Fragile Things Group Read, Week 2 Ketchup

Alright, remember I’m playing ketchup with the group read for Fragile Things by Neil Gaiman. And, once again, there will be SPOILERS. For the second week, the stories were:

The Hidden Chamber

Forbidden Brides of the Faceless Slaves in the Secret House of the Night of Dread Desire

The Flints of Memory Lane

Closing Time

The Hidden Chamber: Another poem. Dark and frightening “knowing that there’s a space without a door knowing that there’s a place that’s locked but isn’t there.” That line really stood out. Gaiman really knows how to write. It’s a poem about Bluebeard. I had to do some homework and once I did and reread it, this poem made a lot more sense and was even more chilling.

Forbidden Brides of the yadda yadda yadda: This story I found quite silly and fun. It’s a “facetious” (a word a learned from Neil’s introduction and now love) gothic thriller with a pretentious writer trying to write a... gothic thriller, who then comes face to face with a long lost brother who has returned to claim his birthright to only then be killed by the writer brother. It makes me smile thinking about it. Oh, just read this!

“Yes - I! I, your elder brother, whom you thought dead these many years. But I am not dead - or, perhaps, I am no longer dead - and I have come back - aye, come back from ways that are best left untraveled - to claim what is truly mine.”

Then just a paragraph down there’s this...

“Proof? I need no proof. I claim birth-right, and blood-right - and death-right!”

Cracks me up!

The Flints of Memory Lane: This one didn’t leave much of an impression. It’s a recollection of a unimpressive ghostly encounter.

Closing Time: Okay, all I want to know is what happened to the three boys that walked into the play house and if that old man in the end was one of them, why didn’t he say what happened?!

Alright, so in this batch of stories I liked three out of four. Let’s see what the third week stories bring...