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Riassunto di Possono esistere cose simili?
A chi è rivolto
For readers who love short, sharp ghost stories, dark humour and plain prose, and anyone who enjoys Poe or the Gothic tale.
Che cos’è questo libro
Can Such Things Be? is a book of tales of ghosts, strange deaths and things that cannot be seen. Ambrose Bierce, a American newspaperman and Union soldier in the Civil War, gathered it in 1893 from stories he had first printed in San Francisco papers. It follows his better known soldier stories and shows the same cold eye. He wrote these tales for readers who liked a shock told without fuss.
The book gives you houses that hold old crimes, forests where a man is not alone, and rooms where a night turns dangerous. Bierce rarely explains. He gives the facts, lets a witness speak, and stops, so the strange part stays strange. Over about nine minutes you will meet the main ideas and the best known stories. Let us begin with the way Bierce sets his scenes, because that choice shapes every tale.
In questo riassunto
- 1Bierce makes the ordinary feel unsafeFree
- 2The dead frighten the living most
- 3What we cannot see may still kill us
- 4The truth arrives in broken pieces
- 5The mind can become a trap
- 6Cold irony and sudden endings carry the fear
Punto chiave 1 di 6
Bierce makes the ordinary feel unsafe
Most stories in the collection begin in a plain, believable place. It may be a frontier cabin, a San Francisco room, a hillside in Napa Valley, or a camp in wartime. Bierce names the place and the people, then gives the facts. The horror enters slowly and never announces itself.
This habit comes from his own life. Bierce served in the Union army and saw terrible fighting, and he later worked as a journalist and a sharp critic. He knew how quickly a normal day could end in a death that no one could explain. His tales carry that lesson, that safety is a habit and not a promise.
The title is a question, and the book never quite answers it. Some tales offer a rational explanation that you can half believe. Others give none. Many leave a doubt behind them, a sense that both the sensible reading and the supernatural reading may be true.
For the reader this means you must pay attention. Small details matter, such as a sound, a clock, a way a person looks at a door. Bierce plants them early and trusts you to remember. The next stories show how he uses that method, starting with fear of the dead.
That’s 1 of 6 key points.
The rest of the summary, written and spoken, and the whole book: free to start.
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Questions about Possono esistere cose simili?
What is Can Such Things Be about?
It is a collection of short stories by Ambrose Bierce, published in 1893. The tales deal with ghosts, haunted houses, unseen creatures and strange deaths, and many leave open whether the cause is supernatural.
What is The Damned Thing about?
It is a tale in the collection told through an inquest into a man's death. Witnesses and a diary suggest that an unseen creature, beyond normal human sight, may have been responsible.
Is Can Such Things Be hard to read?
No. Bierce writes short, clear sentences, and the stories are brief. The plots are easy to follow.
Are the stories in Can Such Things Be true?
No, they are fiction. Bierce drew on his Civil War experience and on frontier settings for atmosphere, and some stories are presented as records or testimony, but the events are invented.
Is Can Such Things Be worth reading?
Yes, for readers who like short ghost stories and Gothic horror. The tales are brief and sharp, and they influenced later writers of weird and supernatural fiction.