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51st out of 81 books
—
50 voters
Emperor of the Air
by
Ethan Canin
EMPEROR OF THE AIR "explores tricky family relationships and tender moments of self-discovery with a voice of compassion rarely found in contemporary short fiction" (San Francisco Chronicle). Whether his characters are struggling to save trees in their yards, their marriages, or themselves, Cannin renders their moments of revelation with rich observation, energy, humor, an...more
Paperback, 192 pages
Published
September 15th 1999
by Mariner Books
(first published 1989)
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This enjoyable and highly readable collection of short stories was recommended to me by a veteran educator. Canin's stories have the readability of Raymond Carver and the profundity of F.S. Fitzgerald.
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Variety among short stories seems difficult to come by in anthologies like this one, which puzzles me, since I assumed part of the reason you'd write a short story is that you don't have a whole novel's worth to say about a subject. I like Jhumpa Lahiri as much as the next person, but Unaccustomed Earth felt redundant to me, and so does Emperor of the Air. Maybe I just shouldn't read more than one story per sitting? Maybe collections of short stories are supposed to be linked by a central theme...more
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What I love about these stories is that you feel like you get to know each character in so few words. How does Ethan Canin do it? Each character is so imperfectly real that I have a hard time believing Canin hasn't been each person himself in order to know what it is like.
I wish I could describe why I liked this collection of stories more clearly, but you're just going to have to trust me on this one. It's a winner.
Favorite bits:
"This is a love story. However, its roots are tangled and involve a...more
I wish I could describe why I liked this collection of stories more clearly, but you're just going to have to trust me on this one. It's a winner.
Favorite bits:
"This is a love story. However, its roots are tangled and involve a...more
There is a, uh, poignant vignette in "The Year of Getting to Know Us" wherein the narrator - a high school English teacher -catches his wife (herself a writer, a journalist) canoodling with a younger man at Denny's. Narrator sits in his booth, with little emotional reaction, sizing up the rival's hands (they are broad); before paying for his coffee and taking his leave he scrawls on a napkin: You are a forty-year-old man with no children and your wife is having an affair.
Which perfectly describ...more
Which perfectly describ...more
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Boring, milquetost, uninspired renderings of middle class life. For the longest time I was trying to get into Ethan Canin heeding the critical huzzahs from the lit-crit establishment. I think of Canin as the bookworld's well behaved son winning favor over its poorly behaved son's (say B.E. Ellis) for no better reason than not having any characters who engage in gay sex, swear, shoot smack, piss on the flag, vote Republican or any other activity that the clique of Manhattan-centered tastemakers w...more
Ethan Canin is a pretty amazing author. I would say that this being his first collection shows, and that other themes, particularly those related to family, show as well. "Star Food", for example, I feel falters. It doesn't feel like a complete story and the theme or point seems a little too obscure to me. Others, such as "Carnival Dogs, Seller of Diamonds", are very, very good (and surprisingly amusing compared to the other stories).
I think what stops me from loving this is the few (only two I...more
I think what stops me from loving this is the few (only two I...more
This is a re-read. I first read it in 1992, I think in a creative writing class, about 21 or 22. I remember being very excited that he was roughly my age at 27, and I thought him very, very handsome. According to blogs I've read, I'm not the only one, as many women at Houghton Mifflin publishing house thought him a dreamy and good writer. So, yeah, minor author crush.
And reading it now, I don't think it holds up as much. But, it is a good first short story collection. And they're real people an...more
And reading it now, I don't think it holds up as much. But, it is a good first short story collection. And they're real people an...more
I read this so long ago that I remember very little about it except that I loved it at the time. I had actually totally forgotten I'd read this book until I came across a note I'd made in the margin of Bird By Bird decades ago where I wrote, next where Anne Lamott mentions him, "His first book was amazing. His second book sucked." I do believe that "second book" was The Palace Thief, which I remember being very disappointed in after having loved this one so much. But so much time has gone by may...more
I read this many years ago, but it remains one of my favorite short story collections.
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I just reread Emperor of the Air, which I first read in high school, and found that I still enjoy Ethan Canin's short stories, particularly "We Are Nighttime Travelers." I remembered several of the stories from my earlier reading, which, considering I read the book more than a decade ago, speaks to their worth. Canin's spare writing style and attention to detail creates an atmosphere in which his characters shine. While some of the stories in this collection are better than others, the book is s...more
Apr 08, 2008
Josh
rated it
3 of 5 stars
Recommends it for:
Fans of Twain and Michael Chabon.
Shelves:
favourites
I read "Carry Me Across the Water" last summer and thoroughly enjoyed it; so, I decided to give "Emperor of the Air" a try. Not bad. In fact, I would go so far as to say great. Canin's true strength is in his use of language. You'd be hard-pressed to find a misplaced word in the entire collection. He is a simple poet of domestic fiction. The only problem is that some stories soar and others merely have the language going for them. The title story made me cry upon reading it; however, it is follo...more
There are bands I like who basically play one song but... it is a good one (the Ramones, Motorhead, and Ministry all come to mind). I can pretty much put on any of their albums and enjoy it. Similarly , there are authors who have one basic story and write it overand over, but do it really well and I enjoy each one (Kurt Vonnegut & R.E. Howard, as different form each other as is possible in all other respects, come to mind). This collection of stories is like that -- one story (in this case,...more
I read this collection years ago (many, many, years ago). I include it in my list here because it came to me today, for some reason, and I don't want to forget it again. There is a line in a short story titled "Lies" that dazzled my younger self - "I push the bucket toward Katy. Her hands are milk." So simple, and lovely. I still think so, all these years later. I don't remember much else from the collection except that it made me want to be a better writer, and that is, perhaps, enough.
Canin's collection of short stories is quite good. Like any group of tales, some are better than others, but none of the stories is poor any a few are great. "Star Foods" is a fascinating little tale about a boy trying to figure out what to do with his life. "We Are Nighttime Travelers" is one of the best, most touching stories I've read in recent memory.
One critique: the structure of Canin's stories are a bit formulaic. More diversity would make this good book even better.
One critique: the structure of Canin's stories are a bit formulaic. More diversity would make this good book even better.
The stories in this collection feature a diverse array of narrators, mostly men, who are trying to find their way, whether they are young and figuring out what to do with themselves, or older and wondering how their lives turned out as they did. Canin creates a distinct voice for each character, and he introduces keen observations about relationships and life in general through the characters' interpretations of the world around them. Some of the stories were better than others -- my favorites i...more
This short story collection has many beautiful, thought provoking stories. Another literary collection I loved mainly because of the language. Canin uses symbols throughout every one of his stories. They range from being intricately important to being a fleeting moment. In other collections I have read, symbols are used, but not as something which drives the story forward. It left me in awe. I highly recommend this for lovers of literary fiction.
Another collection of short stories that are extremely well written. It is hard to believe the author was only 27 when this book was published. Some of the stories deal with old age and relationships between older couples. Some are about families, and, while not as depressing as the first few stories, don't seem to be as beautifully written. They are still very good, though.
Shockingly impactive stories that tend to stay with you. The beauty and nuance reveal themselves at surprising intervals in each story. There is also a uniquely creative quality to the situations in these stories that make them so attractive once introduced to them, from the characters to the life lessons that dwell either right up front or under the surface.
I loved these short stories, they contain almost the essence of humanity distilled into each story. The characters seem so real, so alive. And you feel almost as if you've grown up a little after you read each one. They don't exactly always have "happy" endings, but they are still satisfying endings.
This is one of those books I happened upon in the reading room of my college library. I liked the title, I like short stories, so I checked it out. The author is a medical doctor who wrote this book while in medical school (at harvard, i think). It was his first book. I loved it.
Jul 03, 2010
Harry
rated it
3 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
short-stories,
social-fiction
Not my typical kind of book and that's why I decided to read it and I enjoyed it. Several of the stories were very engaging and connected with my own experiences in life. My favorite was a story titled "We are Nighttime Travelers."
I like to think of Canin's work as the apotheosis of "Craft," as it's discussed and considered in the context of fiction workshops. Every story in this collection has a sort of airy, open quality, and he gets you through major plot points and time shifts with nary a bump to be seen. There are significant pluses and minuses to this talent of his, this ability to manufacture resonance from fragments and knit seamless stories together. The craft displayed in these stories makes them extremely reada...more
Oct 26, 2008
Ed
is currently reading it
Ethan Canin ( America America) must be a Mensa guy. While he was just 27, he published Emperer of the Air, a nostalgic, emotional series of short stories. He received grants from the prestigious Iowa Writer's Workshop,
and continued to write...
At the same time, he was enrolled in Harvard Med School. He practiced medicine for a few years, but deferred to his writing, and is now
on the faculty of the Iowa Writers Workshop, and still writing.
All I can say is that his Emperor of the Air short stories...more
and continued to write...
At the same time, he was enrolled in Harvard Med School. He practiced medicine for a few years, but deferred to his writing, and is now
on the faculty of the Iowa Writers Workshop, and still writing.
All I can say is that his Emperor of the Air short stories...more
I'd read "The Palace Thief" and hated it. So I approached this without expecting to like it...and ended up being bowled over in the opposite direction. "Emperor of the Air" is good, and particularly good reading for anyone who's trying to learn how to write short stories. Canin's stories are beautifully crafted, but they're also at the point where they're still possible for the learner to deconstruct them and come out with a number of lessons and ideas on how to frame their own characters. Not t...more
This is a re-read for me, though I somehow - and unaccountably - had no memories of reading them. Old age, amnesia? Whatever the cause, these are near-perfect stories.
stark and disciplined prose, telling wonderful slice of life stories that are nonetheless illuminating -- and sometimes tragic. all with a very light, dignified touch.
I'm really tempted to give this book 5 stars but I don't want to be too generous in general. This book was excellent! Very entertaining and each story; though not a complete book, definitely felt like one! The stories were charming and intriguing! The word delightful comes to mind :)
Great author, one of my favorite short-story collections. Beautiful character studies, beautiful evocative writing. Loved, loved, loved this collection.
Enjoyed this dazzling collection of short stories by a young doctor turned writer. Nothing he's done since then has been as good.
since this was a collection of short stories, it's only normal that i liked some of them more than others. i loved the way every story started; the first sentence always drew me in.
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Ethan Canin was born in Ann Arbor, Michigan. He received early encouragement for his writing from a teacher at his prep school, the bestselling author Danielle Steel. A graduate of Stanford University, he received a master's in fine arts from the prestigious Iowa Writers' Workshop before shifting gears to enroll in Harvard Medical School. Canin continued to work as a physician as he wrote and publ...more
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