James Joyce
A number of short stories focusing on different aspects of life in the city. I can’t speak as to it sociological value, but taken as literature almost all of the discrete pieces is very nicely done. The stories are very short--most under ten pages, and within the limited narrative scale Joyce provides a lot of punch to his depictions. There’s never the space in any single story to manifest the same scale or psychological complexity afforded by novels--and right here is the basis of my main reluctance with short stories--but there is some very good plotting and characterization on display. Best of all, the fact that all these stories in some degree make Dublin a central character in the drama allow them to be read in aggregate effectively, showing with skill a wide variant of scholars, merchants, priests, sensualists and politicians. Highly recommended.
Better than: Welcome to the Monkeyhouse by Kurt Vonnegut
Worse than: A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce
Showing posts with label short stories. Show all posts
Showing posts with label short stories. Show all posts
Tuesday, June 29, 2010
Welcome to the Monkey House
Kurt Vonnegut
Collection of short stories, some within the science fictional mold, others more mainstream in content. A rather focused way for me to look at the strengths and weaknesses of Vonnegut as a writer, and assess my own ambivalence with him. I’ve enjoyed almost all his books yet have rarely made an effort to seek them out, generally picking them up when I’m around. I find him amusing but less insightful than he seems to think he is, creative but often too awkward in what he’s trying to do that the larger project falls apart. By fame and general influence he’s certainly a major figure in twentieth century writing, but on the strength of my own reading I wouldn’t place him in that category, as with Gunter Grass but to a greater extent I find him lacking some quality that would allow real excellence. Part of that has always been my dislike over his self-marketing and scampering away from genre lables ’yes my books have time travel and aliens but they’re literature, not that science fiction trash’. As with Margaret Atwood, there’s something about that basic attitude that I see as either very calculating or very ignorant and dislike in either case. Strictly speaking that’s not a valid issue to bring against their writing, which should be assessed for its basic effectiveness and not the labels attached to it.
The stories in Welcome to the Monkey House are a mix, and a lot of specific stories I’m deeply ambivalent about. They’re engaging, maintain a fast pace, and a very good talent in quickly establishing character and situation. At times they also provide some great creativity and imaginative use of some unconventional setups. At the same time I’ve got more than a little kickback to most of them. They often seem too impressed with their own cleverness, for one thing, playing up thier position as hilarious in a way that sets my teeth on edge. Additionally, in terms of actual stories the sequence of events is rather predictible, I was frequently able to predict the next step several pages in advance. Vonnegut has significant skills, but the way he uses them I don’t find altogether fitting, and after a number of stories in a row I grew rather alienated from the (consistent) tone of the narrative voice. I definitely prefer Vonnegut’s novels, and this reading has made me interested enough to try to finish reading his main corpus, but I retain some sizable reservations.
Worse than: A is for Alien by Caitlin Kiernan
Better than: The Deceitful Marriage and other exemplary novels by Miguel de Cervantes
Collection of short stories, some within the science fictional mold, others more mainstream in content. A rather focused way for me to look at the strengths and weaknesses of Vonnegut as a writer, and assess my own ambivalence with him. I’ve enjoyed almost all his books yet have rarely made an effort to seek them out, generally picking them up when I’m around. I find him amusing but less insightful than he seems to think he is, creative but often too awkward in what he’s trying to do that the larger project falls apart. By fame and general influence he’s certainly a major figure in twentieth century writing, but on the strength of my own reading I wouldn’t place him in that category, as with Gunter Grass but to a greater extent I find him lacking some quality that would allow real excellence. Part of that has always been my dislike over his self-marketing and scampering away from genre lables ’yes my books have time travel and aliens but they’re literature, not that science fiction trash’. As with Margaret Atwood, there’s something about that basic attitude that I see as either very calculating or very ignorant and dislike in either case. Strictly speaking that’s not a valid issue to bring against their writing, which should be assessed for its basic effectiveness and not the labels attached to it.
The stories in Welcome to the Monkey House are a mix, and a lot of specific stories I’m deeply ambivalent about. They’re engaging, maintain a fast pace, and a very good talent in quickly establishing character and situation. At times they also provide some great creativity and imaginative use of some unconventional setups. At the same time I’ve got more than a little kickback to most of them. They often seem too impressed with their own cleverness, for one thing, playing up thier position as hilarious in a way that sets my teeth on edge. Additionally, in terms of actual stories the sequence of events is rather predictible, I was frequently able to predict the next step several pages in advance. Vonnegut has significant skills, but the way he uses them I don’t find altogether fitting, and after a number of stories in a row I grew rather alienated from the (consistent) tone of the narrative voice. I definitely prefer Vonnegut’s novels, and this reading has made me interested enough to try to finish reading his main corpus, but I retain some sizable reservations.
Worse than: A is for Alien by Caitlin Kiernan
Better than: The Deceitful Marriage and other exemplary novels by Miguel de Cervantes
A Is For Alien
Caitlin Kiernan
Collection of short stories, was surprised to see it on the shelf of the local library and read it with less buildup or anticipation than occurred with a lot of these pieces. The main surprise here is finding them to be, for the most part, pretty distinctly science fiction as opposed to the dark fantasy I know from three of her novels. It's self-consciously Lovecraftian in tone, dealing with the menace and distance of aliens while simultaenously alienizing humanity in various ways. All of the stories are readable, most are interesting, but none manage to be fully compelling or offer really ground-breaking insights. I prefer Kiernan as a novelist and certainly none of the stories are up to the standard of Bacigalupi's collection, but they do make some daring and weighty functions.
Pretty goofy title, though. It’s presumably a riff on Bradbury, but as is it sounds like the kind of cheeky title that civilians would expect of genre fiction, and doesn’t really adequately serve the tone of these pieces.
Worse than: Buy Jupiter and Other Stories by Isaac Asimov
Better than: The Planet on the Table by Kim Stanely Robinson
Collection of short stories, was surprised to see it on the shelf of the local library and read it with less buildup or anticipation than occurred with a lot of these pieces. The main surprise here is finding them to be, for the most part, pretty distinctly science fiction as opposed to the dark fantasy I know from three of her novels. It's self-consciously Lovecraftian in tone, dealing with the menace and distance of aliens while simultaenously alienizing humanity in various ways. All of the stories are readable, most are interesting, but none manage to be fully compelling or offer really ground-breaking insights. I prefer Kiernan as a novelist and certainly none of the stories are up to the standard of Bacigalupi's collection, but they do make some daring and weighty functions.
Pretty goofy title, though. It’s presumably a riff on Bradbury, but as is it sounds like the kind of cheeky title that civilians would expect of genre fiction, and doesn’t really adequately serve the tone of these pieces.
Worse than: Buy Jupiter and Other Stories by Isaac Asimov
Better than: The Planet on the Table by Kim Stanely Robinson
The Planet on the Table
by Kim Stanley Robinson
Collection of short stories. None struck me as particularly great, although they were mostly decent, and one that I'd read years before (The Last Strike) had left enough of an impression to stick for years in my mind (in fact I had just been thinking of it recently, in the context of Shambling Towards Hiroshima and the debate over the ethics of the Bomb). The collection is perhaps most interesting for reemphasizing how deep Robinson's interest in history is, showing him tracing connections, immersing himself in the past and drawing elements out with science fiction tropes. It’s this motif that lead him to consider the work more intensely in both the Years of Rice and Salt and Galileo’s Dream, by my judgement the former a lot more effectively than the latter.
Worse than: Poor Folk and Other Stories by Fyodor Dostoevsky
Better than: Sixty Days and Counting by Kim Stanely Robinson
Collection of short stories. None struck me as particularly great, although they were mostly decent, and one that I'd read years before (The Last Strike) had left enough of an impression to stick for years in my mind (in fact I had just been thinking of it recently, in the context of Shambling Towards Hiroshima and the debate over the ethics of the Bomb). The collection is perhaps most interesting for reemphasizing how deep Robinson's interest in history is, showing him tracing connections, immersing himself in the past and drawing elements out with science fiction tropes. It’s this motif that lead him to consider the work more intensely in both the Years of Rice and Salt and Galileo’s Dream, by my judgement the former a lot more effectively than the latter.
Worse than: Poor Folk and Other Stories by Fyodor Dostoevsky
Better than: Sixty Days and Counting by Kim Stanely Robinson
The Best Short Stories of J. G. Ballard
by J. G. Ballard
None of the stories blew me away, but there were some interesting situations and fine pieces of writing in there. Interesting the way questions of apocalyptic collapse develop so often, and in a somewhat distinctive fashion. High quality of individual writing and well formed characters within the limits of length, giving a real sense of complex personages. The actual events weren’t generally engagign enough, though, seeming to balance out their main oomph in a way that was relatively satisfying but didn’t strike the note of real excellence or innovation. At points I was distant enough from the text to admire without liking them, more commonly I was drawn in but not left hugely benefited by the end of the tale.
Better than: Welcome to the Monkeyhouse by Kurt Vonnegut
Worse than: City of Saints and Madmen by Jeff Vandermeer
None of the stories blew me away, but there were some interesting situations and fine pieces of writing in there. Interesting the way questions of apocalyptic collapse develop so often, and in a somewhat distinctive fashion. High quality of individual writing and well formed characters within the limits of length, giving a real sense of complex personages. The actual events weren’t generally engagign enough, though, seeming to balance out their main oomph in a way that was relatively satisfying but didn’t strike the note of real excellence or innovation. At points I was distant enough from the text to admire without liking them, more commonly I was drawn in but not left hugely benefited by the end of the tale.
Better than: Welcome to the Monkeyhouse by Kurt Vonnegut
Worse than: City of Saints and Madmen by Jeff Vandermeer
Sunday, June 27, 2010
The Deceitful Marriage
by Miguel de Cervantes, 311 pages
Strong characters, interesting setup, good prose that comes across even in translation, yet for some reason this collection of short stories didn’t work for me. It ended up being quite a dull collection to read through, something about the situations and the atual stories for most of these semmed far too thin and much too drawn out. In no small part this is probably linked to the distances in space and time from the point of publication, but compared with Don Quixote’s energy and rich description, here the stories feel hollow, artificial, dessicated.
Typically I can see quite well why I didn’t like a particular work or author, find the issues that made it not click for him. Not in this case, there’s just a fundamental factor of grace and fun in the stories that make the pieces basically unengaging to me.
Worse than: Moby Dick by Herman Melville
Also worse than: The Crocodile by Fyodor Dostoevsky
Strong characters, interesting setup, good prose that comes across even in translation, yet for some reason this collection of short stories didn’t work for me. It ended up being quite a dull collection to read through, something about the situations and the atual stories for most of these semmed far too thin and much too drawn out. In no small part this is probably linked to the distances in space and time from the point of publication, but compared with Don Quixote’s energy and rich description, here the stories feel hollow, artificial, dessicated.
Typically I can see quite well why I didn’t like a particular work or author, find the issues that made it not click for him. Not in this case, there’s just a fundamental factor of grace and fun in the stories that make the pieces basically unengaging to me.
Worse than: Moby Dick by Herman Melville
Also worse than: The Crocodile by Fyodor Dostoevsky
Saturday, June 12, 2010
Poor Folk and Other Stories
Poor Folk and Other Stories by Fyodor Dostoevsky
The thirteenth work by Dostoevsky I've read, and the first collection of short stories. Or, more properly, one novella-type work (Poor Folk) and a collection of short stories. Judged by the standards of most other works read, shows itself hugely superior, wonderful in command of language and intensity of atmosphere. It has brilliant characterization, of course, that's basically a given with Dostoevsky, but what's particularly effective is how the voice of the characters links to the larger narrative. Dostoevsky's take on intensity of characterization is different than most writers I've encountered--showing a forceful personality not by rendering it coherent and self-contained but by playing up its instability, the fragmented ambiguities in how consciousness is experienced.
Since the stories are from earlier in Dostoevsky's career and shorter than the norm there's less of the troubling aspects that feature later--the xenophobic nationalism, the near-masochistic portrayal of suffering, the emphasis on transcendental religion as the source of virtue, the disturbing treatment of women. Instead, in most of these pieces there emerges a less problematic representation of poverty in Russia as well as the nuanced challenges of individual ambition and pride in a nation struggling to form its own identity. There's also less of the sheer spark and genius in his writing, however, with no character or character situation as intense as the kind that rolls off every other page of Brothers Karamazov. There's a lot of material in here that feels substantive and meaningful, but little of it has quite the necessary emotive force to feel truly great, or to make for a highly memorable story climax. Judged by the standards of most authors these are classics, but compared with Dostoevsky's other writings this emerges as a weak collection. It gains its most enduring force in the depiction of Russian social conditions of the nineteenth century, particularly in the titular representation of poverty. This aspect makes for a powerful testimony as part of Russian history, but the text doesn't stand on its own to the extent that is typical for Dostoevsky.
Similar to and better than: Mirgorod and Other Tales by Nikolai Gogol
Similar to and worse than: The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner
The thirteenth work by Dostoevsky I've read, and the first collection of short stories. Or, more properly, one novella-type work (Poor Folk) and a collection of short stories. Judged by the standards of most other works read, shows itself hugely superior, wonderful in command of language and intensity of atmosphere. It has brilliant characterization, of course, that's basically a given with Dostoevsky, but what's particularly effective is how the voice of the characters links to the larger narrative. Dostoevsky's take on intensity of characterization is different than most writers I've encountered--showing a forceful personality not by rendering it coherent and self-contained but by playing up its instability, the fragmented ambiguities in how consciousness is experienced.
Since the stories are from earlier in Dostoevsky's career and shorter than the norm there's less of the troubling aspects that feature later--the xenophobic nationalism, the near-masochistic portrayal of suffering, the emphasis on transcendental religion as the source of virtue, the disturbing treatment of women. Instead, in most of these pieces there emerges a less problematic representation of poverty in Russia as well as the nuanced challenges of individual ambition and pride in a nation struggling to form its own identity. There's also less of the sheer spark and genius in his writing, however, with no character or character situation as intense as the kind that rolls off every other page of Brothers Karamazov. There's a lot of material in here that feels substantive and meaningful, but little of it has quite the necessary emotive force to feel truly great, or to make for a highly memorable story climax. Judged by the standards of most authors these are classics, but compared with Dostoevsky's other writings this emerges as a weak collection. It gains its most enduring force in the depiction of Russian social conditions of the nineteenth century, particularly in the titular representation of poverty. This aspect makes for a powerful testimony as part of Russian history, but the text doesn't stand on its own to the extent that is typical for Dostoevsky.
Similar to and better than: Mirgorod and Other Tales by Nikolai Gogol
Similar to and worse than: The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner
Wednesday, June 9, 2010
Pump Six and Other Stories
Pump Six and Other Stories by Paolo Bacigalupi
A collection of science fiction short stories, some but not all set in the same universe. Confirms Bacigalupi as one of the most effective writers of modern times, showing an incredible command of language, intensity of situation, and range of emotions.
Fairly dark stuff in here, with most of the stories concerning environmental collapse and the resultant suffering, austerity, adaptation and compromised morality that accompanies such an event. Even in a situation without hope the stories avoid simplistic moral censure or flat despair, instead pointing to the complexity and strong human connection that runs even in a self-inflicted apocalypse. The best story here by far is "The Yellow Card Man", but there's not a bad one in here, and a number of pieces deserve to stand as classics of the genre.
Similar to and better than: The Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi. That novel is an expansion of several of the author's previous short stories, and brings similar virtues to play. However it's ultimately a lot less energetic and has a few dubious commitments in pace and theme, and only occasionally summons the same type of murky moral intensity commonly on display in these stories.
Similar to and worse than: Story of Your Life and Others by Ted Chiang. Ultimately Chiang's short stories show equal command of language and intensity while offering more variety, from hard science fiction to mythological fantasy. Each author is awesome in producing atmosphere along with and linked to story, but Chiang's pieces ultimately feature a more fascinating picture of human futures and alternate pasts.
A collection of science fiction short stories, some but not all set in the same universe. Confirms Bacigalupi as one of the most effective writers of modern times, showing an incredible command of language, intensity of situation, and range of emotions.
Fairly dark stuff in here, with most of the stories concerning environmental collapse and the resultant suffering, austerity, adaptation and compromised morality that accompanies such an event. Even in a situation without hope the stories avoid simplistic moral censure or flat despair, instead pointing to the complexity and strong human connection that runs even in a self-inflicted apocalypse. The best story here by far is "The Yellow Card Man", but there's not a bad one in here, and a number of pieces deserve to stand as classics of the genre.
Similar to and better than: The Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi. That novel is an expansion of several of the author's previous short stories, and brings similar virtues to play. However it's ultimately a lot less energetic and has a few dubious commitments in pace and theme, and only occasionally summons the same type of murky moral intensity commonly on display in these stories.
Similar to and worse than: Story of Your Life and Others by Ted Chiang. Ultimately Chiang's short stories show equal command of language and intensity while offering more variety, from hard science fiction to mythological fantasy. Each author is awesome in producing atmosphere along with and linked to story, but Chiang's pieces ultimately feature a more fascinating picture of human futures and alternate pasts.
Friday, January 15, 2010
Galactic Cluster
Galactic Cluster by James Blish, 1959
Collection of science fiction short stories. A bit tricky to assess at this point, while they contain a lot of neat ideas they're also ideas I've seen used a lot since, and in many cases a lot better. Blish is pretty good at executing a story and his prose is competent, but there's not enough humor, raw creativity or bite to his descriptions to make his short fiction stand the test of time like an Asimov or a Philip K. Dick. While I liked Blish's A Case of Conscience quite a deal, this particular anthology left me much colder, and is probably part of the reason I didn't get around to read it until four years after I bought this volume.
Still, if I was reading this in 1959 I'm sure I would have had my mind blown several times, and none of the stories stand out as bad, or even boring. I was most found of Beep. Overall, I'd say this collection was worth the look.
Similar to and better than: Fritz Leiber's Gather, Darkness!
Similar to and worse than: Isaac Asimov's The Early Asimov
Collection of science fiction short stories. A bit tricky to assess at this point, while they contain a lot of neat ideas they're also ideas I've seen used a lot since, and in many cases a lot better. Blish is pretty good at executing a story and his prose is competent, but there's not enough humor, raw creativity or bite to his descriptions to make his short fiction stand the test of time like an Asimov or a Philip K. Dick. While I liked Blish's A Case of Conscience quite a deal, this particular anthology left me much colder, and is probably part of the reason I didn't get around to read it until four years after I bought this volume.
Still, if I was reading this in 1959 I'm sure I would have had my mind blown several times, and none of the stories stand out as bad, or even boring. I was most found of Beep. Overall, I'd say this collection was worth the look.
Similar to and better than: Fritz Leiber's Gather, Darkness!
Similar to and worse than: Isaac Asimov's The Early Asimov
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)