Sign in with Facebook
Loading...
102nd out of 200 books
—
54 voters
The Melancholy of Anatomy
Amusing, touching, and unsettling, The Melancholy of Anatomy is that most wonderful of fictions, one that makes us see the world in an entirely new light.
Here is the body turned inside out, its members set free, its humors released upon the world. Hearts bigger than planets devour light and warp the space around them; the city of London has a menstrual flow that gushes thr...more
Here is the body turned inside out, its members set free, its humors released upon the world. Hearts bigger than planets devour light and warp the space around them; the city of London has a menstrual flow that gushes thr...more
Paperback, 192 pages
Published
April 2nd 2002
by Anchor
Friend Reviews
To see what your friends thought of this book,
please sign up.
Community Reviews
(showing
1-30
of
545)
Loved these stories. Loved them all, except for the one titled Phlegm that I could not read all the way through because it made me want to cry and die. The stories are arranged in sections by Humor, and each one is about something that is inside the body, or part of the body (like hair), being outside. Like a giant fetus floating around creeping everyone out, London having a monthly menstrual flow through the whole city, fat taking over a house. There was also an awesome dildo story, which I gue...more
This is a truly fascinating and enjoyable and challenging read. It is creative, and takes the body to places I'd not read it in before. When I tried to describe the book to my wife, I failed miserably. And I won't try here either. However, my failed effort got her curiosity and so she asked me to read it out loud to her. Now that took the book to a completely different and visceral level. If you haven't read this book out loud, or had it read to you, then please do so. The imagery in the book, w...more
this is the most interesting & original book I've read in a while. short stories set in a world where the old view of bodily 'humors' has survived into the modern day. it looks at or own world with a critical eye.
it's story seems somewhat supernatural, very surreal, but also intimate and vaguely sexual. the stories tell of Jack Sprat and his wife; of a herd of sperm running wild across the countryside; of workers who mop up blood from the sewers monthly; a mans obsession with a nerve....
Defi...more
it's story seems somewhat supernatural, very surreal, but also intimate and vaguely sexual. the stories tell of Jack Sprat and his wife; of a herd of sperm running wild across the countryside; of workers who mop up blood from the sewers monthly; a mans obsession with a nerve....
Defi...more
This book was one like many other books that I really really like. It is abstract, brilliantly written, and thoroughly disgusting. However, it seemed a little weird to me that many of the stories were so entirely similar. Each of the stories takes a part of the body (though some of the parts are dubious as parts of the body) and describes it as some outside, usually part-hostile, part-obsessive force. The problem here is that many of the parts behave in the same way, and it seems that there coul...more
Simultaneously repellant and magnetic, nauseating and beautiful. Some of the stories are a little formulaic (compared only to the other stories, of course, since they are pretty unique) and her pacing also gets a bit repetitive at times, but the peek into her imagination is worth it.
Blood and heart would have to be my favorites. A must read if you enjoy the surreal.
Blood and heart would have to be my favorites. A must read if you enjoy the surreal.
This collection is the inversion of Robert Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy.
If you have a morbid bone in your body or if you posses even a dram of humour, do yourself a favor and read this book. It's wild.
One of the stories (a false history of the dildo) is available via the author's site. check it out!
If you have a morbid bone in your body or if you posses even a dram of humour, do yourself a favor and read this book. It's wild.
One of the stories (a false history of the dildo) is available via the author's site. check it out!
Fluid and gorgeous, "The Melancholy of Anatomy" is a fast favorite. Jackson is unique in a way I've yet to see in an author. She's fearless and crazy and it shows in her work. Her stories are outlandish and brave and I can't say enough about them. Nerve and Cancer are definitely my favorites. And Egg as well. Ugh. I just love her a lot. Definitely reading her other stuff soon!!
This is totally TBD. I read this book in college and loved it, so finding it at Book Buyers excited me. Woot woot Mountain View. Anyways, I re-read the egg story, which was my favorite, but after that my interest just kind of fizzled and I realized I wanted to be reading a novel instead. Hence How to be Good, which had been sitting on the kitchen table for a month untouched. I'm glad I did, but I plan on coming back to this one.
Shelley Jackson dismembers the body and scatters its parts across the land, so that sperm and fetuses (feti?) float freely and willfully; vast fields of nerve clusters cover the Great Plains, the oceans teem with milk, and the earth itself bleeds once a month.
Overall, the ideas presented here are weird and fascinating--as ideas, that is. The stories themselves don't quite hold up, and start to sound repetitive after a while. Cancer or fat or an egg appear in the house, grow, start to take over,...more
Overall, the ideas presented here are weird and fascinating--as ideas, that is. The stories themselves don't quite hold up, and start to sound repetitive after a while. Cancer or fat or an egg appear in the house, grow, start to take over,...more
Shelley Jackson is the shit. My favorite story here is Blood, what a hilarious voice. There's plenty of oddity and body-writing here for you freaks...
The abject body becomes the world around us & larger than life. Shelley Jackson's prose is fucking sick.
Shelley Jackson does an incredible job of crafting lives for the stuff we're made of: hair, fat, nerves, and the like. Some of the stories get a bit gross, I couldn't finish the one about phlegm, but the rest were oddly enjoyable.
Jun 14, 2009
Nia
is currently reading it
Wow, what an interesting, out of the ordinary book so far! Love it!!!
enjoying this book much more than I had expected. bizarre imagery that brings to mind Burroughs.
first 3 stories are okay, remaining 9 are simply brilliant
Shelley Jackson's writing is really interesting and often disturbing. She plays with ideas about bodies and anatomy in both this short story collection and her novel "Half-life". I recommend starting out with the stories, and if you like those you'll like the novel. The novel is less dense but also less playful and inventive in a lot of ways, and it doesn't keep you on your toes the way this book does. It's really exceptional!
...umm...
...interesting...
...interesting...
I keep trying to recommend this book to people, but finding it hard to describe. Might also be why I liked it.
Jackson takes bodily things and externalizes them. Some are haunting and beautiful, like the nerve-strung guitars and the sleep that falls like snow, others are creepy or gross, yet fascinating, like the phlegm handshake or the fetus scooping ice cream.
Read it.
Great writing and had much potential, but kept to a cycle that varied too little from segment to segment. In the end, it became too repetitive.
Surreal. Disgusting. Laughable. Brave. Ingenious. ...Shelley's dissection and magnification of ordinarily minuscule specimens--likely familiar to everyone. Eggs, anyone?
(It was through "Half Life" when I first felt "conjoined" with Shelley's work. Her children's books and illustrations are just as imaginative.)
(It was through "Half Life" when I first felt "conjoined" with Shelley's work. Her children's books and illustrations are just as imaginative.)
OK...so when I tell you duncan gave me this book, you should know that its pretty good. This made me feel really alive on a structural level. If that doesn't make sense I guess you'd better read it for yourself.
A visceral (ha) companion to Ben Marcus' Notable American Women with a inventively medieval/modern charm.
Calvino meets Murakami meets a ball of gunk you pulled out of the shower drain.
Dec 20, 2007
Tamara
rated it
4 of 5 stars
Recommends it for:
the unfastidious, those unable to make the commitment to burton's "anatomy of melancholy"
Unnerving and delightful, odd and lovely and unsettling. The inside turned out.
like body fluids?
funny, great take on how the body IS our pysche.
funny, great take on how the body IS our pysche.
body-as-landscape
May 19, 2013
Michelle
marked it as to-read
May 18, 2013
Rebekah
marked it as to-read
May 16, 2013
Shannon
marked it as to-read
There are no discussion topics on this book yet.
Be the first to start one »
