A story told using a very unusual narrative style that is, in the form of an A to Z index.
Part of the story’s opening paragraph tells us:
“Editor’s note. From abundant internal evidence it seems clear that the text printed below is the index to the unpublished and perhaps suppressed autobiography of a man who may well have been one of the most remarkable figures of the 20th century. Yet of his existence nothing is publicly known, although his like and work appear to have exerted a profound influence on the events of the past fifty years. Physician and philosopher, man of action and patron of the arts, sometime claimant to the English throne and founder of a new religion, Henry Rhodes Hamilton [HRH] was evidently the intimate of the greatest men and women of our age.”
For this story the reader is expected to do some work and make decisions. Does the reader work their way through the index A to Z or jump in at any point? Does it make any difference if either choice is chosen? Is there any information deliberately or unintentionally hidden in the index waiting to be discovered? And why did the index compiler add himself to the index?
As indexes go this is a very simple one. For example, no cross references to other entries. Years are not mentioned, only page numbers. A sample entry –
“Gandhi, Mahatma, visited in prison by HRH, 251; discusses Bhagavadgita with HRH, 253; has dhoti washed by HRH, 254; denounces HRH, 256.”
One pattern that does emerge is HRH being warmly welcomed by famous people initially, but he always manages to put his foot in it and the relationship sours, as in the above entry.
If indexes are your thing, you can spend ages teasing out information about HRH and his life. For example, the highest page number I could find was 769. So this isn’t a short biography and suggests the size of the book reflects the size of HRH’s ego.
First published in The Paris Review #118, Spring 1991, and collected in The Complete Short Stories Vol 2, Flamingo, 2001
A Personal Anthology 