全二巻を読み終えた。この小説は、通常の歴史小説と大いに違う。通常、主人公（松陰）の頭の中で考えていることは、しばしば文で描写されるが、この小説は、松陰の考えや考えの根本思想が何ページにもわたって描かれている。その哲学を読むだけで、松陰がどういう人物であったかが、よく解る。松陰は、尊王攘夷の大権現と言ってもいい。日本国は天皇を根源として成り立っており、天皇を蔑ろにする存在は悪である。親に孝行する。城主に従うのも大事であるが、一番大事なのは天皇を犯さぬという思想である。１０歳かそこらで、孟子の講義を大人に対してできる天才的頭脳の持ち主である。松陰の周りの者を感化しないではおかない。牢に入れば、囚人や看守の心の拠り所となり、死に際しても、狼狽えずに死を日本国のために役立てる。長州に木戸孝允、高杉晋作、山形有朋、伊藤博文などの偉人が出るが、松陰は彼らの頭を動かさずにはおかなかった。
山岡荘八は、恐らく松陰の書いた一次資料を読みこなし、自分の血と肉として、それを読者に伝えている。到底、私のできぬ技である。
Somerset Maugham’s Mr. Know-All is an excellent short story. At the beginning, the narrator dislikes Mr. Kelada, or “Mr. Know-All,” because he seems to know everything about everything. Yet by the end, the narrator admits, “I did not entirely dislike Mr. Kelada.” I thought he would change his opinion about Mr. Kelada at the end of the story.
The
turning point comes when Mr. Kelada confidently declares that Mrs. Ramsay’s
pearl necklace is genuine and worth thirty thousand dollars. Her husband
insists it cost only eighteen dollars, and they wager a hundred. When Mr.
Kelada examines the pearls closely, he realizes they are real — but he also
sees the desperate plea in Mrs. Ramsay’s eyes. Understanding instantly that the
necklace must be a secret gift from her wealthy lover, he chooses to protect
her. He lies, calls the pearls fake, and pays Ramsay the hundred dollars.
Somerset Maugham’s Mr. Know-All is an excellent short story. At the beginning, the narrator dislikes Mr. Kelada or “Mr. Know-All” because he seems to know everything about everything. Yet by the end, the narrator admits, “I did not entirely dislike Mr. Kelada.” I thought he would change his opinion about Mr. Kelada at the end of the story.
The title Mr. Know-All is fitting not only because Kelada knows facts about everything, but because he understands people — especially when compassion matters more than being right.
I read Jackson’s famous short story, “Lottery” some decades ago. The last scene was a horrific surprising ending. I learned that she got a lot of hate mail.
This
one, “Charles,” is also a surprise ending story, but not horrific. I enjoyed the
story.
[Spoiler]
Laurie is naughty and tells his parents a lie every day he comes back home
from kindergarten. He talks about how bad Charles is. His parents become so curious
( I became as curious as they are). When Laurie’s mother meets the teacher, she
says, “You must have your hands full in that kindergarten, with Charles.” The
teacher responds, “Charles? We don’t have any Charles in the kindergarten.”
A
nice ending. It was humorous, too.
“Night Surf,” written by David W. Burns, is an astonishing short story—one of the most memorable I’ve ever read. It stands beside the finest short fiction I know, such as "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge" by Ambrose Bierce and "The Cask of Amontillado" by Edgar Allan Poe.
One of the story’s greatest strengths is the dual nature of
the creature—both Cassie and a Nereid sea nymph. As a Nereid, she is cool,
distant, and otherworldly; as Cassie, she becomes warm, human, and quietly
tender. This contrast gives the story emotional depth.
The narrative succeeds because it follows the timeless
principle of crafting a moving story: crushing hopelessness just before the
ending, followed by the faintest glimmer of hope in the final moment. And that
hope arrives beautifully in the last line:
“Next time, bring more of the pink ones.”
In that single sentence, we understand that the old man—the
protagonist—will return, prepared with an abundance of pink jelly beans,
carrying with him the fragile promise of connection.
This short story was published in 2019. It won the Grand Prize in the 14th Annual Writer's Digest Popular Fiction Awards.
Chance Freihaut is the winner of the 2024 Writers’ Union of Canada Short Prose Competition. The protagonist, Peter, tries to recover the memory of his mother, who abandoned him when he was seven. To reconstruct what he has lost, he enlists an improv group of three performers and directs them through scenes he invents—assigning places, situations, and even lines of dialogue.
As
the improvisations unfold, fragments of the past begin to surface. Peter
recalls, with painful clarity, the moment his mother left him and his father
for good. “I love you, Peter,” she tells him. “But you need to know something.
Mommy is like the sand and the wind.” And like sand carried off by a gust, she
disappears from his life.
Through
this process, Peter begins to understand his own identity and releases himself
from the long struggle to remember her. A phone‑sex worker known as V
eventually joins the troupe and takes on the role of his mother, further
blurring the boundaries between performance and memory.
The
story moves between two intertwined realms—the real world and the world of
improv. At times, they overlap so closely that the distinction becomes
deliberately unclear. Each sentence carries layers of implication, and each
paragraph hides more than it reveals. The narrative demands an active,
imaginative reader, one willing to navigate its shifting realities.
Hinoki is a tree name. It smells good. For Peter, the fragrance of Hinoki is his mother's smell.
13世紀、ヴェニスから大都（北京）に到る広大な地域を国毎に、文化、習慣、生活、物産、貨幣、食事、風俗について詳述している。
驚くのはクビライカン（フビライカン）の権力の強大さである。彼が酒の盃を手に取る毎に、楽隊が音楽を奏で、家臣が跪き、カンが盃を飲み干すと、家臣が姿勢を正すとか。美女を５００人集め、基準に合致しているかを担当官に判定させ、３０人を選ぶ。選ばれた美人を家臣の妻と同衾させ、人品を評価させる。合格した娘は六人一組で、三日三晩、カンに侍らせ、交替させたとか。
ある地方では処女は結婚できないので、旅人に娘を交接させ、一人前の女として嫁せたとか。キリスト教、イスラム教、道教、偶像崇拝教（釈迦）の話とか、カンが家臣や兄弟と如何にして戦い滅ぼしたかとかが記述されている。
驚くことばかり多し。
