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3rd out of 17 books
—
5 voters
The Odditorium: Stories
O, The Oprah Magazine �Title to Pick Up Now” & Oprah.com Book of the Week
San Francisco Chronicle Best Book of the Year
Library Journal Best Stories Collection of the Year
�Emotionally rich.” — New York Times
�Ambitious, lush and even thrilling.” — Los Angeles Times
�Ripping good yarns.” —Minneapolis Star Tribune
�The stories in this strange and original collection bend gen...more
San Francisco Chronicle Best Book of the Year
Library Journal Best Stories Collection of the Year
�Emotionally rich.” — New York Times
�Ambitious, lush and even thrilling.” — Los Angeles Times
�Ripping good yarns.” —Minneapolis Star Tribune
�The stories in this strange and original collection bend gen...more
Paperback, 256 pages
Published
January 10th 2012
by Bellevue Literary Press
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http://wineandabook.com/2012/03/06/re...
Melissa Pritchard has some legit authorial street cred. Thus far, her short fiction has won:
*the Flannery O'Connor Award,
*the Carl Sandburg Literary Award,
*the Janet Heidinger Kafka Prize,
*a PEN/Nelson Algren Honorary Mention
*TWO O. Henry Prizes,
*TWO Pushcart Prizes,
*the Ortese Prize in North American Literature from the University of Florence,
*the Barnes & Noble Discover Award,
*fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Hawthorne Found...more
Melissa Pritchard has some legit authorial street cred. Thus far, her short fiction has won:
*the Flannery O'Connor Award,
*the Carl Sandburg Literary Award,
*the Janet Heidinger Kafka Prize,
*a PEN/Nelson Algren Honorary Mention
*TWO O. Henry Prizes,
*TWO Pushcart Prizes,
*the Ortese Prize in North American Literature from the University of Florence,
*the Barnes & Noble Discover Award,
*fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Hawthorne Found...more
Mar 20, 2012
Kara
added it
I was really looking forward to this book of short stories. Unfortunately, the writing style was something I just could not connect to. I found it disjointed and almost trying too hard to be different. The author can write, there is no doubt about that, I just sometimes feel that simpler is better. And here, the descriptions were so thick that they were actually hard to understand. This was just my experience of course, and I am sure that this collection will be loved by some. But it just didn't...more
It's hard to find fault with the dense recreations here, stories that are, I think, in the mode of Jim Shepard: historical fictions, by and large, that emphasize character over narrative. Sometimes, like in Shepard (and maybe about half the stories here), the characters are historical personages, and the other half are ostensibly imaginary characters. And really, I think the goal of these stories is to set character against that historical tableau, to see them as both products of and somehow dis...more
Melissa Pritchard's new collection of short stories draws on the deep well of history to produce stories based on characters both famous and obscure. This collection of eight stories, told in a variety of ways, is inventive and satisfying on a number of levels.
My absolute favorite stories from The Odditorium are based on the strangest historical figures. "Pelagia, Holy Fool" is based on a woman named Pelagia, born in 1807 during the reign of Tsar Alexander I who was a Fool-for-Christ. In short,...more
My absolute favorite stories from The Odditorium are based on the strangest historical figures. "Pelagia, Holy Fool" is based on a woman named Pelagia, born in 1807 during the reign of Tsar Alexander I who was a Fool-for-Christ. In short,...more
This collection of eight worlds transported me inside the lives of these magical, haunting, luminous characters. No one can write like Melissa Pritchard! Her prose is a dense, exotic forest of language that you want to disappear in forever.
“Dank grub, cabbage vermin, white, hairless, altricial slug. It scarcely flourished in its cradle plot, its solitary necropolis, neither living nor dead, its budded tongue a fleshy club, its legs fwumped and futile.”
Pritchard never shies away from the darkest...more
“Dank grub, cabbage vermin, white, hairless, altricial slug. It scarcely flourished in its cradle plot, its solitary necropolis, neither living nor dead, its budded tongue a fleshy club, its legs fwumped and futile.”
Pritchard never shies away from the darkest...more
I remember as a kid I'd go to the county fair and pay 50 cents to see a two headed calf or the world's largest horse or a three-eyed toad and it wasn't really a circus freak show, they would just be odd things. That's kind of like this book, the stories are well-written, odd little things that you wouldn't normally focus on. There's a thread through the stories of what is news, what gets chosen to reported, how frequently this information is wrong or truncated. And in the end, the stories failed...more
Review based on ARC.
There is no doubt that Ms. Pritchard has a talent with words... However, i feel she is lacking in story and flow. I have often said that I love a well-written book, but even better, a well-told story. The conflict is apparent in the Odditorium.
It is clear that she has a poetic and lyrical method to her prose. But I don't care about the characters, not a single one has been endeared to me, and it feels like a well-written, albeit dry, history book. One that I know is fiction.
B...more
There is no doubt that Ms. Pritchard has a talent with words... However, i feel she is lacking in story and flow. I have often said that I love a well-written book, but even better, a well-told story. The conflict is apparent in the Odditorium.
It is clear that she has a poetic and lyrical method to her prose. But I don't care about the characters, not a single one has been endeared to me, and it feels like a well-written, albeit dry, history book. One that I know is fiction.
B...more
I once heard Melissa Pritchard tell students to collect words. Ms Pritchard is a careful gatherer of words and a master at using them. This collection brims with historical variations from 17th century Germany to modern India. Stories cleverly told with humor and understanding of the human condition.
Read slowly on a winter's eve.
Read slowly on a winter's eve.
I enjoyed the rich texture and detail of these stories. If you read one story in this book then the longest 'Captain Brown....' stands out as an almost novella that really had me engrossed. Very pleased to have discovered this author and will seek out her other books.
Ah, I love you Melissa. Thank you for writing these intensely intelligent, socially responsible stories.
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I had to take this down one star because, although most of the stories are magical, a few seem like wastes of time (and they are the longest). I absolutely loved all the tales based in history but I felt like the others were put in as filler in order to make the book long enough to pay full price. Those stories have their merits but should be in a different collection; one called 'Life's little mundanities' or something.
So could not connect to this book. While the author has a way with words and a definite talent as a writer I found this collection of stories dry and un-entertaining. Disappointed to say the least.
Clever, stylized writing
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“In death, as in sleep, I am all things.”
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1 person liked it
“He understood the mind's pride, filleting, pinning down life. Understood taking apart, reassembling and labeling. To Understand was to control, to keep the terror of human insignificance at bay. It was routine to self-importance, this ability to kill and to rebuild, to catalog and stop any motion too directly pointing out human limitation and death.”
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1 person liked it
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