This short story collection goes on sale tomorrow.\u00c2\u00a0 I received a reviewer’s copy via LibraryThing’s Early Reviewer program.<\/p>\n
The stories are bookended by a fictional foreword and afterword.\u00c2\u00a0 The foreword is a good introduction to this collection.\u00c2\u00a0 Jay Katz, the fictional author, sets out to find the identities of the Lamedh-Vov after finding a parchment with names in a synagogue excavation site.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0The Lamedh-Vov\u00c2\u00a0are thirty-six individuals that keep the world from spiraling into chaos.\u00c2\u00a0 Their presence brings balance to the world.\u00c2\u00a0 They are ordinary people living ordinary lives.\u00c2\u00a0 Katz travels for a year collecting the stories of the individuals.\u00c2\u00a0 During that year he collected one story for every month.\u00c2\u00a0 His plan is to disappear and collect more of the stories.\u00c2\u00a0 The afterword is supposed to\u00c2\u00a0provide substantiation to the disappearing act.<\/p>\n
The stories themselves are fables or parables.\u00c2\u00a0 Most probably\u00c2\u00a0aren’t appropriate for a younger\u00c2\u00a0reader due to their sexual content.\u00c2\u00a0 Two stand out stories are “Dalet The Thief” and “Heyh The Clown”.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n
Dalet puts forth the minimum amount of effort to practice his trade.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s laughable how he repeatedly steals the same items so the owner can retrievethe stolen goods\u00c2\u00a0with coins as payment.\u00c2\u00a0 Dalet’s encounter with the baker’s daughter results in actions that change the course of the village’s residents.\u00c2\u00a0 In this story it’s quite possible there is more than one Lamedh-Vov but\u00c2\u00a0Katz has replaced the names of the Lamedh-Vov with letters from the Hebrew alphabet.<\/p>\n
Heyh is a clumsy girl who lives with a circus.\u00c2\u00a0 She tries to be successful at each task assigned to her but all she meets is failure.\u00c2\u00a0 The audience laughs at her mistakes.\u00c2\u00a0 In fact, they are pleased to see someone fail so spectacularly that she steals their attention from the other performers.\u00c2\u00a0 Heyh recognizes the laughter and attention is not from joy but contempt.\u00c2\u00a0 It isn’t until she produces a joyful laugh that she truly becomes a star.<\/p>\n
The short stories prove to be a\u00c2\u00a0refreshing break from novels with long narratives.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
This short story collection goes on sale tomorrow.\u00c2\u00a0 I received a reviewer’s copy via LibraryThing’s Early Reviewer program. The stories are bookended by a fictional foreword and afterword.\u00c2\u00a0 The foreword is a good introduction to this collection.\u00c2\u00a0 Jay Katz, the fictional author, sets out to find the identities of the Lamedh-Vov after finding a parchment… Continue reading The Book of the Unknown: Tales of the Thirty-Six by Jonathon Keats<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[110,111],"class_list":["post-927","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-review","tag-jonathon-keats","tag-the-book-of-the-unknown-tales-of-the-thirty-six","entry"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.amberstults.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/927","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.amberstults.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.amberstults.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.amberstults.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.amberstults.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=927"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"http:\/\/www.amberstults.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/927\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2533,"href":"http:\/\/www.amberstults.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/927\/revisions\/2533"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.amberstults.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=927"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.amberstults.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=927"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.amberstults.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=927"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}