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231st out of 297 books
—
495 voters
Who Will Run the Frog Hospital?
by
Lorrie Moore
Berie Carr, an American woman visiting Paris with her husband, summons up for us a summer in 1972 when she was fifteen, living in upstate New York and working as a ticket taker at Storyland, an amusement park where her beautiful best friend, Sils, was Cinderella in a papier-mache pumpkin coach. We see these two girls together - Berie and Sils - intense, brash, set apart by...more
Paperback, 160 pages
Published
April 13th 2004
by Vintage
(first published September 27th 1994)
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Oct 27, 2009
Bonnie
rated it
2 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
fiction,
reviewed-books
2 ½ stars
Who Will Run the Frog Hospital is the first book I have read by Lorrie Moore. Apparently it has been eight years since she last published a novel. My sense here is that she simply tried too hard, or perhaps she was shooting for something that she couldn’t quite pull off, because the story – two stories, really – didn’t connect in the way I suspected she wanted them to. Interactions between characters felt disjointed, and the writing often came across as contrived: Earl was Earl Gray, a...more
Who Will Run the Frog Hospital is the first book I have read by Lorrie Moore. Apparently it has been eight years since she last published a novel. My sense here is that she simply tried too hard, or perhaps she was shooting for something that she couldn’t quite pull off, because the story – two stories, really – didn’t connect in the way I suspected she wanted them to. Interactions between characters felt disjointed, and the writing often came across as contrived: Earl was Earl Gray, a...more
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Every once in a while you read a news story about a recluse who's devoted his life to some miniature: the New York skyline on a grain of rice, Angkor Wat in porcelain. This is how this novel feels to me. Not to speculate about Ms. Moore, who I have no reason to believe is a bearded recluse (indeed, the author photo informs me she is a stone-cold hottie). Frog Hospital -- which I love, love, love -- isn't a novel of great inventiveness, or scope, or wisdom. It is a book of breathtaking craft. Moo...more
17 likes · like · see review
First off, let me say that I adore Moore's short stories. *Adore.* And find her work as a novelist as lacking in real bite or interest as, say, the novels of Ethan Canin, which are some kind of horrible. I read part of this once before and gave up and only picked it up again because someone I esteem loves it.
Hard pressed to explain why this novel so irritated me. It is written beautifully, of course; and the core story--about a seventies girlhood in a small town with the usual coming-of-age hooh...more
Hard pressed to explain why this novel so irritated me. It is written beautifully, of course; and the core story--about a seventies girlhood in a small town with the usual coming-of-age hooh...more
Jul 03, 2008
Greg
rated it
4 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
fiction,
girls-girls-girls
I could not figure out where in Upstate New York this book was supposed to take place. The name of the town sounded like somewhere out near Elmira, details of the town at times sounded like Saratoga, but other details made the town sounds smaller, and more like a place sort of near Lake George. But then the distances mentioned at the end of the book made none of the earlier distances sounds correct. I'll ignore certain details and place the book as being in Saratoga, and the theme park as being...more
8 likes · like · see review
This is the second novel by Lorrie Moore that I have read, and now I want to read some of her short stories. This is a minimalist novel that alternates between the narrator as an adult with a tenuous marriage and narrator as a teenager in small-town America, embroiled in a friendship with another girl that she later revisits. Much is summarized; the highlighted moments are important and tender, several strands pulled into an impressionistic picture.
For some reason I was not aware of Lorrie Moore until I heard about her most recent book “A Gate at the Stairs“. I’m thrilled to have discovered her and I’m looking forward to reading as much as I can from her. “Frog Hospital” is a wander down memory lane. Moore and I are contemporaries so me (and a few billion other boomers) will easily recognize her sense of time. The place was a bit more foreign to me; it almost felt like Canadian though since Minnesota is so close to Canada that’s not too su...more
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In many ways, this is your standard issue depressing young-girl-coming-of-age story:
Beautiful butterfly pinned to the corkboard of life--check!
The Awkward One--check!
Languorous, sticky summer days--check!
Teenage trauma--check!
A turning point whence the protagonists shall never return--check!
A narrator surveying her adolescent landscape many years removed and concluding that she shall never, ever experience such a poignant time of life again, as her marriage crumbles into dissolution (that last...more
Beautiful butterfly pinned to the corkboard of life--check!
The Awkward One--check!
Languorous, sticky summer days--check!
Teenage trauma--check!
A turning point whence the protagonists shall never return--check!
A narrator surveying her adolescent landscape many years removed and concluding that she shall never, ever experience such a poignant time of life again, as her marriage crumbles into dissolution (that last...more
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En general, I love me some Lorrie Moore. I thought Gate at the Stairs was funny and brilliant. The last story in Birds of America made me cry (Or at least it made me want to cry. I think I was in a good mood when I read it). But this book felt it was written while Moore was watching TV, or else that she dashed off a quick draft and sent it to her editor and it somehow got published, even though it was just a first draft.
It reminded me of when you go to an art gallery, and they have some special...more
It reminded me of when you go to an art gallery, and they have some special...more
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I remember a member of our book group recommending this book not long after it was first published...and I've always remembered the title. Great title!
This was, for me, another book that didn't reach its full potential. Possibly because I found the grown woman a bit difficult to relate to, stuck in an unhappy marriage with no deep connections with any other human beings.
As she looks back on her childhood friendship with Sils, I found it easier to relate to her. This book made me recollect my own...more
This was, for me, another book that didn't reach its full potential. Possibly because I found the grown woman a bit difficult to relate to, stuck in an unhappy marriage with no deep connections with any other human beings.
As she looks back on her childhood friendship with Sils, I found it easier to relate to her. This book made me recollect my own...more
I rarely read books about young girls (especially after reading a few too many YA-ish manuscripts at ye olde graduate school and elsewhere). This short novel was therefore a soft shock to my system -- my revulsion alarms were on, but never went off. In fact, every few pages burst with vivid images, fresh sentences, or what they call "poignancy". I actually felt my heartstrings pulled (I apparently have them!). I liked the parts in Paris when the narrator is older, eating Divorce cookies, more th...more
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This woman can write! Like this.
"Passing cafes and restaurants, I walk through the bright glance of men in love, who, looking briefly away from the lover across from them in order to more perfectly form a sentence, unwittingly cast their gaze across my path like a light. And so, momentarily, to have accidentally caught their desire, swimming across the current of it like that, passing through, I feel loved, in a warm and random way, wandering through it, as if it were a rainbow, that old trick o...more
"Passing cafes and restaurants, I walk through the bright glance of men in love, who, looking briefly away from the lover across from them in order to more perfectly form a sentence, unwittingly cast their gaze across my path like a light. And so, momentarily, to have accidentally caught their desire, swimming across the current of it like that, passing through, I feel loved, in a warm and random way, wandering through it, as if it were a rainbow, that old trick o...more
1 like · like · see review
Who Will Run the Frog Hospital? (1994) - Lorrie Moore
Bittersweet coming of age, with some specialness as well.
This novella works with a simple and direct story, which then leaves room for the story to also work in an abstract subliminal non-linear way as well. The second part gives this book a special element.
Clever pleasurable writing style, Moore has a somewhat different way of expression, without being daunting or difficult. (see quote at end)
This would probably be good discussion for most bo...more
Bittersweet coming of age, with some specialness as well.
This novella works with a simple and direct story, which then leaves room for the story to also work in an abstract subliminal non-linear way as well. The second part gives this book a special element.
Clever pleasurable writing style, Moore has a somewhat different way of expression, without being daunting or difficult. (see quote at end)
This would probably be good discussion for most bo...more
I reread this book because I always enjoy Lorrie Moore. So this 'review' is more likely to be a tribute.
It is a 'coming of age' story told by a narrator who, like Moore, is roughly my contemporary. So there are references to the Desiderata poster, Nixon, waterbeds, music from the same period. And the subject is largely nostalgia. Being Moore, she never gives in to cheap sentiment (which is always a danger, as most representations of nostalgia are in fact cheap sentiment). And being Moore, the wr...more
It is a 'coming of age' story told by a narrator who, like Moore, is roughly my contemporary. So there are references to the Desiderata poster, Nixon, waterbeds, music from the same period. And the subject is largely nostalgia. Being Moore, she never gives in to cheap sentiment (which is always a danger, as most representations of nostalgia are in fact cheap sentiment). And being Moore, the wr...more
I really enjoyed this short story of a friendship shared in hindsight. So often our lives don't turn out as we hoped they would. Berie copes with her adult life by reminiscing about her life as a teen and the friend that made it special, Sils. The two girls grow up sharing most of their time together; going to school, working together at an amusement park called Storyland, and experiencing the world around them in the 70's. They get into bars with fake IDs and share cigarettes. I got the impress...more
Didn't really work for me. Sentimental, for one thing. Also, I just can't really see Lorrie Moore as a novelist. Or, rather, she just hasn't shown herself to be one, to me. There isn't much nuance to her characters; they're mostly vehicles for clever little non sequiturs. Having not read her stories for a while, I can't say why this works so brilliantly in her shorter pieces, but it seems a bit false in at least this novel. Whatever, I didn't really care about the characters, or what happened to...more
"Joni Mitchell was keening Little Green on Sils's record player. Sils listened to that song all the time now, like some woeful soundtrack. The soprano slides and oos of the song always made us both sing along, when I was there. 'Little green, be a gypsy dancer.' Twenty years later at a cocktail party, I would watch an entire roomful of women, one by one and in bunches, begin to sing this song when it came on over the sound system. They quit conversations, touched people's arms, turned toward the...more
Once again I first feel the need to explain to you what I was doing in the early 90's instead of reading this book and others like it.
When this novel was published I was getting my MFA in poetry, so I was up to my arse in the Modernists. Now I'm taking the opportunity to revisit authors who were publishing during a time when I was not reading fiction, but I was living a life that was eerily similar to those I now find on the pages I read.
So, you know I love Moore. And some reasons for that are...more
When this novel was published I was getting my MFA in poetry, so I was up to my arse in the Modernists. Now I'm taking the opportunity to revisit authors who were publishing during a time when I was not reading fiction, but I was living a life that was eerily similar to those I now find on the pages I read.
So, you know I love Moore. And some reasons for that are...more
1 like · like · see review
This may be some of the finest prose ever. In the three days it took me to finish this I couldn't stop reading, not for some thriller plot turns, but bc i always wanted to taste just one more sentence. The structure was lacking for me--the connection to the modern husband didn't work--but all's forgiven for the journey she took me on.
"Passing cafes and restaurants I walk through the bright glance of men in love, who, looking briefly away from the lover across from them, in order to more perfect...more
"Passing cafes and restaurants I walk through the bright glance of men in love, who, looking briefly away from the lover across from them, in order to more perfect...more
I love Lorrie Moore. I love her. Sometimes she writes sentences that speak to me so startlingly that I have to pause and wonder if maybe she was writing directly to me, if maybe I was her sole intended reader. I think we would be friends, if we met.
That being said (and really, I can't stress it enough: I love Lorrie Moore), I was underwhelmed by Who Will Run The Frog Hospital? It's a wonderful, short little book, but I left the last page feeling deeply unsatisfied. It felt less like a novel and...more
That being said (and really, I can't stress it enough: I love Lorrie Moore), I was underwhelmed by Who Will Run The Frog Hospital? It's a wonderful, short little book, but I left the last page feeling deeply unsatisfied. It felt less like a novel and...more
Oh boy. I was a big fan of Moore's Gate in the Stairs, which was written at least decade later than this slim book. While I went into this one wanting to love it, I wasn't as blown away by the sentences as I was in the last (although I found Stairs to be very unevenly written). Here I thought the writing just seemed good and polished. In the other, I thought parts rose to the level of greatness.
Also, I was annoyed by how spousal abuse and abortion were used. It felt lazy and "against the rules"...more
Also, I was annoyed by how spousal abuse and abortion were used. It felt lazy and "against the rules"...more
This little book alternates between a woman's current life and discontent with her marriage, and her girlhood and coming-of-age, along with her best friend, Sils. I found it to be quite an engaging story, punctuated by many beautiful, lyrical passages. Here is a passage I particularly liked:
"Things, I know, stiffen and shift in memory, become what they never were before. As when an army takes over a country. Or a summer yard goes scarlet with fall and its venous leaves. One summons the years of...more
"Things, I know, stiffen and shift in memory, become what they never were before. As when an army takes over a country. Or a summer yard goes scarlet with fall and its venous leaves. One summons the years of...more
Last week in my Intro to Creative Writing class, we tackled voice, which is a difficult subject to define in the first place, much less to discuss. We talked about all of the elements of voice: tone and diction and syntax and subject and so forth. In the end, the definition came down to this: you know who wrote the book just from reading a paragraph or so. I mention this because this novel totally ruined my definition of voice. It seemed so different from everything else I've read of Moore's --...more
Well, oddly enough this is the first Moore book that I have not absolutely been mesmorized by. It had its moments (for me)--particularly when Berie is caught stealing at Storyland--a narrative moment where I could feel her embarrassment palpably in my chest--but mostly, I viscerally felt the lack of plot and movement in this novel moreso than Moore's other work. I'm not sure if it's because less actually was happening, or whether it was more apparent--because I've come away from past Moore novel...more
I don't usually read Literary Fiction, but it was assigned for my Seminar in Fiction class. A book I can honestly say I would not have finished, and probably would not have purchased at all, if it hadn't been assigned.
The flashbacks were ridiculously convoluted and served very little real point in the story. I kept waiting for Berie to come back to the present-day timeline and give me something to make me want to read, but it just never happened. Actually, not much happened at all. It's a self-i...more
The flashbacks were ridiculously convoluted and served very little real point in the story. I kept waiting for Berie to come back to the present-day timeline and give me something to make me want to read, but it just never happened. Actually, not much happened at all. It's a self-i...more
reading this book there were times when i forgot i was reading lorrie moore, and then with one or two sentences i was reminded why i love her stories. this book is no where near as good as her collections, but those lorrie moore moments make this book worth reading.
i have no memory of what this book is about.
i have no memory of what this book is about.
good writing; decent story (better story would've been a five). i like lorrie moore. she's smart, witty, bitter. And tender. "I felt...like we were all planets in the same solar system - which was all I had ever wanted or asked from people, anyone, ever."
It's Lorrie Moore, so at this point it should be obvious that it's good. I just didn't find this book as strong as her short stories or the novel Anagrams. This is the coming-of-age story of Berie and her best friend Sils. As 15 year-olds, they work at a local amusement park and get into a little bit of trouble on the weekends, drinking and smoking. This is also the point of adolescence where distances are created on the timing of life experiences. Sils is the "pretty one" who can pass for 20, h...more
Aug 12, 2012
Colton
rated it
4 of 5 stars
Recommends it for:
post-high school or post-college
Recommended to Colton by:
Hannah Monk
While the two stories do not connect, what does connect is the tadpole to frog coming of age story about Beria and her friend Sils. The weight and bittersweet pain returns from Moore's style as she recounts their youths playfully and sadistically when surrounded by her signature renditions of ghost towns and empty lives. Although the novel does have faults with a fork-in-the-road story and grand conclusions, the ultimate theme of Moore's title is reached, and leaves the reader in a trance in the...more
This book quietly destroys me. I mean that in the best possible way, friendships, growing up, working at an amusement park. Ah August in the the humid northeast.
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Lorrie Moore was born in Glens Falls, New York in 1957. She attended St. Lawrence University in Canton, New York, where she tutored on an Indian reservation, and was editor of the university literary magazine and, at age 19, won Seventeen Magazine’s Fiction Contest. After graduating summa cum laude, she worked in New York for two years before going on to received a Masters in Fine Arts from Cornel...more
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“No matter that you anticipate a thing; you get so used to it as part of the future that its actuality, its arrival, its force and presence, startles you, takes you by surprise, as would a ghost suddenly appearing in the room wearing familiar perfume and boots.”
—
5 people liked it
“My grandmother, who, when I visited, stared at me with the staggering, arrogant stare of the dying, the wise vapidity of the already gone; she refused to occupy the features of her face.”
—
4 people liked it
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