Portrait of the Artist as a Young Dog by Dylan ThomasNew Directions, 1968 (originally New Directions, 1940)

Mmm Dylan Thomas. I’ve read Under Milk Wood a few times and like it a whole lot, so I’m not sure why it took me so long to read this. It is one of those perfect books of short stories where each story is exquisite, where each makes you want to pause after reading it. I love the strangeness of “A Visit to Grandpa’s,” the unexpected sweetness of “The Fight,” in which two junior-high-aged boys beat each other up then become fast friends, walking home complimenting each other on their battle scars, the sometimes-strained camaraderie of so many of them—the friends writing a novel together in “Where Tawe Flows,” the two companions on an outing in “Who Do You Wish Was With Us.” And sentences like this, from “Old Garbo”: “I made my way through the crowds: the Valley men, up for the football; the country shoppers; the window-gazers; the silent, shabby men at the corners of the packed streets, standing in isolation in the rain; the press of mothers and prams; old women in black, brooched dresses carrying frails; smart girls in shining mackintoshes and splashed stockings; little dandy lascars, bewildered by the weather; business men with wet spats; through a mushroom forest of umbrellas; and all the time I thought of the paragraphs I would never write. I’ll put you all in a story by and by.” (pp 88-89).