"The Yellow Paint" by Robert Louis Stevenson

"The Yellow Paint" by Robert Louis Stevenson (1896, 3 pages)

Last year I read and posted on Robert Louis Stevenson's Doctor Jekyll and Mr Hyde.    Doctor Jekyll and Mr Hyde created a character (or characters) that are known to millions who have never read the book and probably have never heard of  the author.     In this work Stevenson (1850 to 1894-Edinburgh, Scotland) has tapped into something universal in the human experience almost everyone can relate to-dealing with dualities of good and evil within yourself.     I really enjoyed this work and wanted to read other works by Stevenson.    His other most famous works are Kidnapped and Treasure Island.   Many love his travel writings.


I was happy today to see that East of the Web was featuring a very short story by Stevenson, "The Yellow Paint".    The story is in the O Henry/Saki short story mode though I think most would say he was a better writer than either of these two(this is not a cut on Saki-who I am starting to quite like-or O Henry).    


1896 was a time when "Patent Medicine" was very popular.   These were bromides guaranteed to protect against all illness.    "The Yellow Paint" opens with these lines:

In a certain city there lived a physician who sold yellow paint. This was of so singular a virtue that whoso was bedaubed with it from head to heel was set free from the dangers of life, and the bondage of sin, and the fear of death for ever.

At first the young man the story centers on sees the paint sold by the doctor as just another fraud.   Then two months latter his close friend dies in an accident and the young man goes back and gets himself painted.   I do not want to tell any more of this marvelous story.   Stevenson does a lot with just three pages.    I think anyone who has read and enjoyed one of his canon status works will be happy they took the few minutes this story will require of them.  

 

I can for sure see Stevenson's main works, at least Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, being read 200 years from now on space ships!    I am confident Klingons would relate well to his main work..



It can be read online.

"Pigs is Pigs" by Eliis Parker Butler-Another Famous Writer New to Me

"Pigs is Pigs"   by Ellis Parker Butler (1905, 5 pages)





I wanted to begin my reading of short stories for this year with a new to me writer.     I looked at some of the web pages I have found productive for this in the past.   On Classic Reader I found a link to several stories by an Ellis Parker Butler.     I had never heard of this writer so I did some quick research.   It turns out Ellis Parker Butler (1869 to 1937-USA-Iowa) published over 30 books and 250 short stories.   In his day he was the most published short story writer in America.     His work must no longer be in fashion as I could find no book blog posts on him.    His short stories were published in inexpensive publications called "pulp magazines".   According to my research, his most famous short story, and perhaps the only one likely to be anthologized is "Pigs are Pigs".      His stories were published in the same magazines as Mark Twain,  F. Scott Fitzgerald and Edgard Rice Burroughs.

"Pigs are Pigs" opens in a train station.   One of the two main characters has two guinea pigs that he wants to ship.    The shipper says they are his pets and the station master says they are pigs as in "Pigs are Pigs".   Pets can be shipped for $0.25 and pigs for $0.30.    The station master insists on the higher fee and the owner of the animals won't budge.    The owner leaves the animals with the station master.   He tells the station master he is going to contact the higher authorities at the railroad and he warns him that if his animals are not there when he gets back he will sue!.    

A comic set of delays occurs and months go by.   Different departments of the railroad insist it is not there job to make a decision.   In the mean time back at the station the male and female guinea pigs do what they are famous for and, not to tell too much of the fun plot, by the time the man makes his first return trip to the station 2 pigs are now 36.   But it gets worse now, much worse (and funny also).   This is a funny well written story with a bit of annoying dialect in the conversation.    (Maybe that is part of why is work is no longer much read.)

Some how as I was reading this story it made me think of the Star Trek episode, "The Trouble with Tribbles"!

"Pigs are Pigs" is a funny story very much in the O Henry mode.    It can be read online.    Maybe he did not survive as a canon status writer because his other stories are not as good as "Pigs are Pigs".   I would describe "Pigs are Pigs" as good entertainment.  It is rooted in its time and place and perhaps his stories do not appeal much to those  culturally remote from the period he wrote about.    He published his stories in magazines like "The Saturday Afternoon Post", not in literary magazines edited by Ford Madox Ford or John Middleton Murry.  

If anyone has any suggestions for short stories I might like and can read online please post a comment.

Mel u