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ashley_choo's review
5.0
Some of these stories were very uncomfortable to read, like The Lion, and Putting the Lizard to Sleep, and especially Momentary
rocketiza's review
2.0
I had to give up after about 125 pages. I like his prose, but the content of the stories are insufferable.
lamusadelils's review
2.0
Creo que llegué a un punto en que ya no puedo dejar pasar ciertos temas en lo que leo sólo porque este bien escrito.
No digo que el libro sea malo ni que la temática en sí sea mala, pero mi corazoncito ya no aguanta leer sobre muerte de animales.
Dicho eso, los cuentos tienen puntos bastante fuertes que podrían ser disfrutados por alguien más.
No digo que el libro sea malo ni que la temática en sí sea mala, pero mi corazoncito ya no aguanta leer sobre muerte de animales.
Dicho eso, los cuentos tienen puntos bastante fuertes que podrían ser disfrutados por alguien más.
bucket's review against another edition
4.0
Overall, this collection of stories is haunting. Most are spent entirely in the head of a character, experiencing their thoughts and feelings, but there is still quite a bit of action in most of the stories. In many cases, extended metaphors are used, particularly ones with animals, and these are especially effective.
For example, in the opening story, obit, a bear helps a woman fish and sings her to sleep at night. In exchange, she feeds him peppermint. In the end this sacrifice on the bear's part is clear and is equated with the sacrifices of the teller of this story, a boy's mother. The story culminates with the well-known realization we all have at some point - that great things and bad things will happen (ex. "Lovers will share breath, possessed by moments of unassailable faith."), but ultimately everything ends.
Another story, The Lion, describes the grief of a woman who has lost her daughter and is now paralyzed. Her energy goes into creating a stuffed lion that soon has a life of its own.
Airbag, a story in three parts, lacked the clarity of the shorter stories. That said, I love this line, spoken by Triti: "There's going to be me wherever I go."
There are also several very short pieces and most of them didn't do much for me (The Whale Dream, The Heart as a Fist). I was intrigued by the very short story Jane, though: "Slowly you learn that possession is the sinew of ghosts."
It's clear that 10-15 pages is when Sanders is at his best. The most haunting story for me was Momentary, in which the main character James takes the intrusive thoughts we all get sometimes to extremes. As he says, "I imagine things could happen. I believe they can, if only for moments. It's a fear I can't live without."
Putting the Lizard to Sleep was also great and Opinion of Person decent. The final story, Assembly, is a bit of a conundrum for me. I was charmed by it, the repetition, the imagination, the magical realism, but it didn't leave me with much. There's a sense that people are like machines, or interchangeable with machines, but the animal metaphors were more effective for me.
Themes: inner thoughts, metaphor, death, ended relationships, men, animals, experimental, surrealism, emotion
For example, in the opening story, obit, a bear helps a woman fish and sings her to sleep at night. In exchange, she feeds him peppermint. In the end this sacrifice on the bear's part is clear and is equated with the sacrifices of the teller of this story, a boy's mother. The story culminates with the well-known realization we all have at some point - that great things and bad things will happen (ex. "Lovers will share breath, possessed by moments of unassailable faith."), but ultimately everything ends.
Another story, The Lion, describes the grief of a woman who has lost her daughter and is now paralyzed. Her energy goes into creating a stuffed lion that soon has a life of its own.
Airbag, a story in three parts, lacked the clarity of the shorter stories. That said, I love this line, spoken by Triti: "There's going to be me wherever I go."
There are also several very short pieces and most of them didn't do much for me (The Whale Dream, The Heart as a Fist). I was intrigued by the very short story Jane, though: "Slowly you learn that possession is the sinew of ghosts."
It's clear that 10-15 pages is when Sanders is at his best. The most haunting story for me was Momentary, in which the main character James takes the intrusive thoughts we all get sometimes to extremes. As he says, "I imagine things could happen. I believe they can, if only for moments. It's a fear I can't live without."
Putting the Lizard to Sleep was also great and Opinion of Person decent. The final story, Assembly, is a bit of a conundrum for me. I was charmed by it, the repetition, the imagination, the magical realism, but it didn't leave me with much. There's a sense that people are like machines, or interchangeable with machines, but the animal metaphors were more effective for me.
Themes: inner thoughts, metaphor, death, ended relationships, men, animals, experimental, surrealism, emotion
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