BIBLE REPAIRMAN Short Stories Fall Short
This is a collection of short stories by Tim Powers. Each of these stories deals in some way with ghosts or souls of the deceased. The title does not give a good indication of the book’s content. Perhaps one of the other stories would give readers a better sense of the book, like “A Soul in a Bottle”. The stories take place in various time settings and places. None of them have the same characters. Each story stands alone.
Tim Powers has an interesting voice in his writing and each of the stories quickly catches the reader. Each one draws the reader in to an interesting environment or characters. While the book as a whole has similar themes through out the short stories, each one has it’s own style or flavor. This is an enjoyable read. The drawback to these being short stories is there is little time to set up the story and let it unfold. Most of the stories felt unfinished.
The title story, “The Bible Repairman”, ends with too many unanswered questions and not enough pay off for the set up. It feels like once the reader has accepted the protagonist and the oddities of his world we leave him with out knowing his fate or the outcome of the situation that has been set up. The last story “A Time to Cast Away Stones”, is the longest and probably allows the reader the most time to live in the setting. The story it’s self is a bit confusing as it deals with a mix of fact, fiction and myth.
I found the notes by the author at the end of each story to be insightful and help with an understanding and appreciation of the preceding story. I don’t know if those will be included in the final published version. I hope that they are and in fact they could be expanded a bit to give the reader a stronger connection with the author. Or perhaps a forward that handles all of the notes would be appropriate.
While I enjoyed the creative story telling, each story was a bit like an appetizer. It whet the appetite but was not a satisfying meal. I think that it is wholly possible for a shot story to be full filling but most of these miss the mark.
I bought this collection for the zany title alone. I’ve read a few Powers novels, so It was fun to read some of his shorter works. I think my favorites were Parallel Lines, and A Journey of Only Two Paces. I know A Time to Cast Away Stones is the famous one, and I did like it, but I was never big into Shelley or Byron or any of those folks, so I know I’m missing out on a lot. Had the same problem with The Stress of Her Regard. But I do still love Powers!
I enjoyed both of your favorites. “Parallel Lines” struck me with the unexpected. It was the twist that I was not expecting and thus enjoyed all the more. I still would have liked a bit more to the story. I even caught myself thinking of this story when I was visiting my dear Great Aunt who recently celebrated her 102 birthday. Aging does not make a person nicer, or grant them more social graces. It seems in my observation to simply make them more of the same person they have always been. I think there was more that could have been explored in who these people are or were and how they came to where we find them.
“A Journey of Only Two Paces” is perhaps the most complete story in this collection. It is short and yet at the end I felt that was the end of the story. It is also a lovely weave of human folly, location and other worldly entities.
I didn’t know that “A Time to Cast Away Stones” was the famous one. I found it to be the hardest one to read. I am also not “into” Shelley or Bryon. But it was also the confussing way the story played between history, myth, and pure fiction.