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5th out of 13 books
—
4 voters
The Collectors
by
Matt Bell (Goodreads Author)
The tale of compulsive hoarders Homer and Langley Collyer so shocked 1940s Manhattan that the brothers and their Harlem brownstone live on today as one of the most notable American case studies of acute disposophobia. With a nervous energy and obsession to match his protagonists, Matt Bell’s prose burrows, forensically, into the layers of the brothers’ lives, employing a m...more
Paperback, 64 pages
Published
May 2009
by Caketrain
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Incredibly unsettling, vibrant, disturbing, and beautifully haunting piece of fiction, Matt Bell’s prose burrows, forensically, into the layers of the brother’s lives, employing a multi linear narrative structure and a frenetic plurality of perspectives to reach a core of despair that is both terrifyingly primal and distressingly familiar.The words slide off the page beautifully, but leave a film on the brain that just reeks of desperation and sorrow.Throughout The Collectors, a dialogue between...more
Jun 05, 2009
John
rated it
5 of 5 stars
Recommends it for:
readers who like a bent meditation, a spacey claustrophobia, & incomprehensible stimulation
Recommended to John by:
I'd seen Bell's work in magazines
My memory, sir," declares Funes the Memorious, "is a garbage heap." The mnemonic freak imagined by Borges, however, has nothing on the two aging brothers Langley & Homer Collyer, historical figures in fact -- NYC packrat-psychos of the previous mid-century --here re-imagined by Matt Bell. Bell's new novella, a recent national prizewinner, takes us into their garbage heap: not so much a place as a passion. As for the Homer & Langley we'd call "real people," they occupied (boy did they) a...more
We are told: “I am conducting an investigation. I am holding a wake. I am doing some or all or none of these things” (38). What is achieved then is more than just fiction, more than just referential, and more than just real. It is simultaneously a comment on each of these ideas, which is perhaps even more effective at communicating a sense of these characters than basic exposition. The authorial “I” who is making this, a testament, to “you Langley and to him, Homer” (15), makes these characters...more
This novella captured my attention from the first page and never let go of it. The writing is sure, determined and the subject of the Collyer brothers who died in their own home after "collecting" tons of junk, so as they couldn't really be mobile, is fascinating. It is a real, true story of hoarding from the 1940's and it is painted with a deft hand. We get a glimpse of Homer, the blind brother in the narration, Langley, the more mobile brother, the narrator who is trying to save them, tell the...more
"No ghosts, no ghosts except in things."
Multiple voices tell the story here, inclusive of the hoarder, clean-up specialists, cataloguers and the long-departed father, trapped in the house along with his two adult sons via the items he left behind. This is an effective way for Bell to humanize the hoarder. While this is a brief, brief fiction, it is large at heart, a moving story about identity, safety and the need to construct meaning in an obsessive, outwardly peculiar way. Ultimately, the stor...more
Multiple voices tell the story here, inclusive of the hoarder, clean-up specialists, cataloguers and the long-departed father, trapped in the house along with his two adult sons via the items he left behind. This is an effective way for Bell to humanize the hoarder. While this is a brief, brief fiction, it is large at heart, a moving story about identity, safety and the need to construct meaning in an obsessive, outwardly peculiar way. Ultimately, the stor...more
Much better than I even expected, which is saying something. Here is the heart of it, really:
"Just outside this circle, there are dozens of prototypes for what would have been the model’s finishing touches: Four figures, repeated over and over in different mediums. A man and a woman and two small boys, rendered from wood and clay and string and straw and hair and other, less identifiable materials. All discarded, cast aside, and no more a family than anything else we found lying upon the floors...more
"Just outside this circle, there are dozens of prototypes for what would have been the model’s finishing touches: Four figures, repeated over and over in different mediums. A man and a woman and two small boys, rendered from wood and clay and string and straw and hair and other, less identifiable materials. All discarded, cast aside, and no more a family than anything else we found lying upon the floors...more
Matt Bell's The Collectors is a lovely and elegant fictionalization of the final days of the tragic Collyer brothers. The Collyers were reclusive hoarders who filled their Harlem brownstone with junk for decades before finally being found dead - Langley Collyer crushed under a mound of debris, the blind and helpless Homer starved - in 1947. Their story has been heavily explored by writers of both fiction (including E.L. Doctorow, who recently published a widely-exposed novel on the brothers a fe...more
A wonderful, creepy, weird, but somehow beautiful little book. The language is lush and the inventories will tickle you. In many places the rhythms of the narrative are pitch-perfect, almost like poetry, inviting you forward--wandering, wonderingly--into the brothers' world of newspapers, tapestries, anatomical books, baby carriages, silk stockings, and of course the rats...
It's a story about loss, love, family, too. Sad stuff. It might be a weird story, but it's one we can all understand all to...more
It's a story about loss, love, family, too. Sad stuff. It might be a weird story, but it's one we can all understand all to...more
A one sitting read. Each short piece/chapter/flash is packed with images, with details, with fibers of a fantastic story. Together, this collection makes one fantastic story, varied in parts, solid as a whole. I'm flabbergasted with Matt Bell's ability to tell a story.
A novella in flashes was interesting; the way Bell put the narrative together was great. The scattered feeling really helped the book move and keep its voice effective. Plus, the subject (and Bell's treatment of it) was really interesting/entertaining, so that helped.
It has been a long time since I loved a book as much as this little treasure. I like the little sections, and I like how they all add up to something big and beautiful. These sad brothers are literary treasures and Matt Bell is, too.
This is pretty fantastic historical fiction, about two brothers who collect junk in a house for years and years, then die inside...not at the same time. Great story that needed to be told, and MB's style does it justice.
This is a really great example of a Flash Novella and a non-linear narrative; beautifully constructed, and intelligently realized. It is quick and captivating to read because of its intriguing subject.
One of my top five books ever. This is the book that encouraged me to keep writing and reading. Hauntingly beautiful and tragic, I read it all in one sitting and have since read it over and over again.
Like an idiot, I first read this without knowing the back story. About how, in many ways, this chapbook is based on real events. Very well done.
Haunting. Beautiful. And rife with compulsions writ both big and small.
Jul 22, 2009
J.M.
marked it as to-read
Saw this on Goodreads and thought it looked good. Got an e-copy and will be reading it soon! :)
Beautiful design, brilliant novella.
Excellent fictionalization of the brother hoarders that captures their obsession. The parallel track of the brother's demise creates good tension while the inventory sections illustrate the astounding volume of their hoarding. Putting the narrator in league with them as and obsessive gives the narrative another, less distant, dimension.
Jun 08, 2013
Kb
marked it as to-read
May 28, 2013
Jackie
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May 18, 2013
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May 18, 2013
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Ousa
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May 18, 2013
Joseph Michael
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Apr 21, 2013
Richard
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Apr 14, 2013
SA
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Matt Bell is the author of How They Were Found, a collection of fiction from Keyhole Press. His fiction has been anthologized in Best American Mystery Stories 2010 and Best American Fantasy 2. He is also the editor of The Collagist and can be found online at www.mdbell.com.
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May 18, 2013 08:45am