Since venturing through London’s “To Build a Fire” with 10th graders over the past few years, I’ve been toying with recording it or something else by London. This year with only 12th grade classes, happily, and am not confined to reading the “in class” story I’d continually planned to record but never got around to. Yes, “To Build a Fire” is excellent, particularly as it can be returned to again and again, each time in a new, fresh way. Still, I wanted to do something lesser know, but more exotic.
I wanted to add Jack London to the list and so I choose the simple tale “The Story of Kleesh” —and simple it is. After the read, I see (hear) it was not a challenging choice. A “read once” story, it is not one of great complexity. One listen and you know all, and like so many of Poe’s stories, once you know the “twist,” there’s no reason for a revisit. But it was fun and an opportunity to conflate any differentiation between any number of the flat stock characters. Neither does one have to worry about character development. More like a bedtime read for slightly older children.
Now that I’ve done a thourough job of discouraging you from listening, I envite you to listen anyway… As might be suspected, this was read for LibriVox.
Tags: LibriVox Asides, News, Short Stories // Comments Off
