Tag: suspense

Memento Mori is a short story written by Jonathan Nolan. In this short story, he takes time and its relationship with a man to a whole new level, and introduces the reader to to what he calls a ‘ten-minute man’.

“Believing the lie that time will heal all wounds is just a nice way of saying that time deadens us.” 

Memento Mori: Summary and Plot Analysis

The story revolves around Earl, a patient of anteretrograde amnesia (a condition that involves short-term memory loss), having sustained injuries from a gruesome assault – one that also led to the death of his wife.

He is shown to be stuck in time just before his wife’s murder. His life is a long array of ten-minute chunks, after every one of which he is a clean slate.

The story opens with Earl waking up, with no memory, in what looks like a hospital room, covered in what seems to be filled with predominantly white colors. The room is rather large and he finds notes stuck everywhere from his toothpaste, his washroom or his cigarettes.

By the time he starts making sense of the environment, his memory resets, and he finds himself going through this – sometimes even doing the same thing – over and over again.

The story goes back and forth between two different settings.

The first one is where Earl is confined to a mental health institution. He goes about with his day following the notes that he has left for himself.

The second one being the one where he seems to be on the run trying to hunt down the man that killed his wife and reduced his life to that of a vegetable.

The author delves into the deeper topic of life and its meaning, looked at from the perspective of a person whose ability to make new memories is severely impaired. This is captured through a constant dialogue that happens between him ten minutes back and him in the present.

His past self mentions forgetting and how that is deeply embroiled in the life that he lives, every 10 minute chunk to another. His past self reminds him that his wife is dead and that he might be hurting but he will forget it in the next 10 minutes.

His condition in addition to him not being able to remember anything, is a constant reminder of what misfortune led him to that point. 

Memento Mori: Analysis and Review

Locked in his hospital room, and through means of notes that he leaves for himself, he tries to devise ways to make use of his life, to get revenge, the irony being that he would never remember having sought revenge, even after he did. Turning his life into one gigantic Groundhog day replay albeit in painful 10-minute chunks. 

Memento Mori is derived from Latin and means ‘remember to die’.

In olden days, this was a reminder for people to be living a moral life keeping in mind the inevitable judgement day.

There are a variety of interpretations and adaptations of this concept in other cultures.

Earl buys himself a bell to serve as the memento for himself. This bell, on which he inscribes his date of birth and date of incident, later appears when he looks for a pen after completing his mission. He lives outside of time.

In his conversations with his past self, there are a lot of epiphanic moments, some humor, some hopelessness which alternate in intensity, but a burning desire for revenge shines.

Consider, for example, when the Past Earl mentions forgetfulness to him, taking a dig at his state and the society that we live in.

Sure as hell can’t hold a job. Not too many professions out there that value forgetfulness. Prostitution, Maybe. Politics, of course.

Another one, where he blatantly discredits his current state and tries to reinforce his purpose – revenge.

‘So the question is not “to be or not to be”, because you aren’t. The question is whether you want to do something about it. Whether revenge matters to you.’

In his desperation of not being able to do anything with his limited time and a continual reset, he even goes to the extent of blaming his inaction on cowardice.

‘And time eventually convinces most of us that forgiveness is a virtue. Conveniently, cowardice and forgiveness look identical at a certain distance. Time steals your nerve.’ 

And to the advantages of having a list for a person as impaired as him

‘It’s like a letter you write to yourself. A master plan, drafted by the guy who can see the light, made with the steps simple enough for the rest of the idiots to understand. Follow steps one through one hundred. Repeat as necessary.’

And it might sound cliché’d but the wisdom in these words cannot be undermined.

‘After all, everybody else needs mirrors to remind themselves who they are . You are no different’

Although overshadowed by its cinematic counterpart, Memento – a movie by Christopher Nolan, this short story has a lot to offer and promises to stay in your memory much longer than Earl’s.

Eisenheim The Illusionist is a short story written by Steven Milhauser. It was first published in 1989. It tells the story of a magician who becomes so good in his craft that people start believing that he has sold his soul to the devil and can therefore perform real magic.

Eisenheim the Illusionist: Summary & Plot Analysis

Steven Milhauser’s short story ‘Eisenheim the Illusionist’ revolves around a conjurer Eduard Abramowitz, also known as Eisenheim, who is considered the magician da supreme. The story is presented as his short biography, despite the magical occurrences in the plot, which seem other-wordly.

Very little is known of his origins outside the realm of illusion, except for a few details like, Bratislava, where his roots were, and his father being a widely respected cabinet maker, whose creations adorned the homes of gentry there.

The eldest of four children, he was fascinated by woodcraft and by the age of seventeen, was a pretty good cabinetmaker, a skill that came in handy for his future work as a master magician. A chance encounter with a travelling magician is what seemed to have spurred his lifelong – passion for magic.

He accepted his new passion wholeheartedly, albeit a bit slowly, till the age of 24, when he continued to be known for his cabinet making skills much more than those involving magic, .

However, at the age of 28, he burst into the scene with full vigor, appearing in front of a theater in Vienna.

His initial public performances were known for their subtle mastery of the illusions of the day, popular one being the Orange Tree.

As his career progressed, his illusions became more and more nuanced, holding the spectators in awe and aching for more.

His illusions had now become so realistic that people started thinking of him as a wizard instead of a showman -someone who sold his soul to the devil in return for unholy powers.

Cashing in on the popularity, Einsenheim opened his own theater, Einsenheimhaus, which saw his creations become even more original than before. His ascent to magical fame was not, however, unchallenged.

There were two prominent magicians who presented a formidable challenge to Eisenheim – Viennese Benedetti and Bavarian Passauer. Benedetti presented imitations of original Eisenheim illusions with clever variations.

Benedetti, as part of his magic trick, stepped into a black cabinet, never to be seen again. Thereafter, there were rumors of Eisenheim spiriting him away to hell. Such was the impact of Eisenhiem’s personality!

The other magician that posed a much more persistent challenge was Passauer. His masterfully done illusions took Vienna by storm.

Passaeur didn’t attack Eisenheim, and some would say, refused to even acknowledge Eisenheim’s stature as his rival.

However, both Passauer and Eisenheim continued to out-do each other in their subsequent acts, establishing a rhythm to their rivalry.

In his final performance, Passauer exhibited frightening brilliance in his illusions, with the act culminating in him exposing himself as Eisenheim. This received a tumultuous response from the audience.

Following this grand performance, Eisenheim retired from magic for a good one year, perhaps to cope with the strain of a sustained deception.

He comes back to theater, but  this time his magic is centered around materializations, simple at first but becoming increasingly complex and breathtaking over time.

Einseheim began materializing holographic images on the stage, people began drawing parallels between the ones manifested on stage to the real world and started believing them to be ghosts instead.

Ghosts that had an inside track into the other world. His new act brought newer audiences into his fold – psychics as well as spiritualists. People dug around but couldn’t explain this act.

These acts from Eisenheim had a profound impact on the audience and they flocked to the theaters with anticipation.

It was around that time that rumors started about Eisenheim’s impending arrest. Finding the policeman Herr Uhl at the theater stressed the audience.

Police, citing disturbance to the public order as an official reason, justified Eisenheim’s arrest orders. As per police reports, there had been hundred incidents.

Eisenheim, however, was never caught.

He used the same mastery in illusions to escape as he used to entice the audience. A deeper analysis of Uhl’s report revealed that it was the extraordinary nature of Eisenheim’s magic – something that blurs the line between reality and illusion.

Eisenheim the Illusionist: Review

I couldn’t help but compare the story with its cinematic counterpart – The Illusionist, starring Edward Norton and Jessica Biel.

If you liked the short story and haven’t seen the movie, there is a good chance that you will be pleasantly surprised with it. Its filmmakers made significant alteration in the plot to add flavor to it.

At the risk of going completely off-theme, I will leave you with this funny quote from Terry Pratchett – the famous English humorist “Scientists have calculated that the chances of something so patently absurd actually existing are millions to one. But magicians have calculated that million-to-one chances crop up nine times out of ten.”

If the movie or the story failed to bring a smile to your face, this definitely will.

A Good Man Is Hard to Find is a short story written by Flannery O’Connor. It was first published in 1953 in a collection of short stories titled “A Good Man Is Hard to Find.”

You might have heard this old proverb – don’t judge a book by its cover.

In my recent reading experience, I have found that to be equally applicable to the title of the stories which I have been reading lately.

First The Lottery by Shirley Jackson, then Cathedral by Raymond Carver and now this.

I read the title of this story and the first thing that popped in my head was an image of an American version of one of Jane Austen’s leading ladies and her difficult journey to a good man, but hey! What did I know?

A Good Man Is Hard To Find: Summary and Plot Analysis

The story opens with a grandmother trying to convince her son to take a trip to Tennessee where she wanted to meet up with some of her connections.

Her son Bailey and his family, on the other hand, wanted to head to Florida.

The grandmother lives with her son Bailey, her innocent `cabbage faced` daughter-in-law, her grandson John Wesley, her granddaughter June Star and a toddler.

Despite the grandmother trying to convince Bailey to go to Tennessee, citing all sorts of reasons including the presence of an escaped convict in Florida, the family does not budge and it is confirmed as the destination.

On the day of the trip, the grandmother hides her cat in a basket and puts her in the car. She wears a dress and a hat that says she is ‘a lady’ in case they meet with an accident.

She sits with June and John on either side of her. The children engage in their banter and John calls Tennessee a ‘hillbilly dumping ground’ resulting in his grandmother chastising him.

She narrates a rather funny story of her suitor named Edgar Atkins Teagarden.

He used to bring a watermelon for her everyday, leaving it on her porch with his initials on them resulting in a black child eating it mistaking the initials E.A.T as an instruction.

Enroute, the family stops at a restaurant called the Tower, owned by Red Sammy Butts.

Red Sammy mentions people are becoming more and more untrustworthy these days, quoting one incident from the recent past where he let two decent looking men buy gas on credit.

A conversation about Misfit – the escaped convict – starts somehow and the woman worries that he will rob them.

Sammy laments that good men are hard to find these days and the world is worse off for it.

The family gets on the road again and the grandmother takes her intermittent naps, waking up from one to realize that she had visited the plantation in the past and wanted to see it again.

Knowing fully well that her son will not entertain the idea of stopping to look at that place, she crafts a story about the house with a plantation that has secret panels.

This spurs the children’s imagination and they start yelling and screaming to visit it.

Bailey, who is completely against the idea at first, finally agrees to take the family there to handle the ruckus children have created.

The grandmother points him to a dirt road and the family drives deep into the woods, the grandmother suddenly realizes the house that she was mentioning was actually in Tennessee.

Horrified, her feet jerked, upsetting the cat. The cat jumps on a startled Bailey’s shoulder, and he loses control of the car.

Although the car is wrecked, the family escapes unhurt with the exception of Bailey’s wife who had a broken shoulder.

The grandmother decides not to mention anything about her mistake to her son, who is fuming at this point.

They wait for someone to come by to seek help. They see a car approaching from far away and grandmother waves her arms dramatically to attract their attention.

The car stops and three armed men come out of it.

The grandmother has a strange feeling that she recognizes one of those men. One of them asks the mother to settle her children down as they make him nervous.

The grandmother, suddenly realising that one of the men is Misfit, screams out at the Misfit with recognition, upsetting her son, who curses violently at her.

She starts crying and the man starts consoling her. She asks if he would shoot a lady, and the man mentions that it wouldn’t be his preference.

The grandmother keeps telling him that he is a good man and he agrees to that, calling his mother the finest woman and his dad to have had a heart of pure gold.

Hiram and Bobby Lee take Bailey and John into the woods.

The conversation continues between the grandmother and Misfit. Misfit agrees that he is not a good man but not the worst either.

He apologizes to the ladies for not wearing a shirt because they had to bury their clothes after they escaped. He mentions that they borrowed the clothes they’re wearing from some people they met on their way.

The grandmother asks Misfit if he prays to which he says No.

Two gunshots fill the air.

He tells the grandmother that he was not a bad child but remembers having gone to the prison for the crime that he didn’t remember committing. He gets to know from a psychiatrist that he had killed his father. Misfit has no memory of this.

The grandmother urges that he prays so Jesus helps him. Misfit denies doing that as he does not need any help and he is doing good by himself.

Bobby Lee and Hiram come back from the woods, without Bailey and John and hand over a shirt to Misfit. Misfit asks the children’s mother to take the child and June Star with her and go with Bobby Lee and Hiram.

Bobby Lee tries to hold June Star’s hand who ridicules him for looking like a pig.

Realizing her soon-to-be fate, the grandmother starts chanting “Jesus, Jesus”.

He thinks himself to be like Jesus except that he had not committed a crime. He calls himself Misfit because he thinks that the punishment that people get for their crimes do not fit their crimes.

The grandmother hears gunshots again, three this time and cries out for Bailey. She implores him to not shoot a lady.

Misfit continues her conversation about Jesus saying that Jesus confused everyone by raising from the dead. Because if he actually did that, then everyone should follow him.

But if he didn’t actually do that then indulging in meanness in one life is a natural thing for people to do.

The grandmother agrees with him. Misfit wishes he was there to see Jesus raising the dead, he would have known for sure then.

Seeing Misfit’s voice breaking and face contorted as he was going to cry, in her moment of clarity, the grandmother calls the Misfit “one of my own babies,” and touches him on the shoulder.

As if bitten by a snake, Misfit springs on his feet and shoots her in the chest three times.

Bobby Lee and Hiram return, remarking on the grandmother being a talker.

The misfit observes that the grandmother could have been a good woman “if someone was there to shoot her every moment of her life.”

The Misfit says life has no true pleasure.

Want to buy A Good Man Is Hard to Find?

A Good Man Is Hard to Find is a short story which is published in a novel alongwith other short stories written by Flannery O’Connor. You can use the links given below to buy this short story collection on Amazon:

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A Good Man Is Hard To Find: Analysis and Review

There is a quality to this story that’s haunting to the core. The author paints a picture of a regular family taking a trip to Tennessee, talking about things that any regular family talks about, including the news of a cruel murderer who’s on the run from the law.

No one in the family, in fact, not even the reader of the story expects the murderers to actually meet the family in the end and then kill them in cold blood.

There’s a bone-chilling aspect to this story – the further you go in the story, the scarier it becomes, mostly because of the fear of “what’s going to happen next”.

A true classic! The accolades that A Good Man is Hard to Find has received is a testimony to that. This is certainly Flannery O’Connor’s best work.

First published in 1953, this story has inspired a lot of scholarly work and on-screen adaptations.

The story was adapted into a film called Black Hearts Bleed Red in 1992 and a modern chamber opera in 2003.