Line #61 Literature/WildTales1967


1	''Wild Tales'' original title: ''Диви разкази'' (''Divi razkazi'') is a 1967 collection of short stories by Bulgarian writer Nikolai Haitov, set in different times (from the Ottoman Period up to present day) in the Rhodope mountains in Southern Bulgaria. Each individual story, a SliceOfLife of various people from this rural, secluded mountainous region, is told from first person, either [[FirstPersonPerspective by the protagonist himself]], or by [[FirstPersonPeripheralNarrator someone who is amazed by them and their life]]. The work is praised for its vibrant, emotional tone, colorful, authentic language and vivid descriptions of the diverse ethnic groups in the Rhodopes, most notably the Muslim Bulgarians known as Pomaks.
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3	Not to be confused with the [[Film/WildTales Argentinian film of the same name]].
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6	!! This work contains the following tropes:
7	* AbusiveParents:
8	** ''Mito's Grief'' is about the titular character's mother who ruined his life with her incessant narcissism, demanding that he marry a beautiful woman and spending her days making life harder for him and his HollywoodHomely wife.
9	** Karaivan in ''The Goat Horn'' [[spoiler: when he trained his daughter into a relentless killer and tried to subdue her femininity, breaking anything at home that could serve as a mirror and cutting and burning her hair so she looks like a boy]].
10	* ActionGirl: The assassin from ''The Goat Horn''[[spoiler: [[SamusIsAGirl Maria Karaivanova]], who could wrestle, ambush and kill any number of thugs and {{Evil Overlord}}s.]]
11	* AlmightyJanitor: Panaiot from ''Bare Conscience'' chooses this post over a mayor's to avoid red tape, and then has to prevent some municipality fraud.
12	* AlternateAnimalAffection: Averted in ''Longing'', where the protagonist is astonished by the affection a ram shows to the sheep (every sheep, there were several in a row) before and after mating. He uses that (complete with "even animals know to make love better than you") as an example to teach local men to act like gentlemen and be tender to their wives instead of being {{Domestic Abuse}}rs.
13	* {{Arcadia}}: The Rhodopes are described as still being one in the early 20th century.
14	* BadassBoast: Hasan Meshov's uncle gives one to the man who's about to marry Hasan's lover after challenging him to a duel for her:
15	--> '''Uncle Selim''': Aim well, Brakhom, son of Mad Mehmet, for if you leave me alive, I'll make you spew out your mother's milk!
16	* BadassNative: Ahmet Delikadirov from ''Forest Sprite'', who would single-handedly guard the forest from interlopers, sabotage them, become TheDreaded to all herders who would then be careful not to cause fires or chop wood illegally, fight off multiple guards with his hands tied, and escape an ambush despite leaving a puddle of blood.
17	* CallingCard: In ''The Goat Horn'', the victims were either stabbed with a sharpened goat horn, or one was placed next to them.
18	* CanonWelding: The protagonist of one story, Hasan Meshov, appears as a narrator of another one.
19	* CapturedOnPurpose:
20	** Milyu from ''Tangled World'' so that he doesn't go to war during WWI, as part of the UriahGambit pulled on him by his father-in-law.
21	** Panaiotov from ''Bare Conscience'' commits defamation of the government when he's cornered by the corrupt ruling elite and about to be murdered.
22	* CatScare: The protagonist of ''Fear'' had a series of these. He spends one night at a remote cottage and starts hearing some rattling in the dark, which causes him to shoot blindly. A while later he starts hearing a [[HellIsThatNoise creepy, trickling noise]] that goes on for quite a while and leaves him scared to death. [[spoiler: In the morning, he sees a large heap of grain in the middle of the room and realizes it poured from the attic, which he shot a hole in, and produced the scary noise. As for the rattling, the owner tells him that was a badger who had come for a snack.]]
23	* CerebusSyndrome: Some of the stories have a pretty light tome from the start, then things get grim all of a sudden.
24	** Grozdan from ''Bare Conscience'' is having a pretty harmless time as a GuileHero, if slapped with some fines or other light punishments to keep him from talking. Then he gets word a [[ProudWarriorRaceGuy Macedonian sharpshooter]] has been hired to kill him.
25	** Likewise, Milyu from ''Tangled World'' has been getting through life well, eve if it was a bit of a bumpy ride. Then he barely survives two attempted murders from rival shepherd gangs.
26	** Ramadan and Silvina from ''Seed of the Dervish'' start their marriage happily in love. Then her brothers kidnap her and sell her to Ramadan's brutish neighbor.
27	* CoattailRidingRelative: The protagonist in ''Under the Train's Whistle'' complains about his son and son-in-law who use his [[RetiredBadass "accomplished fighter against fascism"]] status to milk profits and then have the audacity to berate him for not having done more.
28	--> "I didn't fight for posts and Mercedeces, sonny, I fought so that there are no more leeches!"
29	* ConsummationCounterfeit: The source of conflict in ''Dervish's Seed''. The young (14-year-old) newlyweds successfully fake it by drawing blood. [[spoiler: However, after the girl doesn't get pregnant for some time, her neighbor strikes a bargain with her brothers and has her kidnapped so he can marry her.]]
30	* CoolUncle: Uncle Selim in ''Wedding'' is an example of how an objectively CoolUncle looks through the eyes of a guy ''uncool'' enough to turn into an EvilNephew. When Hassan brings home his lover, Hatte, and the goons of the arranged groom's [[EvilOverlord father]] come looking for her, Selim defends her while Hassan runs away, resulting in Hatte marrying Selim out of her own free will, and the two fall in love. Even when a [[MurderTheHypotenuse jealous]] Hassan tries and fails to murder Selim, the latter just gives him a [[ReasonYouSuckSpeech short lecture]], puts the dagger back in his pocket and shoos him away.
31	* CountryMouse: Ignat from ''Tree Without Root'' is an old man whose son invited him to move in with him to the city. He misses everything about the remote, quiet mountain village he lived his life in and laments the city life which is, to him, hectic, fake and divorced from nature.
32	* CreateYourOwnHero[=/=]CreateYourOwnVillain: In ''Ibryam Ali'', the eponymous character turned to brigandry to avenge his mother who was tortured and murdered by his landlord:
33	--> '''Becho:''' Besides, we knew he wasn't born a brigand, but Mad Grey made him into one.
34	* {{Elopement}}: ''Wedding'' has Hasan Meshov try this with his lover, Hatte. [[spoiler: However, they only decide to do it when she's about to be given to a local EvilOverlord's son in an ArrangedMarriage. Hasan gets scared when [[WeddingSmashers the overlord and his henchmen roll in]] and runs away, but his KavorkaMan of an uncle stays and defends Hatte, who ends up marrying him instead.]]
35	* EveryManHasHisPrice: Grozdan from ''Bare Conscience'' has to bribe a lot of people to escape getting offed for outing corruption. [[spoiler: He discovers the people he has to bribe are [[ConnectedAllAlong in cahoots with his enemies]].]]
36	** FoodAsBribe: He plans to bring some honey to one of those people, given that it's a rural setting. [[GenreSavvy The salesman]] directly asks [[SeenItAll "For someone sick or for a higher-up?"]]
37	* ForestRanger: In ''Forest Sprite'', a ranger (the state-appointed kind[[spoiler: at least until he gets sacked]]) fights to preserve the woods from {{Corrupt Corporate Executive}}s who want to cut it down.
38	* TheFunInFuneral: Grozdan Panaiotov from ''Bare Conscience'' [[spoiler: has to get himself captured so that he evades assassins when he has no one left to help him. He stages a funeral, but in the casket he puts a government pamphlet and "buries" the ruling party in order to commit treason.]]
39	* GloryDays: The protagonist of the first story, ''Manly Times'', recalls how glorious it was when he could run rampant as a bandit and do things such as stealing a bride for hire.
40	* GuileHero: In ''Bare Conscience'', a janitor has to employ all kinds of trickery and bending the law to fight a scheme to cut down a forest, and then save himself.
41	* IfYouKillHimYouWillBeJustLikeHim: Ramadan in ''Dervish's Seed'' [[spoiler: after decades of watching his neighbor abuse his ex-wife whom he still loves, uses that the neighbor gets sick and is about to kill him and take her back. She stops him with "if he was a beast, don't you become one, too."]]
42	* InLoveWithTheMark: Sheban, the bride-stealer for hire from ''Manly Times'', is [[AmazonChaser smitten]] with the beautiful ([[BuxomBeautyStandard and well-endowed, as he points out]]) StatuesqueStunner of a bride who won't give up without a fight. [[spoiler: She also likes him better than her wimpy would-be groom so they (the bride and the stealer) end up having sex on the way, but ultimately he finishes the job because he gave an oath, and she has to marry the wimp. Sheban still has regrets when he's telling the story.]]
43	* KeepTheReward: In ''Paths'', Vlasho explains before the road manager that he clears paths through the forest simply for his own enjoyment and sometimes by popular demand. [[spoiler: Subverted at the end when he does ''not'' refuse a reward when offered, which the manager takes for false modesty and gets mad.]]
44	* LeaningOnTheFourthWall: The narrators often exclaim in second person singular, as if talking to the reader, but sometimes it turns out they're telling the story to a person they met somewhere or are reporting to.
45	* LifesavingMisfortune: In ''Tangled World'' [[spoiler: the protagonist gets beaten by a group of people who had it in for him, then is found unconscious by his co-villagers and escorted home. Some time later he learns that a bit ahead on the road, another enemy of his was waiting to impale him on a spike and roast him alive.]]
46	* LuddWasRight: In ''When the World was Pulling Its Breeches Down'', the protagonist gets mad and tries to have his revenge at a newly built shoe factory which killed his trade of crafting more customized and elegant ''kundur'' shoes.
47	* MoodWhiplash: The life of Milyu, the protagonist of ''Tangled World'' is a series of those, alternating a stroke of good luck with awful misfortune.
48	* OnceMoreWithClarity: In ''The Goat Horn'', after the assassin is revealed. [[spoiler: The murders are described again, this time from the point of view of Maria and her father and how they disguised themselves on missions.]]
49	* MyGreatestFailure: In ''The Wizard of Breze'', the eponymous character used to make good luck charms. [[spoiler: One of them he made for a young girl to protect her from evil, but it didn't save her from [[MalMariee being killed by her jealous husband]] when she was with her lover.]]
50	* PayEvilUntoEvil: In ''The Goat Horn'', a mysterious assassin starts murdering local Ottoman tyrants by stabbing them with goat horns.
51	* {{Revenge}}:
52	** In ''Ibryam-Ali'', the eponymous character is driven to banditry by a a wealthy man who framed him of theft and then had his mother tortured and killed in order to have him surrender.
53	** In ''Dervish's Seed'', Ramadan Dervishov, the protagonist, longs to have his revenge on his neighbor, who kidnapped his beloved wife [[AndNowYouMustMarryMe and forcibly married her]].
54	* PerfectlyArrangedMarriage: Ramadan and Silvina are 14 years old and fall in love. It doesn't last because their neighbor caught wind that she's still not pregnant and bought her from her brothers.
55	* PlanetOfSteves: Grozdan Panaiotov gets a hint from a fellow inmate to use the fact that he's far from the only one with that last name in the village, as well as that he's only signed his fraud-exposing reports on behalf of other people with his last name, so he can plead not guilty.
56	* PlotTwist: InUniverse Milyu from ''Tangled World'' regards his life as a series of those:
57	** First he was stepped on by a bear as a kid, leaving him with a clubfoot and undesirable.
58	** But in 1912, he's the only man in the village who wasn't drafted into the Balkan War. All others die of cholera and Milyu was suddenly the only eligible bachelor, so he marries the daughter of the wealthiest man in the village.
59	** His new father-in-law just uses him as a shepherd for free and sends him with the sheep to the Aegean. This earns Milyu enemies from other villages who send him a PsychoForHire...
60	** He defeats the mecenary and after the winter goes back home, only to be ambushed by the rival shepherds and beaten to near death...
61	** ... which has saved him from ''another'' ambush further down, by the mercenary and his men, which would have been ''certain'' death by getting impaled and roasted alive.
62	** After he returns, his father-in-law has a fight with him and has him sent to the WWI front. The clubfoot doesn't help this time since the commander says it's no excuse from trench warfare.
63	** Milyu decides to have petty revenge against his father-in-law for mistreating him and wrecks his beehives, which lands him in jail...
64	** ... and once again, he's the only man from the village to have survived the war.
65	** After the war, he engages into a GetRichQuickScheme peddling sheep (buying them dirt cheap and selling for several times more) with the help of a Greek smuggler and it goes well...
66	** ... until he pours all his money into a new purchase to double his profits, whereas the Greek just makes off with the money. On top of that, he turns out to be a spy, which gives Milyu some trouble.
67	** Then his son marries some girl and wants to set her up with a job, but she cheats with her boss, so the son gets drunk and sets his father and grandfather's house on fire...
68	** Only for Milyu to find his father-in-law's money hoard in the ashes and enjoy some comfort in his late years.
69	* TheReasonYouSuckSpeech: Hasan from ''Wedding'' gets one from his uncle [[spoiler: who defended and married his fiancée when Hasan failed to do the same]].
70	--> '''Uncle Selim:''' She-eagles are lured with live prey, Hasanchek, not with dead meat!
71	* RightThroughTheWall: Hasan has to endure the sounds of his former bride-to-be and his uncle making love in the other room for months, as a reminder [[ColdTurkeysEverywhere of how he failed to win her over]].
72	* RiteOfPassage: ''Exam'' is one for Liyu, a cooper who has just passed his formal exam, but working with customers proves to be another challenge altogether.
73	* RoaringRampageOfRevenge:
74	** Karaivan from ''The Goat Horn'' [[spoiler: trained his daughter to do that in his stead, because he was a cripple]], after two Ottoman feudals raped his wife who lost her mind from the ordeal.
75	** Ibryam Ali does that to his landlord.
76	** Ramadan fantasized for years about how he'll do this to the neighbor who kidnapped and forcibly married his bride.
77	--> '''Ramadan:''' You ever see a scarecrow all stuffed with straw? Nothing inside! No heart, no bone, only the straw keeps it upright. My straw was evil! It was keeping me on my feet. The evil I would do to Roufat. It was always on my mind. Under the rug and on the field. Day and night I thought how I'd chop him to pieces with an axe or stab him in the belly with a knife, so that he doesn't die there and then but suffers. How I'd drag his guts on the ground, stamp them with my feet and rip them with my nails. Then I set that aside too: not enough pain with the knife, so I thought of a new torture - to choke him slowly, with breaks, but I knew that if I got my hands on him, I'd never let go, so I dismissed the choking too and thought up a new torture. Three hundred times I've killed him and brought him back to life. My head was burning. Thousands of times I slaughtered and flayed him. My hands were straining, my teeth were grinding, until one day the straw in the strawman caught fire, fever shook me and I fell ill.
78	* SamusIsAGirl: [[spoiler: The assassin from ''The Goat Horn'' turns out to be the daughter of Karaivan, a peasant whose wife was raped and killed by the Ottomans.]]
79	* ThisIsMyNameOnForeign: Downplayed. The language is the same, but Ignat from ''Tree Without Root'' complains that his son introduces himself by a modified UsefulNotes/{{Patronymic}}, "Ignatiev", to make it sound more sophisticated than the original name, "Ignatov".
80	* TragicKeepsake: The eponymous MacGuffin in ''Kalinka's Cowbells'', which her husband made from her coin necklace after she died in childbirth, so that he can still hear her voice in their ringing.
81	* TrainingFromHell: Karaivan from ''The Goat Horn'' gives one to the mysterious assassin[[spoiler: who turns out to be his daughter]].
82	* VeryLooselyBasedOnATrueStory: To varying degrees. In an interview, Haitov confesses that some of his stories were directly told to him and he only embellished a little, some were filled with {{Composite Character}}s of various real-life people, and some were for the most part fictional, based on some people he only heard mentions of.
83	* WhatAPieceOfJunk: In ''Exam'', Liyu the cooper completes his first order, a huge keg. The customers aren't impressed because instead of steel rings, he used phloem ones and insisted that when processed under special conditions, they're even more durable. To everyone's surprise and Liyu's triumph, the keg survives a test run in which it's tumbled down into a rocky ravine and suffers no damage at all.

Context Literature / WildTales1967