What do you think?
Rate this book
Down to a Sunless Sea
Down to a Sunless Sea plunges the reader into uncomfortable situations and into the minds of troubled characters. Each selection is a different reading experience-poetic, journalistic, nostalgic, wryly humorous, and even macabre. An award-winning essayist and historical novelist, Mathias B. Freese brings the weight of his twenty-five years as a clinical social worker and psychotherapist into play as he demonstrates a vivid understanding of-and compassion toward-the deviant and damaged.
- GenresShort StoriesFiction
148 pages, Paperback
First published November 15, 2007
14 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 20 of 20 reviews
February 4, 2008
DOWN TO A SUNLESS SEA
MATHIAS B FREESE
Wheatmark Press, 2007
The title story gives us the self-absorbed universe of Adam analyzing what we might call a Freudian life. The narrative is filled with Adam's continuous self-centered impressionistic examinations of growing up needing the attentions of his mother, and later his stepmother, but never becoming the center of anyone's demonstrative love, approval, or caring. As a child Adam is baffled and full of odd phobias—his mother's sealed off separateness that leaves him superficially in touch with her; fear of growing hair on his hands after he sees a barber "with wormlike hair" on his scissoring fingers; fear of growing older; fear of the compulsive rubbing of the backs of his feet (what does it mean?); "fear of loss; apprehensiveness—and vanity."
Adam believes that some of his phobias are a result of his narcissism fed by a grandmother who constantly praised his good looks and loved to fondle him when he was a little boy—"she would gather him up upon her lap… and jostle his testicles." The family watches the fondling complacently—so it must be normal. They are low middle class people, unlettered, Americanized. Some of them had once performed in vaudeville playing instruments and dancing. Adam spends his childhood around them feeling cut off and "feeding on this implosively…" In time he becomes the ultimate outsider, outside himself:
Adam always feels as though he is photographing himself behind a schizoid lens, for he is never in himself observing himself—holding the cap gun, for one. Rather he is Adam staring at Adam from afar, the nether camera-work of a dream.
We are watching a boy living an intensely solitary childhood, a boy who relies on his creativity to make a world in which he can live imaginatively. When his mother dies of cancer ("Adam was twenty going on ten"), her replacement six months later is not willing or able to fulfill Adam's craving for love and attention. He feels he must come to terms with diminishing expectations and "pierce [his:] infantile amnesia," tricky memories, the narcissism that feeds the sense that he must be the center (the omphalos) of the universe— ways of thinking that we all must come to terms with eventually if we are not to remain forever naïve, stunted, always emergent, never emerged. Adam does his best to deal with "the clammy indifference" of his stepmother and father and the world at large that doesn't appreciate him by metaphorically gluing himself together and divesting himself of "the emotional lint" between his fingers. "So I feel it, so I am all that," he says. Feeling trumps cogito ergo sum.
"Down to a Sunless Sea" is an abbreviated Proustian self-examination of a boy's lonely childhood and the minutia surrounding his cipher self. It is, however, without the labyrinthine syntax of Remembrance of Things Past. Freese captures the essence in short, sometimes chopped off sentences that capture the fragmentation of his main character. The main theme beyond isolation seems to be that life never gets around to explaining itself and so we, like Adam, must create our own explanations and continue as always to fend for ourselves.
"It's always been this way; it's always going to be like this. I know it, and there's no changing it." Life has a rhythm that is only your rhythm and your rhythm will never vary. "I'll Make It, I think" picks up where the first story leaves off. We are given a clubfooted boy crippled in body, mind and spirit. He separates himself from himself, like Adam did, and, in fact, fragments his own body by giving names to its appendages—"Ralph" is his left hand; "Lon" is his left foot. "Schmuck" is the rest of him, except for his penis, which he calls "David." David seems to be the only part of the boy that works well—too well, perhaps. David's demands drives him crazy, makes him into a Peeping Tom trying to get his jollies by spying on people. The boy hauling around his "heavy, dense, Frankensteinian" foot is a voyeur who, if he could, would probably have hiding places filled with pornography. He's another soul cut off from normality, craving love but unable to find it, get near it, or live it vicariously. It's all a problem of perception. The external doesn't mirror the internal. Inside, he says, "I'm better. I'm me, untwisted, normal. Outside, well, that's something else."
You know, after a while, there's a stalemate. You go on no matter how bad it is. The sickening thing is that you can adjust to almost anything. I guess that's why the people in asylums are there. They refuse to go on. They swallow too much reality in a gulp and can't get it down.
"The Chatham Bear" brings us another outsider, only this time it's a mysterious bear that comes out of the woods near the rural neighborhood of Canaan, New York. A bear is a traditional symbol of death and its appearance frightens all those who encounter it. One woman gets a rifle and sits on her porch waiting for the police; a man rushes for his shotgun and tries to trail the bear and shoots at it, the bear slipping ghostly away into the trees; another tries to run the bear down with his pickup put is so terrified that he can't turn the key to start the engine. The impression is that the wild is closing in on the people of Canaan and it is, sort of. What they don't apprehend is that the wild is always and ever will be in their midst. It's next door, it's a block away—the wild is waiting everywhere. It's that pit bull who attacks and kills your terrier; it's that man who throws his woman into the car and beats her, while she tries to scratch his eyes out. "Why did the police appear so complaisant about it all, almost as if this occurrence was commonplace?" It is wild domesticity that gets cops killed. There are bears everywhere.
"Herbie" has a shoe fetish—he likes to shine them. His dad is brutal with Herbie and is vehemently against the shoe shine aspirations of his son. An understatement, actually. When Herbie tells his dad that he wants to open his own business, his father's "complexion scrambled off his face, it became a drum, taut and featureless, beating out every conceivable reason against such an undertaking." He slaps Herbie on both cheeks and berates him, the father's breath "husky with pork," pouring "pig mist… mixed with bile… unbearable for Herbie. "As long as I'm alive and paying the rent around here you don't shine shoes," father tells son. This is a father who never praises and is quick with the laying on of the hands. Herbie eventually confronts him. The result is inevitable given the nature of bullies.
In only seven pages "Alabaster" deftly, expertly catches what it means to lose youth, beauty and the confidence to live in the moment, rather than allowing the past to define us. An old lady survivor of the Holocaust makes friends with a nine-year-old boy. She frightens him, but he doesn't run away. He keeps her company and she, briefly, lives vicariously through him. She tells him, "You know inside me there is a beautiful girl with alabaster arms. Don't let this old body fool you."
In a story called "Juan Peron's Hands" the unknown narrator takes revenge on the former Argentine dictator Juan Peron. The narrator sneaks into Peron's tomb after he dies and with a machete severs the hands, symbols of an entire army that followed Peron's commands and stole the soul of a dependent, groveling Argentina:… "those splayed hands of his, with palms as wide as dishes. Like umbrellas to shield us, his hands enveloped us, placed us in shadow, anointed us fools."
"Little Errands" creates an unforgettable, pitiful, yet humorous personality in four pages. The unknown narrator is an obsessive-compulsive personality, compulsively searching outside the mail drop to see if letters he mailed actually went inside. Did the letters go in the bag or not? Were the envelopes sealed? Did they have stamps?
The hope is that I mailed them; the fear is that I've lost them, somewhere in or about the mailbox, I wish I had checked more carefully. Yet it nags at me, and yet I refuse to go back to it. It doesn't make sense. I worry about the letters, have they been delivered?
He also worries about leaving the radio on. He's obsessed with his key slipping into the lock on his door. He's obsessed in the way all compulsive people are. Think Dostoevsky: Think Notes from Underground, all the obsessing on letters written and sent—and unsent:
I never sent that letter. I get gooseflesh at the mere thought of what would've happened if I had sent it! (132, MacAndrews trans, Signet 1961).
On the morrow I will write him a letter clearly expressing my motives. Certainly, surely, it will be mailed (66, "Little Errands," Freese).
Freese's stories are full of angst and confusion, each one asking "Who am I? Who are you?" His main characters are isolates unable to make connections. The weight of childhood experiences is a permanent condition no matter how old you are. Stories of children raised in melancholy homes lead us to understand that forever-after their life is a melancholy way station where they wait for nothing—for death. It's a crazy but credible universe Freese has created. Every story glistens with bitter truths, edgy truths about twisted human relationships, lack of love, the inexplicable lives we live. Each says maybe you haven't experienced life this way but many others have—it is their truth and one day you might know what it means to live a shadow figure yourself.
MATHIAS B FREESE
Wheatmark Press, 2007
The title story gives us the self-absorbed universe of Adam analyzing what we might call a Freudian life. The narrative is filled with Adam's continuous self-centered impressionistic examinations of growing up needing the attentions of his mother, and later his stepmother, but never becoming the center of anyone's demonstrative love, approval, or caring. As a child Adam is baffled and full of odd phobias—his mother's sealed off separateness that leaves him superficially in touch with her; fear of growing hair on his hands after he sees a barber "with wormlike hair" on his scissoring fingers; fear of growing older; fear of the compulsive rubbing of the backs of his feet (what does it mean?); "fear of loss; apprehensiveness—and vanity."
Adam believes that some of his phobias are a result of his narcissism fed by a grandmother who constantly praised his good looks and loved to fondle him when he was a little boy—"she would gather him up upon her lap… and jostle his testicles." The family watches the fondling complacently—so it must be normal. They are low middle class people, unlettered, Americanized. Some of them had once performed in vaudeville playing instruments and dancing. Adam spends his childhood around them feeling cut off and "feeding on this implosively…" In time he becomes the ultimate outsider, outside himself:
Adam always feels as though he is photographing himself behind a schizoid lens, for he is never in himself observing himself—holding the cap gun, for one. Rather he is Adam staring at Adam from afar, the nether camera-work of a dream.
We are watching a boy living an intensely solitary childhood, a boy who relies on his creativity to make a world in which he can live imaginatively. When his mother dies of cancer ("Adam was twenty going on ten"), her replacement six months later is not willing or able to fulfill Adam's craving for love and attention. He feels he must come to terms with diminishing expectations and "pierce [his:] infantile amnesia," tricky memories, the narcissism that feeds the sense that he must be the center (the omphalos) of the universe— ways of thinking that we all must come to terms with eventually if we are not to remain forever naïve, stunted, always emergent, never emerged. Adam does his best to deal with "the clammy indifference" of his stepmother and father and the world at large that doesn't appreciate him by metaphorically gluing himself together and divesting himself of "the emotional lint" between his fingers. "So I feel it, so I am all that," he says. Feeling trumps cogito ergo sum.
"Down to a Sunless Sea" is an abbreviated Proustian self-examination of a boy's lonely childhood and the minutia surrounding his cipher self. It is, however, without the labyrinthine syntax of Remembrance of Things Past. Freese captures the essence in short, sometimes chopped off sentences that capture the fragmentation of his main character. The main theme beyond isolation seems to be that life never gets around to explaining itself and so we, like Adam, must create our own explanations and continue as always to fend for ourselves.
"It's always been this way; it's always going to be like this. I know it, and there's no changing it." Life has a rhythm that is only your rhythm and your rhythm will never vary. "I'll Make It, I think" picks up where the first story leaves off. We are given a clubfooted boy crippled in body, mind and spirit. He separates himself from himself, like Adam did, and, in fact, fragments his own body by giving names to its appendages—"Ralph" is his left hand; "Lon" is his left foot. "Schmuck" is the rest of him, except for his penis, which he calls "David." David seems to be the only part of the boy that works well—too well, perhaps. David's demands drives him crazy, makes him into a Peeping Tom trying to get his jollies by spying on people. The boy hauling around his "heavy, dense, Frankensteinian" foot is a voyeur who, if he could, would probably have hiding places filled with pornography. He's another soul cut off from normality, craving love but unable to find it, get near it, or live it vicariously. It's all a problem of perception. The external doesn't mirror the internal. Inside, he says, "I'm better. I'm me, untwisted, normal. Outside, well, that's something else."
You know, after a while, there's a stalemate. You go on no matter how bad it is. The sickening thing is that you can adjust to almost anything. I guess that's why the people in asylums are there. They refuse to go on. They swallow too much reality in a gulp and can't get it down.
"The Chatham Bear" brings us another outsider, only this time it's a mysterious bear that comes out of the woods near the rural neighborhood of Canaan, New York. A bear is a traditional symbol of death and its appearance frightens all those who encounter it. One woman gets a rifle and sits on her porch waiting for the police; a man rushes for his shotgun and tries to trail the bear and shoots at it, the bear slipping ghostly away into the trees; another tries to run the bear down with his pickup put is so terrified that he can't turn the key to start the engine. The impression is that the wild is closing in on the people of Canaan and it is, sort of. What they don't apprehend is that the wild is always and ever will be in their midst. It's next door, it's a block away—the wild is waiting everywhere. It's that pit bull who attacks and kills your terrier; it's that man who throws his woman into the car and beats her, while she tries to scratch his eyes out. "Why did the police appear so complaisant about it all, almost as if this occurrence was commonplace?" It is wild domesticity that gets cops killed. There are bears everywhere.
"Herbie" has a shoe fetish—he likes to shine them. His dad is brutal with Herbie and is vehemently against the shoe shine aspirations of his son. An understatement, actually. When Herbie tells his dad that he wants to open his own business, his father's "complexion scrambled off his face, it became a drum, taut and featureless, beating out every conceivable reason against such an undertaking." He slaps Herbie on both cheeks and berates him, the father's breath "husky with pork," pouring "pig mist… mixed with bile… unbearable for Herbie. "As long as I'm alive and paying the rent around here you don't shine shoes," father tells son. This is a father who never praises and is quick with the laying on of the hands. Herbie eventually confronts him. The result is inevitable given the nature of bullies.
In only seven pages "Alabaster" deftly, expertly catches what it means to lose youth, beauty and the confidence to live in the moment, rather than allowing the past to define us. An old lady survivor of the Holocaust makes friends with a nine-year-old boy. She frightens him, but he doesn't run away. He keeps her company and she, briefly, lives vicariously through him. She tells him, "You know inside me there is a beautiful girl with alabaster arms. Don't let this old body fool you."
In a story called "Juan Peron's Hands" the unknown narrator takes revenge on the former Argentine dictator Juan Peron. The narrator sneaks into Peron's tomb after he dies and with a machete severs the hands, symbols of an entire army that followed Peron's commands and stole the soul of a dependent, groveling Argentina:… "those splayed hands of his, with palms as wide as dishes. Like umbrellas to shield us, his hands enveloped us, placed us in shadow, anointed us fools."
"Little Errands" creates an unforgettable, pitiful, yet humorous personality in four pages. The unknown narrator is an obsessive-compulsive personality, compulsively searching outside the mail drop to see if letters he mailed actually went inside. Did the letters go in the bag or not? Were the envelopes sealed? Did they have stamps?
The hope is that I mailed them; the fear is that I've lost them, somewhere in or about the mailbox, I wish I had checked more carefully. Yet it nags at me, and yet I refuse to go back to it. It doesn't make sense. I worry about the letters, have they been delivered?
He also worries about leaving the radio on. He's obsessed with his key slipping into the lock on his door. He's obsessed in the way all compulsive people are. Think Dostoevsky: Think Notes from Underground, all the obsessing on letters written and sent—and unsent:
I never sent that letter. I get gooseflesh at the mere thought of what would've happened if I had sent it! (132, MacAndrews trans, Signet 1961).
On the morrow I will write him a letter clearly expressing my motives. Certainly, surely, it will be mailed (66, "Little Errands," Freese).
Freese's stories are full of angst and confusion, each one asking "Who am I? Who are you?" His main characters are isolates unable to make connections. The weight of childhood experiences is a permanent condition no matter how old you are. Stories of children raised in melancholy homes lead us to understand that forever-after their life is a melancholy way station where they wait for nothing—for death. It's a crazy but credible universe Freese has created. Every story glistens with bitter truths, edgy truths about twisted human relationships, lack of love, the inexplicable lives we live. Each says maybe you haven't experienced life this way but many others have—it is their truth and one day you might know what it means to live a shadow figure yourself.
August 20, 2008
I'd give this slim volume an extra 1/2 star, if I could, as a few of these very short stories deserved a 3 or 4 ("Alabaster" is a wonderful story and "Little Errands" gets so deeply into the mind of someone who is OCD that it is both sad and funny at the same time).
Several of the stories, though, I'd have to rate lower. These, unfortunately, said more than they showed, as if they were essays rather than short stories and/or were too repetitive and/or used more words than were necessary to convey their meaning.
Definitely a mixed bag.
Several of the stories, though, I'd have to rate lower. These, unfortunately, said more than they showed, as if they were essays rather than short stories and/or were too repetitive and/or used more words than were necessary to convey their meaning.
Definitely a mixed bag.
March 14, 2010
Deviant and Damaged … yes, that pretty much says it all with this book of short stories, each an outpouring of bile from the human sewer. I am not being harsh here either. Fact of the matter is, the characters in these stories have lost compassion for themselves. They leave themselves to rot and obsessively desecrate their own souls. Some of it almost reminds me of the disquieted musings of Pessoa, and some, the lamenting Philosophies of Nietzsche.
Here we have a cast of characters reflecting upon and deconstructing the lack of normality in their lives: abusive and psychologically tainted family members, deformity and disability, the confrontation of one’s mortality, and polluted self-esteem—yet all the characters are fighting to survive themselves. If you are a big fan of self-examination, self-deprecation, and self-flagellation, and like your reading material on the darker side, then this book is quite a good read. There is no closure, no happy endings … and that is real life for these very non-fictional souls. In this book, we cannot escape or ignore that fact.
The stories are written in different voices and tones, some from an almost clinical detached external view, some from a surrealistic stream of consciousness view, and some from a wounded internal one. Personally, I like the first person wounded internal ones the best, which, to me, allows a more personal connection with the character. The style is matter of fact in most cases, serious, with levity injected at the just right moment to lighten the load. Yes … you will be shocked and appalled not only by the subject matter but also by the macabre themes, not to mention the smattering of self-righteous sarcasm, and you might even find yourself laughing at times – and you will feel guilty about it.
Excerpt From: I’ll Make it I Think:
“I was born like this and I’m not a freak. I mean, I got God’s good dose of CP, bless him, but this doesn’t stop me from feeling every now and then that I’ll be a freak for most of my goddam life. Man, you should see me run, like a seesaw coming at you, clanging up and down, a crippled mother Fokker machine gunning at you while going down in flames. When I do date—and that ain’t often—I don’t date a girl who is crippled like me, although she’s often a loser of one kind or another, a prossie, something like that. I ain’t no snob, I just know I can do better for me, that’s all. Like I said, the girls I do date are losers. Inside, I’m better. I’m me, untwisted, normal. Outside, well, that’s something else. No use in changing people’s minds. What you see is what you get—the world eats this up.
I’m not that crippled I can’t do better for myself. My folks say I can’t go out with normal girls (“They won’t have you”): classic— as if their snatch is any different—that I should get it through my thick skull (they’re loving parents) that they won’t date me. They go on to talk about “reality.” What the fuck do they know about reality! Try jerking off using Ralph for help and Lon for support. God, in his infinite mercy, made me left-handed. And they’re right—my folks—well, in a way right, in a way wrong. I really can’t dance because of my leg, and my webbed fingers come together like a flipper so that I can’t grasp a girl’s hand, unless she’s into frog.”
That particular story is about a deformed young man who struggles with being a freak on the outside. Struggles so much that the inside has become damaged to the point that he takes up voyeurism in order to achieve sexual satisfaction. But more importantly, the fable in this story struck me: the allegorical porter and metaphorical garbage cans and refuse. Must be why this one is my favourite. Anyway, this is the sort of candid view we get with this book. A short forward will help the reader understand the author’s motivations and expertise on the subject matter. I, however, did not read the forward first, as I like to judge stories on their own merit without the author’s or anyone else’s explanations clouding my interpretation.
Mr. Freese’s characterizations are convincing, as they should be, and the stories are relatable at a base human existence level that most are afraid to confront. My only complaint is that some of the stories, (I use that term loosely as many are really existential and philosophical musings) not all but some, feel a bit like case studies—clinically detached essays, maybe a bit too detached for me, as we get told everything we need to know, and we don’t really get to experience a full manifestation of their individual pathologies, like you do in say Bataille’s “Story of the Eye or My Mother”, which explore similar subject matter. Many of the stories are overtly subtle in their message, requiring a bit of contemplation from the reader, some are blatantly extreme, and some, the short format might not allow for enough texture to fully appreciate the psychological depth, its cause and effect. So, individual reader interpretation and reception will vary greatly.
It’s difficult to write about this subject matter at best, using imagery to portray deep psychological realism is even more difficult … a sense of detachment can be a lifeline, and even though the lifeline is apparent here, I have to applaud this author for going down a road very few attempt to negotiate. Mr. Freese does it with intellectual elegance and subtlety, with wit, and with candour. The prose is often poetic, and on occasion, disarmingly innocent and charming. All of the stories are thought-provoking and a bit haunting, not necessarily in what they say or how they say it, which is always eloquent, but often in what is not said. As far as personal favourites go, mine are: “I’ll make it I Think”, “For a While, Here, In This Moment”, and “Young Man”
Some might find the subject matter challenging and/or offensive, so be warned, this is not a light read.
Here we have a cast of characters reflecting upon and deconstructing the lack of normality in their lives: abusive and psychologically tainted family members, deformity and disability, the confrontation of one’s mortality, and polluted self-esteem—yet all the characters are fighting to survive themselves. If you are a big fan of self-examination, self-deprecation, and self-flagellation, and like your reading material on the darker side, then this book is quite a good read. There is no closure, no happy endings … and that is real life for these very non-fictional souls. In this book, we cannot escape or ignore that fact.
The stories are written in different voices and tones, some from an almost clinical detached external view, some from a surrealistic stream of consciousness view, and some from a wounded internal one. Personally, I like the first person wounded internal ones the best, which, to me, allows a more personal connection with the character. The style is matter of fact in most cases, serious, with levity injected at the just right moment to lighten the load. Yes … you will be shocked and appalled not only by the subject matter but also by the macabre themes, not to mention the smattering of self-righteous sarcasm, and you might even find yourself laughing at times – and you will feel guilty about it.
Excerpt From: I’ll Make it I Think:
“I was born like this and I’m not a freak. I mean, I got God’s good dose of CP, bless him, but this doesn’t stop me from feeling every now and then that I’ll be a freak for most of my goddam life. Man, you should see me run, like a seesaw coming at you, clanging up and down, a crippled mother Fokker machine gunning at you while going down in flames. When I do date—and that ain’t often—I don’t date a girl who is crippled like me, although she’s often a loser of one kind or another, a prossie, something like that. I ain’t no snob, I just know I can do better for me, that’s all. Like I said, the girls I do date are losers. Inside, I’m better. I’m me, untwisted, normal. Outside, well, that’s something else. No use in changing people’s minds. What you see is what you get—the world eats this up.
I’m not that crippled I can’t do better for myself. My folks say I can’t go out with normal girls (“They won’t have you”): classic— as if their snatch is any different—that I should get it through my thick skull (they’re loving parents) that they won’t date me. They go on to talk about “reality.” What the fuck do they know about reality! Try jerking off using Ralph for help and Lon for support. God, in his infinite mercy, made me left-handed. And they’re right—my folks—well, in a way right, in a way wrong. I really can’t dance because of my leg, and my webbed fingers come together like a flipper so that I can’t grasp a girl’s hand, unless she’s into frog.”
That particular story is about a deformed young man who struggles with being a freak on the outside. Struggles so much that the inside has become damaged to the point that he takes up voyeurism in order to achieve sexual satisfaction. But more importantly, the fable in this story struck me: the allegorical porter and metaphorical garbage cans and refuse. Must be why this one is my favourite. Anyway, this is the sort of candid view we get with this book. A short forward will help the reader understand the author’s motivations and expertise on the subject matter. I, however, did not read the forward first, as I like to judge stories on their own merit without the author’s or anyone else’s explanations clouding my interpretation.
Mr. Freese’s characterizations are convincing, as they should be, and the stories are relatable at a base human existence level that most are afraid to confront. My only complaint is that some of the stories, (I use that term loosely as many are really existential and philosophical musings) not all but some, feel a bit like case studies—clinically detached essays, maybe a bit too detached for me, as we get told everything we need to know, and we don’t really get to experience a full manifestation of their individual pathologies, like you do in say Bataille’s “Story of the Eye or My Mother”, which explore similar subject matter. Many of the stories are overtly subtle in their message, requiring a bit of contemplation from the reader, some are blatantly extreme, and some, the short format might not allow for enough texture to fully appreciate the psychological depth, its cause and effect. So, individual reader interpretation and reception will vary greatly.
It’s difficult to write about this subject matter at best, using imagery to portray deep psychological realism is even more difficult … a sense of detachment can be a lifeline, and even though the lifeline is apparent here, I have to applaud this author for going down a road very few attempt to negotiate. Mr. Freese does it with intellectual elegance and subtlety, with wit, and with candour. The prose is often poetic, and on occasion, disarmingly innocent and charming. All of the stories are thought-provoking and a bit haunting, not necessarily in what they say or how they say it, which is always eloquent, but often in what is not said. As far as personal favourites go, mine are: “I’ll make it I Think”, “For a While, Here, In This Moment”, and “Young Man”
Some might find the subject matter challenging and/or offensive, so be warned, this is not a light read.
February 3, 2013
Down to a Sunless Sea” by Mathias B. Freese is one of those short novels that you would normally think are simply another short bunch of pages, which once you have read can boast about reading literary fiction. However experience has taught me that the shortest novels are usually the hardest to finish; the ones that leave the deepest impressions; the ones shrouded in enough mystery to leave you thinking. “Down to a Sunless Sea” is an anthology of this caliber.
With 15 short stories this book barely gathers any weight with its 134 pages and yet I had the hardest time finishing. The complex of intertwining motives going deep down in the human psyche, further than I can say I have knowledge of. By being requested to review this book I think I have been given a far greater responsibility than I could have imagined as I myself couldn’t really grasp the full scope of Freese’s stories. In its essence each story digs down in the corpse of the human mind, the rotting part of unhappiness, isolation and wickedness we burry deep down inside and hope that nobody notices the foul stench, which emanates from within. Because each and one of us no matter how much we smile, laugh and joke are hollow, cold and damaged one way or another; shut out from human affection; broken by social reality or twisted and dehumanized by another human.
Mathias B. Freese illuminates these aspects, which nobody wants to see, through a wide spectrum of characters of different ages and social status. Although not gender diverse with a stronger presence of the male psyche, the reader is offered the insight about the world through the eyes of children, youths and grown men.
As the age varies, the style frequently changes from the elegant and eloquent narrative such as in “Down to a Sunless Sea”, the titling short story about growing up in a dysfunctional American family and the effects it had on the story teller’s mind. Then we have the linguistic primitivism devout of grammar and spelling in “Nicholas”, where the narrator argues about the value of achieving academic heights, when the world is made for those, who can live by the labor they do with their hands.
Drama is the core of each tale; the atmosphere soaked with melancholy and desperation; the scent of decay and slow death emanate from each spirit. From the tragic life of a crippled and disfigured young man, who has named his disfigured leg Lon, his arm Ralph, his penis David and his stuttering self Shmuck, in “I’ll make it, I think”; to the mental deformity of the narrator in “Juan Peron’s Hands”, who cut off the hands of a buried mobster, we meet outcasts.
If I am to fully explain the gravity laid in the core in each and every story, O would most certainly have to write a book perhaps even longer than the anthology actually. It is an experience a reader should experience alone and intimately; hidden and yet undressed from all pretence; soul to pages.
However I want to provide some quotes from the stories that really left an impact on me.
“How can you ever frighten anyone, Mama?”
“Sometimes, child, I feel that I am living someone else’s life.”
(From “Alabaster”, the musings of an old woman survived the second war as a survivor from a concentration camp.)
“Why did you call me shit?”
“You ruined my pants.”
If he could only bite him again, draw blood, he mused, looking at his father’s other leg…
(From “Herbie”, the meltdown of a young boy, mistreated by his father, whose life is devout of kindness and is compared to shit.)
He had promised to teach me. He reneged cruelly on that. Sink or swim.
Or die as we will see.
What was even more devastating was that he did not come after me.
One would imagine a father would retrieve his child. He did not.
(From “Unanswerable” a somewhat philosophical narrative about the human nature and habits of dehumanizing each other, developed on the base of a child hood memory.)
With 15 short stories this book barely gathers any weight with its 134 pages and yet I had the hardest time finishing. The complex of intertwining motives going deep down in the human psyche, further than I can say I have knowledge of. By being requested to review this book I think I have been given a far greater responsibility than I could have imagined as I myself couldn’t really grasp the full scope of Freese’s stories. In its essence each story digs down in the corpse of the human mind, the rotting part of unhappiness, isolation and wickedness we burry deep down inside and hope that nobody notices the foul stench, which emanates from within. Because each and one of us no matter how much we smile, laugh and joke are hollow, cold and damaged one way or another; shut out from human affection; broken by social reality or twisted and dehumanized by another human.
Mathias B. Freese illuminates these aspects, which nobody wants to see, through a wide spectrum of characters of different ages and social status. Although not gender diverse with a stronger presence of the male psyche, the reader is offered the insight about the world through the eyes of children, youths and grown men.
As the age varies, the style frequently changes from the elegant and eloquent narrative such as in “Down to a Sunless Sea”, the titling short story about growing up in a dysfunctional American family and the effects it had on the story teller’s mind. Then we have the linguistic primitivism devout of grammar and spelling in “Nicholas”, where the narrator argues about the value of achieving academic heights, when the world is made for those, who can live by the labor they do with their hands.
Drama is the core of each tale; the atmosphere soaked with melancholy and desperation; the scent of decay and slow death emanate from each spirit. From the tragic life of a crippled and disfigured young man, who has named his disfigured leg Lon, his arm Ralph, his penis David and his stuttering self Shmuck, in “I’ll make it, I think”; to the mental deformity of the narrator in “Juan Peron’s Hands”, who cut off the hands of a buried mobster, we meet outcasts.
If I am to fully explain the gravity laid in the core in each and every story, O would most certainly have to write a book perhaps even longer than the anthology actually. It is an experience a reader should experience alone and intimately; hidden and yet undressed from all pretence; soul to pages.
However I want to provide some quotes from the stories that really left an impact on me.
“How can you ever frighten anyone, Mama?”
“Sometimes, child, I feel that I am living someone else’s life.”
(From “Alabaster”, the musings of an old woman survived the second war as a survivor from a concentration camp.)
“Why did you call me shit?”
“You ruined my pants.”
If he could only bite him again, draw blood, he mused, looking at his father’s other leg…
(From “Herbie”, the meltdown of a young boy, mistreated by his father, whose life is devout of kindness and is compared to shit.)
He had promised to teach me. He reneged cruelly on that. Sink or swim.
Or die as we will see.
What was even more devastating was that he did not come after me.
One would imagine a father would retrieve his child. He did not.
(From “Unanswerable” a somewhat philosophical narrative about the human nature and habits of dehumanizing each other, developed on the base of a child hood memory.)
January 13, 2009
Down to a Sunless Sea is a small book that packs one heck of a punch. You'd think a book of a minuscule 134 pages would be severely lacking in detail, but Freese's style never waivers and never fails. Down to a Sunless Sea is a short story collection following a variety of characters who have been broken for one reason or another. Each of the stories is unique from the characters down to the writing style.
I should mention that I do not consider myself much of a reader of literary fiction. While I have certainly encountered a fair share of literary fiction--being in college does that to you--I generally do not consider myself much of a fan. My main problem with literary fiction is that it tends to wonder or be plot-less, which is very much present within Down to a Sunless Sea. Most of the stories do not have discernible plots and many of them do seem to wander almost like stream of consciousness (without the written style). Sometimes this works, and sometimes it doesn't, and I would venture to say that my opinions on the individual stories of this slim volume should be held accountable to personal taste and not to any sort of absolutist opinion.
Freese's collection beings with the title story Down to a Sunless Sea, followed by I'll Make It, I think and The Chatham Bear. The first two were written well, but I found them somewhat long-winded and without any clear point; the latter I thought was more interesting, though the ending left something to be desired. After these three stories, Freese seems to come into his own with each added character, in my opinion. I felt better about the latter bulk of the book than the initial pages. It should be noted that none of the stories within Freese's collection are poorly written: Freese has a strong and clearly defined authorial voice and the words seem to drip off the page rather than fall flat.
Personal favorites include Herbie, which reminded me somewhat of Gunter Grass; Alabaster, which had a slight magical flavor to it and drew me in more than any other story in the book; Little Errands, an accurate story of last minute obsessions (Did you forget to turn off the oven?); Arnold Schwarzenegger's Father Was a Nazi, for reasons that have little to do with the title and more to do with how strangely realistic and yet bizarrely comical the actual story was; and Echo, which beautifully portrayed the illogical breaks in friendships and how the main character deals with and contemplates it.
The only story I actually disliked was Nicholas. The problem with Nicholas was that the author attempted to recreate the character's slang in the exposition, but ended up creating a story that was mostly unreadable. I appreciate the use of slang in any novel (Clockwork Orange, for example), but Freese used the exposition to show the character's ignorance of the English language by portraying the misuse of words and misspellings within the exposition itself. My honest opinion about slang is that one should only use actual alternate pronunciations, rather than misspellings and internal misuses of words.
Overall, I can say that I did enjoy Freese's work. While not all of the stories were to my liking, those that were kept me interested (plus, I finished the book, which is always good). The biggest flaw in this work happens to be due to my own neutral position on literary fiction. I suspect if you are a literary person, this collection will be right up your alley, but if you exclusively read speculative fiction, you may find this collection somewhat difficult. There are elements of magical realism, but on the whole Down to a Sunless Sea is a literary endeavor and deserves recognition as such.
I should mention that I do not consider myself much of a reader of literary fiction. While I have certainly encountered a fair share of literary fiction--being in college does that to you--I generally do not consider myself much of a fan. My main problem with literary fiction is that it tends to wonder or be plot-less, which is very much present within Down to a Sunless Sea. Most of the stories do not have discernible plots and many of them do seem to wander almost like stream of consciousness (without the written style). Sometimes this works, and sometimes it doesn't, and I would venture to say that my opinions on the individual stories of this slim volume should be held accountable to personal taste and not to any sort of absolutist opinion.
Freese's collection beings with the title story Down to a Sunless Sea, followed by I'll Make It, I think and The Chatham Bear. The first two were written well, but I found them somewhat long-winded and without any clear point; the latter I thought was more interesting, though the ending left something to be desired. After these three stories, Freese seems to come into his own with each added character, in my opinion. I felt better about the latter bulk of the book than the initial pages. It should be noted that none of the stories within Freese's collection are poorly written: Freese has a strong and clearly defined authorial voice and the words seem to drip off the page rather than fall flat.
Personal favorites include Herbie, which reminded me somewhat of Gunter Grass; Alabaster, which had a slight magical flavor to it and drew me in more than any other story in the book; Little Errands, an accurate story of last minute obsessions (Did you forget to turn off the oven?); Arnold Schwarzenegger's Father Was a Nazi, for reasons that have little to do with the title and more to do with how strangely realistic and yet bizarrely comical the actual story was; and Echo, which beautifully portrayed the illogical breaks in friendships and how the main character deals with and contemplates it.
The only story I actually disliked was Nicholas. The problem with Nicholas was that the author attempted to recreate the character's slang in the exposition, but ended up creating a story that was mostly unreadable. I appreciate the use of slang in any novel (Clockwork Orange, for example), but Freese used the exposition to show the character's ignorance of the English language by portraying the misuse of words and misspellings within the exposition itself. My honest opinion about slang is that one should only use actual alternate pronunciations, rather than misspellings and internal misuses of words.
Overall, I can say that I did enjoy Freese's work. While not all of the stories were to my liking, those that were kept me interested (plus, I finished the book, which is always good). The biggest flaw in this work happens to be due to my own neutral position on literary fiction. I suspect if you are a literary person, this collection will be right up your alley, but if you exclusively read speculative fiction, you may find this collection somewhat difficult. There are elements of magical realism, but on the whole Down to a Sunless Sea is a literary endeavor and deserves recognition as such.
May 13, 2009
"Write what you know" is an adage that can both help and handicap writers. It clearly seems a source of Mathias B. Freese's collection of short stories,
Down to a Sunless Sea
, and may also serve as a handicap.[return][return]Freese is a psychotherapist who will tell you that these stories take us "into the minds of troubled, complex human beings." He uses a variety of styles because the stories are were written "to express emotional states, thereby requiring different approaches and voices. Yet while many of the characters might well be composites of people he dealt with both as a psychotherapist and as a licensed clinical social worker, they are also reflections of his own life experiences.[return][return]For example, the character in "I'll Make It, I Think" suffers from cerebral palsy, as did Freese's cousin. The character in the short story gives names to various body parts, calling his damaged right hand and arm and his damage left leg Ralph and Lon, respectively, while naming his penis David. While he refers to himself as "Schmuck," it is clear he has worked to cope with his disabilities. At the same time, he recognizes the reality of his struggles from the story's opening sentences:[return]
It's always been this way; it's always going to be like this. I know it, and there's no changing it.[return][return]Sometimes I can take it, almost, and sometimes, you know, I can't take it and I want to cut my throat.[return]Such harsh reality is present in the minds of many of the characters. Freese even expresses it from the harsh realities of his own life. "For A While, Here, In This Moment" was written for his daughter, who suffered from chronic fatigue syndrome and eventually committed suicide. In it, the character openly ponders the purpose of existence. "Which is worse, death or the disease itself? .... The appalling choice is all I have, or it appears." [return][return]Some of the other damaged psyches that appear include the award-winning "Herbie," the story of a boy physically and psychologically abused by his father with the added impact of an almost emotionless mother; "Echo," which explores a man who, for whatever reason, cannot maintain attachments with anyone; and, "Nicholas," with whom we share time in his "slow learner" class and begin to grasp his desire for respect.[return][return]For me, though, the two strongest pieces are "Alabaster" and "Little Errands."[return][return]Balance of review here.
September 28, 2014
This is a collection of fifteen short stories, covering a number of difficult topics and I have found it quite painful to read. I don’t know if I can really do justice to these stories. Mathias Freese has worked as a clinical social worker and psychotherapist for 25 years and these stories are full of dark and dangerous situations.
First of all I like the title – taken from Coleridge’s poem Kubla Khan, inspired by an opium induced dream. But a sunless sea is a dreary, lifeless place in contrast to the pleasure dome in Xanadu and the sacred river Alph and as soon as I started reading the title story I realised why Freese chose that title as I was plunged into the fearful world of Adam, scared of most things and living “an intensely solitary childhood”, feeling detached and
“as though he is photographing himself behind a schizoid lens, for he is never in himself observing himself – holding the cap gun, for one. Rather he is Adam staring at Adam from afar, the nether camera-work of a dream.”
As I was reading the stories I began to wonder just what it is I expect from my reading. Sometimes I just want to be entertained and I didn’t find these stories entertaining at all. Sometimes I want to be taken out of myself and on this level they definitely work – there is one story that I could relate to a little bit and that is Little Errands in which the narrator agonises over whether or not he/she (I’ll say he from now on) has posted some letters, relating this to times when he’s not been sure if he turned off the car radio and will return to find a dead car battery. I’ve done something similar (well not the car radio) only to find that I haven’t posted a letter or I didn’t set the cooker timer and the chicken is still uncooked.
Some of the other stories are so sad and haunting, such as Alabaster – a little boy meets an old woman, a survivor of the Holocaust, and her daughter sitting on a wooden bench on a sidewalk. Clearly, they are sad – he thinks of them in later life seeing them as:
“… Egyptian statuary, totemic, to be viewed and admired, but not to be engaged, as if what they were or had been exposed to precluded any real human contact. This small family endured a strange exile.”
The old woman frightens him a little with her strangeness and he sees the number tattoed on her arm – her arms had been beautiful as a child, like alabaster. Inside she is still that beautiful girl with alabaster arms, although now she feels as though she’s living someone else’s life.
I have to say that I found these stories quite disturbing and unsettling, which is not a bad thing, but don’t expect any cosy, comforting stories. See here for an interview with the author.
First of all I like the title – taken from Coleridge’s poem Kubla Khan, inspired by an opium induced dream. But a sunless sea is a dreary, lifeless place in contrast to the pleasure dome in Xanadu and the sacred river Alph and as soon as I started reading the title story I realised why Freese chose that title as I was plunged into the fearful world of Adam, scared of most things and living “an intensely solitary childhood”, feeling detached and
“as though he is photographing himself behind a schizoid lens, for he is never in himself observing himself – holding the cap gun, for one. Rather he is Adam staring at Adam from afar, the nether camera-work of a dream.”
As I was reading the stories I began to wonder just what it is I expect from my reading. Sometimes I just want to be entertained and I didn’t find these stories entertaining at all. Sometimes I want to be taken out of myself and on this level they definitely work – there is one story that I could relate to a little bit and that is Little Errands in which the narrator agonises over whether or not he/she (I’ll say he from now on) has posted some letters, relating this to times when he’s not been sure if he turned off the car radio and will return to find a dead car battery. I’ve done something similar (well not the car radio) only to find that I haven’t posted a letter or I didn’t set the cooker timer and the chicken is still uncooked.
Some of the other stories are so sad and haunting, such as Alabaster – a little boy meets an old woman, a survivor of the Holocaust, and her daughter sitting on a wooden bench on a sidewalk. Clearly, they are sad – he thinks of them in later life seeing them as:
“… Egyptian statuary, totemic, to be viewed and admired, but not to be engaged, as if what they were or had been exposed to precluded any real human contact. This small family endured a strange exile.”
The old woman frightens him a little with her strangeness and he sees the number tattoed on her arm – her arms had been beautiful as a child, like alabaster. Inside she is still that beautiful girl with alabaster arms, although now she feels as though she’s living someone else’s life.
I have to say that I found these stories quite disturbing and unsettling, which is not a bad thing, but don’t expect any cosy, comforting stories. See here for an interview with the author.
January 24, 2018
Down to a Sunless Sea is a short story anthology by Mathias B. Freese that is truly sunless. The stories in this collection exude darkness as they delve into the minds of disturbed souls. That the author is familiar with such human darkness is not surprising since he spent twenty-five years as a clinical social worker and psychotherapist. He doesn't offer answers or solutions to the problems that disturb humanity, but a sense of compassion for the damaged does come through as he refuses to look the other way and ignore the ugliness that is a part of life.
The format of the stories is not traditional, with beginnings and middles and ends, nor are they plot driven. Each story has its own style which is tailored to the telling of that story. As with even the most tragic things in life, humor can sometimes be found within the pages of Down to a Sunless Sea.
I've got two favorite stories from this collection, and true to my nature they include a touch of the humorous. I was reminded of the tendency of folk to fear the wrong things in "The Chatham Bear." As the residents of a small town run for their guns in order to defend themselves from a foraging bear that all but ignores them, these same townspeople don't even notice the human cruelty that confronts them on a daily basis.
I laughed as I recognized a bit of myself in the compulsive behavior of the character in "Little Errands." I admit that I too have opened the chute to the corner mailbox repeatedly just to make sure my letter did indeed drop down into the collection bin! Haven't you?
The stories were sometimes baffling and mostly sad. If you're looking for something light or "sunny" to read, then these stories are not for you; but if you don't mind looking at the darker side of the human psyche, then you will find Down to a Sunless Sea thought provoking.
For more about the author, Mathias B. Freese, visit his blog or read an interview with the author.
The format of the stories is not traditional, with beginnings and middles and ends, nor are they plot driven. Each story has its own style which is tailored to the telling of that story. As with even the most tragic things in life, humor can sometimes be found within the pages of Down to a Sunless Sea.
I've got two favorite stories from this collection, and true to my nature they include a touch of the humorous. I was reminded of the tendency of folk to fear the wrong things in "The Chatham Bear." As the residents of a small town run for their guns in order to defend themselves from a foraging bear that all but ignores them, these same townspeople don't even notice the human cruelty that confronts them on a daily basis.
I laughed as I recognized a bit of myself in the compulsive behavior of the character in "Little Errands." I admit that I too have opened the chute to the corner mailbox repeatedly just to make sure my letter did indeed drop down into the collection bin! Haven't you?
The stories were sometimes baffling and mostly sad. If you're looking for something light or "sunny" to read, then these stories are not for you; but if you don't mind looking at the darker side of the human psyche, then you will find Down to a Sunless Sea thought provoking.
For more about the author, Mathias B. Freese, visit his blog or read an interview with the author.
April 22, 2008
When reading a book you commit to a relationship. You commit to reading the book in the hopes that it in turn will commit to entertain and educate you. The problem or rather the effort in reading a short story collection is that you have to make this commitment again and again and again. Many people are scared off by that as they're afraid the commitment and the time-effort won't be worth it.
And unfortunately in the case of Down to a Sunless Sea, they'd be right. The short stories are dark, disturbing and cynical, which is not a problem in itself, but it seems as if they are dark, disturbing and cynical for the sake of being dark, disturbing and cynical. There's no rhyme or reason behind it.
The common theme that runs through all the stories is growing up, the quest for maturity and the joys and sorrows of coming of age - either slowly through the natural process, or abruptly and harshly through some external influence. While not a unique theme, it is a theme that never grows old and as such is very appropriate for a short story collection. But without explanation one of the stories falls completely outside this category. As a description of Arnold Schwaznegger's childhood and the fact that his father was a Nazi, it reads more like a piece of non-fiction or even propaganda. It is so different from all the other stories that I was forcibly drawn from the flow of the book and back into reality.
Most of the short stories in "Down to a Sunless Sea" would work very well as writing prompts for a longer novelette or even a novel, but when used for short stories they stop too abruptly and some are even inconclusive. While I don't expect all threads to be tied up neatly in any story and especially not a short story, it is rather frustrating when the entire point of the story goes missing because of it.
Fortunately there are exceptions to any rule, and I loved the story Alabaster - the tale of a young boy who meets an ex-concentration camp prisoner, and in his innocence is not ashamed of her tattooed number, but dares read it aloud. Poignant and well-written, I wish all the stories had been like this.
I have no doubt that Mathias Freese is a talented author, as his writing clearly bears witness of this fact. Unfortunately his plot ideas are not really suitable for short stories, and he would be better off sticking to novels.
And unfortunately in the case of Down to a Sunless Sea, they'd be right. The short stories are dark, disturbing and cynical, which is not a problem in itself, but it seems as if they are dark, disturbing and cynical for the sake of being dark, disturbing and cynical. There's no rhyme or reason behind it.
The common theme that runs through all the stories is growing up, the quest for maturity and the joys and sorrows of coming of age - either slowly through the natural process, or abruptly and harshly through some external influence. While not a unique theme, it is a theme that never grows old and as such is very appropriate for a short story collection. But without explanation one of the stories falls completely outside this category. As a description of Arnold Schwaznegger's childhood and the fact that his father was a Nazi, it reads more like a piece of non-fiction or even propaganda. It is so different from all the other stories that I was forcibly drawn from the flow of the book and back into reality.
Most of the short stories in "Down to a Sunless Sea" would work very well as writing prompts for a longer novelette or even a novel, but when used for short stories they stop too abruptly and some are even inconclusive. While I don't expect all threads to be tied up neatly in any story and especially not a short story, it is rather frustrating when the entire point of the story goes missing because of it.
Fortunately there are exceptions to any rule, and I loved the story Alabaster - the tale of a young boy who meets an ex-concentration camp prisoner, and in his innocence is not ashamed of her tattooed number, but dares read it aloud. Poignant and well-written, I wish all the stories had been like this.
I have no doubt that Mathias Freese is a talented author, as his writing clearly bears witness of this fact. Unfortunately his plot ideas are not really suitable for short stories, and he would be better off sticking to novels.
May 21, 2008
Down to a Sunless Sea is a collection of fifteen short stories written by Mathias B. Freese. I have mixed feelings about this slim book. On one hand, there are a few gems in the collection. Then on the other hand, there are others that just seem to fall short of the mark. It took me a longer time than I usually take to commit myself to reading this book.
The author, uses his experiences and observations gained from twenty-five years as a clinical social worker and psychologist in crafting his stories. Most of them, are rather dark, keeping with the author’s dark view of humanity (something he has readily admitted to having). However, a few of the stories show both humor and a moving look at how we view life. In the introduction, Down to a Sunless Sea is promoted as “plunging the reader into uncomfortable situations and into the minds of troubled characters.” This is a very apt statement, but in my opinion a few of the stories just seemed abrupt, and the characters not given as much of an opportunity to establish themselves as they could. The stories, written over a thirty-year time frame delve deeply into the human psyche, and are excellently written if a bit raw and packed with emotion.
I found the story “Alabaster” to be one of most moving of the collection. This story introduces an old Polish woman and her daughter. The mother, a survivor of the Holocaust and her devoted daughter live in the neighborhood, but do not easily interact with their neighbors. They sit together, and alone, until their lives are brightened briefly by a small boy who is too young to know of the tragedy that they had lived through. He, after hearing from the old woman of her experiences during WWII, reads the tattoo she still carries out loud, wondering who 7859912 was. A person, the old woman can not tell him was herself as others had seen her, an undesirable, and not the alabaster armed young girl she once was.
The other stories I found enjoyable in the collection were:
“Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Father was a Nazi”
“Echoes”.
“Herbie”
“Mortise and Tenon”
See where this book travels next, at: http://www.bookcrossing.com/journal/6...
The author, uses his experiences and observations gained from twenty-five years as a clinical social worker and psychologist in crafting his stories. Most of them, are rather dark, keeping with the author’s dark view of humanity (something he has readily admitted to having). However, a few of the stories show both humor and a moving look at how we view life. In the introduction, Down to a Sunless Sea is promoted as “plunging the reader into uncomfortable situations and into the minds of troubled characters.” This is a very apt statement, but in my opinion a few of the stories just seemed abrupt, and the characters not given as much of an opportunity to establish themselves as they could. The stories, written over a thirty-year time frame delve deeply into the human psyche, and are excellently written if a bit raw and packed with emotion.
I found the story “Alabaster” to be one of most moving of the collection. This story introduces an old Polish woman and her daughter. The mother, a survivor of the Holocaust and her devoted daughter live in the neighborhood, but do not easily interact with their neighbors. They sit together, and alone, until their lives are brightened briefly by a small boy who is too young to know of the tragedy that they had lived through. He, after hearing from the old woman of her experiences during WWII, reads the tattoo she still carries out loud, wondering who 7859912 was. A person, the old woman can not tell him was herself as others had seen her, an undesirable, and not the alabaster armed young girl she once was.
The other stories I found enjoyable in the collection were:
“Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Father was a Nazi”
“Echoes”.
“Herbie”
“Mortise and Tenon”
See where this book travels next, at: http://www.bookcrossing.com/journal/6...
September 10, 2008
Down to a Sunless Sea is a nice ecliptic collection of short stories. Down to a Sunless Sea features everything from growing up to dealing with death as well as dealing physical disabilities. Each story is only a few pages long but within those few pages are some very powerful, meaningful life lessons.
In Down to a Sunless Sea is a sweet but sad story of a son who remembers loves his mother and all the good times as well as laughs they shared together. Then there is the story of a son who is so in awe of his father shining his shoes that he wants to open a shoe shining business during the summer in Herbie. In Nicholas, the student is beyond his years more advanced then the teacher. Or how about the one titled Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Father was a Nazi. Mr. Freese makes sure there is a story for everyone big or small…young or old.
I usually am not a big fan of short story books for the simple fact that I either just start to get into the story and it ends or the author can’t fit all that they want into so few a pages that the story just sort of fizzles. So you can imagine my complete surprise when that was not the case with Down to a Sunless Sea. To my amazement I really enjoyed reading this collection by Mathias Freese. I sat down and started reading and about an hour later I was finished. After reading Down to a Sunless Sea, I am happy to report that I would read more by Mr. Freese.
In Down to a Sunless Sea is a sweet but sad story of a son who remembers loves his mother and all the good times as well as laughs they shared together. Then there is the story of a son who is so in awe of his father shining his shoes that he wants to open a shoe shining business during the summer in Herbie. In Nicholas, the student is beyond his years more advanced then the teacher. Or how about the one titled Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Father was a Nazi. Mr. Freese makes sure there is a story for everyone big or small…young or old.
I usually am not a big fan of short story books for the simple fact that I either just start to get into the story and it ends or the author can’t fit all that they want into so few a pages that the story just sort of fizzles. So you can imagine my complete surprise when that was not the case with Down to a Sunless Sea. To my amazement I really enjoyed reading this collection by Mathias Freese. I sat down and started reading and about an hour later I was finished. After reading Down to a Sunless Sea, I am happy to report that I would read more by Mr. Freese.
July 20, 2008
This is a group of short stories, some previously published, on a variety of subjects, but with an overall, general theme.
There are a couple of stories about growing up in post-World War II Brooklyn. In one of those stories, a couple of kids want to set up an after-school shoeshine stand, to bring in a few dollars. The father of one of the boys totally forbids such a thing. Until the son is old enough to get a job, the father believes, the only thing on his mind should be education.
The main character of another story chops the hands of former Argentine dictator Juan Peron right off his corpse, and steals them. What is it like to have a body that is half normal, and half disabled by cerebral palsy? The title of another story is "Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Father was a Nazi." During a trip to the beach at Coney Island, a father teaches his young son to swim by taking him into deep water (for the son), bodily throwing him into deeper water, then forcing the son to find his own way back to shore.
As you may have guessed, these are not happy, optimistic stories, but they are very good stories. These are short, almost psychological case studies of troubled people. The author is a psychotherapist and social worker, so he knows what he is talking about. This book is easy to read, and very much worth checking out.
There are a couple of stories about growing up in post-World War II Brooklyn. In one of those stories, a couple of kids want to set up an after-school shoeshine stand, to bring in a few dollars. The father of one of the boys totally forbids such a thing. Until the son is old enough to get a job, the father believes, the only thing on his mind should be education.
The main character of another story chops the hands of former Argentine dictator Juan Peron right off his corpse, and steals them. What is it like to have a body that is half normal, and half disabled by cerebral palsy? The title of another story is "Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Father was a Nazi." During a trip to the beach at Coney Island, a father teaches his young son to swim by taking him into deep water (for the son), bodily throwing him into deeper water, then forcing the son to find his own way back to shore.
As you may have guessed, these are not happy, optimistic stories, but they are very good stories. These are short, almost psychological case studies of troubled people. The author is a psychotherapist and social worker, so he knows what he is talking about. This book is easy to read, and very much worth checking out.
April 8, 2009
I finished this book quite a while ago and have been letting it roll around in my head before I wrote my review. I thought with some more time, maybe the book would grow on me, but I have come to realize this one just wasn't for me.
There were a couple of stories that I really did like, but the majority didn't appeal to me. My favorite story was I'll Make It, I Think. It is the story of a young man who is physically disabled. You get a glimpse into his life and mind, and what you see isn't always pretty. He is angry and sometimes unhappy, but the story is unflinchingly honest.
I also enjoyed Little Errands a lot. It is a stream of consciousness type story and I really related to it. I occasionally have days when I feel like I am always second guessing myself and feel ragged and run down, like the character in the story.
I didn't really connect to the characters in the other stories though. It wasn't the writing, but more the feeling that I just didn't have anything in common with them. These stories are very short, sometimes only a few pages. I usually like my short stories to be a little longer so that I am able to get a sense of the character before moving on to the next story.
There were a couple of stories that I really did like, but the majority didn't appeal to me. My favorite story was I'll Make It, I Think. It is the story of a young man who is physically disabled. You get a glimpse into his life and mind, and what you see isn't always pretty. He is angry and sometimes unhappy, but the story is unflinchingly honest.
I also enjoyed Little Errands a lot. It is a stream of consciousness type story and I really related to it. I occasionally have days when I feel like I am always second guessing myself and feel ragged and run down, like the character in the story.
I didn't really connect to the characters in the other stories though. It wasn't the writing, but more the feeling that I just didn't have anything in common with them. These stories are very short, sometimes only a few pages. I usually like my short stories to be a little longer so that I am able to get a sense of the character before moving on to the next story.
April 15, 2008
Mathias B. Freese is a very talented character writer. He has the unique ability to see into the depths of an individual and then clearly share their story with his readers. Moreover, he is able to bring his practical experiences as a clinical social worker and psychotherapist in to his work to wholly portray the most dark, troubled, or disturbed people in a way that is poignant and honest while remaining non-judgmental and compassionate.
Down to a Sunless Sea is a compilation of short stories. Each of these entries reveals the life of one individual: their past, their life challenges, and how they view the world. The characters chosen are rather unique, people who if we met them in real life we'd more than likely judge rather than actually hear what they had to say. These chapters are indeed interesting case studies of human nature but I think perhaps they can teach us something about compassion and the willingness to see others for their own unique selves.
Down to a Sunless Sea is a compilation of short stories. Each of these entries reveals the life of one individual: their past, their life challenges, and how they view the world. The characters chosen are rather unique, people who if we met them in real life we'd more than likely judge rather than actually hear what they had to say. These chapters are indeed interesting case studies of human nature but I think perhaps they can teach us something about compassion and the willingness to see others for their own unique selves.
February 12, 2008
Down to a Sunless Sea by Mathias B. Freese is a collection of fifteen short stories that represent thirty years of writing. They all deal with the darker sides of life and the human experience.
All of these stories are very short, going immediately for the raw emotions. My favorites are "Herbie", the story of a boy who rises above the abuse of his father to take the shoe shine job he wants, and "Billy's Mirrored Wall", a brief memoir of a boy growing up in poverty.
Each story has its own voice. The narrator of "I'll Make It, I think" reminds me of Jason Taylor (Black Swan Green). "The Chatham Bear" made a nice follow-up on the heals of reading Midnight Sun by Elwood Reid. These stories, painful an difficult as they are sometimes to read hit on universal truths and themes that have been inspiring writers through the centuries.
All of these stories are very short, going immediately for the raw emotions. My favorites are "Herbie", the story of a boy who rises above the abuse of his father to take the shoe shine job he wants, and "Billy's Mirrored Wall", a brief memoir of a boy growing up in poverty.
Each story has its own voice. The narrator of "I'll Make It, I think" reminds me of Jason Taylor (Black Swan Green). "The Chatham Bear" made a nice follow-up on the heals of reading Midnight Sun by Elwood Reid. These stories, painful an difficult as they are sometimes to read hit on universal truths and themes that have been inspiring writers through the centuries.
July 15, 2008
Not normally my genre, yet I am pleased that I read this book. Very well developed characters and story. This is a kind of "Lord of the Flies" ilk with the pecking order being decided by who has the best laid plans for survival in a Post Nuclear war situation. The beginning sucks you in and Graham has you till the last word. Normally I do not like these non "feel good" books, yet they do have their place. It teaches you to think like a survivalist, and none of us knows when this will come in handy. Very well organized and played out!
February 5, 2008
sorry won't swap this one, it is too good. You should go out and buy your own copy, you won't be sorry.
November 25, 2009
There are several books with this identical title. I didn't read this one and can't figure out how to delete it.
Displaying 1 - 20 of 20 reviews