Review by HRuddell -- Illustrated Short Fiction of Willi...
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HRuddell
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- Latest Review: Illustrated Short Fiction of William H. Coles: 2000-2016 by William H. Coles
Review by HRuddell -- Illustrated Short Fiction of Willi...
[Following is a volunteer review of "Illustrated Short Fiction of William H. Coles: 2000-2016" by William H. Coles.]
Decades ago, my seventh grade English teacher had posted on the classroom wall, “Show. Don’t Tell.” and she helped the students, including me, learn how to show themes in our fiction writing. Illustrated Short Fiction of William H. Coles: 2000-2016 (illustrations by Peter Healy, David Riley, and Anna Sokolva) does exactly that; each story shows how people’s perceptions and motivations sow their relationships to other people and to nature.
Coles has developed complex characters who immerse the reader in their inner-dialogues, and each story’s conflict rapidly culminates to a prophetic summit, where readers are left in awe and wonderment about the characters’ fates. Nearly all of the stories are parabolic, however, the diverse resolutions among the stories show that people’s benevolence and their malevolence contend against nature’s jealous omnipresence. Occasionally, I predicted several of the stories’ endings accurately, however, knowing what would happen didn’t detract from the surprise, satisfaction, despair, or hope I felt about the characters.
This book is best suited for adults because it appeals to the way adults grapple with their conscience. Although the stories’ protagonists include numerous, conscientious characters, the book also includes a variety of amoral protagonists, such as murderers, pedophiles, and socialites who, like the benevolent characters, also show how people can grow by thinking beyond their immediate desires and beyond their sense of societal conventions. I greatly appreciate how the reader can see the characters’ beliefs through the lens of morality. Please note that because many of the characters make malicious and horrifying choices, this book is too dark for children and adolescents.
In my opinion, Coles has pointedly underscored the way Christian love and humanism are alike. Just like the Christian parable, “The Good Samaritan,” Coles’ stories stress the irony that the people others reject are often the people who can help others the most. Readers can sadly discover this in the stories, “Homunculus” (a graphic novel and a prose story), “The Amish Girl,” and “Reddog” (a graphic novel and a prose story) and can find hope in the stories, “The Necklace,” and “The Miracle of Madame Villard,” and “Sister Carrie, a Novella.”
The Illustrated Short Fiction of William H. Coles is an excellent compilation of Coles’ writing and deserves 4 out of 4 stars for its fault is not in the text “but in ourselves, that we are underlings” (Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare 1.2.141). Its cautionary tales are precise but also complex and descriptive, and I felt liberated by the author’s rendering of free will and compassion. So much modern and post-modern literature uses absurdist and nihilistic perspectives to show the way the powerful subjugate the powerless, and I have too often felt despair when I have finished many well-crafted but pessimistic texts. Even though Coles’ book captures the darkest aspects of human nature, it also shows that sometimes compassion can overcome hate, just not in the way people may expect.
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Illustrated Short Fiction of William H. Coles: 2000-2016
View: on Bookshelves | on Amazon | on iTunes | on Smashwords
Decades ago, my seventh grade English teacher had posted on the classroom wall, “Show. Don’t Tell.” and she helped the students, including me, learn how to show themes in our fiction writing. Illustrated Short Fiction of William H. Coles: 2000-2016 (illustrations by Peter Healy, David Riley, and Anna Sokolva) does exactly that; each story shows how people’s perceptions and motivations sow their relationships to other people and to nature.
Coles has developed complex characters who immerse the reader in their inner-dialogues, and each story’s conflict rapidly culminates to a prophetic summit, where readers are left in awe and wonderment about the characters’ fates. Nearly all of the stories are parabolic, however, the diverse resolutions among the stories show that people’s benevolence and their malevolence contend against nature’s jealous omnipresence. Occasionally, I predicted several of the stories’ endings accurately, however, knowing what would happen didn’t detract from the surprise, satisfaction, despair, or hope I felt about the characters.
This book is best suited for adults because it appeals to the way adults grapple with their conscience. Although the stories’ protagonists include numerous, conscientious characters, the book also includes a variety of amoral protagonists, such as murderers, pedophiles, and socialites who, like the benevolent characters, also show how people can grow by thinking beyond their immediate desires and beyond their sense of societal conventions. I greatly appreciate how the reader can see the characters’ beliefs through the lens of morality. Please note that because many of the characters make malicious and horrifying choices, this book is too dark for children and adolescents.
In my opinion, Coles has pointedly underscored the way Christian love and humanism are alike. Just like the Christian parable, “The Good Samaritan,” Coles’ stories stress the irony that the people others reject are often the people who can help others the most. Readers can sadly discover this in the stories, “Homunculus” (a graphic novel and a prose story), “The Amish Girl,” and “Reddog” (a graphic novel and a prose story) and can find hope in the stories, “The Necklace,” and “The Miracle of Madame Villard,” and “Sister Carrie, a Novella.”
The Illustrated Short Fiction of William H. Coles is an excellent compilation of Coles’ writing and deserves 4 out of 4 stars for its fault is not in the text “but in ourselves, that we are underlings” (Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare 1.2.141). Its cautionary tales are precise but also complex and descriptive, and I felt liberated by the author’s rendering of free will and compassion. So much modern and post-modern literature uses absurdist and nihilistic perspectives to show the way the powerful subjugate the powerless, and I have too often felt despair when I have finished many well-crafted but pessimistic texts. Even though Coles’ book captures the darkest aspects of human nature, it also shows that sometimes compassion can overcome hate, just not in the way people may expect.
******
Illustrated Short Fiction of William H. Coles: 2000-2016
View: on Bookshelves | on Amazon | on iTunes | on Smashwords
