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Reviews (scroll down for additional reviews)
These reviews, published
in various newspapers and magazines, offer insights and commentary on
individual stories as well as praise for the project’s aim.
Brief lives for brief lives
Nadine Gordimer asked 20 great writers to donate 'stories celebrating life' for charity. They don't disappoint with Telling Tales
Tim Adams
Sunday December 5, 2004
The Observer
Telling Tales
edited by Nadine Gordimer
Bloomsbury £7.99, pp303
The story goes something like this: Nadine Gordimer, the South African Nobel
laureate, was watching the efforts of the Sugababes and Busted and the rest
in the current Band Aid revival and she felt guilty. Why were the world's writers
not following the lead of pop stars and doing their bit for charity? After all,
she thought, 'the art of storytelling [is], along with making music, the oldest
form of enchantment as entertainment'.
In this spirit, Gordimer, Geldof-like, wrote to 20 of the writers she most admired
and asked them if they would give her a story. All 20 responded positively and
the result is Telling Tales, launched with some fanfare by Kofi Annan at the
United Nations last week, the proceeds from which will go to the Treatment Action
Campaign against HIV/Aids, a charity working particularly in Africa.
As well as being the ultimate worthwhile Christmas gift, Telling Tales is also
something of a snapshot of a literary generation. Though there are, inevitably,
a few notable absentees from Gordimer's selection - Philip Roth, say, and William
Trevor and VS Naipaul - her book is about as close as you could come to a Premiership
of august literary talent, with all parts of the world represented: from Chinua
Achebe to Günter Grass, Amos Oz to Kenzaburo öe. Not only that, but
it is the biggest hitters at what they believe to be the height of their powers.
In each instance, Gordimer says, her chosen writers have selected something
that 'represents some of the best of their lifetime work as storytellers'.
Writers cannot help being competitive. This is a profoundly collaborative effort
and everyone involved has given their services for free, but one of the several
fascinations of this book is to see who dazzles most brightly in the firmament.
Arthur Miller's opening story, 'Bulldog', sets the bar high. It is an exquisitely
paced, perfectly poised tale of adolescent confusion: a 13-year-old boy goes
to buy a puppy and finds himself seduced by the puppy's owner. He is left with
a small brown dog that he does not much want, a head full of sexual longing
and, surprisingly, a sudden facility for playing the piano.
The story, in its moral fretwork, is very Miller, just as subsequent stories
are very Rushdie ('Firebird', a fable of a maharajah who marries a New York
financier and, literally, self-combusts) or very Atwood ('The Age of Lead',
in which a woman examines her lost loves while watching an archaeological TV
programme about a frozen man thawed). One of the more curious things about this
collection is how, gathered together, the writers become more distinctly themselves
- or perhaps the stories they have chosen are ones which they feel particularly
defined by.
The only condition Gordimer gave to her fellow authors was that their tales
could not be directly about Aids. Even so, many seem to have chosen with the
charity obliquely in mind or, at least, many of the stories turn on sex and
death. Paul Theroux offers a dystopian vision, an extrapolation of Brave New
World, in which the act of love is possible only while wearing latex body suits
and in which children must be purchased on the black market and screened for
viruses.
Others concentrate on the specific facts of mortality: öe's story confronts
a father's funeral; Claudio Magris, meanwhile, offers an odd little obituary
for the idea of central Europe. In her introduction, Gordimer writes: 'I wanted
these to be beautiful stories celebrating life, which is what people suffering
with HIV and Aids are deprived of - the fullness of life.' Her story, 'The Ultimate
Safari', is a powerful, child's-eye view of living in a grim refugee camp, orphaned.
But still, you know what she means.
Reading the stories back to back, you begin to find out quite a lot about what
you like and quite a lot about what you don't. In among great natural storytellers
like Margaret Atwood and Michel Tournier, Susan Sontag's formal gameplaying,
for example, in her mock melodrama 'The Letter Scene', fell flat for me, while
the German Christa Wolf's free association on the colour blue felt forced.
In this context, the expert narrative clarity of Hanif Kureishi, who provides
more brutal lessons in the fallout of adultery, or Woody Allen - a brilliant
comic sketch of Manhattan nursery-school exams - came as welcome relief.
The two stories that stand out, though, in this collection - and are well worth
the cover price on their own - are the brilliant best of two quite different
storytelling traditions. Gabriel García Márquez's 'Death Constant
Beyond Love' is a characteristic tale of the ironies of power and romance. It
begins with the perfect Márquez opening line, full of specifics, and
tending to myth: 'Senator Onésimo Sánchez had six months and 11
days to go before his death when he found the woman of his life.' And it unfolds
as inevitably as a spaghetti western.
The senator, happily married with five children, and having just learned of
his impending mortality, sees the love of his life, a young Indian woman, while
on walkabout. She comes to him later that night wearing a chastity belt to which
her father holds the key and which he will unlock for the senator in return
for the illegal identity card which the politician has refused him for a decade.
Sánchez holds the woman in the dark, cries for himself.
And then, the perfect Márquez ending, full of the poignancy of stories
untold - 'Six months and 11 days later, he would die in that same position,
debased and repudiated because of the public scandal with Laura Farina and weeping
with rage at dying without her.'
John Updike, meanwhile, represents himself with a wonderful, typical tale of
desire and its discontents, 'The Journey to the Dead'. Even in this company,
Updike's alertness to the minute currents of emotional interaction sets him
apart. A man, Martin, meets an old university friend, Arlene, at a party. Both
Martin and Arlene are divorced and, having lived in the suburbs, are returned
to the city to be free. The possibility of romance hangs over their meeting,
but Martin subsequently discovers from his ex-wife that Arlene is already 'taken';
she has cancer and 'the disease figured in his mind as a reason to let Arlene
alone'.
He ends up seeing a little of her, however, giving her lifts to hospital, talking
about the old days, until, one day, he finds himself mouthing reluctant pleasantries
to her as she lies on her death bed. He has not wanted to come here to confront
this - it is not his life - but he turns up just the same, feels an obligation,
'though the living are busier than the dying'. And that, you suppose, is a little
bit of what this collection is all about.
_____________________________________________
Philanthropic Party
A Review by Kelly Grovier
Assembling the twenty-one stories for this remarkable anthology, Nadine Gordimer
must have felt that she had embarked not only on an inspired philanthropic enterprise,
but on an intriguing literary experiment. What would happen if one were to approach
a score of the world's greatest living writers -- from Gunter Grass to Salman
Rushdie, Susan Sontag to Kenzaburo Oe -- and invite them to reach into their
"lifetime's work as storytellers" and choose a piece of short fiction
to donate to a volume whose profits would go exclusively to the prevention and
treatment of AIDS? In view of the tragic context of the scheme, let alone her
leap-of-faith attitude towards its contents, Gordimer must have realized she
risked summoning a volume that was either mirthlessly monotone or else themelessly
uncentred -- some of its parts greater than the whole. How delighted she must
have been when what began to emerge was something unexpectedly uplifting: a
soulful, searching collection which, while organized predictably along the human
axes of sex and death, is nevertheless joyful -- even, at times, hilarious.
Telling Tales opens with Arthur Miller's tightly wrought story of sexual awakening,
"Bulldog", which follows a taciturn Jewish boy through an unfamiliar
neighbourhood in New York, searching for the house where a puppy has been advertised
for sale in the local newspaper. Miller's ability to capture the adolescent's
mingled feelings of ambivalence and obsession after meeting the smouldering
owner of the litter -- a restless housewife thrice the boy's age who succeeds
in seducing him -- is at once irresistible and unsettling: "It got sharper",
Miller describes their clumsy collision, "until it was almost like the
time he touched the live rim of a light socket while trying to remove a broken
bulb".
Gabriel Garcia Marquez's gritty tale "Death Constant Beyond Love"
glistens with the same unmistakable mixture of magic and the mundane that makes
his novels so memorable. His story surrounds the insalubrious instincts of a
corrupt and dying politician, Senator Onesimo Sanchez, who is approached while
campaigning by "the most beautiful woman in the world" -- Laura Farina,
a sultry nineteen-year-old desperate to have her father's dubious past erased.
As so often with Marquez, each sinuous sentence unfolds a universe of mystery.
"He listened to the speech from his hammock", so we are introduced
to Laura's father, Nelson, "amidst the remains of his siesta, under the
cool bower of a house of unplaned boards which he had built with the same pharmacist's
hands with which he had drawn and quartered his first wife". The story
culminates in a surreal sexual stand-off -- a reversal of power roles involving
a grubby grope, a chastity belt and a haggle for the key.
Margaret Atwood's poignant tale "The Age of Lead" is perhaps the only
story in the anthology even implicitly to engage with the glacial suffering
associated with HIV/AIDS. A late-night television documentary on forensic efforts
to ascertain the circumstances surrounding the curious death and apparent ritual
burial of a nineteenth-century traveller found entombed in ice -- "like
those maraschino cherries you used to freeze in ice-cube trays for fancy tropical
drinks" -- triggers a slow thawing of frozen feelings in Jane about the
death of her childhood friend and erstwhile lover, Vincent.
That such heartbreaking prose can sit unresentfully alongside funny stories,
such as "Rejection", Woody Allen's facetious fable of outrageous New
York elitism, is among the unexpected strengths of the volume. When three-year-old
Mischa Ivanovich's application to "the very best nursery school in Manhattan"
is declined, the lifelong repercussions of the calamity are unfolded with such
unflinching absurdity as only Allen's imagination is capable of. Mischa's father,
Boris, loses his job and all social standing. His mother, Anna, takes to frivolous
shopping and random affairs, which, we are told, were "hard to conceal
from Boris Ivanovich, since he shared the same bedroom and asked repeatedly
who the man next to them was".
Even putting to one side the manifest humanitarian merit of Gordimer's brainchild,
Telling Tales is a strong collation of contemporary literary consciousness,
which also includes contributions by Chinua Achebe, Hanif Kureishi, Jose Saramago
and John Updike. It is an ideal source for short soulful fiction over a hectic
holiday season.
Kelly Grovier is a lecturer
at the University of Wales, Aberystwyth, and an editor of Oxford Poetry. He
is writing a biography of Newgate Prison.
_____________________________________________
From www.africa2015.org/
Writers' Initiative
Nobel prize winners among anthology authors against AIDS
Nadine Gordimer of South Africa is compiling a collection entitled Telling Tales,
featuring stories by 21 authors, including herself and four other Nobel literature
prize winners, to support the struggle against HIV/AIDS.
The 21 stories are written in different ‘voices’—vividly individual
styles—capturing the marvelous possibilities of the use of words by living
writers. They include five Nobel Prize Winners in Literature. All have come
together to bring the joy of reading to whomever takes up this unusual and remarkable
collection of creative talent. The subjects are not HIV/AIDS; but the price
of the pleasure of reading the stories will help succour and support its victims.
Eleven publishers worldwide have decided with the authors that royalties in
all countries shall go to the worst HIV/AIDS infected region in the world, Southern
Africa. They feel that their readers in each country will welcome this practical
sign of human solidarity. First publication by Farrar, Straus & Giroux/
Picador in the USA, Bloomsbury Publishers in England, will be followed by the
translated editions.
Among the writers are Margaret Atwood, Günther Grass, Gabriel García
Márquez, Arthur Miller, Kenzaburo Oe, Amos Oz, Susan Sontag and John
Updike, who have agreed to waive fees and royalties. Proceeds will go to organizations
helping people living with the disease in whichever country the anthology is
published and sold.
“I have been concerned for some time by the lack of any group action among
writers to raise funds for the battle against HIV/AIDS,” said Ms. Gordimer,
who is Goodwill Ambassador for the United Nations Development Programme. “The
disease is rampant on the African continent… but no country, no individual
and no life style is safe,” she pointed out.
“With a few writer friends I discussed the idea of our doing something
on a scale within our abilities and the level of attention writers can expect
to be associated with their work,” she recalled.
The authors write in “different voices – vividly individual styles.”
While the stories are not about HIV/AIDS the “pleasure of reading them
will help succour and support its victims,” according to Ms. Gordimer.
Rarely have world writers of such variety and distinctions appeared together
in an anthology, she observed. “Their stories capture the range of emotions
and situations of our human universe – tragedy, comedy, fantasy, satire,
dramas of sexual love and of war, in different continents and cultures.”
Telling Tales will appear in English in December 2004 to coincide with World
AIDS Day, with editions in other languages to follow.
Here is the extraordinary contents list of TELLING TALES:
Bulldog by Arthur Miller; The Centaur by José Saramago; Down The Quiet
Street by Es’kia Mphahlele; The Firebird’s Nest by Salman Rushdie;
Cell Phone by Ingo Schulze; Death Constant Beyond Love by Gabriel Garcia Marquez;
The Age Of Lead by Margaret Atwood; Witness Of An Era by Günter Grass;
The Journey To The Dead by John Updike; Sugar Baby by Chinua Achebe; The Way
Of The Wind by Amos Oz; Warm Dogs by Paul Theroux; The Ass And The Ox by Michel
Tournier; Death Of A Son by Njabulo Ndebele; The Letter Scene by Susan Sontag;
To Have Been by Claudio Magris; A Meeting At Last by Hanif Kureishi; Associations
In Blue by Christa Wolf; The Rejection by Woody Allen; The Ultimate Safari by
Nadine Gordimer; Abandoned Children Of This Planet by Kenzaburo Oe.
Nadine Gordimer, winner of the 1991 Nobel Prize for Literature, has been a UNDP
Goodwill Ambassador since 1998.
_____________________________________________________
From The New York Times, November 29, 2004
By Felicia Lee
Not one writer said no when Nadine Gordimer came asking for help in her ambitious
campaign to raise money to fight AIDS. Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Susan Sontag
signed on. So did Paul Theroux, Salman Rushdie, John Updike, Gunter Grass, Margaret
Atwood, Woody Allen and Arthur Miller.
Ms. Gordimer, the Nobel Prize-winning South African novelist, enlisted each
member of her literary A-list to donate a short story to a new anthology, ''Telling
Tales'' (Picador/Farrar, Straus & Giroux), whose profits will go the Treatment
Action Campaign, a southern African organization that helps people with AIDS
and H.I.V.
''If the musicians can get up and sing, we can get up and write,'' said Ms.
Gordimer, 81, in a telephone interview from her home in Johannesburg. ''It was
more than one and a half years ago and there were so many gigs and performances
by musicians and singers, people like Bono. They were giving their talents to
help people and raise awareness about this pandemic plague. I thought: 'This
is awful. We writers collectively have done nothing.'''
''Telling Tales,'' which contains 21 stories, is to be published simultaneously
in the United States and in 10 other countries (in nine languages) on Dec. 1,
World AIDS Day.
Ms. Gordimer, who has a long history of melding art and political activism,
said she could have commissioned a book of short stories with AIDS themes but
decided that it wouldn't sell. She eventually realized that she wanted to tap
the transformative rather than the rhetorical power of writing. So she asked
each writer to send a good story, not about AIDS and not necessarily new (all
have been previously published). She chose friends or writers who, she said,
she knew ''had a concern about what happens in the world.''
The writers and publishers waived royalties and fees, Ms. Gordimer said. Her
American publisher, Farrar, Straus & Giroux, decided to keep the book's
price low ($14) by publishing it in paperback.
''Perhaps now more than ever we should appreciate the power of fiction, the
will to fight injustice and suffering,'' said Frances Coady, vice president
and publisher of Picador, Farrar's paperback arm, ''and Nadine Gordimer's spirit
made this international collaboration possible.'' The book's publication is
to be celebrated with a news conference, book-signing and reception at the United
Nations featuring Secretary General Kofi Annan, Ms. Gordimer and readings from
two contributors, Mr. Miller and Mr. Rushdie.
At 6:30 p.m. on Wednesday, Ms. Gordimer will be the host of a public reading
of selected stories from ''Telling Tales'' at Symphony Space in Manhattan. The
actor Denis O'Hare will read Mr. Miller's contribution, the playwright and producer
John Guare will read Mr. Allen's and Myra Lucretia Taylor will read Ms. Gordimer's,
''The Ultimate Safari,'' a 1991 story about wandering South African children.
Other writers in ''Telling Tales'' include Chinua Achebe, Hanif Kureishi, Claudio
Magris, Es'kia Mphahlele, Njabulo Ndebele, Kenzaburo Oe, Amos Oz, Jose Saramago,
Ingo Schulze, Michel Tournier and Christa Wolf. Besides seeking stories from
different countries, Ms. Gordimer said, she was looking for a mix of voices
and of genres. Mr. Miller sent a fairly recent story, ''Bulldog,'' first published
in The New Yorker, about a boy's dog-buying adventure in Brooklyn. ''Sugar Baby,''
first published in the 1970's, by Mr. Achebe, a Nigerian, is (on the surface
at least) about the different proclivities of coffee and tea drinkers.
Ms. Gordimer, who won the Nobel Prize in 1991, is known for both her literary
work and for her efforts against apartheid in South Africa. And for years, she
has used her name and her words to educate the world about the devastation of
AIDS.
There is, she said, a false division between literary writing and what she called
''committed writing'' that has political or social themes.
''That commitment can be expressed adequately and effectively, an aspect of
truth for all time, only by literary writers, through the deep transforming
power of the imagination,'' she said. ''At random, examples range from classical
Greek literature through Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky to Gunter Grass and Chinua
Achebe.''
These days, Ms. Gordimer said, she is steeped in her latest writing project
(''Oh, I never talk about it'') and politics. A vocal critic of President George
W. Bush, she said, ''The American government has indeed given AIDS grants to
Africa and other places but it remains to be seen how they respond to the growing
crisis.''
Still, she said she was hopeful that artists would continue ''to give what they
can to assert life against the terrible threat of death.
''The title 'Telling Tales' is about our tale of our responsibility toward our
fellow human beings.''