Comment: I will just write a small comment on this literary work that I've recently read. This is a
book I had in the shelf since 2006, an edition I got in Portuguese. As I've said before, I tend to, more often, read literary or classic books that have an older type of writing in Portuguese because it's easier to get some things that way. In this case I'm glad I did because the language used was both beautiful and complex and I'm certain I'd have missed a lot had I tried in its original language.
In this collection of stories, the poet leads the reader through an amazing journey, where each reality is different, surreal, often dreamlike and sometimes without an obvious conclusion to reach.
I'm positive that, for those really interested in the work of Dylan Thomas besides the amazing poem Don't Go Gentle Into that Good Night, there are several sources to be used and to explore his talent as a writer, a poet and other things he produced.
I confess I wasn't that familiar with what he has done, he's not a poet often studied in Portuguese schools and even in the university it's more common to focus on others.
The collection of short stories I've read can be divided into two parts: a set of stories that have an obvious paranormal feel, in the sense many elements are very dreamlike and not set on "our" reality, and the second group, a little easier to grasp since they were thought purposely to be read on the air on BBC radio.
I admit I liked the second style of stories more because it was easier to focus on something, to follow a line of thought, to understand what was I was really reading.
The first set of stories probably has a meaning but the words are so lyrical, so poetic, so surreal in their images that I was often confused. Yes, the sentences, the images created while reading are gorgeous and beautiful to simply read but how complicated to concentrate on if what is being described is weird and unlike any real scene we could compare to.
Its beauty is, at the same time, its biggest complexity.
To be honest, I couldn't really get into each tale individually because they are all very difficult to describe or to comment on.
Another reader whose review I saw said the prose is so complex that it got frustrating to understand. I can agree with this idea but perhaps the interest of the experience is that, to confuse and to make the reader aware of their limitations and how close minded we might be. Or maybe this is just one way of trying to interpret it.
All things considered, this felt a little too vague though, for me to fully savor and enjoy the tales, and in the end I think what sticks is how the stories were done and not as much what they were supposed to mean.
Grade: 5/10
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