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Fiction
Title: The Carpenter of Auguliere Author: D. Wayne Dworsky Rating:  Excellent!
Publisher: Concrete Jungle Press Web Page: www.bookmasters.com/marktplc/01591.htm Reviewed by: John Lehman | View Bio |
 
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This is a curious story of redemption with ominous undertones in the spirit of some of the Brothers Grimm darker tales. A pall has fallen over a mountainous Russian village of several hundred years ago: “You can’t trust anyone anymore. Whenever you turn your back, someone’s waiting to steal from you. That isn’t the Auguliere I remember. I think something evil is going on here.” But a carpenter who represents a willingness of people to help one another (might be Christ or Obama) arrives out of nowhere one day. He is definitely the antidote needed to counter the economic fears paralyzing these remote villagers. Ironically, though at first welcomed, he soon becomes reviled. This is more than an allegory for our times, it is great storytelling. We care about the characters and our pulled into their plight. And there is a mythic quality here, for example the dread of nights when there’s a full moon, which is haunting. This is drama taking place not on the page but in the theater of our imagination: “The next day, he never came back to town. Vladimir came to Madeleine looking for the landlord. Madeleine didn’t understand why Vladimir wanted to know, but her father knew. When he learned the night of the full moon loomed, and the landlord was missing, he folded his arms over his chest as a sign.” I loved the short chapters, pithy dialogue, folk art cover. A concluding twist regarding “the landlord” seems hardly a surprise but it neatly brings the story’s plot threads together just as the last sentence of the Epilogue ties the story’s past to today’s present. Another quality I liked is that “the Carpenter of Auguliere” does not shy away from adult relationships (both between man / woman and among siblings), the failures of old age, jealousy and poverty.
There are elements of surprise — I have to admit I was never quite sure how this was going to turn out — and scenes of genuine tenderness. But best of all, when it was over, the story itself seemed just the right length. That’s the mark of a good storyteller. He or she knows when to stop. “More” starts to take away from the images that are well established; “less” would be, not enough.
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