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Das häßlichste Haus der Welt
Born in Britain to Welsh and Chinese parents, Peter Ho Davies writes stories that not only reflect his multinational heritage but delight in their own odd juxtapositions. Moving fluidly from the present to the past, from Coventry to Kuala Lumpur, from moral seriousness to broad comedy, these varied tales are united by an elegant intelligence, a sly sense of humor, and a deeply humanistic feeling for the mystery and grace of inner lives. In the heartbreaking title story, a rural community in North Wales copes with a child's death and learns the reach of guilt. "The Silver Screen" follows the fortunes of a group of ragtag rebels in Malaya whose hapless effort to join a communist uprising plays like an outtake from the Keystone Kops. In the collection's central novella, "A Union," a slate miner laid off during a prolonged strike struggles with the complex strains on his marriage. Consequential events touch all these affecting characters in ways both surprising and profound.
190 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1997
About the author
Peter Ho Davies
23 books184 followersPeter Ho Davies is a contemporary British writer of Welsh and Chinese descent. He was born and raised in Coventry. Davies studied physics at Manchester University then English at Cambridge University.
In 1992 he moved to the United States as a professor of creative writing. He has taught at the University of Oregon and Emory University and is now on the faculty of the MFA Program in Creative Writing at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.
He has published two collections of short fiction, The Ugliest House in the World (1998) and Equal Love (2000). His first novel, The Welsh Girl came out in 2007.
Davies is a recipient of fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown.
In 1992 he moved to the United States as a professor of creative writing. He has taught at the University of Oregon and Emory University and is now on the faculty of the MFA Program in Creative Writing at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.
He has published two collections of short fiction, The Ugliest House in the World (1998) and Equal Love (2000). His first novel, The Welsh Girl came out in 2007.
Davies is a recipient of fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 36 reviews
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May 9, 2007The first collection by an amazing writer. All of the stories are impressive, but "Relief" is the one that I find myself thinking about long after I've put the book down. At first it appears to be a story about farting--and then, as you read farther, it's also a story about fear, pride, vulnerability, and being human. How does Peter Ho Davies DO this? I want to know.
November 15, 2024
(4.5) Stories aren't as thought-through as this anymore
February 11, 2009
Short stories are a fickle beast. Some authors are consistent with theirs (I've always enjoyed Roald Dahl's short stories. F. Scott too). Some authors are extremely hit or miss (Murakami, i love you, but you need at least 400 pages to get your plots right. most of the time at least). Peter Ho Davies does a good job w/ these stories. Not to get too much into any specific plot, the stories seem to revolve pretty strongly around Ho Davies' heritage (welsh and chinese). Some stories are based out of Wales, others in China (and one in South America).
One of the things that I liked about these stories is the predictability of the characters' actions. The characters are real people in that they make obvious mistakes. And you want to reach onto the page and tell them not to do it. But you can't. And so instead you follow these characters as they make mistakes that are avoidable (in my mind). There is certainly a sad tinge to a number of stories, but there is also a beautiful reflection on the human condition.
One of the things that I liked about these stories is the predictability of the characters' actions. The characters are real people in that they make obvious mistakes. And you want to reach onto the page and tell them not to do it. But you can't. And so instead you follow these characters as they make mistakes that are avoidable (in my mind). There is certainly a sad tinge to a number of stories, but there is also a beautiful reflection on the human condition.
November 25, 2015
I grabbed this book from The Book Thing thinking it was a book of travel stories...I saw the words "Wales" and "Malaysia" and thought....ohhhh! two places I want to go! I was completely wrong..it was/is a collection of short stories. I tend to avoid short stories...especially by people I've never heard of....but I decided this was kismet (plus, I was not dragging myself out from under the covers late at night to find another book), so I dove in...
It is a well written collection of short stories....about some of the most unexpected situations. The one that made me smile was called "Relief" about a fart let out at a dinner party....and the other stories have remained with me over the past few days....including the rebel communists fighting the British in Malaysia (see! It did appear!) There is also the story of a miner and his family during a strike in Wales...and man obsessed with touching the bottom of a pool.
Read...if you like short stories....these are pretty good.
It is a well written collection of short stories....about some of the most unexpected situations. The one that made me smile was called "Relief" about a fart let out at a dinner party....and the other stories have remained with me over the past few days....including the rebel communists fighting the British in Malaysia (see! It did appear!) There is also the story of a miner and his family during a strike in Wales...and man obsessed with touching the bottom of a pool.
Read...if you like short stories....these are pretty good.
January 11, 2016
Couldn't resist the Welsh connection in this one. An author who draws on Chinese and Welsh roots? I think I'd have enjoyed it even if it was average. It's much better. Davies taps into shared elements of hard lives in culturally perturbed or threatened contexts, richly clothed in the huge differences of Chinese and Welsh origins. I particularly liked "The Safe" for the quiet way Davies relates the tragedy of a Welsh banker's life in a story where the protagonists are the famous Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, who are just thugs. The "Silver Screen" is a gem reflecting broken facets of cultural mishmash in a world torn by civil war. Stories move quickly and often leave you wondering why they stopped, until you think about it some more.
March 8, 2021
Just like in The Fortunes, Peter Ho Davies does an excellent job of switching voices in each story. Each short story feels like it's voiced by a different character, through the style and tone of Ho Davies' writing. I particularly enjoyed the story about the man who worked for the suicide resource hotline - it was compassionate and sincere, and pulled me into this man's life. The short story was perfectly suited as a medium for this story - it felt just the right length.
One thing that I have noticed about Ho Davies' writing is that his stories about Welsh characters seem to be melancholy and reflective in tone, usually describing the mundane day-to-day of the characters. In contrast, his stories about Asian characters (as in The Fortunes and two stories in this collection) are a bit more external - I don't feel like I am in the head of his Asian characters as much as I felt with the Welsh characters, and the events are often larger, more dramatic, sometimes bordering on ludicrous, the emotions bigger. I don't want to psychoanalyze Ho Davies, but I'd be interested to hear him speak to his experience writing characters of different ethnicities.
One thing that I have noticed about Ho Davies' writing is that his stories about Welsh characters seem to be melancholy and reflective in tone, usually describing the mundane day-to-day of the characters. In contrast, his stories about Asian characters (as in The Fortunes and two stories in this collection) are a bit more external - I don't feel like I am in the head of his Asian characters as much as I felt with the Welsh characters, and the events are often larger, more dramatic, sometimes bordering on ludicrous, the emotions bigger. I don't want to psychoanalyze Ho Davies, but I'd be interested to hear him speak to his experience writing characters of different ethnicities.
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February 4, 2021The worst of Davies's stories are unwieldy vessels, weighed down by exposition and extraneous historical detail. His writing is never incompetent: among the tedious explanations of the title story, the writer still manages to wring out a degree of emotional resonance.
A Union and Coventry far far better, the former as an autopsy of Welsh mining masculinity, the latter as a vivid distillation of life on the dole. This is one reason why I read story collections: to discover that the prize assigners were wrong, and that a writer's best stories are sometimes their B-sides.
Choice cuts: Coventry, A Union
A Union and Coventry far far better, the former as an autopsy of Welsh mining masculinity, the latter as a vivid distillation of life on the dole. This is one reason why I read story collections: to discover that the prize assigners were wrong, and that a writer's best stories are sometimes their B-sides.
Choice cuts: Coventry, A Union
July 25, 2019
Picked it up at a thrift store strictly because of cover. (Not the one pictured here) I didn't realize it was a bunch of short stories. None were particularly gripping but I enjoy reading anything. But most of all this book kind of magnified the fact that I read books in the point of a white, American person.
The author is of Welsh and Chinese descent and it was very evident in his stories. A few stories were more Chinese, a few more Welsh (both cultures I don't know too much about), so the fact that this pointed out my own generalizations in the way I read made it enjoyable for me.
The author is of Welsh and Chinese descent and it was very evident in his stories. A few stories were more Chinese, a few more Welsh (both cultures I don't know too much about), so the fact that this pointed out my own generalizations in the way I read made it enjoyable for me.
October 23, 2018
Very enlightening.
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January 8, 2020A very moving and varied collection of accomplished stories. A writer to follow.
July 4, 2023
The slice of life stories were okay - but some were REALLY good.
Favorites:
Ugliest House
What Do You Think
Buoyancy
Silver Screen
Favorites:
Ugliest House
What Do You Think
Buoyancy
Silver Screen
Read
April 4, 2025this was excellent. B+.
August 6, 2025
3.5/5 (rounded up)
July 30, 2013
I find houses interesting because it represents the innate tendency of man to inhabit, and the most common kind of space that equates to creating a semblance of home, is the house. Despite the varying styles, sizes, etc. of these significant structures, it has always been a notable figure in different cultures, and perhaps, the fusion of these cultural distinctions make a certain house, well, unique, which is such an overused term.
In Peter Ho Davies' book, The Ugliest House in the World: Stories (1997), his mixed heritage plays an interesting part in how the stories are shaped by his Chinese and Welsh nationalities. Short stories can be tricky to write, and for a collection to have a sense of coherence, there must be a unifying theme. For Ho Davies, his multinationality allows him the variations in which the stories carry -- from a familiar site in Coventry all the way to the other side in Kuala Lumpur, from China to South America, the diversity in the locations of his stories fit just right due to the point of views, not to mention, his way of writing is consistent, which makes it enjoyable to read.
Despite the predictability of the narrative, particularly the characters' flaws and their eventual moves, these qualities inherently make the readers familiar with them. It is because of the fact that these recurring situations actually happen, and I say that it's not always about the freshness of an issue or the novelty of a certain writing style that makes a story interesting -- as a reader, I would prefer how it was written.
In Peter Ho Davies' book, The Ugliest House in the World: Stories (1997), his mixed heritage plays an interesting part in how the stories are shaped by his Chinese and Welsh nationalities. Short stories can be tricky to write, and for a collection to have a sense of coherence, there must be a unifying theme. For Ho Davies, his multinationality allows him the variations in which the stories carry -- from a familiar site in Coventry all the way to the other side in Kuala Lumpur, from China to South America, the diversity in the locations of his stories fit just right due to the point of views, not to mention, his way of writing is consistent, which makes it enjoyable to read.
Despite the predictability of the narrative, particularly the characters' flaws and their eventual moves, these qualities inherently make the readers familiar with them. It is because of the fact that these recurring situations actually happen, and I say that it's not always about the freshness of an issue or the novelty of a certain writing style that makes a story interesting -- as a reader, I would prefer how it was written.
November 11, 2010
Peter Ho Davies is a welsh-chinese writer who was brought up in Coventry and now lives in the USA (I think). An interesting set of differences brought together in one package, but his writing celebrates our commonality.Not only are his stories told from myriad points of view in different periods of history, but the topical material stretches from bank robbing to Chinese funeral rituals to Welsh labor strikes to siblings dying of AIDS. The Ugliest House selection contains tales set in Malaysia, South Africa and Patagonia.
He admits his fiction comes from vulnerability. In aninterview I read he said:
'It's that moment in the playground where someone has cracked a joke at your expense and you don't have the comeback line, but then five minutes or an hour or years later you think, "Oh I should just have said that - it's the perfect riposte!" And as soon as you start to write that moment down, that seems like one of the transitional points towards becoming a writer. It's something about a regret in the past that we can try to put right in a fictionalised form.'
He says he is not a polemical writer, but many of his short stories have a political subtext. 'The Union' for example is a heartbreaking account of 1899 slate-quarry strikes in Gwynedd - but it also triggers memories of the 1984 Miners' Strike.
Others have noted a ventriloquist quality to his writing, which he compared in the interview I read to being a method actor.
He admits his fiction comes from vulnerability. In aninterview I read he said:
'It's that moment in the playground where someone has cracked a joke at your expense and you don't have the comeback line, but then five minutes or an hour or years later you think, "Oh I should just have said that - it's the perfect riposte!" And as soon as you start to write that moment down, that seems like one of the transitional points towards becoming a writer. It's something about a regret in the past that we can try to put right in a fictionalised form.'
He says he is not a polemical writer, but many of his short stories have a political subtext. 'The Union' for example is a heartbreaking account of 1899 slate-quarry strikes in Gwynedd - but it also triggers memories of the 1984 Miners' Strike.
Others have noted a ventriloquist quality to his writing, which he compared in the interview I read to being a method actor.
September 8, 2014
Peter Ho Davies knows how to tell a story!
I enjoyed revisiting one of my favorite (and, in my opinion, one of the most underrated) countries, Wales, in several of his works, including the title story "The Ugliest House in the World," which was featured in the Best American Short Stories of '95. Davies explores the relationship between father and son, as well as man versus community, and he speaks to the overwhelming volumes of tragedy and forgiveness in this twenty-some page glimpse of a life.
My personal favorites in this collection include "A Union," another story rooted in Wales, "I Don't Know, What Do You Think?" because of the unique subject matter of the story - I had never read a story about a Lifeline before and found the insight intriguing - and "The Silver Screen," another Best American Short Stories winner (in '96), for superb storytelling and, again, original subject matter.
I had first discovered this author when I picked up and devoured his novel The Welsh Girl, and I look forward to continuing this author-reader relationship with his future works.
I enjoyed revisiting one of my favorite (and, in my opinion, one of the most underrated) countries, Wales, in several of his works, including the title story "The Ugliest House in the World," which was featured in the Best American Short Stories of '95. Davies explores the relationship between father and son, as well as man versus community, and he speaks to the overwhelming volumes of tragedy and forgiveness in this twenty-some page glimpse of a life.
My personal favorites in this collection include "A Union," another story rooted in Wales, "I Don't Know, What Do You Think?" because of the unique subject matter of the story - I had never read a story about a Lifeline before and found the insight intriguing - and "The Silver Screen," another Best American Short Stories winner (in '96), for superb storytelling and, again, original subject matter.
I had first discovered this author when I picked up and devoured his novel The Welsh Girl, and I look forward to continuing this author-reader relationship with his future works.
September 30, 2007
An excellent collection of stories. Davies has a consistently clear, unpretentious tone--although this consistency, combined with the first-person narration of many of the stories, has a tendency to flatten the characterization. (The Welsh outlaw in colonial South America, for example, sounds awfully similar to the contemporary mortuary assistant.) While the mix of contemporary and historical stories shows Davies' versatility, he seems to be at his best in the familiar, mistily nostalgic realm of fading Empire--a land beloved of many British authors and BBC teleplay producers. Perhaps my favorite story was "A Union," a respectful and moving glimpse of a Welsh quarrymen's strike at the turn of the 19th century.
December 28, 2015
I’ve been wanting to try out some Peter Ho Davies ever since his novel “The Welsh Girl” was longlisted for the Booker prize (I am generally a fan of lots of stuff on the Booker long and short lists). Just happened to see this collection while in the library checking out Robertson Davies (for our March challenge) so I decided to check them out.
Intriguing and unusual mix of stories, representing his unusual background of 1/2 Welsh, 1/2 Chinese. Some of the Welsh stories felt very Australian to me — if you’ve ever been to Australia, after having spent time in England, it’s an interesting mix of British & Asian influences. These were entertaining, interesting and some really nice language choices. My favorite story was “A Union.”
Intriguing and unusual mix of stories, representing his unusual background of 1/2 Welsh, 1/2 Chinese. Some of the Welsh stories felt very Australian to me — if you’ve ever been to Australia, after having spent time in England, it’s an interesting mix of British & Asian influences. These were entertaining, interesting and some really nice language choices. My favorite story was “A Union.”
December 21, 2010
I didn't get all the way through this collection of stories because it was due back at the library. But the ones I read were really pretty good. There was an entire story about a fart at a formal dinner gathering. LOVE IT! Another was about a strike in Wales in the early 1900s. The unionist in me really enjoyed that one as well.
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April 10, 2022I liked all of these stories, but the second story, "Relief," is one for the ages. Truly marvelous. It has an incredible structure and gets to heart of the human condition in the way most stories can only dream about. Also, it’s about farting, which some seems like an impossible subject to make meaningful!
November 18, 2007
I'm not too into contemporary fiction, but I found this one to be particularly fascinating. I've had about 3 copies now and have given them all away.
By "given away" I mean that I've lent them out and never got them back.
By "given away" I mean that I've lent them out and never got them back.
November 16, 2009
My favorite story in this collection was "The Union" for the emotional connection between husband and wife on the last page of the story. But the rest made me laugh out loud or at least grin with enjoyment at the end. I'm glad it was recommended to me.
January 18, 2016
This collection of short stories from UK-born author Peter Ho Davies, son of Welsh and Chinese parentage, range from Asian to Western in style and locale. My favorite, "Relief" deals humorously with the subject of flatulence. Seriously, his stories are really good!
September 12, 2016
Beautiful short stories.
January 4, 2008
These stories take you across the world and across time. I recall that one or two of them were as rich as novels. Great stuff.
February 27, 2008
I didn't even get through this book. Some of the short stories seemed interesting at the outset, but it failed to capture my attention and I put it down and returned it to the library.
March 25, 2008
The title story is awesome.
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August 4, 2016A short story collection from a Welsh/Asian writing, living in England. He takes many traditional themes of love, travel, aging, war and puts a fun modernist spin on them.
January 22, 2009
another fine collection
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February 1, 2012Read for Explorations, I think.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 36 reviews