Tumble Home: A Novella and Short Stories by Amy Hempel, Publisher: Scribner, 1997, ISBN-10: 0684838877
Rating: 3 of 5 STARS
Source: Random at Goodwill :-)
I really like short story collections. Probably the best one I've ever read is by Margaret Atwood called Moral Disorder. So, I couldn't resist this little collection for just 50 cents at Goodwill. But, overall, it was disappointing. There were some "Good Words" I'll capture, but mostly the stories just were a little too obscure for me. Here's a description from Amazon:
"In keeping with its minimalist content, Amy Hempel's latest collection of seven stories and a novella weighs in at a slim 155 pages; what the book lacks in heft, however, it more than makes up for in mood. Hempel, the author of two other short-story collections, is a master of witty understatement. In "The Children's Party," the narrator gives some advice to a father whose children feel that getting a new dog after the old one was killed would be disloyal: "'Tell them this: The need for the new love is faithfulness to the old,'" to which the father replies, "'That's what I used to tell myself when I cheated on my ex-wife.'" In Hempel's stories, nothing much happens, yet everything changes."
Rating: 3 of 5 STARS
Source: Random at Goodwill :-)
I really like short story collections. Probably the best one I've ever read is by Margaret Atwood called Moral Disorder. So, I couldn't resist this little collection for just 50 cents at Goodwill. But, overall, it was disappointing. There were some "Good Words" I'll capture, but mostly the stories just were a little too obscure for me. Here's a description from Amazon:
"In keeping with its minimalist content, Amy Hempel's latest collection of seven stories and a novella weighs in at a slim 155 pages; what the book lacks in heft, however, it more than makes up for in mood. Hempel, the author of two other short-story collections, is a master of witty understatement. In "The Children's Party," the narrator gives some advice to a father whose children feel that getting a new dog after the old one was killed would be disloyal: "'Tell them this: The need for the new love is faithfulness to the old,'" to which the father replies, "'That's what I used to tell myself when I cheated on my ex-wife.'" In Hempel's stories, nothing much happens, yet everything changes."
This book did one really positive thing for me, though. Hempel takes little ordinary things, like a child's birthday party, and finds a way to write a short story about them. It got me thinking about the things (events, people, thoughts) that I write poems about sometimes and how they could be short stories instead. Hempel's stories are almost like long prose poems. She's given me a different way of thinking about potential writing material. Hmmm...
Here's some Good Words:
"...you can shake the seeds out like salt on a baked potato, tamp not a spicule of soil on top of them, and up they will come..."
"...and has a laugh like you'd find in a cartoon balloon."
"The roads of prehistory - dents now like the tracks a vacuum cleaner leaves in thick carpet."
"Where is the consolation in this? It is in humiliation, which brings the softness of heart that allows you to listen to God."
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment