Last Stories
By: William Trevor / Narrated By: Simon Vance
Length: 4 hrs and 58 mins
ALL Yikes! -and- Good Cow! Basically? Typical William Trevor…
It was like this, see…
Back when I was All Things Irish—you know, cuz I was going to marry Paul Hewson, aka Bono—I discovered William Trevor and his short stories. As someone of a literary bent m’self, I devoured all his books of short stories. Even more? Well, that literary bent o’ mine took me to my first Creative Writing course in college. That year was a triiiiifle fraught, and my stories reflected my frame of mind… and who-all’s writing I was reading at the time (You shoulda seen my Flannery O’Connor-Inspired story… talk about Yikes!).
My W. Trevor story? A subdued little piece whereby a young woman chooses the insanity of an unreciprocated crush over true love, leaving the true love to stagger (Most dramatically!) out of a nightclub, dripping in pain and sorrow.
A wee bit like Trevor’s stories, ya know?
I’m not going to give you a summary or comment on each of the ten stories, Trevor’s final stories, in Last Stories, because, you see, they are soooo typical of his themes, his writing style.
Maximum—and keen—observational skills in lovely, powerful, but incredibly subdued writing.
-BUT-
Each, tho’ not specifically tragedies, open a window into the Hearts of Darkness of the characters, the possibilities of darkness inherent in all men/women/even children. A piano teacher willing to overlook kleptomania in her pupil because he’s just so danged talented -or- a talented art-restorer who suffers from amnesia falling victim to theft by someone trusted (Big Sis noted this as one o’ the “brighter” ones since the man was okay in himself despite his circumstances, all being stolen from him… so… uhm… yay?!?).
Things, in each story, go tra lala lala, low-key, until the end, where Trevor brings out his Signature Black Soul of Mankind 2-by-4 to WHONK! the beJESus outta the listener, leaving said listener scratching one’s head and feeling like waaaay too much crud happens in Life, and ain’t it all a Pity?
Simon Vance? Stellar as always, even his female characters (In the past, I’ve dinged him for getting a bit silly when portraying women, making them sound girlish, or coming out with notes of falsetto…) are true to the writing. My only ding for THIS compilation is that the Endings/Last Lines are a wee bit rushed, and Trevor’s Last Lines are notable for being the Major WHONKS! of the writing.
One more thing? Production: The stories blend into each other, with only a slight pause between them. Given how subdued Trevor’s writing is, how low-key Vance’s performance is, I did, a few times, think a story was continuing, getting confused, when actually a new story had started.
All in all? I still love Trevor, but I think that has more to do with the fact I named one of my Sweetest Cats of ALL Time after him. Now THAT was one specTACular little boy!!!
A bit of a bummer, typical Trevor.
-BUT-
One Damned Fine Cat!!!
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