BW BC 10: To Sleep, Perchance to Dream

This week’s stories continue the thread from last week. As in Maugham’s “Lord Mountdrago” we have dreams, dreamers, and doubles. We also get another classic from the Arabian Nights.

We start with Giovanni Papini’s “The Sick Gentleman’s Last Visit”. Papini was an Italian writer active during the early half of the 20th century. As such he oscillated between reactionary and revolutionary politics, coming to rest on Catholic Conservatism and in particular Fascism. So that’s that. Jorge Borges called him “undeservedly forgotten”. Jorge Borges’s politics would likely disappoint me too.

In “The Sick Man’s Last Visit” we have another story about a troubled man coming to a stranger in the hopes the stranger can solve the man’s troubles. The Sick Man’s problem is that he’s realized that he’s not alive, but in fact being dreamt by someone else, and he’s desperate to find this individual and wake them up. Things get murky because as the Sick Man explains his troubles you kind of aren’t sure if he’s being dreamt by a human or some immortal being. And the story never resolves that question. Personally I’m fine with that. I like those stories that are just some character recounting some weirdness they saw and saying “Ain’t that some crazy shit?” before walking out the door. Your mileage may vary.

Next story, “Insomnia” by Cuban writer Virgilio Pinera, is a flash length horror story about a man who can’t sleep. After consulting with experts, and attempting all sorts of remedies without success, the man buys a gun and blows his brains out. This kills him, but it doesn’t put him to sleep. Insomnia is most persistent that way.

The other flash length story in this bunch is simply called “A Dream” and it’s from the Arabian Nights. This is another classic where a man dreams that there’s a great treasure in a house in Cairo and sets about traveling there. After many adventures he reaches Cairo and finds the house, but before he can go there, he gets caught in some mischief and arrested by the police. After a beating the police ask him why he was at the house in the first place. When he recounts his dream the chief of police laughs at him and says, “I too dreamt of a great treasure in a certain place, but I’m not a moron who listens to dreams”. Of course the certain place the police chief mentions is known by the first man and is in fact his house back home. He returns home, finds the treasure there as the police chief’s dream foretold, and lives happily ever after.

Last, we have “The Storm” by Jules Verne.

Confession time: this was my actual first Verne. So color me surprised by this story, which I take as being atypical for Verne as it’s more a weird story than a science fiction story.

Here we have a Doctor Trifulgas, who’s your awful miserly doctor. He’s inside while a storm rages outside, and so when a waif comes to his door to ask the doctor to come visit her dad who’s lying on his deathbed, the doctor says no because the man’s poor and the family can’t possibly pay him. After the waif comes the man’s wife, then his mother. Each time they offer more money to Doctor Trifulgas until finally he sees the trip out there as a bargain, and so he goes off out into the storm. The path’s horrible, rain slick and barren. The man’s mother disappears, and the doctor’s left with nothing but a dog to guide his way. He reaches the house, finally, but he doesn’t find the sick man in the bed he was told to suspect. Instead, he finds himself lying there, and things proceed to their inevitable bewildering conclusion from there.

This one surprised me. It was a lot more atmospheric than I expected. If life were longer

I would probably try to read more Verne.

Next week, Edgar Allan Poe and Daphne Du Maurier!