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4.11 AVERAGE
4.11 AVERAGE
Nevada başlığıyla Yüz Kitap'tan (Zeynep Baransel çevirisi ile) çıkan Battleborn'u inanılmaz beğendim. Amerikalı çağdaş kadın öykücülerin dertleri, üslupları, yaklaşımları zaman zaman Türkiyeli çağdaş kadın öykücülerinkinden daha yakın hissettiriyor bana maalesef. Ne çok içedönük ne evrensellik kaygısı taşıyan Watkins öykülerinin her biri de beni ayrı yerden yakaladı. Unconventional aileler, arkadaş kıskançıkları, yalnızlık, eko-kaygı... Hepsinden bir şeyler bulmak mümkün. Nevada teması da Lauren Groff'un Florida'sını hatırlatıyor ister istemez, ona da bayılmıştım. Şöyle Amerika orta batı eyaletleri tek tek öykülense de hepsini okusam keşke diyorum.
If I could give this more than five stars I would. These dark and disturbing stories--most of which are centered around Nevada--can be off-putting at first, but beneath them is so much beauty and artistry (and a wry sense of humor) you can't help but admire each one. The Nevada portrayed by Vaye Watkins is of people confronting their true selves on the desert, a landscape where each person must confront, as quoted in the poem that opens the book, one's own bitter heart and to love it for what it is.
I'm a sucker for these kinds of short stories--sharply written tales of malaise, despair, brutality and aimless unease. Watkins writes darkly complex female characters, The story in which she details the questionable decisions made by a woman facing the demise of relationship is particularly compelling, as is the uncomfortable friendship triangle she sketches out between two female friends and a guy. The stories are set in Nevada and Northern California's Mother Lode country made them all the more interesting to me. Less successful was the story of two brothers mining for gold--here the tale meandered with both purpose and plot falling flat due, at least in part, to the story's concrete pacing.
MAGICAL. This is what is was like to grow up in Nevada. If you want to know my childhood, read this book.
This is one of my favorite kinds of short-story collections: those that are unified in their sense of place. Following in the American tradition of Sherwood Anderson's Winesburg, Ohio, Edgar Lee Masters's Spoon River Anthology, Willa Cather's Death Comes to the Archbishop, and John Steinbeck's The Pastures of Heaven, Watkins claims her native Nevada as a landscape for some pretty incredible characters.
It's hard to pick a favorite from this collection, with stories set both in the present and during historic periods like the Gold Rush and the wake of the Manson Family murders. I would have to go with the final story, "Graceland," which is a perfect tapestry of storylines and themes that describe the inner lives of two sisters who lost their mother too young. Missing mothers is a theme of several of the stories.
In "The Last Thing We Need" Watkins unwinds the inner workings of guilt and memory in a series of letters written by a character to the owner of some artifacts he found dumped in the desert. Love in all its complications is a theme of both "Virginia City," which covers a true love triangle revolving around a free spirit named Jules, and "The Archivist," in which a woman struggles to let to of relics of a destructive relationship, most of all with the child growing within her.
The landscape and mores of Nevada are best found in "Rondine al Nido," in which two friends lose their innocense in Las Vegas, and "Man-O-War," another one of my favorites, in which a lonely prospector finds himself caring for an abused teenage girl.
It's hard to pick a favorite from this collection, with stories set both in the present and during historic periods like the Gold Rush and the wake of the Manson Family murders. I would have to go with the final story, "Graceland," which is a perfect tapestry of storylines and themes that describe the inner lives of two sisters who lost their mother too young. Missing mothers is a theme of several of the stories.
In "The Last Thing We Need" Watkins unwinds the inner workings of guilt and memory in a series of letters written by a character to the owner of some artifacts he found dumped in the desert. Love in all its complications is a theme of both "Virginia City," which covers a true love triangle revolving around a free spirit named Jules, and "The Archivist," in which a woman struggles to let to of relics of a destructive relationship, most of all with the child growing within her.
The landscape and mores of Nevada are best found in "Rondine al Nido," in which two friends lose their innocense in Las Vegas, and "Man-O-War," another one of my favorites, in which a lonely prospector finds himself caring for an abused teenage girl.
reflective
sad
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
N/A
Strong character development:
N/A
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
A collection of short stories about miserable people with whom I did not connect.
This was dark and delicious. Watkins writing reminds me a little of Raymond Carver, in pacing, plot and details, but with a side of Cormac McCarthy and Patrick de Witt's The Sisters Brothers. I love the way in which Nevada and a sense of American West, in all it's glory and harshness, tied all of the stories together, the land serving as an undercurrent no matter at which point in history the tales took place.
No story stood out as pushing above or sinking below the others -- the level of consistent, stellar writing was remarkable. Leading with the version of her own twisted family history was such a brave choice. I will follow her without question to whichever land she writes herself next.
No story stood out as pushing above or sinking below the others -- the level of consistent, stellar writing was remarkable. Leading with the version of her own twisted family history was such a brave choice. I will follow her without question to whichever land she writes herself next.
I'm not sure it's fair of me to review this one, since I didn't finish it. I was so excited to read a book set in the desert! I don't want to pan it because I'm so grateful to anyone who writes from the desert, but for me it was too depressing, and since I started reading it thinking it was a memoir, then a novel, somehow not realizing it was a book of short stories (okay, yes, I should really pay attention to the genre). I felt a bit ripped off after investing in a few characters only to have their arcs end--for me these short stories work as introductions to novels, but don't feel quite complete to me as stories (again, though, I was not reading in the right mindset for stories, and my expectations were way too high). I read the first few stories, and then just... stopped, and never picked it up again. But please, desert writers of the world, keep it coming! (Just write a full novel, please!)
This is one of the best short story collections I have ever read.
Masterfully written, pain and melancholy flows through each story. Yet there is something so beautiful and human about this pain.
The characters we meet in each story are bent and broken, but aren’t we all?
Masterfully written, pain and melancholy flows through each story. Yet there is something so beautiful and human about this pain.
The characters we meet in each story are bent and broken, but aren’t we all?