Word Patriots – Theo Matthews’ Story of the Stories

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This week on Word Patriots@Webtalkradio, my guest is Theo Matthews, AKA Teddy Kistler, the author of the novel “The Chronicler’s Tale: A Story of the Stories.” Matthews describes himself as “an optimistic hominid and experimental writer who enjoys twisting words until they bruise and turning phrases to their breaking points.” He writes in a sub-genre of Fantasy/ Magical Realism and styles his work as “philosophical-comic.” In addition to being the author of “The Chronicler’s Tale,” Ted also maintains his own blog, “The Inner Fool of Theo Matthews” at http://theomatthews.blogspot.com,where he posts random nonsense, including his most recent short stories. Matthews attended the Columbia School of Journalism. He began his professional writing career as an assistant editor for a classic car magazine and has also worked for newspapers as a free-lance writer. The biographical material on the back of his book reads: “Matthews enjoys the lessons of life the old-fashioned way: by doing many reckless, stupid and foolish things. He looks forward to more learning,” His novel harkens back to any number of a traditions. First, I would characterize “The Chronicler’s Tale” as a peripatetic novel. There is a lot of moving about and walking in the book, and the chronicler’s stories told to William of Umber, as the two make their journey through the forest to the city of Arudel, are interpolated into the main narrative. One can’t help but thinking of Chaucer’s Canterbury pilgrims. Even Matthews’ title recalls Chaucer. Theo’s work also brings to mind the medieval Arthurian poems of the quest for the holy grail, such as Wolfram von Eschenbach’s “Parzival” with its fictitious kingdoms and fantastic characters such as Parzival’s half-brother the piebald Feirefis and its alluring temptresses who can place brave knights in love trance. If you would like to know more about my books, be sure to visit my website: www.markseinfelt.com. Also be sure to take a look at “The Inner Fool of Theo Matthews” at http://theomatthews.blogspot.com.