The Bottle Imp [novelette]

A few weeks ago, Apatt suggested I might like some Halloween shorts.

It turned out, it he wasn’t referring to seasonally patterned undergarments, but to short stories with a dash of the macabre. This is one of his recommendations.

My first encounter with Robert Louis Stevenson was as a pre-schooler, via his charming A Child's Garden of Verses, vividly and distinctively illustrated by Brian Wildsmith. Later, I came to know him for darker fare like The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Kidnapped, and Treasure Island (though The Muppets (in)famously lightened that!).

This Victorian (1891) story is somewhere between, being a sometimes lighthearted look at a Faustian pact, with Hawaiian exoticsm, a love story, and potential paradoxes show more thrown in.

It opens enticingly:
“There was a man of the Island of Hawaii, whom I shall call Keawe; for the truth is, he still lives, and his name must be kept secret.”
Whatever dark things the reader is about to learn, there is still something to be afraid of…

The eponymous bottle has bewitching beauty; the imp, less so:

Image: "Demon Seated", by Mikhail Vrubal, 1890 (Source.)
“A round-bellied bottle with a long neck; the glass of it was white like milk, with changing rainbow colours in the grain. Withinsides something obscurely moved, like a shadow and a fire.”

The imp will grant its owner any wish except immortality. Of course, there are a few other caveats and rules, but mortals think they can outwit the imp. So far, so traditional. But Stevenson’s story is more complex, warm, and original than I expected.

Keawe is a good man, and a wise one.
He knows that if something sounds too got to be true, it probably is.
He knows to be careful what you wish for.
Although he assumes money buys peace of mind and happiness, he does not want to be corrupted by the possibility of untold wealth - or for others to be.
Kokua is a good woman, and a wise one.

There are several enticing but difficult dilemmas.
"Is it not a terrible thing to save oneself by the eternal ruin of another?”
Conversely, what would you sacrifice for love?

The ending was clever, but I’d have preferred more ambiguity.

You can read the dozen pages free, on Gutenberg, HERE.

Short story club

I reread this in Black Water: The Anthology of Fantastic Literature, by Alberto Manguel, from which I’m reading one story a week with The Short Story Club, starting 4 September 2023.

You can read this story here.

You can join the group here. show less

"A depressão recaiu em seus espíritos. À noite, ficavam sentados na nova casa, após o cansaço de um dia, e não trocavam palavra, ou o silêncio era rompido pelas lamúrias repentinas de Kokua. Às vezes, rezavam juntos; às vezes, colocavam a garrafa no chão, e observavam por toda a noite como ele (o demônio) flutuava no meio. Nesses momentos, sentiam medo de descansar. Demorava até que o sono chegasse, e, se um dos dois cochilasse, era para depois despertar e encontrar o outro chorando silenciosamente no escuro, ou, talvez, despertar sozinho, pois o outro saiu da casa e da proximidade da garrafa, para passear debaixo das bananeiras no jardim, ou caminhar na praia ao luar."

Uma cerebridade em vida devido aos seus trabalhos show more literários (raridade hoje em dia!), o Escocês Stevenson em 1887 observou as dezenas de jornalistas que o esperavam diligentemente atracar no Porto de Nova York, e afirmou á esposa: “Se fosse a chegada de Jesus Cristo, não fariam tamanha balbúrdia”

Foi em "Demônio na Garrafa" meu primeiro encontro com tusitala, — o contador de histórias — nome pelo qual o Stevenson era conhecido na Escócia; um conto com narrativa agradável, linguagem clara, mas, demasiado alongado.

Gênios da Lampada e Desejos estão presentes e espalhados pela literatura desde praticamente sempre — as mil e uma noites que o diga; e parece lógico que o contador de histórias também resolva se aventurar explorando esse tema.

Aqui não há lâmpadas, limites de três pedidos ou desejos sendo levados ao pé da letra. E sim, uma garrafa, um diabo preso dentro e dois fatos simples: se alguém morrer em posse da garrafa irá direto para o inferno, e, a garrafa precisa ser vendida por um valor menor do que o que ela foi comprada. Então, a cada momento ela está com o preço mais baixo gera desconfiança em quem compra. Estar em posse da garrafa é (dependendo do ponto de vista, vide o final) uma benção ou uma maldição, e o Stevenson é extremamente engenhoso no desenrolar da trama.

Em primeiro plano, temos a apresentação da Garrafa, e não há ilusão de que o artefato seja minimamente íntegro, desde a primeira vez que aparece fica claro que ele é maligno; torcendo pedidos a torto e a direito, apenas esperando para levar seu portador ao inferno. Em segundo temos o protagonista lutando para se livrar da Garrafa, o que abre espaço para nos aprofundarmos na relação entre ele e sua esposa e faz correr a trama. Por fim, o desfecho: surpreedentemente mais simples que algumas viradas anteriores na história, e levemente anticlimático.

(Talvez na época fosse raro, mas hoje em dia é fácil aparecer um maluco que não liga para consequências, tornando a preocupação do protagonista — crucial pro impacto final — um pouco exagerada.)

No geral, é um bom conto; fantasioso e sobrenatural, mas com o pé no chão para falar sobre desejos, amor e frustração. E além disso valeu a pena por ter adicionado mais uma história com esse tema na minha lista de lidos, ao lado de outras ilustres do Tchekov e do Kipling.

Pretendo ler mais contos do autor —frequentemente exaltado por autores dos mais diversos gêneros — antes de partir para seu magnum ops: o Médico e o Monstro. show less

I liked this story so much I read it a second time just a few days later!

This gripping tale, as its title suggests, tells of someone who finds a mysterious being in a bottle. This imp can grant wishes . . . for a price. This is a story of poverty and gain, of romance and daring, of a Faustian bargain that might go badly at any moment. The protagonist will find himself pulled toward both the zenith of hope and the pit of despair, and he might just learn something about sacrifice—and about himself—along the way. Highly recommended!

One of my favorite stories, just the thing to read for Halloween, not that it is particularly scary, but it does have a dark atmosphere and a cool supernatural conceit involving wishes and an imp. Like The Monkey’s Paw which I just reviewed earlier today, the story is underpinned by the theme of “be careful what you wish for”. Having said that the way wishes work in The Bottle Imp is much more complex and interesting than The Monkey's Paw.

Basically whoever possess the bottled imp can make an unlimited number of wishes, but they must sell the bottle for less than the purchase price before they die, otherwise they will burn in hell forever after their death. That doesn't sound like much of a challenge, selling things at a loss is show more easy, it’s making a profit that is always a struggle. However, Robert Louis Stevenson cleverly explores the practicality of reselling an item that reduces in value until it reaches the ultimate price level of zilch.

If you have all your wishes you want, but you bought the bottle for a single penny what would you do? The protagonist Keawe thought he had it made when he was able to sell the bottle after being granted a mansion and a servant by the imp. Unfortunately after selling the bottle he is afflicted with leprosy just when he is preparing to marry the beautiful Kokua, the love of his life. His only hope for a cure is to buy the bottle back from whoever has it now. Tracking down the bottle is not particularly challenging, and buying it is all too easy. The problem is that the selling rice is now extremely low, fortunately, his wife Kokua has the brilliant idea of going overseas to a country where the currency has a lower minimum denomination than in the US. So off they go to Tahiti a “centime” is worth less than half of a penny. You will have to read it to find how it all turns out.

Though not as legendary as Stevenson’s classic [b: The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde|51496|The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde|Robert Louis Stevenson|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1318116526s/51496.jpg|3164921], The Bottle Imp is a very entertaining and thought-provoking story, the morality of selling such a bottle is, after all, questionable. It is whimsically narrated in the style of a folk tale, and the conclusion is nice and satisfying. show less

A man has purchased a bottle in order to achieve his fondest desire. But the bottle comes with a cost and a curse. Let the buyer beware! This short story was written more than one hundred years ago and is still thrilling readers today. It is pure horror and so well written it will send chills down your spine. The audio version adds much to the atmospheric setting.

A tale on the classic theme of ‘The Problems With Wishes.’ A man comes across the remarkable opportunity to buy a bottle containing an imp – who, genie-like, will fulfill all the wishes of his owner. The catch? If the owner dies in possession of the bottle, he or she will be damned for all eternity. The bottle cannot be given away, only sold – and it may only be sold for a lesser price than it was bought for.
It’s a great set-up, and Stevenson does it full justice.

It’s also worth mentioning that the main characters are native Hawaiian – the setting was based on Stevenson’s 1889 travels in the then-independent Hawaii. There is no ‘exotification’ of the characters’ background at all – interestingly, the story was show more first published in the Samoan language, according to Stevenson, ‘for a Polynesian audience.’ show less

This is one of those little treasures that I have stumbled across in a collection of short stories of Stevenson's that are all have a supernatural theme and also generally creepy (which is what you get with supernatural stories). The Bottle Imp is a story of a native Hawiian (which is interesting in that the main character of this book is not Anglo-american) who is sold a rather magnificent bottle. Basically the owner of the bottle will come into great fortune however there are some catches: if you lose possession of the bottle then your fortune will turn bad, yet if you retain possession of the bottle when you die then you are damned to the fires of hell. So, how does one get rid of the bottle? Well, you have to sell it for less than show more you purchased it. So, seeing an opportunity, the Hawaiian purchases the bottle and becomes really wealthy and then sells it.
However, as I said, there is a catch. Upon selling the bottle he loses all of his fortune, so he goes on a trek around the world to attempt to find the bottle again, and when he does he can only buy it for one cent, which he does. Fortunately his wife tells him that there are places in the world where they have coins worth less than one American cent, so he goes to Tahiti in an attempt to sell it, which he does, only to discover that his fortune once again vanishes, so he attempts to buy it back, expect that the person who has bought it has already consigned himself to hell so he wants to spend the remainder of his days living it up.
What The Bottle Imp is about is the conflict between living a comfortable lifestyle and living a moral lifestyle (that is a lifestyle where the ultimate destination is heaven as opposed to hell). While, compared to the rest of the world, I am actually quite wealthy (and those of you who are reading this commentary are probably in the same boat) the funny this is that there are always people who are wealthier than us, and there are things that they have that we want, like the big house, or a fancy car.
The thing is that wealth is very seductive and by surrounding yourself with wealth and living such a lifestyle there are two dangers: living beyond your means and alienating yourself from the poor and the marginalised. Many of us, in attempting to enhance our lifestyle end up robbing the poorest sections of society from any opportunity to be able to enjoy life. Our hunt for greater profit and greater returns results in the decline of the manufacturing sector, the undercutting of wages, and what is in effect a race to the bottom. Those of us who are bosses and sit at the top of the chain end up looking for ways of increasing our own income which ends up robbing others of theirs. We close down factories, keep wages stagnated, and jack up prices, without any empathy as to how it is affecting others around us. We go home to our big house in our BMW yet do not realise that our employees are stressing out as to how they can pay their bills and keep a roof over their head or send their children to school and get a good education.
That is the idea as to how our lust for wealth can in the end damn us to hell because we are only concerned about ourself and own life. We do not care that the clothes on our back are produced through slave labour, and we treat others humans as either figures, production machines, or people that simply exist only to serve us. In fact as our economy moves towards a service economy, the jobs that are available look quite appalling indeed, not just because of the low wages, but because of the rubbish that they have to put up with. Dealing with customers is very hard work because in reality customers can be absolute pigs when they want to be, yet those in the service industry have to smile and put up with it because if they put a step wrong and the customer complains, it does not matter whether the customer is right or not, it is the service staff that gets it in the neck. show less