The Questioning Of The Narrative

A hard cover stylistically adorned with ragged edges, the cover illustration has a brown grizzly on it. Muzzled though, so sad. But that's enough to make me read it. 'One More Story. Thirteen Stories in the Time-Honored Mode' by Ingo Schulze. It's been translated from German by John E. Woods.

All about storytelling, and the art of it, I suppose. A meta-progression, if you will. The narrators (all male, and most of them are writers) in the stories are highly aware of the storytelling process, and randomly comment on the way the story is unfolding, and believe that they're failing to tell the story in the good way it deserves. It's almost as though Schulze is wondering how to tell his stories. (Read reviews here and here.)

The stories themselves. All different. Not cheerful little stories. Dark, sometimes depressing, and reflective of the reality of the era (German Democratic Republic) the author grew up in. Placed in different geographical locations. It's a very refreshing way of writing. He puts forward a confident prose in a natural style that's sorely lacking in many pieces of writing today. Not too sure how much influence a good translator has towards portraying that in English. But his crisp style certainly comes through no matter in which language. The brevity of words, so to speak. It isn't so much of the content in these stories, but how they begin, and how they end. Sometimes abruptly, at others times in a reflective tone, and mostly as a definite end of an experience, instead of a full chapter.

A story I'm fond of, indeed, has to do with the brown bear on the cover. The bear has a name- Seryosha. It appears in 'Estonia, Out in the Country'. He's a trained circus bear from St Petersburg, and has been sold to be released into the wilderness of the national park of Lahemaa in Estonia, and to be hunted as game in an area where hunting is not permitted and the shooting of bears disallowed unless in extraordinary circumstances that threaten human lives. The story is told by the narrators (who're writers visiting Estonia) observing 3 Finnish hunters tracking Seryosha. :( The bear hunt wasn't exactly about that. Political overtones and all that. Of course, the narrators and us, we don't know anything about Seryosha's fate.

Tanya and I stood beside the van. As he trotted alongside Arne, Seryosha was a beautiful sight to behold. It was not just his loping gait, which made it look as if he were dragging his paws behind him. Under that mass of fur moved a body no less supple than a tiger's, except that Seryosha's elegance was less obvious. 

............ 

It was Seryosha. But he wasn't jumping or dancing or doing somersaults. Seryosha, if not with great skill, was riding a woman's bicycle. It looked as if his paws kept slipping off the pedals, and every few yards, I expected him to upend, or go flying over the handlebars. But that was more a matter of the uneven forest floor. Seryosha was perched on the seat, pumping for all he was worth. Unfortunately, given the situation, I was paying no attention to the people around me. It wasn't until I heard a shot that I noticed an ashen-faced Arne, and saw the boss raise his gun and fire - followed by a second shot from the towhead, and finally one from Mika.