turns out to contain nothing other than two grey doves :)
I found this a rather fun story and with extremely well dosed tension – while I did suspect that the box didn’t actually contain a bomb due to the little white grains the two people poured occasionally into it, I didn’t actually think of such an explanation, two doves belonging to different breeds and set to compete against each other. One of my favorite stories in this collection so far.
John Huxford’s Hiatus is the heartwarming story of John Huxford and his fiancee Mary. It all begins when the firm where John worked goes out of business, leaving John without a job. Given that he was soon to be married he is very happy when he hears of a position he might occupy in Canada (he lived in Devonshire). After asking his beloved’s opinion he accepts and leaves for Quebec, set on saving enough money to be able to bring his Mary along. On arriving to Canada though he has the misfortune of meeting some thieves, who besides robbing him hit him in the head and leave him for dead in the streets. Luckily he is found by someone and taken to the hospital where he miraculously recovers, only he has amnesia and is unable to remember anything from his former life. When he is discharged out of hospital he finds a job and, as years pass, becomes quite successful – only he is very lonely and feeling like he’s missing something. Some fifty years later he overhears some people from his homeland speaking, and he is very amazed at the familiarity he feels – like not only he heard that manner of speaking before but he was once very familiar with it. He asks one of them about the place where they came from and on hearing his answers all of the sudden his memory comes back. He is very grieved remembering of Mary and he sets at once on a voyage to reach her. To his surprise he finds her in the very same house he left her, looking very similar and still waiting for him – but blind and dying. Luckily she gets so happy on seeing him that she actually beats her illness and survives. The two got married and lived happily ever after. :P
I liked this story, I really did. It’s a beautiful story of lovers meeting after many years of being faithful to each other. I cannot help being sorry for all those years they lost though :(
A Literary Mosaic is about a Mr. Smith that considered himself a very talented literary man, able to write about anything and everything. Nevertheless other people have a whole other opinion (“[...]the article in question had been sent to well-nigh every publisher in London, and had come back again with a rapidity and precision which spoke well for the efficiency of our postal arrangements.
Had my manuscripts been paper boomerangs they could not have
returned with greater accuracy to their unhappy dispatcher.) so after a while he entered the world of trade (where he couldn’t give up all his literary aspirations so every now and then did something like write a ship captain’s instructions in verses instead of prose – an effort not very appreciated by the said captain I’m afraid). Nevertheless after a while he inherited some money so he no longer needed to actually work, so he figured he’ll write a masterpiece to amaze all mankind. As the ideas tarried to appear he decided he’ll read or re-read the works of all great authors – so it’s not surprising that one evening he had an amazing dream: all this great authors gathered at his table trying to help his novel take off.
This was a rather fun short story – both at first when the literary trysts of Mr. Smith were described, as in the latter half where all those famous authors (Defoe, Swift, Sir Walter Scott and others) tried to write a collective story. The funniest part was the way each author stayed true to his style, regardless to the previous development of the story. For example Defoe started out the story in a manner very similar to his very own Robinson Crusoe, or Sir Walter Scott had no problem placing everything few hundred years back as he was fond of Medieval times :)
John Barrington Cowles tells us about the last months of John Barrington Cowles’ life. How he met a strange girl and fell in love with her and then she turned out to be a werewolf, so he left her. And then he died.
A rather interesting story but with a sort of disappointing ending. The tension built up nicely until a point and it sort of went downhill from there. Also I couldn’t help noticing a similitude between the ending of this story and the one about the captain of the Polestar (the very first story in this book): both J.B. Cowles and the captain of the Polestar were last seen saying something along the lines “she’s here”, “oh my darling here I come”, although the other person present there saw nothing; also they both run away to meet their ending, the last glimpse of them alive being of them running to a no observable target.
As a fun bit, look at this quote: “There is a story,” he said thoughtfully, “in one of Marryat’s books, about a beautiful woman who took the form of a wolf at night and devoured her own children. I wonder what put that idea into Marryat’s head?”
The book he’s talking about is this one :)
The Parson of Jackman’s Gulch is another funny story, this time taking place in a little town where all people were gold diggers. One day a man settles into their city, a man clearly with no idea about gold digging. He did something else though: in the evening he came to the saloon and read the Bible. Very monotonously too. After a while people there noticed he was actually doing it as a punishment when someone said a bad word or did something inappropriate – as a result in about a month no one in Jackman’s Gulch dared to swear anymore :) They nicknamed the man The Parson and held him in very high esteem as he was very talented at shooting, cards, everything but gold-digging. That’s why, when he proposed that they should hold a Sunday service everyone happily agreed. On the said day almost every single person was in attendance, leaving their weapons outside, as appropriate in a House of Lord – only to find out, to their enormous surprise, that they were locked in and their gold was stolen, their pastor turning out to be no less than a wanted desperado.
A funny and interesting story once I got over the first third – that is before as the main character (Elias B. Hopkins) was introduced. As soon as I saw him reading from his Bible to a bunch of drunk people I was captivated by him and his originality :P
The Ring of Thoth is about a student, John Vansittart Smith, that one day met at the Louvre a four thousand years old Egyptian.
While a normal man the Egyptian had only wanted to defeat death; nevertheless shortly after he became immortal he started wanting only death. A bit ironic how he always wanted the things outside his possibilities. Also, there is a definite similitude to the ending of the story about the man from Archangel – both times we see dead lovers embracing so hard that they cannot be torn apart.
What I liked most: The touch of humor in some of the stories (such as A Literary Mosaic or The Parson of Jackman’s Gulch) and the way tension/curiosity built up in others (That Little Square Box and John Huxford’s Hiatus).
What I liked least: In terms of stories, the first two were definitely my least favorites of them all. Otherwise the similar endings bothered me a little – especially in the cases of The Captain of the Polestar and John Barrington Cowles, where both endings are sort of the same and equally unexplained.
Recommend it? Yes. The stories are rather varied so there’s a high chance you’ll find at least one to like. :)
Written by the same author:
The Firm of Girdlestone
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