Forty Stories collects forty of Donald Barthelme's short stories, several of which originally appeared in The New Yorker. The book was first published by G. P. Putnam's Sons in 1987.
While Sixty Stories includes many longer narratives, the stories in Forty Stories are pithy. Many last for fewer than five pages, and display Barthelme's flash fictional tendencies. They also abound in historical references and surreal juxtapositions. One story involves a World War I Secret Police investigator, a trio of German warplanes, and the artist Paul Klee. Another is a parodic rewriting of the fairy-tale Bluebeard, perhaps inspired by Angela Carter's story "The Bloody Chamber." Yet another consists of a single seven-page-long sentence (without a concluding period).
The following stories appear in the book:
- Chablis
- On the Deck
- The Genius
- Opening
- Sindbad
- The Explanation
- Concerning the Bodyguard
- RIF
- The Palace at Four A.M.
- Jaws
- Conversations with Goethe
- Affection
- The New Owner
- Paul Klee
- Terminus
- The Educational Experience
- Bluebeard
- Departures
- Visitors
- The Wound
- At the Tolstoy Museum
- The Flight of Pigeons from the Palace
- A Few Moments of Sleeping and Waking
- The Temptation of St. Anthony
- Sentence
- Pepperoni
- Some of Us Had Been Threatening Our Friend Colby
- Lightning
- The Catechist
- Porcupines at the University
- Sakrete
- Captain Blood
- 110 West Sixty-first Street
- The Film
- Overnight to Many Distant Cities
- Construction
- Letters to the Editore
- Great Days
- The Baby
- January
Read more about Forty Stories: Sixty Stories
Famous quotes containing the words forty and/or stories:
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“Long before I wrote stories, I listened for stories. Listening for them is something more acute than listening to them. I suppose it’s an early form of participation in what goes on. Listening children know stories are there. When their elders sit and begin, children are just waiting and hoping for one to come out, like a mouse from its hole.”
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