Sign in with Facebook
Loading...
The Entire Predicament
by
Lucy Corin,
Pam Houston (Goodreads Author)
In this refreshing, funny, and startling collection of stories, Lucy Corin veers far from the path of staid contemporary fiction. She masterfully weaves traditional and experimental topics and techniques, creating a fictional world where people behave normally in the most extreme situations, and in bizarrely with almost no provocation at all. But thanks to her vivid, sharp
...more
Paperback, 186 pages
Published
September 28th 2007
by Tin House Books
Friend Reviews
To see what your friends thought of this book,
please sign up.
This book is not yet featured on Listopia.
Add this book to your favorite list »
Community Reviews
(showing
1-30
of
182)
review coming (I hope)...maybe some spoilers but I don't think so...
Mind expanding, weird, beautiful, fucked up, vicious and really weird (did I say that?). I loved most ‘Mice’ (a descent story of the highest order, a man’s battle against mice, at first he catches them and lets them go in the burnt out corn field, against a background of his wife being radicalised and - as he perceives - turning his knee height daughter against him, cracking up, and trying to get counselling from a work colleagu...more
Mind expanding, weird, beautiful, fucked up, vicious and really weird (did I say that?). I loved most ‘Mice’ (a descent story of the highest order, a man’s battle against mice, at first he catches them and lets them go in the burnt out corn field, against a background of his wife being radicalised and - as he perceives - turning his knee height daughter against him, cracking up, and trying to get counselling from a work colleagu...more
Sep 17, 2008
Natalie
rated it
4 of 5 stars
Recommends it for:
Beth B., Janine
Recommended to Natalie by:
Tinhouse magazine
Yes! I have been waiting for this book of short stories. Corin incorporates the eerie poeticism of Kelly Link, the psychological acuity of Miranda July and the whimsy of Aimee Bender.
1 like · like · see review
view 1 comment
When I read the first story in this collection, I was extremely impressed. The writing style was unique, the characters were intriguing, and the observations that Corin subtly included were important. But as I continued reading I was less impressed because every story seemed very similar. All of the characters were essentially the same (with variations in sexuality and number of cats owned). These stories, with the exception of "Mice," would be better on their own so they don't blur together so...more
I had read a lot of these stories after encountering Lucy Corin's work at a writer's conference in 2008. I teach writing, too, so I'd taught some of them. This was the first time I'd sat down and read it straight through, though, and I did so right after reading -- and being completely floored by (in the best kind of way -- Miranda July's No One Belongs Here More Than You. I was in this weird place of wanting to live in July's book for a little longer, or at least to stay submerged in that sensi...more
Hot damn. A friend recommended Lucy Corin, whom I'd never heard of, to me, and she absolutely knocked my socks off. What we have here, now, is a very excited Paul. Read this story collection. It's really good.
Corin got her MFA from Brown, but "experimental" is very, very far down on the list of words I'd use to describe the book. The writing is clearly motivated by a love for language, versus structure. While some of the stories play with form a bit, it's mostly the situations/characters that ar...more
Corin got her MFA from Brown, but "experimental" is very, very far down on the list of words I'd use to describe the book. The writing is clearly motivated by a love for language, versus structure. While some of the stories play with form a bit, it's mostly the situations/characters that ar...more
From a writer's point of view, at least half of these stories are four-star affairs, but as a reader, I found a few of them (particularly "Baby in a Body Cast" and "Some Machines") very frustrating/inaccessible. As with No one Belongs Here More Than You, I was turned both on and off by the author's prose style and the proliferation of nutty (but deeply insightful) narrators. I just wrote a positive review of this book for Enfuse Magazine, and I stand by it, or at least next to it. The best stori...more
This book made me feel like a loser. Lucy Corin is so, so talented. Her observations of the most basic happenings are so in depth and beautiful that I wonder if I've actually been observing the world. It seems I haven't. Corin? She has.
A few of the stories were a little dark for me. But most were filled with vivid imaging and interesting personal discovery. All were written in this very lyrical, smooth style.
My favorite story was Some Machines.
Even as you are my love, you are more. You are more...more
A few of the stories were a little dark for me. But most were filled with vivid imaging and interesting personal discovery. All were written in this very lyrical, smooth style.
My favorite story was Some Machines.
Even as you are my love, you are more. You are more...more
Prose is fantastic, odd sentences. Me like.
Lucy's stories are beautiful in a way that makes me feel like everything is tenuous and momentary: under any icicle house there might be a family of bluebirds learning to ride bicycles.
One of those magical sentences that, for me, articulates the formerly inarticulable: "...I know that if I continue to speak, some recognition of difficulty will materialize, as if difficulty is produced from the interaction of my voice with the air it encounters" (from "Simpler Components").
One of those magical sentences that, for me, articulates the formerly inarticulable: "...I know that if I continue to speak, some recognition of difficulty will materialize, as if difficulty is produced from the interaction of my voice with the air it encounters" (from "Simpler Components").
This short story collection was hit or miss for me. I knew it was good; the writing alone kept me going, but the content became so increasingly bizarre and unfathomable that I started losing hope that the author had a point. It finally came in the title story, but trying to decipher stories like "Baby in a Body Cast" and "Some Machines" made me feel discouraged. Not to my taste, but it's an interesting read.
Lucy Corin & Mirand July should get together, as in be partners in life & writing and talk each other to death, hopefully then they would write less short stories. I can read a story by either of them every month or so and not be annoyed, beyond that I am severly irritated and in a collection it is just overwhelmingly stupid.
May 08, 2008
Billy
is currently reading it
Lucy Corin has an arresting style that's at once conversational and experimental, banal yet surprisingly eerie. Published by Portland-based Tin House Books, this collection brings together several darkly humorous and disconcerting tales of 21st-century anxiety.
Jan 20, 2008
Adam
marked it as to-read
To be honest? Lucy Corin was my creative writing professor at James Madison University. I'm wanting to read this to see if any of my lines got thieved on into something published. Here's hoping!
4.5: "My Favorite Dentist," "Wizened," "The Way She Loved Cats," and "Baby in a Body Cast" were especially enjoyable.
Oh yeah, everyone should read this.
I really like this.
Mar 17, 2013
Alison
added it
Not my style.
Jun 17, 2013
Ficie
marked it as to-read
Jun 15, 2013
Justin
marked it as to-read
Jun 11, 2013
Connie
marked it as to-read
Jun 05, 2013
Ali
marked it as to-read
May 21, 2013
Lisa Leigh
marked it as to-read
May 09, 2013
Sylvia Lin
is currently reading it
There are no discussion topics on this book yet.
Be the first to start one »
