[Short Story] A Terribly Strange Bed by Wilkie Collins

When I first found this short story, I was wondering whether I am going to like it. The title is not really promising—‘A Terribly Strange Bed’? What would that be about? However, being determined to read short stories from authors whom I have never read before for A Victorian Project, I decided to download the ebook, and then read it right away. After finishing it in two days—I read it at office ours, as it is in Words file—I have already fell in love with Wilkie Collins!

The story was set up in Paris. Two English men were travelling to the city of light, and in the search for a night amusement, they went to a small gambling house in a rather slum area of Paris. The narrator—Mr. Faulkner (Collins revealed the name only at the end of the story)—was not a genuine gambler, he did gambling occasionally just as a mean of amusement. However, that certain night appeared to be his lucky night, for he kept winning hugely at the ‘Rouge et Noir’ game. Left alone in the gambling house, an old soldier persuaded him to drink champagne, and got him drunk. Afraid of his security, the old soldier advised him to spend the night at the inn in the upstairs of the gambling house, which he fully agreed.

After securing the money bag under his pillow, locking and bolting the door and checking on piece of furniture to make sure everything was safe, Faulkner was trying to sleep, but failed. And suddenly—this was where the thriller began—something strange happened. The man in painting—which he had contemplated in his desperate effort to sleep—suddenly “lost” his hat. What has happened? And did he felt that the bed was moving?..... 

This is the first time I read Wilkie Collins, and although this is only a short story, I can get a feel of his writing style. The story theme itself reminds me of Poe’s thriller—although Poe’s are much more gripping. **spoiler** In particular, this reminds me a little of Poe’s The Pit and The Pendulum, both are about a murdering machine, but Pit is much darker and terrorizing, while Collins wrote it more as a mystery thriller or crime. **spoiler ends**

I like how Collins described the state of Faulkner’s mind wonderfully, especially because it is written from his own point of view. The scene on the bed where Faulkner could not get asleep, for example; inexperienced author might describe it in few words only to say that the man has tried but he can’t get to sleep. But Collins took us to be in Faulkner’s place, we can feel ourselves how desperately it might be for him.

“…Every nerve in my body trembled—every one of my senses seemed to be preternaturally sharpened. I tossed and rolled, and tried every kind of position, and perseveringly sought out the cold corners of the bed, and all to no purpose. Now I thrust my arms over the clothes; now I poked them under the clothes; now I violently shot my legs straight out down to the bottom of the bed; now I convulsively coiled them up as near my chin as they would go; now I shook out my crumpled pillow, changed it to the cool side, patted it flat, and lay down quietly on my back; now I fiercely doubled it in two, set it up on end, thrust it against the board of the bed, and tried a sitting posture. Every effort was in vain; I groaned with vexation as I felt that I was in for a sleepless night.”

The way Collins led his readers to the terror scene also deserves two thumbs up. The gloomy room, the dark old picture hung on the wall (of a Spanish desperado waited to be hanged), and the moonlight that was shining into the room through the window, they all brought us to a dark gothic scene, as if those are where the exact terror would come from, which in fact they're not. However, without those aspects, this story would certainly lose its grip. 

Five stars for Wilkie Collins! And after this I’d like to read more of his books.

[I read ebook version from world-english.org]

This post is included in Short Stories on Wednesday

Character Thursday: Rejuvenated

What is Character Thursday?…

Followers of this blog should have known by now that I have a feature called ClassicsCharacters, which you can find in my horizontal menu. The idea is to make analysis for characters from books I have read or am reading. And since 18 weeks ago, I have been hosting a weekly meme called Character Thursday. The goal is the same, to let everyone who wants to join me, to post about their chosen characters from books. My own post of Character Thursday would also appear in my Classics Characters.

The (new) purpose…

Lately I feel the urge to rejuvenate my Character Thursday feature. I want to make it not just as something fun to do or something to write when you don’t have any idea to post, but rather as a way to delve more into a book, to better understand a character, to enhance your knowledge and awareness of the psychological factors that make people "tick." This, in turn, can lead to an analysis of your own attitudes and behaviors in similar circumstances and help you to recognize who or what influences the future choices you will make in life, in school, at work or in relationships. [source].

So, here it is….

The rejuvenated Character Thursday…

Button

First of all, I have created a new button for this feature. The old one seems to me too childish and casual, so I have created this new button that looks more mature and focused to book and/or reading. Hope you like it too!

Format

Actually I don’t want to make Character Thursday as a serious task, however to help you to post yours, here are several guidance that you can follow (you don’t have to answer all questions, and if you do it, you don’t have to answer it in order)

• Are they protagonist or antagonist?
• Who are they? What was their role in the book?
• What was your strongest impression on the character(s)? You can quote the dialogue or narration you got the impression from.
• What are the strengths or weaknesses of your character(s)?
• How do they develop throughout the book?
• What makes you love/hate them?
• What lessons or influences you got from them?

How do you join?...

It’s simple, just post on Thursdays, your character choice from the book you are reading or you have finished with. It can be the protagonist or the antagonist, characters that you love the most or hate the most. You can pick any book of any genre as you like. Please feel free to grab the button and paste it in your post and link here to let others know about this feature. Last but not least, please add URL of your post in the linky at the bottom of this post, and hop to other participants to learn about their characters and books. This way we can get to know what others think about a character we already knew, and get to know more books we haven’t read.

Can’t wait to read your next Character Thursday!... J

Poor But Happy: My Reflection of Old Curiosity Shop

Have found a touching passage from Dickens’ The Old Curiosity Shop. It’s a deep reflection from Dickens about the poor vs the wealthy, and what happiness mean for them; taken from Kit and his family who can’t be happier than their present situation, poor as it is.

p. 276

“If ever household affections and loves are graceful things, they are graceful in the poor. The ties that bind the wealthy and the proud to home may forged on earth, but those which link the poor man to his humble hearth are of the true metal and bear the stamp of Heaven.”

“The man of high descent may love the halls and lands of his inheritance as a part of himself, as trophies of his birth and power; his associations with them are associations of pride and wealth and triumph; the poor man’s attachment to the tenements he holds, which strangers have held before, and may tomorrow occupy again, has a worthier root, struck deep into a purer soil. His household gods are flesh and blood with no alloy of silver, gold or precious stone; he has no property but in the affections of his own heart; and when they endear bare floors and walls, despite of rags and toil and scanty meals, that man has his love of home from God and his rude hut becomes a solemn place.”

Literary Classics Challenge - Friday Progress (5)

I know, it’s Saturday already! However, yesterday was quite a busy day for me, so I didn’t have time to post the Friday Progress for Literary Classics Challenge. Never mind, better late than never, anyway.. J.

Child Reading a Book by Jessie Willcox Smith
[source]

This week I am still in the middle of The Old Curiosity Shop, page 240 of 544, however I was able to slip two classics short stories reading. It’s The Three Strangers from Thomas Hardy and A Terribly Strange Bed by Wilkie Collins (the review will follow). I quite enjoyed them, a ‘fun escape’ from Dickens. I think it’s a good idea to read short stories from authors whom we haven’t read the book, for we could get to know their styles before deciding whether we would like to read their novels or not. And after reading both Hardy and Collins, I know I’d love to read their novels, especially for Collins.

That’s it, a short progress of my classics reading. Meanwhile, I am rejuvenating my feature: Character Thursday. You would find the post very soon. And if you’d like to join me in Character Thursday, please feel free to join in next Thursday!

Little Nell on The Old Curiosity Shop

Little Nell aka Nelly Trent

The Old Curiosity Shop by Charles Dickens

Little Nell is a fourteen years old girl who lived in poverty with her grandfather, the owner of a small curiosity shop in London. She was described as a very beautiful little girl, polite and kind hearted child. Nell was an orphan, and thus only has her grandfather who loved her and whom she loved very much. As a child and then teenager, Nell had to go through many hard times. His grandfather often went at night for a mysterious work which—he said—was for Nell’s future good, leaving Little Nell at home, lonely, without anyone to protect her, always felt anxious that something bad might happened to his grandfather. Maybe, all these hard times strengthened her character, so that Nell—despite of her innocent appearance—could think as an adult.

She was often wiser than her grandfather, and it was more often than not, that it was Nell who took the role of leader and protector of the family, instead of the grandfather. Nell was soon alarmed when their new friend acted strangely, an intuition that only a grown up woman can own. During their escape from some bad people, Nell was so brave and resilient that though she was scared and worried, she could always encourage her grandfather.

Although she was used to live in poverty, the most important thing for Nell was not wealth or comfort, but love and affection. I have written about how Nell would prefer to beg on the road if that means she could be together with her grandfather, than to live in their dark and melancholy house.

As usual, Dickens always created a perfect-too-good-to-be-true character such as Little Nell in his books. I have met Oliver Twist before, and so am not surprised to meet Little Nell. Yes, it’s seems unreal, yet we can still learn a lot of things and values from lovely Little Nell.

So…who is your Character Thursday this week?

Classics Authors of July

Meski tidak terlalu banyak penulis klasik dunia yang lahir di bulan Juli, namun ada beberapa penulis besar yang akan berulang tahun bulan ini, andai mereka masih hidup J. Siapa saja mereka?

Nathaniel Hawthorne

Nathaniel Hawthorne yang lahir tgl. 4 Juli 1804 di Salem, Massachusetts ini adalah seorang penulis novel dan cerita pendek berkebangsaan Amerika. Novel-novelnya yang paling terkenal adalah The Scarlett Letter dan The House of the Seven Gables. Nama marga Hawthorne sebenarnya Hathorne, namun karena salah satu nenek moyangnya yang bernama John Hathorne merupakan salah satu juri dalam Pengadilan Penyihir Salem, maka Hawthorne menambahkan huruf “w” di antara nama marga aslinya agar dirinya tak dihubungkan dengan nenek moyangnya itu.

Karya-karya Hawthorne beraliran romantisme, atau lebih spesifiknya dark romantisme, yang banyak mengedepankan tentang dosa dan kejahatan dalam kemanusiaan yang banyak dipengaruhi paham puritan New England, historical romance yang dipenuh simbolisasi dan aspek psikologi.

Ernest Hemingway

Bernama lengkap Ernest Miller Hemingway, salah satu penulis Amerika paling populer ini akrab dipanggil Ernest Hemingway. Beliau lahir pada  21 July 1899 di pinggiran kota Chicago. Setelah tamat sekolah, Hemingway bekerja sebagai jurnalis dan sempat menjadi pengemudi ambulance di Italia pada Perang Dunia I. Pengalaman saat perang ini ia tuangkan kemudian di novelnya A Farewell to Arms. Novel-novelnya yang lain adalah The Sun Also Rises (novel pertamanya), For Whom The Bell Tolls, A Moveable Feast dan The Old Man and the Sea (diterjemahkan Serambi).

Hemingway yang sempat memiliki empat istri ini pernah menerima dua penghargaan paling bergengsi di dunia literature yaitu Pulitzer untuk karya fiksi dan Nobel untuk literatur. Setelah menyelesaikan The Old Man and The Sea, Hemingway bersafari ke Afrika dan luput dari maut dalam dua kecelakaan pesawat udara. Setelah itu ia pindah ke Kuba, dan ironisnya setelah kembali ke Amerika, Hemingway justru mencabut nyawanya sendiri dengan menembakkan pistol ke dalam mulutnya, saat dalam kondisi depresi. Meski awalnya sebab kematiannya disembunyikan sebagai kecelakaan, namun penelitian menunjukkan bahwa Hemingway mengidap penyakit turunan hemochromatosis, yang juga diidap ayahnya dan mengakibatkan bunuh diri juga. Kedua adik Hemingway ternyata juga mengalami kematian dengan cara yang sama, bunuh diri.

Alexandre Dumas

Penulis yang satu ini adalah penulis asal Prancis yang karya-karyanya paling banyak dibaca di seluruh dunia. Terlahir sebagai  Dumas Davy de la Pailleterie pada 24 July 1802, Alexandre Dumas terkenal sebagai penulis historical fiction bertema petualangan seru. Karya-karya terkenalnya antara lain The Three Musketeers (diterjemahkan Serambi) dan sekuel-sekuelnya termasuk Twenty Years After dan The Man In The Iron Mask, dan The Count of Monte Cristo (diterjemahkan Bentang Pustaka).

Dumas lahir dari keturunan keluarga bangsawan Prancis, ayahnya seorang jendral pada jaman Napoleon Bonaparte, yang jatuh miskin pada saat Dumas lahir. Meski keluarga mereka miskin, namun Dumas masih mewarisi kebangsawanan dari ayahnya. Sering mendapat cerita Ibunya tentang kegagahan ayahnya pada jaman kejayaan Napoleon, menginspirasi novel-novelnya yang sarat petualangan. Setelah monarki direstorasi, Dumas mengabdi pada Louis-Phillipe, Duke of Orleans yang kelak menjadi Raja Prancis. Dumas awalnya menulis naskah play, baru kemudian beralih ke novel. Dalam menulis novel, Dumas banyak menggunakan bantuan kontributor, salah satunya August Maquet yang membantunya menciptakan plot untuk The Count of Monte Cristo.

Setelah meningal dunia, Dumas dikuburkan di tempat kelahirannya, pada 2002 Presiden Prancis Jacques Chirac memindahkan kuburannya ke Pantheon of Paris, ‘bertetangga’ dengan kuburan Victor Hugo dan Emile Zola. Proses ‘penguburan ulang’ ini disiarkan lewat televisi, dengan pembawa peti mati berdandan ala musketeers: Athos, Porthos, Aramis dan D’Artagnan.

Jean Webster

Anda mungkin asing dengan nama  Alice Jane Chandler Webster. Tak heran, karena meski beliau adalah penulis klasik terkenal dunia asal Amerika, ia selalu menulis dengan menggunakan nama pena Jane Webster. Wanita yang lahir tgl. 24 July 1876 ini dikenal lewat novel Daddy Long Legs dan sekuelnya Dear Enemy (keduanya sudah diterbitkan penerbit Atria). Webster dibesarkan dalam keluarga di mana kekuatan para wanitanya dominan. Nenek dan nenek buyutnya adalah pegiat social. Ibu Webster adalah saudara sepupu Mark Twain, salah satu penulis klasik Amerika yang paling terkenal, sedang ayahnya adalah manager Twain sekaligus yang menerbitkan buku-buku Twain. Kelak Webster juga terlibat aktif dalam aksi social dan sering memasukkan tema-tema isu sosial ke dalam bukunya.

Nama ‘Jean’ berasal saat ia sekolah dan tidur sekamar dengan murid lain yang bernama Alice juga, sehingga pihak sekolah memintanya memilih nama lain. Webster pun memilih nama panggilan Jean, variasi dari nama tenganya Jane. Pengalamannya di sekolah Lady Jane Grey (sekolah khusus anak perempuan) dituangkannya di novel Just Patty. Webster menikah pada tahun 1915. Setahun kemudian Webster melahirkan anak perempuannya, namun saying ia menderita demam pasca melahirkan, yang akhirnya merenggut nyawanya keesokan harinya. Sang anak dinamai Jean (Little Jean) untuk menghormati sang ibu.

Emily Bronte

Emily adalah salah satu dari kakak beradik Bronte, nomor tiga setelah Charlotte, sebelum si bungsu Anne. Bernama lengkap Emily Jane Brontë, Emily lahir pada 30 Juli 1818. Sepanjang karir menulisnya, Emily hanya sempat menelurkan satu novel, yang kelak banyak dibaca orang hingga saat ini: Wuthering Heights (diterbitkan Gramedia dan Qanita). Seperti Charlotte dan Anne, Emily juga biasa menulis menggunakan nama pena Ellis Bell. Wuthering Heights sebenarnya adalah 2 volume dari sebuah serial tiga set, dengan set ketiga berjudul Agnes Grey yang ditulis Anne Bronte. Kelak Charlotte meng-edit Wuthering Heights dan menerbitkannya sebagai novel dengan nama asli Emily sebagai penulis.

Sejak masa sekolah, Emily beserta Charlotte dan Anne senang menggunakan imajinasi mereka untuk menciptakan dunia fiktif dan banyak menulis tentangnya. Saat berusia 20 tahun Emily menjadi guru, namun karena kesehatannya terganggu akibat stress karena jam kerja panjang, Emily pulang ke kampung halamannya setahun kemudian, dan bersama kedua saudarinya menulis bersama-sama. Emily meninggal dalam usia muda (30 tahun) akibat sanitasi rumah keluarga mereka yang kurang sehat.

Itulah para penulis klasik dunia yang berulang tahun bulan ini. Adakah yang karyanya sudah pernah atau ingin anda baca untuk memperingati hari ulang tahunnya?

[Short Story] The Three Strangers by Thomas Hardy

After being overwhelmed by my last classics reading, I opted to switch temporarily to short stories. Still in A Victorian Celebration, I have picked several works from several different Victorian authors. The first one is Thomas Hardy. I have planned to read Tess of D'Urberville, but before that I would like to first have a feel of his writing, to decide whether I'm going to like it or not. And this is what I have picked from Hardy, The Three Strangers, which was written in March 1883.

There was once a shepherd who lived in a lonely cottage on a coomb of a country. At that particular night, rain had poured heavily, but it did not prevent the shepherd's family to hold a jovial party. It's a christening party for their second child. Twenty people were invited, and the party would have been enjoyable, if there were not a sudden knock at the door...

A stranger was at the door, looking for a shelter from the heavy rain; and the shepherd, being in a jovial mood that night, invited the stranger—who chose to sit at the chimney-corner—to join the party. A few moments later there was a second knock at the door by another stranger. This man—who was also looking for a shelter in his way to Casterbridge—was also invited by the host. The two strangers got acquainted each other in no time, they drank the shepherd's homemade mead together, and were singing together, while came another knock at the door...

The third stranger, upon looking at the other two strangers, got pale and shocked, then quickly left the shepherd's house without any explanation. At that time the guests had realised that the second stranger, the cinder-gray man was actually an executioner who must go to Casterbridge jail to hang a poor watch-maker who had stolen a sheep from a farmer.

A little moment later a gun shot reverberated through the air, a sign of a prisoners escape from the jail. That should be the man whom the second stranger must hang the following day. A search was immediately conducted, and I think you can already guess, that the prisoner must be one of three strangers. The question is, which one?

This is not a mystery story, though it's quite interesting to closely follow what should happen next during the search, to pay attention to the three strangers--who's who, and to guess who had lied and who had told the truth. However, I think Hardy had not intended to create a mystery in the first place. I suspect it's his way to criticize the law. Did the poor prisoner really deserve to be hanged for his crime, stealing one sheep because he was so poor? It's also interesting how Hardy mocked the law enforcement through this story. One of the party guests who joined the quest of the escaped prisoner was a constable, who was pictured so stupid and absurd:

In the scene when the men had found the fugitive and were about to capture him,

Constable: "Your money or your life!"

One of the men: "No, no, tisn't our side ought to say that. That's the doctrine of vagabonds like him, and we be on the side of the law." 

Constable: "Prisoner at the bar, surrender, in the name of the Father—the Crown, I mane!"

This was my first work of Thomas Hardy, and I can sense a little of his writing style which I quite like. However, unlike Dickens, his uses of many unfamiliar words have been quite disturbing me, especially since English is only my second language. Of course I can always search for those words in dictionary or Google, but I think the effort does not worth for a single short story! It just makes me take a second thought before moving to Hardy's novel, I mean I still want to read Hardy, but not in the near future. Anyhow, I still find this short story a well written one; short, yet I learned something from it. Four stars for Thomas Hardy!

[I read ebook version from Project Gutenberg]

This post is included in Short Stories on Wednesdays