Aaron's review
The Dead Fish Museum
by Charles D'Ambrosio
"The stories all struck me as being wonderful middles to stories that had beginnings and ends that we, as readers, were not made privy to."
Does that not leave you feeling a bit of a challenge to make the begining of your own story (life) have meaning by giving it a wonderous end? At the risk of over-intelectualizing, I think this is the direstion that the "new fiction" (especially in form of the short-story) is taking us. To a challenge us through suspended characters who do not undergo massive life-change but instead make us aware of our own stagnation.
Aaron's review
The Dead Fish Museum by Charles D'Ambrosio
Aaron's review
rating:
recommended for: fans of Raymond Carver
I picked this up from the library due to the long litany of writers whose works I admire (Michael Chabon among them) making very vocal recommendations for this young man being the best new writer to emerge in quite some time. For that reason, I am a bit surprised at how underwhelmed I was by this collection of short stories. The stories all struck me as being wonderful middles to stories that had beginnings and ends that we, as readers, were not made privy to. They're thought-provoking slices of life that don't really go anywhere. Intriguing seeds for what could be damn fine novels.
In the entire collection, only one story wowed me. "Drummond and Son" concerns a lonely typewriter repairman, whose wife recently left him, saddling him with a twenty-five-year-old son who has severe mental issues that are ambiguous. A major part of the story revolves a typewriter whose owner preferred said typewriter before Drummond fixed it and is willing to pay him to break it again, revert...more
In the entire collection, only one story wowed me. "Drummond and Son" concerns a lonely typewriter repairman, whose wife recently left him, saddling him with a twenty-five-year-old son who has severe mental issues that are ambiguous. A major part of the story revolves a typewriter whose owner preferred said typewriter before Drummond fixed it and is willing to pay him to break it again, revert...more
"The stories all struck me as being wonderful middles to stories that had beginnings and ends that we, as readers, were not made privy to."
Does that not leave you feeling a bit of a challenge to make the begining of your own story (life) have meaning by giving it a wonderous end? At the risk of over-intelectualizing, I think this is the direstion that the "new fiction" (especially in form of the short-story) is taking us. To a challenge us through suspended characters who do not undergo massive life-change but instead make us aware of our own stagnation.