Three Types of Solitude - a trio of short stories (or, if you prefer, brief sketches) by British author Brian Aldiss that can be read in an hour. Thank you Faber & Faber for publishing this delightful little book. Fiction that's fanciful and whimsical thus my review whimsy x 3:
1. A SINGLE-MINDED ARTIST
Arthur Scunnersman is the artist of his age. His painting and sketches dazzle, commanding vast sums of money, enough money for Arthur Scunnersman to live exactly as he wishes.
Whether he knows it or not, Arhtur Scunnersman is also a follower of the Cyrenaics, those ancient philosophers who maintained the only intrinsic good is pleasure. And the best pleasures of all are those intense physical pleasure we can experience here and now.
Forget memory; let go of worrying about the future - just tune into the present moment and enjoy your senses tingling with pleasure.
But then an art critic criticized Arhtur Scunnersman: too rootless. The artist of his age goes undercover, becomes a new man, of sorts. What happens next is for Brian Aldiss to tell.
2. TALKING CUBES
A love story complete with computerized cubes, just the inorganic things to underline, underscore and emphasize that most unpleasant reality: frequently time extinguishes the fire of love. We so wish it to be otherwise, but there it is.
3. HAPPINESS IN REVERSE
Judge Beauregard Peach writes his estranged wife who currently lives with their adult daughter in the South of France. He tells her about a dummy he's created out of wood.
The judge and his dummy exchange reflections on matters of the heart, all type of things. At one point, the dummy says he's never been sad in his entire life, not even back when he was a sapling.
Reading this Brian Aldiss tale, I was wondering: Who does both the judge and especially the dummy remind me of? Ah, yes, Russell Edson's Closet-Man, as per:
THE REASON WHY THE CLOSET-MAN IS NEVER SAD by Russell Edson
This is the house of the closet-man. There are no rooms, just hallways and closets.
Things happen in rooms. He does not like things to happen. . . . Closets, you take things out of closets, you put things into closets, and nothing happens . . .
Why do you have such a strange house?
I am the closet-man, I am either going or coming, and I am never sad.
But why do you have such a strange house?
I am never sad . . .
British author Brian Aldiss, 1925-2017
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