![]() ![]() ![]() The silkworm story, for example, is a seamless melding of Kafka and Marx - the former providing the example of a human metamorphosizing into an insect, the latter providing the analysis of a society in which workers become mere extensions of machinery. ![]() It is also important to note, in these stories, that no matter how bizarre or fantastic the plot and characters are we rarely lose sense of a familiar human situation. The least we can say about this mode of fiction is that it is good to have such variety of approach to the short story form - we don’t want a literary culture completely dominated by such queens of The New Yorker as Ann Beattie and Alice Munro. In similar fashion, what are we to make of the story “The Barn at the End of Our Term,” in which American presidents are reincarnated as horses, but retain their memories and personalities - so that Andrew Jackson, for example, “a stocky black quarter horse,” keeps spoiling for a fight and is lonely for an adversary to wage a political campaign against? Or what about the Japanese women in the story “Reeling for the Empire,” who literally turn themselves into silkworms, eating mulberry leaves to feed machines the silk from their bodies? This magical element, their vampire nature, represents how a relationship, at least in the beginning, makes a person feel less alone in the world. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. Manage Print Subscription / Tax Receipt. ![]()
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