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billymac1962's review against another edition
4.0
TV Ontario carried a literary show called Imprint, and it was here that I first heard of Barbara Gowdy. But it was as an interviewer and it wasn't until a couple of years later that I learned she was also a writer, and quickly becoming one of this country's best. So finally
I decided to knock this one off my reading list.
It's a collection of eight stories featuring outcasts, freaks and depraved souls who are brought into a sensitive light by fine writing.
The stories are mostly inconsequential, in that I mean there's no real punchline or tidy resolution to the ends of them, and this isn't a bad thing. I also found that each story was better than the last one.
The title story deals with necrophilia, and was made into a movie called Kissed.
Recommended.
I decided to knock this one off my reading list.
It's a collection of eight stories featuring outcasts, freaks and depraved souls who are brought into a sensitive light by fine writing.
The stories are mostly inconsequential, in that I mean there's no real punchline or tidy resolution to the ends of them, and this isn't a bad thing. I also found that each story was better than the last one.
The title story deals with necrophilia, and was made into a movie called Kissed.
Recommended.
danjvrobertson's review against another edition
5.0
A stunning collection full of intriguing stories and quirky characters. A must-read.
sere_rev's review against another edition
4.0
I was utterly fascinated by the characters in these short stories. Necrophilia, exhibitionism, all kinds of usually hidden desires are put on display here: it would be easy for these characters to seem monstrous, but Gowdy approaches them with such grace and honesty that they rather appear eminently human.
katlouisee's review against another edition
4.0
A lot of icky and disturbing moments, but a lot of beautiful ones too! The stories tackled a lot of issues and questions surrounding bodies that I hadn't thought about and (in some cases) was afraid to search
kinbote4zembla's review against another edition
4.0
Deep down, beneath the lurid sex and freakish characters, this collection of short stories, We So Seldom Look on Love -- a gorgeous title borrowed from a poem by Frank O'Hara --, has a gooey, warm heart.
I think, this book is absolutely divisive. Some people will see Barbara Gowdy's stories as exploitative and desperate in the way of many modern writers trying to seem transgressive. But others will see these stories for what they are: each offers a nuanced and daring exploration of loneliness and isolation from extreme perspectives.
And the saving grace of it all really is the compassion and empathy infused in Gowdy's writing
For instance, the story that is the most obviously outrageous is the eponymous story, which is the confession of a self-diagnosed "necrophile." She has sex with the corpses she encounters in her place of employment, a mortuary. But it's really a love story, in a way. The empty love affair she has with a medical student culminates in his suicide, since he knows she could only ever love his corpse. As morbid and disturbing as that is, it is also a very refreshing and compelling way of looking at love and obsession and life and death.
These really are just classic short stories gussied up with modern sensibilities. And they are wonderfully provocative. They beg for contemplation and they offer the reader no simple answers. This is a book that rewards your thought.
If there is anything that detracts from this book, it is that slightly obnoxious need to be transgressive. It works, most of the time. But there are instances - as with the mentally challenged little girl in "Body and Soul" drilling a hole into her own forehead -- where the transgression seems slightly off. The symbolism, even when it's cringe-worthy, is always new, though, to Gowdy's credit.
Her concision -- this is a thin volume -- means that she doesn't retread material. (At least, not deeply or troublingly. Two stories feature the overall concept of conjoined twins, but differ greatly in style, content, and tone. And "Lizards" and "Flesh of My Flesh" tell the disparate stories of two friends.)
This is such a neat little book. There isn't much dead air, in that the stories are all of a consistently high quality. And I think, in the tradition of Flannery O'Connor and Edgar Allan Poe and James Purdy, the stories of the outsiders, of the grotesque, even though they can be the most troubling, are the most mundane, almost. They hit upon a very basic fear or insecurity that exists in everyone, I think, and they exploit that feeling in all of us and ask us to wonder what it is and why it's there. They blow things up so that we can better see the details in the darkness. And really, if books like this weren't out there, how would some of us ever encounter the people on the fringes? The corpse-fuckers and the bored exhibitionists and the conjoined twins and the God-fearing girls who can levitate, where would they be without writers like Barbara Gowdy?
4 Hard-to-Reach Dildos out of 5
I think, this book is absolutely divisive. Some people will see Barbara Gowdy's stories as exploitative and desperate in the way of many modern writers trying to seem transgressive. But others will see these stories for what they are: each offers a nuanced and daring exploration of loneliness and isolation from extreme perspectives.
And the saving grace of it all really is the compassion and empathy infused in Gowdy's writing
For instance, the story that is the most obviously outrageous is the eponymous story, which is the confession of a self-diagnosed "necrophile." She has sex with the corpses she encounters in her place of employment, a mortuary. But it's really a love story, in a way. The empty love affair she has with a medical student culminates in his suicide, since he knows she could only ever love his corpse. As morbid and disturbing as that is, it is also a very refreshing and compelling way of looking at love and obsession and life and death.
These really are just classic short stories gussied up with modern sensibilities. And they are wonderfully provocative. They beg for contemplation and they offer the reader no simple answers. This is a book that rewards your thought.
If there is anything that detracts from this book, it is that slightly obnoxious need to be transgressive. It works, most of the time. But there are instances - as with the mentally challenged little girl in "Body and Soul" drilling a hole into her own forehead -- where the transgression seems slightly off. The symbolism, even when it's cringe-worthy, is always new, though, to Gowdy's credit.
Her concision -- this is a thin volume -- means that she doesn't retread material. (At least, not deeply or troublingly. Two stories feature the overall concept of conjoined twins, but differ greatly in style, content, and tone. And "Lizards" and "Flesh of My Flesh" tell the disparate stories of two friends.)
This is such a neat little book. There isn't much dead air, in that the stories are all of a consistently high quality. And I think, in the tradition of Flannery O'Connor and Edgar Allan Poe and James Purdy, the stories of the outsiders, of the grotesque, even though they can be the most troubling, are the most mundane, almost. They hit upon a very basic fear or insecurity that exists in everyone, I think, and they exploit that feeling in all of us and ask us to wonder what it is and why it's there. They blow things up so that we can better see the details in the darkness. And really, if books like this weren't out there, how would some of us ever encounter the people on the fringes? The corpse-fuckers and the bored exhibitionists and the conjoined twins and the God-fearing girls who can levitate, where would they be without writers like Barbara Gowdy?
4 Hard-to-Reach Dildos out of 5
jadelianne's review
5.0
This book mesmerized me. I don't know how she did it, but Gowdy managed to take all sorts of grisly, grotesque and downright heart-wrenching subject matter and make it beautiful and even occasionally romantic.
I can't think of a single story that I found particularly weak. I felt this was a really strong collection, and one that I won't soon forget.
I can't think of a single story that I found particularly weak. I felt this was a really strong collection, and one that I won't soon forget.
emilycait's review against another edition
5.0
I wish I could give this more than five stars. This collection of short stories blew me away. Normally there are one or two stories in a collection that 'grab' me, but every single one of these short stories is one that I want to reread. The characters are haunting and disturbing and fascinating. And I just can't stop thinking about them.
sarahconnor89757's review against another edition
5.0
There are fantastic stories in here like the beautiful necrophiliac or the two headed man personifying good and evil, but my favorite story was the one about the foster children. Gowdy told the story in a beautiful and loving way that made it far more arresting then other pieces I've read like it in which the authors try to be shocking.