Canterbury Tales (2)
Once an Old Man was walking in the countryside outside of Canterbury. As he walked along he met a traveller. “Excuse me,” said the traveller. “I’m going to Canterbury and I’ve never been there before. Have you any idea what it’s like?”
- “Where are you from?” asked the Old Man?
- “Whiteslope,” said the traveller.
- “Well, what’s that like?” asked the Old Man.
- “Oh, it’s a dreadful place,” said the man.
- “Well, I expect you’ll find Canterbury just the same,” said the Old Man. “Oh, dear,” said the traveller, and went on his way.
Whiteslope, the traveller says.
In the easternmost city of Whiteslope, beyond which, some say, there’s only wasteland and fallout, people stroll up and down the main promenade of the park. On a fine day they pass the old local busker, strumming his guitar as he delivers in a worn out, husky voice songs of love – Whiteslope, Whiteslope, my beloved … Locals walk on by, as if slightly embarrassed by such an outpouring of affection. ‘Beware the old man’, mothers seem to whisper when their curious kids run too close. It’s tourists and travellers that stop and drop a coin into his hat.
more on travellers
thanks for that, and for the link too; mind you, you shouldn’t always identify the author with the narrator or the characters.
Of course not. Did I really? Just tried to match the style you adopted for your Tales and went my own way. You raise an interesting point though, Michał, that somehow concerns anybody who writes in this space.
Don’t you think that the blog, more than any other form of writing these days, does away with the traditional author-narrator-reader hierarchy? They are all dynamically interlocked in this novel form, their roles constantly shifting. There might be a story-oriented redear leaving a comment to this in an hour, who we’ll have to respect as an author/narrator/character in his own right.
I’d even risk saying that if the author is barely lurking in a blog, it loses its attraction for the reader, whose role is paradoxically most important.
Mario will be happy to discuss this.