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You Are Now Entering the Human Heart
Libro usado en buenas condiciones, por su antiguedad podria contener señales normales de uso
- GenresShort StoriesFiction
Paperback
First published January 1, 1983
About the author
Janet Frame
64 books501 followersThe fate befalling the young woman who wanted "to be a poet" has been well documented. Desperately unhappy because of family tragedies and finding herself trapped in the wrong vocation (as a schoolteacher) her only escape appeared to be in submission to society's judgement of her as abnormal. She spent four and a half years out of eight years, incarcerated in mental hospitals. The story of her almost miraculous survival of the horrors and brutalising treatment in unenlightened institutions has become well known. She continued to write throughout her troubled years, and her first book (The Lagoon and Other Stories) won a prestigious literary prize, thus convincing her doctors not to carry out a planned lobotomy.
She returned to society, but not the one which had labelled her a misfit. She sought the support and company of fellow writers and set out single-mindedly and courageously to achieve her goal of being a writer. She wrote her first novel (Owls Do Cry) while staying with her mentor Frank Sargeson, and then left New Zealand, not to return for seven years.
She returned to society, but not the one which had labelled her a misfit. She sought the support and company of fellow writers and set out single-mindedly and courageously to achieve her goal of being a writer. She wrote her first novel (Owls Do Cry) while staying with her mentor Frank Sargeson, and then left New Zealand, not to return for seven years.
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
November 24, 2015
4.5 stars...
Janet Frame handpicked these stories from her several collections, starting with her first book The Lagoon and Other Stories (which won her an award, which event was the reason for the cancellation of her scheduled lobotomy). The book is filled with greatness, and the stories are very diverse in topic, style, length, location, everything. Almost all of them have a uniform poignancy and brilliance, illustrating why she is such a legend in New Zealand and why she should be a legend of 20th century fiction in general, around the world.
I found myself most entranced by a novella-length story called "The Snowman", which consists mainly of a newly-built snowman in the front yard of a New Zealand household, and a supposed "wiseman" figure named the Perpetual Snowflake. This snowflake yarns philosophical to The Snowman, telling him all about the lives of snowmen and the lives of human beings. The rich details of the people, street, town, and the purging of secrets and scaling of emotional wells make this an incredible, at times mind-blowing, read - and a sometimes difficult one. It's one of the most unique pieces of descriptive (and emotional) writing I've read, and all the more unsettling given its fable style.
Here are some of my favorite bits from "The Snowman":
People do not cry because it is the end. They cry because the end does not correspond with their imagination of it. Their first choice is always their own imagining; they refuse to be deterred by warnings. They say I choose this because although the price is high the thing itself is more precious, durable and beautiful. The light of imagined events is always so arranged that the customers do not see the flaws in what they have chosen to buy with their dreams.
Snowman, I heard of a man who sent to a mail-order firm for a radio transmitting and receiving set. When he assembled the kit of tiny parts he found that he could send or receive only one message, SOS. He listened day and night, and he never found out who was sending the message or why he himself should be sending it, for he didn't need to ask for help, he was not in despair, not bankrupt or crossed in love; his life was happy.
He got up one morning, washed, dressed, looked out of his window at the world and shot himself.
I am only a snowman with a head and belly full of snow. I have no means of wandering in plains and deserts or in the rooms of houses where the dead have lain. I am pleasurably heavy and sleepy, I will forget death, I am in a blue daze, tasted by rosy children, my limbs amputated and replaced by mischievous schoolboys. Life is soft white bliss and the snow is falling away from my face with my laughter.
Now Rosemary's life is full of things. A tape recorder, a piano, plenty of clothes -- winkle-picker shoes, a white raincoat, slacks, chunky jerseys [...] The difficulty of things or objects as remedies is that the supply of them depends upon income and that is not earned according to the tally of grief. There may be a time when there is no money left, and no more things, and no more remedies, and the tears will keep running down little girls' cheeks for ever and ever, or until the little girls grow up and trowel cement upon their faces to hide the rack and ruin.
Tonight Harry and Kath will decide what to give Rosemary in order that she may be able to bear the disappointment of being too young. I myself do no know what happens inside people when they long for the companionship and adventure of another, and are given instead a box of chocolates with separate handmade centres, or a new dress or the top of the pops gramophone record. I suppose they get used to the comfort of things, and may even approach the state of holding a thrilling conversation with one of the handmade centres. Things are really much more convenient to human beings than their own kind; things can be thrown out when they are not wanted; they can be destroyed, torn to pieces or burned without questionings of conscience; the only effective way of destroying people is to equate them with things - handmade centres or the cheap song embedded in the groove.
-----
And here's one from "The Day of The Sheep":
Why am I small and cramped and helpless why are there newspapers on the floor and why didn't I remember to gather up the dirt, where am I living that I'm not neat and tidy with a perm. Oh if only the whole of being were blued and washed and hung out in the far away sun. Nora has travelled she knows about things, it would be nice to travel if you knew where you were going and where you would live at the end or do we ever know, do we ever live where we live, we're always in other places, lost, like sheep, and I cannot understand the leafless cloudy secret and the sun of any day.
Janet Frame handpicked these stories from her several collections, starting with her first book The Lagoon and Other Stories (which won her an award, which event was the reason for the cancellation of her scheduled lobotomy). The book is filled with greatness, and the stories are very diverse in topic, style, length, location, everything. Almost all of them have a uniform poignancy and brilliance, illustrating why she is such a legend in New Zealand and why she should be a legend of 20th century fiction in general, around the world.
I found myself most entranced by a novella-length story called "The Snowman", which consists mainly of a newly-built snowman in the front yard of a New Zealand household, and a supposed "wiseman" figure named the Perpetual Snowflake. This snowflake yarns philosophical to The Snowman, telling him all about the lives of snowmen and the lives of human beings. The rich details of the people, street, town, and the purging of secrets and scaling of emotional wells make this an incredible, at times mind-blowing, read - and a sometimes difficult one. It's one of the most unique pieces of descriptive (and emotional) writing I've read, and all the more unsettling given its fable style.
Here are some of my favorite bits from "The Snowman":
People do not cry because it is the end. They cry because the end does not correspond with their imagination of it. Their first choice is always their own imagining; they refuse to be deterred by warnings. They say I choose this because although the price is high the thing itself is more precious, durable and beautiful. The light of imagined events is always so arranged that the customers do not see the flaws in what they have chosen to buy with their dreams.
Snowman, I heard of a man who sent to a mail-order firm for a radio transmitting and receiving set. When he assembled the kit of tiny parts he found that he could send or receive only one message, SOS. He listened day and night, and he never found out who was sending the message or why he himself should be sending it, for he didn't need to ask for help, he was not in despair, not bankrupt or crossed in love; his life was happy.
He got up one morning, washed, dressed, looked out of his window at the world and shot himself.
I am only a snowman with a head and belly full of snow. I have no means of wandering in plains and deserts or in the rooms of houses where the dead have lain. I am pleasurably heavy and sleepy, I will forget death, I am in a blue daze, tasted by rosy children, my limbs amputated and replaced by mischievous schoolboys. Life is soft white bliss and the snow is falling away from my face with my laughter.
Now Rosemary's life is full of things. A tape recorder, a piano, plenty of clothes -- winkle-picker shoes, a white raincoat, slacks, chunky jerseys [...] The difficulty of things or objects as remedies is that the supply of them depends upon income and that is not earned according to the tally of grief. There may be a time when there is no money left, and no more things, and no more remedies, and the tears will keep running down little girls' cheeks for ever and ever, or until the little girls grow up and trowel cement upon their faces to hide the rack and ruin.
Tonight Harry and Kath will decide what to give Rosemary in order that she may be able to bear the disappointment of being too young. I myself do no know what happens inside people when they long for the companionship and adventure of another, and are given instead a box of chocolates with separate handmade centres, or a new dress or the top of the pops gramophone record. I suppose they get used to the comfort of things, and may even approach the state of holding a thrilling conversation with one of the handmade centres. Things are really much more convenient to human beings than their own kind; things can be thrown out when they are not wanted; they can be destroyed, torn to pieces or burned without questionings of conscience; the only effective way of destroying people is to equate them with things - handmade centres or the cheap song embedded in the groove.
-----
And here's one from "The Day of The Sheep":
Why am I small and cramped and helpless why are there newspapers on the floor and why didn't I remember to gather up the dirt, where am I living that I'm not neat and tidy with a perm. Oh if only the whole of being were blued and washed and hung out in the far away sun. Nora has travelled she knows about things, it would be nice to travel if you knew where you were going and where you would live at the end or do we ever know, do we ever live where we live, we're always in other places, lost, like sheep, and I cannot understand the leafless cloudy secret and the sun of any day.
October 4, 2025
Meh.
Not worth reviewing.
For the moment at least.
-----------------------------------------------
PERSONAL NOTE :
[1983] [10p] [Fiction] [Not Recommendable]
-----------------------------------------------
Meh.
No vale la pena reseñarlo.
Al menos por ahora.
-----------------------------------------------
NOTA PERSONAL :
[1983] [10p] [Ficción] [No Recomendable]
-----------------------------------------------
Not worth reviewing.
For the moment at least.
-----------------------------------------------
PERSONAL NOTE :
[1983] [10p] [Fiction] [Not Recommendable]
-----------------------------------------------
Meh.
No vale la pena reseñarlo.
Al menos por ahora.
-----------------------------------------------
NOTA PERSONAL :
[1983] [10p] [Ficción] [No Recomendable]
-----------------------------------------------
November 16, 2021
I wish I could give this collection 3.5 stars because there were many poignant moments and the style of writing is so different. Some of the stories I could not connect with at all, thus the three stars.
August 19, 2022
Best stories : “The Teacup”, “You Are Now Entering the Human Heart”, “Winter Garden”, and “The Bath”. Now I want to find the Jane Campion film based on her autobiography called “An Angel at My Table”.
October 3, 2019
One perfect for middle school intro - accessible, metaphorical and carries layers beneath its simplicity
Want to Read
June 6, 2025Read so far:
from The Lagoon and Other Stories (1951):
Keel and Kool --3
My cousins who could eat cooked turnips --2
Swans --3
The day of the sheep --2
A note on the Russian war --
The birds began to sing --
*The pictures --
***
Miss Gibson and the lumber room --
from Snowman, Snowman: Fables and Fantasies (1963):
Snowman, snowman --
A windy day --
The terrible screaming --
*The mythmaker's office --
The daylight and the dust --
Solutions --1
Two sheep --
from The Reservoir: Stories and Sketches (1963):
The reservoir --3
*A sense of proportion --
The bull calf --3
The teacup --
The advocate --
The chosen image --
The linesman --
***
The press gang --
*The bath --
Winter garden --3
You are now entering the human heart --3
Insulation --2
***
Lolly-legs --
from The Lagoon and Other Stories (1951):
Keel and Kool --3
My cousins who could eat cooked turnips --2
Swans --3
The day of the sheep --2
A note on the Russian war --
The birds began to sing --
*The pictures --
***
Miss Gibson and the lumber room --
from Snowman, Snowman: Fables and Fantasies (1963):
Snowman, snowman --
A windy day --
The terrible screaming --
*The mythmaker's office --
The daylight and the dust --
Solutions --1
Two sheep --
from The Reservoir: Stories and Sketches (1963):
The reservoir --3
*A sense of proportion --
The bull calf --3
The teacup --
The advocate --
The chosen image --
The linesman --
***
The press gang --
*The bath --
Winter garden --3
You are now entering the human heart --3
Insulation --2
***
Lolly-legs --
October 27, 2015
Quite marvellous, surreal, sad and funny. If you're a writer wanting to give short stories a try, this is a great collection to inspire you.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews