Andres Rodriguez|dreamstime.com

Classics—this week I discovered two online libraries that feature short story classics. I cherry picked writers of times past and disparate cultures: three Russians, two French, one Colombian and one Englishman—all men, I note, so I’ll have to dedicate a week to the women.

RUSSIAN

“One Autumn Night”, by Maxim Gorky www.classicreader.com
“God Sees the Truth, But Waits”, by Leo Tolstoy www.classicreader.com
“About Love”, by Anton Chekhov www.classicreader.com

Borders shift; not so the Russian soul, at least not early in the last century. It remained socially conscious and focused on themes of suffering and sacrifice. Tolstoy told his story plainly, in parable fashion. Chekhov adopted a bourgeoisie tone (ala F. Scott Fitzgerald) and led us through a maze of manners and mores, where he bared Pavel’s soul, and the guests sympathized politely. Gorky’s approach was the most modern:

–everything around me was bankrupt, barren, and dead, and the sky flowed with undryable tears…

Who is writing Russian novels today?

FRENCH

“The High Constable’s Wife”, by Honore de Balzac www.classicreader.com
Did the French invent purple prose? The editor of The Canary Press cautions, “don’t fall prey to cleverness and trickery. Tell the [explicative deleted] story if it needs to be told.” In this case, cleverness and trickery are the story. Balzac’s words, the more the better, celebrate La Comedie humaine in high style:

Who does not love the warm attack of life when it flows thus round the heat and engulfs everything?

“Mateo Falcone”, by Prosper Merimee www.classicshorts.com
A dramatist and the author of “Carmen”, Merimee gives us a gripping tale of outlaw life in the maquis in Corsica. Honor among thieves takes a shocking turn. In less than 5,000 words, Merimee captures centuries of culture in one Mateo Falcone.

ENGLISH

“Misunderstood”, by P.G. Wodehouse www.classicreader.com
Early in the story, Wodehouse nails his character’s mettle is this delicious sentence:

His was one of those just-as-good cheap-substitute minds, incapable of harbouring more than one idea at a time…

I grinned my way through the trials of petulant “Spider” Buffin, who must have been the original dumb crook.

COLOMBIAN

“Eyes of a Blue Dog”, by Gabriel Garcia Marquez www/classicshorts.com
Marquez messes around in a dreamer’s monkey mind and pulls up the recurring dream, often unremembered. To me, reading Marquez is liking tasting something new and you tell yourself your don’t like it and your conscious says: “hang in there”, and you ask, “Why not ‘Blue Eyes of a Dog’,” and she tells you: “go with it.”