Collected Stories

Was Dylan thomas the consummate craftsman? Indeed, he was; and took real delight in his gifts and his exercise of them; he was a Celtic bard in the truest sense of that role -- the lonely public/private man who carried within him the lyric history of his race, the love of his language and a very vocal sense of wonder over his role in life; that he had song, yes; that he was funny, loud, boisterous, cautious, selfish, rude, unforgettable -- all of that and more; he was the poet's poet and the singer for those who longed for lost boyhood, who raged at death and who marvelled at the all the world's words rediscovered in a dewdrop; his stories, like his poems, should be read aloud; there is an incantatory quality to them -- as if something profoundly old and grandfatherly were suddenly shared with the reader; Thomas himself was a great reader; to hear him is to savor him at his best and to feel deeply and sweetly the majesty and holy compulsion of our mother tongue; the stories, while less charged than the poems, nonetheless captivate and break into a kind of lyricism that gladdens the heart and restores the ear. If he wasn't the best of our poets, he was easily the most tuneful and spoke from a very deep place that only the purest of us can truly know.

With significant exceptions, "The Collected Stories" chronical the life, if read in that order, of a sad and melancholy man, who was aware of but unwilling to accept the burden on consciousness of the futility of modern life. Thomas lightened his load, by and by, with increasingly frequent jokes and essays into humour. In many ways the stories are an accurate account of the everyday absurdity of Everyman; by one who lived at the time personality was displaced by the development of commercial media hype. Thomas died at age 39 in 1953. If he'd lived a few more years he might have described to us the age of common emotion and undifferentiated humanity, which breaks down only under the influence of alcohol to anything interesting and never unique; that he interpolated and prophecied from his eavesdropping into the lives of his comtemporaries. (No, I don't think that sentence is too long and I think Dylan would have approved.) He didn't spare himself from his snooping. Much of the content is autobiographical. But like a reporter, he just tells us the facts. The inferences and insights are your own. You have to read this volume! END