Delicate Edible Birds and Other Stories

by Lauren Groff

Lauren Groff's critically acclaimed "The Monsters of Templeton" was shortlisted for the Orange Broadband Award for New Writers 2008, and critics hailed her as an enormous talent and a writer to watch. In "Delicate Edible Birds", she fulfils that promise. "Delicate Edible Birds" includes nine stories of vastly different styles and structures. "L. De Bard and Aliette" recreates the tale of Abelard and Heloise in New York during the 1918 flu epidemic; "Lucky Chow Fun" returns to Templeton, the setting of Groff's debut novel, for a contemporary account of what happens to outsiders in a small, insular town; the title story of "Delicate Edible Birds" is a harrowing, powerfully moving drama about a group of war correspondents, a lone woman among them, who fall prey to a frightening man in the French countryside while fleeing the Nazis. With a dazzling array of voices and settings, "Delicate Edible Birds" will cement Lauren Groff's reputation as one of the foremost talents of her generation.

Genres: Short Stories, Fiction, Literary Fiction, Audiobook, Historical Fiction, Book Club, Adult Fiction

320 pages, Paperback

First published January 27, 2009

About the author

Lauren Groff was born in Cooperstown, N.Y. and grew up one block from the Baseball Hall of Fame. She graduated from Amherst College and has an MFA in fiction from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Her short stories have appeared or are forthcoming in a number of journals, including The Atlantic Monthly, Ploughshares, Glimmer Train, Hobart, and Five Points as well as in the anthologies Best American Short Stories 2007, Pushcart Prize XXXII, and Best New American Voices 2008.

She was awarded the Axton Fellowship in Fiction at the University of Louisville, and has had residencies and fellowships at Yaddo and the Vermont Studio Center.

She lives in Gainesville, Florida, with her husband, Clay, and her dog, Cooper.

Reviews

[Hannah · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love Lauren Groff. And I am trying to be better about reading other books authors I love have written, so I am currently making my way through her back catalogue and I am seriously happy about it. I think I liked this short story collection even more than her new one (which I reviewed earlier this year) and I enjoyed that one immensely. But this collection here just blew me away.

I am in awe of Lauren Groff’s command of language – every single sentence ist perfectly done while not making the writing sound clinical but rather organic and captivating. I also really like the way she structures her stories – they never felt like they were working towards a punchline but rather their endings were perfectly done. Some stories I would have loved to spend more time with but I mean that as a compliment.

I do have the same problem with these short stories that I had with Groff’s second collection: I am not too keen on her descriptions of overweight bodies; and the fixation on weight did not always work for me. I cannot quite put my finger on why I think she does this, but I do wish she stopped focussing on weight so much. But for me it never crossed the line into problematic territory and as such is not enough to ruin my enjoyment of these brilliant short stories.

My favourite of the bunch is the last story “Delicate Edible Birds” – I loved it so much I considered giving the collection 5 stars because it ended on such a high note. Set during the Second World War (which I usually am not too keen on), this story is told from different perspectives of a group of journalists fleeing Paris on the eve of its occupation. It was harrowing and wonderful and absolutely beautifully written. Bern, the female main character, was so absolutely brilliant, I wish there was a whole book about her.

You can find this review and other thoughts on books on my blog.

[Katie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love Lauren Groff's writing, her way with words. I'd say the writing in these stories is perhaps more exciting than the stories themselves. Not that the stories aren't riveting. Or some of them.

They are all fairly long and focus principally on the dilemmas of women. She shows herself to be versatile in terms of setting and period - one story takes place in France in 1940, another during Spanish flu epidemic in the second decade of the 20th century and another in an unnamed country at an unnamed date where there's a dictatorship (the one dud in the collection for me).

A criticism might be that her men aren't as richly imagined as her women.

A solid 4+ stars.

[karen · Rating 4 out of 5]

i dont usually like stories (i think a few of my reviews start out this way - ha) but i love the way this lady writes. i was hoping after the first story that they would all take place in the same town as monsters of templeton, but no luck. theres one story i definitely need to reread, but i have a feeling i will be picking this up in the future to reread all the way through.

[Jeanette (Ms. Feisty) · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 stars

A lot of short stories consist of 10-20 pages of foreplay followed by a big cow flop of a denouement, with nary a climax in sight. Some don't even bother with a denouement, they just end abruptly, leaving the reader with the literary equivalent of lover's nuts. I have given up on many and many a short story collection for this reason.

Happily, Lauren Groff is no tease. Her stories are thoroughly satisfying. She takes a little longer, 30-40 pages per story, and develops a complete picture. Many of these stories are like novels in miniature, with surprisingly well-developed characters for such a short space. These nine stories have great variety, covering a lot of different time periods and topics. Everything from 1918 New York City to World War II France to 1980s U.S.A. to an unnamed South American dictatorship.

Really the only reason I didn't give five stars is that there are some cases of awkward construction within some stories. Nothing glaring, but noticeable. I have no doubt these will disappear as she hones her craft. She's this good now, I can't wait to see her get better and better!

[Paula Mota · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved books like people; I liked real people less.

Nem todos os contos de “Delicate Edible Birds” merecem as 5*, mas a escrita de Lauren Groff e a sua capacidade de criar uma miríade de mulheres imperfeitas em tempos e locais diversos são, para mim, perfeitas, pelo que nunca poderia dar-lhe menos do que a pontuação máxima.

There is no ending, no neatness... where water is concerned. It is wild, febrile, kind, ambiguous; it is dark and carries the mud, and it is clear and the cleanest thing. Too much of it kills us, and not enough kills us, and it is what makes us, mostly. Water is the cleverest substance, wily beyond the stretch of our mortal imaginations. And no matter where it is pent, no matter if it is air or liquid or solid, it will someday, inevitably, find its way out.

Lucky Chow Fun – 4,5*
L. DeBard and Aliette – 5*
Majorette – 5*
Blythe – 4*
The wife of the dictator – 4,5*
Watershed – 5*
Sir Fleeting – 5*
Fugue – 5*
Delicate Edible Birds – 5*

In her every small movement she was the woman of the future, a type that would swagger and curse, fall headlong, flaming into the hell of war, be as brave and tough as men, take the overflowing diarrhea of nervous frontline troops without grimacing, speak loudly and devastatingly, kick brain matter off their shoes and go unhurriedly on. When he looked at Bern, Viktor saw the future, and it was lovely and clean and as equal as things between men and women, between prole and patrician, could be.

[Teresa · Rating 3 out of 5]

3 and 1/2 stars

Because I enjoyed her first novel The Monsters Of Templeton, I thought I'd like this collection more than I did. While I don't think any of the stories are derivative, they seemed familiar: separate stories reminding me of Alice Munro and Amy Bloom (in theme if not style) and even Julie Otsuka (in style if not theme).

The plots are interesting, some even inventive, though the beauties of language and character development vary from story to story. The ending of the story "Watershed" is probably the only passage I reread for the prose alone.

As also demonstrated in The Monsters Of Templeton, first-person narration seems to be Groff's strength. I did glean from almost all the stories a nugget of theme I admired, ones that kept me thinking.

[Snotchocheez · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 stars

The acquisition of my second-favorite short story collection this year with the word "birds" in the title (!) was a decidedly bittersweet experience. I had already made acquaintance with Ms. Groff's work with her lovely, swirly, slightly out-of-focus novel of communal life in upstate New York, Arcadia, and (despite her eschewing quotation marks, a pet peeve of mine) wanted to read more from her. The very last place I'd expect books with the caliber of Ms. Groff's talent: the Dollar Tree store. Ugh. A big stack of brand new Delicate Edible Birds, which, here in mostly non-reading semi-rural Alabama, twenty-five miles from any bookstore of repute, Ms. Groff's near-masterpiece is stacked in Dollar Tree, one step away from being ground to mulch or sent to a landfill. (it almost made me want to buy the whole stack and give it to Goodwill or another thrift store...so depressing).

Ms. Groff's 2009 collection absolutely needs to be read (and shelved along with my favorite "birds" short story collection read this year, Lorrie Moore's wonderful (1998) Birds of America), and not languish at Dollar Tree.
Both books are suffused with melancholy, yet tempered with a wicked sense of humor. Both have a razor-sharp keen eye on human emotion and our frailties. (Perhaps not coincidentally, Ms. Groff gives a shout-out to Ms. Moore in her Acknowledgments page). In one respect, I found Ms. Groff's stories even better than Ms. Moore's: unlike many short story authors, who leave their stories open-ended, most of the nine stories in Delicate Edible Birds are densely packed and read like mini-novels, with a discernable story arc and a conclusion.

All the stories are good; a few are terrific. Among the best: the first story "Lucky Chow Fun" (where Ms. Groff revisits tiny Templeton NY--a surrogate Cooperstown, featured in her novel The Monsters of Templeton--when a rather suspect Chinese Restaurant moves into town); the second story "L. DeBard and Aliette" (an awkward romance between a washed-up Olympian swimmer in the 1920s and his wealthy young student with polio (the only short story I can recall that's EVER made me boo-hoo)); "Blythe", (about a stay-at-home mom (a former attorney) who takes a poetry class at college to pass the time and meets a bat-shit crazy woman); and the last story, the titular "Delicate Edible Birds" (about a coterie of journalists in France during World War II who run into a creepy Nazi sympathizer in the outskirts of Orleans) are the standouts in a consistently great collection.

(And yes, the only reason why this book didn't get five stars was Ms. Groff's goofy, affected decision to chuck quotation marks out the window for half of these stories. Whether or not you're like me and this bothers you, Delicate Edible Birds is still highly recommended for anyone who appreciates quality storytelling. It's a keeper.)

[missy jean · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fantastic feminist stories.

But listen, I don't think my goodreads reviews of Lauren Groff's books have been quite glowing enough, so let me say something about Delicate Edible Birds and Arcadia and Fates & Furies, all of which I've read in the past few months: These books have been like making a new friend right when I needed one. They've been comfort, warm bowls of soup, cold glasses of water, freshly-laundered blankets, cool breezes. They've commiserated with me on bitter-colored days. Not because they are tender books in any kind of conventional way, but because they're honest about the hard stuff and they don't flinch, they don't lie to me, and yet they find the loving core at the center of everything. I feel like I should say thank you to them, or for them.

[Lisa (NY) · Rating 4 out of 5]

[3.7] I admire Lauren Groff's writing very much (My favorite is Arcadia). The stories in this diverse collection showcase her talent - most quite good, some are spectacular and a few I plodded through. The title story, about a group of war correspondents in German occupied France, is stunning.

[Sunny Lu · Rating 4 out of 5]

Stunning and magnificent !!!!

[Robert Blumenthal · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've been a fan of Lauren Groff after reading Fates and Furies and then seeing her interviewed by Seth Myers on The Late Show. This is her initial collection of short stories, and they are simply dazzling. I would say that I probably have not read a better collection of short stories by anyone at anytime. High praise, obviously, but, IMHO, very well deserved.

These stories all deal with woman characters going through some life altering experience, many involving some sort of sexuality. The characters are very well-conceived, and the plots can be simply riveting. They take place in various environs, everything from rural America to Buenos Aires, Argentina, and 1942 occupied France. There are underage prostitution rings, marital affairs, untimely deaths, immoral Nazi sympathizers, and various transformations that occur. And they are all told in very strong, exquisite prose. I cannot recommend these stories enough.

[Lorna · Rating 4 out of 5]

Delicate Edible Birds and Other Stories was an engaging and riveting book of short stories from one of my favorite contemporary American authors, Lauren Groff. Since I first read her book of short stories, Florida a few years ago, I have voraciously read every book that Lauren Groff has published and I find her writing stunning. While her writing is sometimes uncomfortable, the truth of her words comes through in her beautiful prose. This was a collection of nine short stories that are very wide in scope and concept but the theme that Lauren Groff does so well is the plight of women over the years as they try to forge their way in the world in spite of stereotypes and prejudices.

In this beautiful collection, I certainly have my favorites but they were all engaging. With the beautiful writing of Lauren Groff, all of the stories took on their own life. But my favorites were Sir Fleeting and Delicate Edible Birds. And a few of my favorite quotes:

"Parnell watched as under Bern's pen the story formed, neat and relentless, threads ordered from chaos."

"With the gravity of a religious ceremony, her tablemates flicked out fresh white napkins and veiled their faces with them. To hide, someone said, from the eyes of God. The porcelain girl held hers like a mantilla for a moment before she dropped it over her face. Bern did not: she watched, holding her breath, as each person reached for his own small bird, and made it disappear behind the veil. For a long time, at least fifteen minutes, there were the wet sounds of chewing, small bones cracking, a lady's voluptuous moan."

"A stillness came into Bern as she observed this, a chill, as if she were watching from a very distant place. Later, she would read of what the others tasted just then; the savory fat, representing God, followed by the bitter entrails, which is the suffering of Jesus, followed by the bones, which lacerated their mouths so they tasted their own blood. All three tastes comingled became the Trinity, Bern, to whom Christianity was a gorgeous myth, like literature, saw the barbarian heart of all the beauty."

[Tala🦈 (mrs.skywalker.reads) · Rating 5 out of 5]

to ten ultra rzadki moment, kiedy w zbiorze opowiadań podoba mi się każde jedno opowiadanie, Lauren Groff jest wspaniała (a to jej debiut!!!!!!!!!)

[Marica · Rating 3 out of 5]

La ragazza si farà
I racconti sono piuttosto vari per ambientazione temporale e suggeriscono l'idea che l'autrice ami cimentarsi generosamente con figure abbastanza al di fuori dalla sua esperienza di giovane donna. Quello che accomuna i racconti sono le protagoniste femminili, animate da un'energia che è la cifra un po' ingenua e deliziosa di questa scrittrice. Ho visto LG su youtube in un reading organizzato in una libreria. Era buffa e sembra uno dei personaggi dei suoi racconti, la maestra di scuola primaria che cerca di coinvolgere il suo pubblico di bambinetti timidi.
Che differenza con Tutto quello che è un uomo, di Szalay, appena letto: la Groff può essere meno raffinata ma è di lettura più piacevole perchè vivace e vitaminica quanto Szalay è esangue e desolato.
E' stata accostata a Alice Munro, grandissimo complimento, io credo che l'autrice ci darà delle soddisfazioni ma la cifra mi sembra completamente diversa: la sua forza mi sembra l'empatia, mentre la Munro sembra guardare le molte sciagure umane da un'altra dimensione.
I racconti che mi sono piaciuti di più sono Lucky Chow Fun e Majorette.
Ambientati nella provincia americana, mi hanno fatto pensare a Joyce Carol Oates, che dipinge con maestria gotica l'anima nera dell'America. Ma queste ragazze di Lauren Groff, anche se spaventate, resistono e riescono a sfuggire alla cattiva sorte. L'ultimo racconto, quello che dà il titolo alla raccolta, mi ricorda la fuga dei parigini all'arrivo dei nazisti scritta dalla Nemirovski. Ma va bene così, la ragazza si farà, la raccolta Florida, successiva, è più bella.

[Jenna · Rating 4 out of 5]

Rated Three-Point-Five Delicate, Edible Stars! (I rounded up because that is how I roll.)
If there is one recurring theme in this book, and as suggested by its lovely and yet dark title, that theme might be the sexual power/vulnerability of women, especially younger women. The theme is subtle, not executed in an overwrought way, but fortunately its presence is strong enough to help link together the long and quite varied (especially in terms of setting) stories in this collection. This is important, as the biggest challenge of the collection overall was reading it AS a collection. Because reading a bunch of even magnificent short stories in a row can give one a kind of post-binge-watching overdose-of-goodness headache (a binge-graine?)! So approaching the collection with the thought of following this thematic thread helped me as a reader avoid discombobulation. (But then again - it was also Awesome to read a collection of stories where the writer does not write about the same damn thing, e.g. Surburban Ennui, over and over and over again!)

I still kind of wish I would have been able to savor these stories more individually or encounter them in random literary magazines rather than plowing dutifully through the lot toward the bland final destination of my library return deadline. But that being said - I never wanted to stop reading. Groff writes beautifully, with vivid imagination and, as demonstrated in The Monsters Of Templeton, a distinctively folkloric, storyteller's yarn-spinning approach and an eye toward the mythic dimensions of the everyday.

Several stories in this collection were really excellent, haunting and memorable. If you read nothing else, read the titular story, the final one in the whole collection and pretty much a perfect work of short fiction in its characterization, plot, and setting. (The main female character, a war reporter, reminded me of the fascinating Martha Gellhorn, though that may be attributable to my obsession with the whole Hemingway-era literary scene.) The story "Fugue" was also world-class: reading it is a very, um, Fugue-like experience (go figure) in which the fragmented, dreamlike parts don't add up to their incredible whole until the very end. "Watershed" is a wonderful and wistful story of love and loss, a sort of realistic nightmare and the kind of "what if this happened?" thing we always worry about when we go to bed angry at someone. Those stories constitute my Top Three.

As for the second tier - "Lucky Chow Fun" is an understated, small-town-life-tipped-on-its-head story that reads most like the first parts of The Monsters of Templeton, if you enjoy that book. "Majorette" is a sweeping, ambitious story that encompasses an entire lifetime, as do "L. DeBard and Ailette" and "Blythe." I'm generally not nuts about short stories that seem like they could/should be novellas, but I think "Majorette" is a successful and poignant twist on the Cinderella story. "Blythe" will be of interest to those who like to read books about women artists and/or mental illness/bipolar disorder; I was reminded at times of The Woman Upstairs. "L. DeBard and Ailette" was intriguing at times, but perhaps among the least grounded in the author's life experience (the Great Depression plus epidemic flu plus polio meets the history of professional swimming - and castration??). Thus, I wasn't entirely buying this story - but interestingly enough, not so much for these exotic aspects of the setting and plot, but rather for the inexplicable actions of a father character, which are not fully contextualized, and then the titular characters' responses to his actions also don't make sense in light of their established, strong and rebellious characters.

There were only two stories that failed to draw me in. "The Wife of the Dictator" felt like an (albeit grade-A) MFA class exercise in which the student was asked to read Carolyn Forche's famous prose poem about the dictator and the ears and then imagine what the dictator's wife would have been like. Finally, "Sir Fleeting" was okay, but there was not much There there. It's partially about women and physical aging, a theme that is boring me greatly lately and that I really think we need to find a fresh and empowering take on. (And Groff is really young yet, so - forgiven!)

But overall - Even the weakest stories are pretty decent, and the rest are pretty great. I'm definitely planning to keep up with Groff's future work. To recap, if you want to just dip your toes in this collection - my top recommended stories, roughly ranked, are:
Delicate Edible Birds
Fugue
Watershed
Lucky Chow Fun and/or Majorette
Blythe
L. DeBard and Ailette

[Cynthia Paschen · Rating 5 out of 5]

A hospice client of mine, Alice, was at the end of her life. Normally chatty, she was quiet. I was holding her hand and asking her if there was anything she wanted me to read to her. She said, "Tell me. The stories. That I. Told you." So of course, I did. Stories of her childhood, her marriage, her son, all of it. She let me know if I missed a detail or got something wrong, shaking her head, no. It's what we are measured by, what we leave behind, our stories. Alice taught me that.

Lauren Groff understands the power of our stories, especially in challenging times.

In "Watershed," a newlywed couple end up together at the hospital. He's in a coma. (page 186:) "I went in and began to tell stories. I had grown used to this changeling in the bed where my husband should have been, and told him stories he had told me. But I embroidered them, perverted them, willing him to wake up and correct me. The first time he killed a deer, a twelve-point buck. The first time he ever had sex with a girl (Jinny Palmer, on the Fairy Springs docks, in broad daylight). That crazy night in his freshman year in college when those boys did everything they could to get arrested, short of murder or rape, and were never caught.

"Did I imagine the tightening of your thumb on my palm? The flicker across the face? The swallow? Did I imagine you would open your eyes and wheeze out, That's not the way it went, not at all? Did I hope you'd be angry when you opened your eyes and say, You have the story all wrong, Celie, you have it all wrong?

"I did. I do."

[Marina · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sometimes when no novel is keeping my attention I turn to my first love in reading which is the short story. When done right, a short story is magical, better than any full length read. Yet again I found a perfect short story, it's the first one I read called "L.DeBard and Aliette" and it was outstanding, mesmerizing and gave me chills thoughout and lleft me sobbing at the end. I fully recommend this collection to everyone based on this story alone. I hope Emily picks up this collection, even if she doesn't like short stories. I have hig hopes for the rest of the collection, yet I don't want to finish reading them all because I want to draw out the pleasure.

[Korcan Derinsu · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5/5

Lauren Groff, birbirinden çok farklı zamanlarda, çok farklı coğrafyalarda geçen 9 öykü yazmış bu kitabında. Bu zaman ve mekan çeşitliliği o denli geniş ki 1918 İspanyol Gribi de 2. Dünya Savaşı da, hayali bir Güney Amerika ülkesi de kendine yer bulabiliyor. Doğrusu bu öykü derlemelerinde çok sevdiğim bir yaklaşım. (Hoş yazarın romanları da birbirlerinden o kadar alakasız dünyalarda geçiyor ki hayran olmamak elde değil!) Üstüne bir de öykü kurulumlarının hemen hepsinin birbirinden farklı oluşu kitabı daha da kıymetli kılıyor. Öykülere gelirsek hemen hepsi 30 sayfa civarında, genelde uzun zaman dilimini anlatan ve kadınların başrolde olduğu öyküler. Yazarın diğer öykü derlemesi Florida’daki gibi kendi içinde gerilimi olan öyküler okuyoruz. Karakterlerin içinde bulunduğu durumlar her an her şeyin olabileceği türden durumlar. Yani sonsuz gergin ihtimaller mevzubahis fakat Lauren Groff bu defa bunun imkanlarından fazla yararlanmamayı tercih ediyor ve esas gerilimi öykülerin ilk kısımlar��nda vererek bir adım sonrasına bakmayı tercih ediyor. Diğerini okumak çok daha zevkli olsa da bu riskli tercihi de oldukça kayda değer buluyorum. Özetlemek gerekirse, hepsine vurulmasam da çok iyi öyküler yazmış yazar; çok severek okudum. Favorilerim “Lucky Chow Fun”, “L.DeBard and Aliette” ve “The Wife of The Dictator”.

[Rebecca · Rating 5 out of 5]

Groff should be best known for her short stories. What a clever decision to open with “Lucky Chow Fun,” a story set in Templeton, the location of her debut novel – it forms a thread of continuity between her first book and her second. Elizabeth, the only girl on the varsity swim team, comes to a number of realizations about her family and her community, including that the title Chinese restaurant is a front for a brothel that exploits trafficked women. The story becomes a wider parable about appearances and suspicion. “In these dark days, there is so much distrust in this town. … You never know quite what to think about people”. And what a brilliant last line: “I like to think it’s a happy ending, though it is the middle that haunts me.”

“L. DeBard and Aliette” recasts in the notorious Héloïse and Abelard romance an Olympic swimmer and a schoolgirl in Spanish flu-plagued New York City. The other seven stories alternate between historical fiction and contemporary, the USA and abroad, first person and third person, speech marks or none. Desire and boundaries, accomplishment and escape, fear and risk are contradictory pulls. While the details have faded for me, I remember that, while I was reading them, each of these stories enveloped me in a particular world – 30 pages seems like the ideal length here to fully explore a set of characters and a situation. If I had to choose a favourite, it would be “Blythe,” about a woman who feels responsible for her alcoholic best friend.

Originally published on my blog, Bookish Beck.

[Senga · Rating 4 out of 5]

Rzuciłam się na nową Groff jak wegetarianka na nowalijki i przeczytałam z dużą przyjemnością, chociaż widać, że to debiut amerykańskiej pisarki. Opowiadania zawarte w tym tomie są oczywiście o kobietach, o przemocy i i miłości. Bardzo podobała mi się ich różnorodność - są bardzo rozłożone w czasie, akcja jednego dzieje się w czasach hiszpanki, jest jedno w czasie wojny, są lata 50, 90, współczesne, dzieją się też w różnych rejonach geograficznych, podobnie bohaterki są w bardzo rożnym wieku od nastolatek do kobiety w zaawansowanym wieku, wywodzą się też z różnych środowisk. Zabrakło mi jednak jakiejś klamry, czegoś co by te historie łączyło, tak jak we „Florydzie” była to parna i gęsta atmosfera miejsca akcji. Nie ma tu też jeszcze tej feministycznej zadziorności Lauren Groff, kobiety potrzebują mężczyzn, poświęcają się dla nich. Jest też oczywiście krytyka patriarchalnych schematów i wynikającej z nich roli kobiet w społeczeństwie, tego jak przedmiotowo są traktowane i jakiej przemocy doświadczają na co dzień, jest też pokazane jak się z tym mierzą, w większości historii widać ich siłę i próby życia na własnych zasadach, ale to jeszcze nie to. To, co raziło mnie na pewno, to duży age gap między niektórymi opisywanymi parami, oczywiście w schemacie bardzo młoda dziewczyna i starszy mężczyzna, nawet jeśli wiem, że 100 lat temu takie związki były normalne. Jednak literacko jest to czysta przyjemność, Groff przepięknie operuje zdaniami i nastrojem, czyta się to wspaniale, przeżywa i wyobraża. Nie wszystkie opowiadania były równie dobre, ale niektóre chwytały za serce. Potwierdza się moje przekonanie, że krótka forma to żywioł Lauren Groff, sprawdza się tu lepiej niż w powieściach. Fajnie też mieć porównanie i widzieć jak niesamowicie rozwinęła się jako pisarka, ale chyba też jako osoba. Kocham niezmiennie.
Jedyne ale - zupełnie niezrozumiała jest dla mnie decyzja polskiej wydawczyni o uczynieniu opowiadaniem tytułowym innego niż w oryginalnym wydaniu. Historia, którą wybrali jest dla mnie najsłabsza, za to ta w wydaniu amerykańskim najbardziej wstrząsająca. Przy czym ta przepiękna okładka jest bardzo związana właśnie z oryginalnym tytułem tomu (Delicate edible birds and other stories), za to z Fugą nie ma nic wspólnego. Ciekawa jestem co tu się wydarzyło.

[Nurbahar Usta · Rating 5 out of 5]

lauren groff'un bugüne kadar okuduğum her kitabını öyle ayrı sevdim ki, artık objektivitemi kaybettim bence. delicate edible birds'ün her hikayesi başlı başına bir veya birden fazla hayat öyküsü. defalarca denesem de asla anlamadım nasıl, hangi kelimelerle daha ilk satırlardan 30-40 sayfa sürecek hikayenin duygusunun tonunu belirlediğini groff'un. sonu kötüye gidiyosa gerilimi, kırık bir aşksa hüznünü, hüzünlü bir kayıpsa yası daha enn baştan belirliyor. çok büyük bir sürprize değil ama yavaş yavaş ana duygunun tepe noktasına taşıyor okuru. ayrıca daha önce de yazmıştım bunu, o kadar farklı tarzdan o kadar farklı temalara geçiyor ki kesinlikle bir kişiden bu kadar farklı şaheserlerin çıkması inanılmaz geliyor hala bana. öykülerden tek tek bahsemicem, hepsinden ayrı etkilendim, hepsinde ayrı bir parçamı buldum gibi oldu.

[LaCitty · Rating 5 out of 5]

Se devo essere sincera ho approcciato la lettura con un po' di preoccupazione poiché ho letto recensioni contrastanti su questa autrice e invece...
Delicati uccelli commestibili è una raccolta di racconti tutti al femminile, uno più bello dell'altro. Ci sono donne forti, determinate, indipendenti, ci sono donne fragili che si lasciano andare. Alcune sono giovani, altre vecchie. Tutte hanno però una loro epifania: un momento di disvelamento e di verità, a volte amara come nel racconto che dà il titolo alla raccolta, a volte liberatoria che fa sì che le ossessioni di una vita finalmente scompaiono.

[lesneczytanko · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5

[Renita D'Silva · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow! Exceptional writing! Loved every one of these beautiful vignettes into life in different countries in different eras, all exploring ordinary dilemmas during ordinary and extra-ordinary times. I think my absolute favourite of the stories is Majorette, although it is tough to choose between them as each is perfect, exquisite. So beautifully written. I'm in awe of this author's writing, her turn of phrase, her ability to make us care about every one of the characters in each of these distinct, flawless stories.

[Angela · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm incredibly picky about what I'll read, but after her short story in The New Yorker I was hooked. It was like love at first sight with this author. Lauren Groff is easily one of the most talented writers of our time and I will read ANYTHING she writes. These stories were INCREDIBLE. I'm making all of my friends read this book immediately so that I'll have people to talk to about it.

I just opened the book so that I could list my favorite stories, but they're all wonderful! I love the way she writes female characters and I have to say, the second story, L. DeBard and Aliette is one of the loveliest romances I've ever read. I don't usually like reading about love affairs, but this one is unique (which is the way I could describe each and every one of these stories.)

One of the other stories, Watershed, may be one of the most perfect things I've ever read. Its ending is so universal and brilliant. And the very last story has stayed with me for days. In all honesty, as soon as I finished this book I wanted to reread it.

This author takes great care in her storytelling. A few times a line would pop up and I'd think, "I always heard a writer should NEVER do that..." But no matter WHAT she writes, it flows like music. Her voice is so strong and it's obvious she writes from the heart. This is an absolutely perfect book.

[Kim Lockhart · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5 ⭐ rounded up, because her short stories are freaky and amazing! Groff writes novels, too, but her short stories are where she really shines, IMHO.

I don't know how she does it, but she can select a time period and a specific place, layer it with singular circumstances, and pull out fully-formed uniquely flawed characters. I've read many long-form stories that didn't have as rich characterization as these short stories. It's incredible.

[Brian · Rating 5 out of 5]

A first-rate collection of short fiction; wonderful storytelling, rich characters and taut writing deep with meaning. I am looking forward to reading Groff's novels following this tremendous book of stories.

[fatma · Rating 3 out of 5]

Eh. Groff is a talented writer for sure, but I don't know if short stories will ever completely work for me.

Let's get the obvious out of the way: Lauren Groff can write. Her sentences are elegant and light, evoking feeling and describing setting in a precise and simple way that still manages to be fresh and creative. As for the stories themselves, though, they were, as with pretty much every short story collection I read nowadays, a mixed bag. My favourite was definitely the first story, "Lucky Chow Fun," which had such a surprisingly profound ending. Another one I liked was "Watershed," which also had a fantastic ending. On that note, I want to call attention to how well Groff writes endings, perhaps too well. I usually felt at best a casual enjoyment and at worst an indifference about this collection's stories. But then I'd get to their endings and, damn, they'd make me totally reconsider the story I'd just read. I'd start second-guessing my initial impressions: did I really think the story was mediocre? Maybe I actually enjoyed it more than I thought I did? Did I enjoy it? But what about that amazing ending though? So, yeah, Groff writes the best short story endings. Regardless, I say she maybe writes endings too well because I often wished that the stories themselves were as good as their endings.

While we're at it, I might as well do a quick run-through of the stories from the rest of the collection. "L. DeBard and Aliette" and "Majorette" I liked well enough, but I didn't like how similar their plot trajectories ended up feeling—they both veered into overly sentimental territory that I thought was a little too on the nose. "Blythe" was a pretty meh story, but I didn't dislike it. "The Wife of the Dictator" and "Sir Fleeting" I didn't really like. And last but not least, I outright did not like "Fugue" and "Delicate Edible Birds," the last two stories of the collection. It felt like Groff was trying to do way too much with the medium of the short story given the fact that it's, you know, a story that is SHORT.

Overall not the best short story collection I've ever read*, but definitely not the worst either.

*honestly I don't even know if I've ever read a short story collection that I've loved, except maybe Leigh Bardugo's The Language of Thorns

[Rachel León]

Lauren Groff is a fantastic writer and I admire her prose. A few of these stories are really great, but others are a bit blah (though beautifully written, of course).

[Marika_reads · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pamiętam jakie wrażenie zrobiła na mnie w 2016 (pierwsze polskie wydanie) jej „Fatum i Furia”, to była jedna z tych książek, która literacko rozwaliła mi mózg i którą polecałam wszystkim wokół. Ale równie ważnnym książkowo przełomowym dla mnie tytułem była „Floryda”, to jeden z pierwszych zbiorów opowiadań, które pokazał mi, że krótka forma też może być genialna i satysfakcjonująca. I teraz znów mogłam zanurzyć się w jej krótkie opowieści. Przyznaje, że nie zachwyciły jak Floryda, ale i tak były świetne!
Każdy z tekstów to miniatura zupełnie innej historii, a powiedziałabym nawet. że to minipowieści zajmujące tylko 30-40 stron, ale tak gęste, ze świetnie wykreowanymi postaciami i zakończeniami w punkt, że nie jedno grube tomiszcze mogłoby się uczyć. Groff jest wszechstronna co pokazała już w swoich zróżnicowanych powieściach, ale
tu dodatkowo to potwierdza, nie zamykając się jednej konwencji czy wąskim temacie. No dobra, jedynym powtarzającym się elementem jest perspektywa kobieca, ale lubimy to! Pisarka zabiera nas do Argentyny, do Nowego Jorku czy na francuską wieś. Do początku XX wieku, czasów II wojny i do współczesności. Jest korespondentka wojenna uciekająca przed nazistami, jest żona dyktatora czy nastoletnia pływaczka. Tematycznie też jest mocno różnorodnie, ale to już sprawdźcie same. I jest właściwie tylko jedno opowiadanie, które średnio przypadło mi do gustu, i o ironio, jest to opowiadanie tytułowe.
Autorka nie daje nam się nudzić i nie pozwala uciekać myślami, angażując nas totalnie. A skoro to Groff to też oczywiście piękny język, trafne porównania, piękne metafory. Zapisałam sobie jeden urzekający cytat: „(…) długie wieczory spędziłam przy stole kuchennym, szlifując sobie smutkiem oczy”. No hello!! ♥️♥️♥️
Czytajcie :)

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