Τζάκ
Ανδρέας Καρκαβίτσας (1865–1922), 1887
In 1890s Athens a rumoured ripper is loose, and a widow's nights are eaten by fear, gossip and the question of whom her daughter should marry. Karkavitsas keeps a tight, gothic dread running through these stories, with tenderness and sudden glimpses of freedom breaking in.
Feels like dread, tenderness and melancholy. About freedom, love and memory.
Who it’s for
You may like it if you enjoy period Athens, gossipy neighbourhoods and stories that mix fear with family tenderness. The Greek is old-fashioned, printed with accents and breathings, and some sentences ask for patience.
Why read it
It offers a close, uneasy look at a neighbourhood under rumour, where private fear and social manners press on every choice.
Pages from the book
You finally know what you want to say, and then you remember how you once said no.
Τέλος ἄνοιξε ἡ ἀπέναντι πόρτα καὶ ἡ Θοδωριὰ ἐχαιρέτισε πρώτη. Ἡ Γερασιμίνα ἤθελε νὰ πετάξῃ μία στιγμή, νὰ κάμῃ τὴν πρότασή της καὶ νὰ τελειώσουν μία ὥρα ἀρχύτερα. Ἀλλὰ πράγμα παράδοξον - κάτι τῆς ἕσφιξε τὴν καρδιὰ καὶ ἐδίστασε. Ἡ ἰδέα τῆς παλαιᾶς της διαγωγῆς, ὁ πρόστυχος τρόπος μὲ τὸν ὅποιον ἄλλοτε ἀπέρριψε αὐτὴ τὰς προτάσεις των, ἦλθε τώρα καὶ τὴν ἐκάρφωσε εἰς τὸ κατώφλι της. Δὲν ἦτο τάχα δίκαιο νὰ τῆς φερθοῦν ἔτσι κι ἐκεῖνοι τώρα; A city agrees on what its monster looks like, and reads it in every face.
Ἀπὸ μηνὸς αἱ ἐφημερίδες ἔγραφαν ὅτι οὗτος εἶχε βαρεθῆ τὰς μεγαλοπόλεις τῆς Εὐρώπης καὶ κατέβη εἰς Ἀθήνας διὰ νὰ συνεχίσῃ τὰ φοβερὰ κατορθώματά του. Ἀπὸ ἐφημερίδα εἰς ἐφημερίδα καὶ ἀπὸ στόμα εἰς στόμα, ἀπὸ τὸν γραμματισμένον εἰς τὸν ἀγράμματον διεδόθη σὲ λιγάκι εἰς ὅλας τὰς τάξεις τῆς κοινωνίας. Ἐφοβήθηκαν πολὺ οἱ ἄνδρες, ἐτρόμαξαν τὰ παιδιά, ἀλλὰ πρὸ παντὸς ἔπαθαν πανικὸν αἱ γυναῖκες. Καὶ μὲ τὸ δίκιο τους. Ὅλες αἱ διαδόσεις ἔλεγαν ὅτι αὐτὰς καὶ μόνον καταδιώκει ὁ κακοῦργος. Μόλις ἰδῇ γυναίκα, σὰν νὰ τὸν πιάνῃ τὸ δαιμόνιο, τραβᾷ τὸ μαχαίρι του καὶ τὴν ξεκοιλιάζει ἄψε σβῆσε. Καὶ μήπως τὸν γνωρίζῃ κανεὶς νὰ προφυλαχθῇ. Λέγουν πὼς εἶναι νέος, μόλις εἴκοσι τριῶν χρονῶν, μὲ μαῦρα μάτια καὶ μαῦρο μουστάκι. Τουλάχιστον ἔτσι τὸν παρέστησε τὸ τελευταῖον θύμα του πρὶν ξεψυχήσῃ. Ἀλλὰ μήπως ἕνας καὶ δύο εἶναι οἱ νέοι μὲ τὰ μαῦρα μάτια καὶ τὸ μαῦρο μουστάκι! At three in the morning, every voice you heard that day comes back to argue.
Ἡ νύχτα εἶχε προχωρήσει ἀλλὰ ὁ ὕπνος δὲν ἐκάθιζε εἰς τὰ βλέφαρα τῆς κυρα-Γερασιμίνας. Τὰ λόγια της μάνας τοῦ Γιάννη, ἡ συμβουλὴ τοῦ μανάβη, τὰ λόγια τοῦ παπᾶ ποὺ ἔφτυσε τρὶς καὶ ἔκαμε τὸν σταυρό του εἰς τὸ ὄνομα τοῦ κακούργου ὡς νὰ ἐπρόκειτο περὶ τοῦ Ὀξαποδῶ, ἐγύριζαν κι ἐξαναγύριζαν εἰς τὸ κεφάλι τῆς γριᾶς διασταυρούμενα μεταξύ των ὡς ἀστραπαὶ εἰς νεφελώδη οὐρανόν. Ἀλλὰ πρὸ πάντων ἡ Γερασιμίνα ἐσκέπτετο τὰ λόγια ποὺ τῆς εἶπε ἡ θυγατέρα της ἀπόψε. Ἡ μητρική της στοργὴ εὕρισκε μέσα εἰς αὐτὰ κάποιαν διαμαρτυρίαν, κάποιο παράπονο τῆς δροσερᾶς νεότητος καὶ τῆς ζωῆς ἐν γένει, ποὺ ἐκινδύνευε. Καὶ εὕρισκεν ὅτι ἐκινδύνευεν ὄχι διὰ τίποτ᾿ ἄλλο ἀλλὰ διὰ τὴν μωρὰν ἐπιμονήν της, νὰ μὴ δεχθῇ ὡς γαμπρόν της τὸν Γιάννη, τὸ παιδὶ τῆς Θοδωριᾶς. Ανδρέας Καρκαβίτσας.Karkavitsas trained as a doctor and spent years as a ship's surgeon, gathering the sailors' tales that fill his short stories; he died of tuberculosis in 1922.
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Ο ζητιάνος
Ανδρέας Καρκαβίτσας, 1896
A begging mastermind and a priestess of superstition in a Thessalian village that will pay for a baby to stay away. Appalling, funny, exact.
Λόγια της Πλώρης
Ανδρέας Καρκαβίτσας, 1899
Sailors, sponge-divers and captains tell of the sea's justice, its monsters and its dead, in stories that turn folk belief into salt-stung literature.
Ηρώων τέκνα
Ανδρέας Καρκαβίτσας, 1911
A comic, merciless anatomy of election fever in post-revolutionary Mesolongi, where the sons of heroes trade glory for votes and turn a portrait into a god.
Where to get it
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Questions readers ask
- Is Τζάκ for me?
- You may like it if you enjoy period Athens, gossipy neighbourhoods and stories that mix fear with family tenderness. The Greek is old-fashioned, printed with accents and breathings, and some sentences ask for patience.
- What is Τζάκ like?
- Karkavitsas keeps a tight, gothic dread running through these stories, with tenderness and sudden glimpses of freedom breaking in. Feels like dread, tenderness and melancholy. About freedom, love and memory.
- What should I read after Τζάκ?
- If you liked Τζάκ, try The Lady of the Barge (W. W. Jacobs), Short Fiction (Mary Shelley) and The Phantom of the Opera (Gaston Leroux).
A taste of the feed
A house after a death keeps the shape of the people who left it.
Long before anybody else was astir he arose and stole softly downstairs. The sunlight was stealing in at every crevice, and flashing in long streaks across the darkened rooms. The dining-room into which he looked struck chill and cheerless in the dark yellow light which came through the lowered blinds. He remembered that it had the same appearance when his father lay dead in the house; now, as then, everything seemed ghastly and unreal; the very chairs standing as their occupants had left them the night before seemed to be indulging in some dark communication of ideas.
The Lady of the Barge · W. W. Jacobs
Three hundred years old, and still checking for grey hairs.
Am I, then, immortal? This is a question which I have asked myself, by day and night, for now three hundred and three years, and yet cannot answer it. I detected a grey hair amidst my brown locks this very day—that surely signifies decay. Yet it may have remained concealed there for three hundred years—for some persons have become entirely white-headed before twenty years of age.
Short Fiction · Mary Shelley
What fear does to the body before the mind can decide.
Why did I remain silent and motionless while such an outrage was being committed? If, instead of being a very nervous girl, preoccupied with an undefinable terror of that wicked woman, I had possessed courage and presence of mind, I dare say I might have given an alarm, and escaped from the room without the slightest risk. But so it was; I could no more stir than the bird who, cowering under its ivy, sees the white owl sailing back and forward under its predatory cruise.
Uncle Silas · Sheridan Le Fanu
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