My rating:
add to my books
Loading...
Kafka in Brontëland and Other Stories
by
Tamar Yellin
Thirteen stories by the author of the critically acclaimed The Genizah at the House of Shepher address universal themes of yearning and displacement, love, loss and the struggle to belong. A latter-day Jewish Odysseus spends his life planning an intricate journey to the Promised Land, while an English father stranded in London mourns for his faraway Italian son. A man with...more
Paperback, 153 pages
Published
February 16th 2006
by Toby Press
There is a good chance some of your friends read this book. Sign in to see!
sign in »
Friend Reviews
To see what your friends thought of this book,
please sign up.
This book is currently not featured on any Listopia lists.
Add this book to your favorite list »
Community Reviews
(showing
1-30
of
31)
My Library Journal review:
This masterly collection is far better than its awkward title would suggest. Set in England, Yellin's stories are about what she calls "the cruelties of time"-understanding that comes too late, love that comes not at all. Her characters include a translator whose international marriage has come apart, a woman explaining why she can't stand the uncle she visits weekly, a piano tuner whose craft abandons him, and a younger sister seeking her long-lost ...more
This masterly collection is far better than its awkward title would suggest. Set in England, Yellin's stories are about what she calls "the cruelties of time"-understanding that comes too late, love that comes not at all. Her characters include a translator whose international marriage has come apart, a woman explaining why she can't stand the uncle she visits weekly, a piano tuner whose craft abandons him, and a younger sister seeking her long-lost ...more
Best short story collection I've read in a long time. Written by anyone else, the subjects of these stories would be prosaic; Yellin reveals characters and situations most of us would never think warranted their own story. Yet when you're done reading one, you feel intimately privileged to have shared in the story. Mr. Applewick, the piano tuner, haunts me the most of all the characters. Read that story if nothing else.
If you love short stories (and I do!), then make an effort to find this book. Not all libraries have it, but many libraries will get books for you from other libraries if they don't have it. The stories are wonderful, beautifully written, and the description of a certain kind of family quarrel is one of the funniest and truest descriptions of family dynamics that I've read.
A beautiful collection of stories. For once I agree with the blurb and don't find it overstated: "Yellin is a consummate stylist. Her sentences are to die for." --Jeff VanderMeer. All thirteen stories are excellent.
Jennifer
added it
Martha
marked it as to-read
annie
marked it as to-read
Procella
marked it as to-read
Anne
marked it as to-read
anonymous
marked it as to-read
Jane Libson
marked it as to-read
Heather
marked it as to-read
Tobyreiner
added it
Trine
rated it
Katie
marked it as to-read
Kym
marked it as to-read
Grace Wing-Yuan
marked it as to-read
Marts (Thinker)
marked it as to-read
Hope Hopkins
marked it as to-read
Nathan
added it
The Jewish Book Council
added it
There are no discussion topics on this book yet.
Be the first to start one »
