Fiction, Essays, and Other Things

Iceland is one of those rapidly decreasing places on Earth that are a testament to the beauty of raw nature unaided by the commodities of man. It is nature herself in all her merciless ruggedness and unforgiving severity. But is also nature at her most majestic and her unmitigated glory, offering rewards to those who approach her on her own terms. The Vikings who first set foot on the shores of this small island braved the frigid air, the gales and the sterile soil, but soon found that livestock fared better than crops. And now the Icelandic pony is a source of national pride. Indeed, for such a remote and largely unsettled place, few creatures have flourished in Iceland. The arctic fox was the only land mammal present when the Norsemen arrived and the species continues to thrive in Iceland. A thousand years later reindeer would be imported from Norway but have largely vanished from the western part of the island. Occasionally a wayward bat finds its way to Iceland, but a colony has ...

  “The Open Window” by Saki (H.H. Munro) is a ghost story perfect in its simplicity, succinct storytelling and economic pacing. It is also not really about ghosts at all. It is about the power of suggestion and the creation of our own reality. It’s a gem. To describe it is to risk spoiling the fun so the premise will have to suffice. A Mr. Framton Nuttel arrives at a lonely inn in the Scottish Highlands to relieve his nerves and anxiety. Unfortunately, he arrives at the wrong inn. Vera, the teenage niece of Ms. Sappleton who runs the inn, begins telling him why her aunt insists on leaving a certain window open in the October frost. Three years earlier to the day, her aunt’s husband along with her two brothers went off for a shooting trip and were drowned in the marshes. In denial, her grieving aunt still leaves the window open upon each anniversary of the tragedy convinced that her husband and brothers (and their dog) will one day return. Indeed, the set-up will sound familiar ...

  All things considered it is puzzling that 1953’s Peter Pan is of all of Walt Disney’s animated adaptations the one least structurally altered from the source material. And yet, the tonal differences from J.M. Barrie’s play and (later) book are significant. Structurally there are but little changes inevitable when taking something first written for theater then molded into a children’s book and then into a whole new medium. The most obvious one is the piece requiring audience participation (“clap if you believe in fairies”; though this was retained in the book). But, overall, it is truly astounding how closely Disney followed Barrie’s plot down to small details. Being introduced to Neverland and its characters through the Disney classic and then watching thematic elements start to emerge with later adaptations of Barrie’s work it is a pleasant surprise to find that Barrie never hid the work’s deeper and sometimes darker undertones. They were there from the start when Peter Pan ...