The Donkey - by Frederic

[Bruin Fisher]

_{This short story is one of the Dude's current Picks from the Past.}

_{I don't know how I've missed reading it before (perhaps I haven't and my ageing memory is failing me) but I'm very glad I've now read it.}

_{A great piece of writing, very well crafted. Its elegant prose gives a convincing portrayal of an awkward episode, as so often such episodes are for adolescents. Bravely told, I hope its telling had the desired effect of putting unresolved emotions to bed.}

_{Great storytelling, Frederic.}

[Rutabaga]

Definitely some awkwardness there. I could relate to the "this is it" feeling, although my own did not come until I was 17.

[Merkin]

I’m so glad I read The Donkey before it became a ghost again, shunted back into the Past to make room for another month’s recall by the Dude, who is so skillful and cunning with his gentle hints to us to revisit the archive.

The Donkey is, in my estimation, what writing is all about: a creation of a certain time and space that for a moment at least, becomes a construct so alive in the mind of a reader that it fills all of his senses. The conviction of the story allows it to exist, even if momentarily, as a vision of an acceptable reality that we experience as though we were there.

The talent of a writer like Frederic who can conjure this vision is impressive. And the words! The words are so lovely, so carefully selected, so right that the telling of the tale rings in a reader’s imagination almost as a kind of poetry.

James