While writing the blog entry below this one, I encountered a reference to a short story entitled "Barn Burning," which sounded familiar (it turns out to be a Faulkner story that served as the introduction to the Snopes trilogy). While looking it up, I found this Wiki page -
1938 Short Stories
Take a peek. Open it in another window or tab - if you go there directly you may start wandering and not find your way back to TYWKIWDBI. Wikipedia is in my view the summit (so far) of intellectual accomplishment on the internet, and every couple weeks I find a new aspect to enjoy.
The link above goes to a list of 10 short stories written in 1938 (how these were selected I have no idea - presumably whenever a Wiki writer completes an entry on a short story, a back link is created to this page). But note... you can follow a link on any short story to find a plot summary (to remind yourself of the contents or see if you will enjoy reading it for a first time), and often you can then find a link to the full text (online), so you needn't go to the library.
Then, from that page, you can navigate to any other year... fantastic.
And, from that page, you can navigate away from short stories to 1938 in literature... which tells you the events of the year (Dos Passos, Borges, Beckett), the new books of the year (Edgar Rice Burroughs, John Dickson Carr - who deserves his own blog entry..., Agatha Christie, Nabokov, Ellery Queen, Margorie Kinnan Rawlings, C.S. Lewis, Jean-Paul Sartre, Rex Stout) (is the literature of 2008 anywhere near the quality of the literature of 70 years ago?? I don't know).
The short story list led me to Leiningen Versus the Ants - a wonderful story I encountered as a youngster (and which was subsequently made into the movie The Naked Jungle with Charlton Heston).
Brother Cadfael (I know you're reading this), here is a link that will take you to one of the many Wiki entries about Nero Wolfe stories...
There's no end to the exploring. I'm afraid to peek at the Science Fiction page - I'll never get back to TWYKIWDBI...
Rex Stout provided me with many hours of enjoyment while you and I were in high school - and I have continued to enjoy the Nero Wolfe stories in the more recent years.
ReplyDeleteAlthough there have been several versions of the larger than life detective on radio, movie and television, I have enjoyed the recent A&E productions with Timothy Hutton and Maury Chaykin. Great stuff, to coin a phrase.
Cadfael