Droll Tales

De: Iris Smyles

Narrado por: Hillary Huber, Tavia Gilbert, Jonathan Davis, Emily Lawrence

Duración: 9 h y 55 m

Resumen del Editor

Witty and surreal tales that transcend rationality and illuminate our world, from America’s most original writer.

Welcome to the world of Droll Tales, in which reality is a mutually agreed-upon illusion and life is painful, paradoxical, beautiful, and brief. With an oddball cast of characters who reappear in various guises throughout these interrelated stories, Smyles reveals an off-kilter world overlapping this one. And in giving us a tour of this enchanted, sometimes absurd place, with its own workings and ways of expression, she gives us a new way to understand our own.

A young suburban woman runs away to Europe to become a living statue; Mallarmé is at long last translated into pig Latin; a house full of surrealists compete for love on a reality TV show; a list of fortune-cookie messages reveals the inner world of the young man employed to write them; and a story of love and betrayal is told through the sentence diagrams on a fifth grader’s grammar test.

Romantic, dark, and ironic, Droll Tales is a book like none you have experienced. It is a joyful interrogation of the paradoxes underpinning life, a cabinet of curiosities, a philosophical vaudeville, a puzzle in 14 pieces, and a tragicomic riddle articulated in Smyles’ singular style, with the mystery of the human heart at its center.

©2022 Iris Smyles (P)2022 Blackstone Publishing

Words that tickle

If you’ve seen me laughing alone with my headphones on, chances are I was listening to Iris Smyles’ collection of short stories. They are all fairly different from one another, but share a surrealistic style. The first one, about a woman working as a living statue on the streets of Europe, is gently amusing, probably the most straightforward of the bunch. It got my attention. Other stories are stranger and follow a perverse dream logic. They address important philosophical questions, such as whether it’s time for an ALF reboot.

For those of you who enjoy film, I was reminded at times of Charlie Kaufman, Monty Python, Tim Burton's 'Ed Wood', Mel Brooks and 'Celine and Julie Go Boating', to name a few. These comparisons probably don't really do the audiobook justice, but they can give you a very vague sense of what you'll encounter. The writing is irreverent and unruly.

Not all the tales tickle the same way. A few, the most bizarre, seemed nearly impenetrable and had me wondering whether I was experiencing cognitive problems. I suspect that was the intention of the author, such is her twisted sense of humor. Still, they made me laugh nervously. I think the entire audiobook deserves another fresh listen and I will oblige in some time.

The narrators each bring out different own flavors. They're all good readers, although inevitably, I prefer some than others. My favorite is one of the ladies, a true master of deadpan delivery, who made me laugh the most. I wish I knew her name. I bet they all had a blast with this job.