Many tend to think of a "tale" as an account of dubious origins -- a "tattle-tale" or an "old wives' tale." And yet, as in Geoffrey Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, a tale can also be a story that tells us as much about the person who relates it as it does about the subject of the story. In a way, any first-person narrative is a tale, especially when the narrator proves to be unreliable. The stories we read to children are also, generally tales; they begin with "Once upon a time" or "In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit." Tales have a teller, and usually benefit from being read aloud. And anything, it seems, can happen in them: genies from lamps can grant three wishes, a ship can sail for a thousand years, and Death can knock on your door. Tales also aren't interested in people's interior motives, and require no credulity for place or character -- we are told "there was a town," "there was a miller with three sons," or "there was a mountain so high that no-one could see the top of it" -- and we accept these wonders as givens. We've been telling tales to each other for well over ten thousand years.
The story -- that is, the "short story" -- is a far more recent invention. In stories, life generally resembles the life we're experiencing on a daily basis, though if set in an unfamiliar place, it will be the everyday life of that other location. People in short stories are expected to think and behave in a way we can understand, in which we can discern motives, desires, fears, and doubts. And, although in the special domain of "magical realism" (think Like Water for Chocolate), extraordinary things can happen, psychological "realism" still rules. No castles, no orcs, no boot-wearing cats, and no hobbits, alas, are to be found in literary short fiction.
Thankfully, there are a few writers who bridge the gap between "story" and "tale," whose fictions feast on fancy and yet retain something of the indescribable essence of actuality. One of the finest of these is Steven Millhauser, winner of both the Pulitzer Prize and the Story Prize, who over his forty-year career has established himself as the master of a certain peculiar kind of short fiction, immersed in the fabulous and yet realistic as well, and attentive to every detail. In his short story, "Flying Carpets," he asks just one slightly improbable question: what would happen if kids were given magic carpets -- carpets on which they could actually fly out their bedroom windows? What then?
So read this story. Take note of its language, its structure, its voice. How does Millhauser work his magic? What makes it similar to, yet different, from other stories you may have read. And is it a story after all, or is it -- a tale? -- and which do you prefer, and why?
Millhauser’s Flying Carpets struck me as a brilliant story on the edges of a tale. What stood out for me immediately was how Millhauser incorporated the flying carpet element in a matter-of-fact voice. Tales tend to introduce the magical elements in a more outlandish and surreal fashion. I caught myself rereading the second paragraph to double check that this child was in fact describing a flying carpet. Millhauser structured the story so that the surreal and real seemed to disappear into each other, becoming inseparable, making it difficult to discern reality from imagination; that was his magic.
ReplyDeleteOne of my favorite lines in the story was the child describing the cloud high feeling “that I was running, tumbling, crawling, pursued by blue.” Here again, one can imagine what it would feel like being immersed in nothing but sky and how that could be extremely frightening and exhilarating all at once; the reality of one’s emotions and fears dissolving into an imagined state of mind. I truly loved reading this story because of how Millhauser captures the reader into almost believing this one child’s grand adventure that summer.
The first short story that came to mind, similar to Millhauser’s was Ice Man by Haruki Murakami. Murakami structured his story with the same melding of story and tale. The main character falls in love with an “ice man.” Murakami leaves exactly who this man is and how he is very ambiguous, reinforcing the uncertainty of reality and surrealism. One of the main differences between the two short stories is the voice of each author. Millhauser’s story seemed very innocent and child-like; almost a cautionary tale about knowing one’s own limits and fleeting summers. Murakami’s story was very grave in tone, cold in a sense. It was told from a young woman’s point of view in a very somber, mournful voice. Both stories though were able to transport the reader in a world that dealt with reality while being enmeshed in imagination.
I loved reading fairy tales growing up but I also found myself attracted to stories as well. I believe that when carefully crafted, a joining of the two can lead to such great works as Millhauser’s and Murakami’s. In life such great things can come from one’s imagination, it’s what makes us creative and human. Tales as such, represent life and people; it’s the spring where stories get their grounding, so I love it when the elements from both find a good home!
Millhauser's story flows so nicely, it's as if you're reading the thoughts directly out of the child's mind. I found myself getting lost in his descriptions of the neighborhood and the sky because they really painted a picture in my head. At one point, a line made me think of this story as a tale inside itself. "My father had taught me not to believe stories about Martians and spaceships, and these tales were like those stories..." I just thought it was interesting that we learn about tales and then read stories about characters with their own tales.
ReplyDeleteFlying Carpets is unlike most of the other stories that I've read, mostly due to the voice and type of language, but I enjoyed it nonetheless. I'd definitely like to read more stories similar to this one.
Grace Baldwin.
ReplyDelete"Flying Carpets" to me, is told in a way as though there is already background knowledge on the story. However, the way Millhauser writes it, it is easy to pick up on what is going on in the story very quickly. I like the brilliance behind the character telling a tale within the story. This connects me as the reader closer to the actual events. At first I thought that the story was lacking structure until i reread it and realized that it has a lot more to it than I had thought in the first place. This story is different from other stories since it starts off almost as if the narrator assumes that the reader already has prior knowledge about these special carpets. The descriptions are very clear and it is easy to see exactly what is being described. When the narrator tells the tale, I anticipated him going up into the clouds himself, and seeing all the wonders that he described. All in all, this story holds a different kind of brilliance from other stories through the tale within a story, and it makes it hard to choose whether I prefer a story or a tale.
The story was a little confusing, but I liked it. I have read stories like this before, stories that take you along for the ride and the writing captures you and you can picture exactly what the author is writing. I felt like I was watching an animated movie in my head as I read the words. It is different because it is like our world, but different because the main character acts like it is normal for everyone to get flying carpets. It feels like it takes place in the past and the future at the same time. As if it could be in the 1960's or 3060's, and that is part of the magic. The main character confused me, because most of the kids I know, myself included, would have loved to have a flying carpet and would have gone everywhere on it. But this character seemed to prefer the ground, like he would prefer a story over a tale. I prefer tales, and I believe this work is a tale. I prefer tales because I can escape while reading them. For an little while, my life disappears and a new one takes its place.
ReplyDelete"Flying Carpets" is a story with a hint of fairy tale. Millhauser cleverly slips in the idea of magic carpets being an everyday item, such as a tricycle. With descriptive imagery and detailed symbolism he paints a picture most can relate to. Throughout the story he talks about most thoughts that go through a growing boys mind. It is different from most stories because the author takes something from a fairy tale and makes it “real”.
ReplyDeletePersonally, I prefer fairy tales. On the whole, stories tend to be predictable and overly descriptive of things already familiar to me. I enjoy fairy tales not only for the theatrical telling of them, but you get to read about places, creatures, and concepts otherwise foreign to anything you had seen before. Reading fairy tales gives you a window into an individual’s imagination in which every tale has its own unique twist.
Megan Cahill-Assneza
ReplyDeleteSteven Millhauser incorporates elements from both a tale and a short story in his fiction piece, Flying carpets, which makes this piece individually unique. Millhauser demonstrates this through the use of language, structure, and voice. The story is told in a first person retrospective narration. This technique is recognizable for short stories, and not for tales. There is not a teller in this story to make this story specifically a tale. What makes this piece demonstrate an element of a tale is that the characters are not in wonder or shocked by magic carpets. When the boy’s father gives the magic carpet to his son, the language depicts that the magic carpet nothing more ordinary then a toy and is no different than a bike. The narrator states, “I was no more tempted to rise into the sky that I was tempted to plunge downhill on my bike with arms crossed over my chest” (68). This story is also like a tale in a way that the readers are given a sense that anything could happen by certain words Millhauser uses, such as dreamily or dream. “Dreamily I pushed the window higher and raised the screens” (69). In addition, when the narrator describes his rug as it opened “like a dark liquid rushing from a bottle,” it gives readers the image of a magic potion.
Millhauser use of visual imagery and auditory imagery, as well as similes and metaphors combine the fantastical and the realism of a tale and short story. The usage of the concrete details of colors help readers distinguish between the two elements of a tale and short story. The usage of blue to distinguish the sky, “[u]p there in the blue beyond blue…” and “dream-blue air” gives the story the sense of awe, wonder, and freedom (72, 69). The colors, red, black, green, brown, are used to describe what the boy sees down on the ground when flying on his carpet. “…I saw the green hose…the street with its sheen of red from the traffic lights…Down below I saw little red and black roofs…” (69, 71, 73).
The structure of the piece has very long detailed sentences, which give readers the sense of how vast and overwhelming it may be flying in the sky and looking below. Also, within the sentences, the author juxtaposes the magical and the realism. “I seem to sit suspended in the air beyond my window; below I saw the green hose looped on its hook, the handles and the handle-shadows on the tops of the metal garbage cans…” (69).
This piece is beautifully and well written through the strong descriptions, similes, and metaphors. The story reminded me of Alice in Wonderland, Harry Potter, Aladdin, and Kiki’s Delivery’s service. I do not know if I prefer a tale over a short story. I know I do like the combination between the two.
Millhauser has an excellent style of writing. His sentence structure is very simplistic, and the language he uses is humble and very understandable. I like the way he is able to incorporate flying carpets into the real world, yet still make it totally believable. His story is very whimsical, and fills the reader with a sense of childhood wonder. I think the story is just a story, i feel as though not enough happens during it to make it a tale. The character does not set out to achieve a goal, only outgrows a childhood toy. Which is, perhaps, quite sad.
ReplyDeleteThese are great responses to the Millhuaser story -- it's good to see how it works on many levels. The story can be read allegorically, of course; the carpets represent childhood wonder, wonder which, along with other childish things, must be put away as adolescence and adulthood beckon. But that would seem to me to cheapen the story; I tend to see it more as an exploration of that wonder, in a world in which everything -- except the carpets -- is real, sometimes painfully so. Which explains why staying closer to the ground may, at times, be more appealing than flying high.
ReplyDelete