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Man V Nature
A refreshingly imaginative, daring debut collection of stories which illuminates with audacious wit the complexity of human behavior, as seen through the lens of the natural world
Told with perfect rhythm and unyielding brutality, these stories expose unsuspecting men and women to the realities of nature, the primal instincts of man, and the dark humor and heartbreak of our struggle to not only thrive, but survive. In “Girl on Girl,” a high school freshman goes to disturbing lengths to help an old friend. An insatiable temptress pursues the one man she can’t have in “Meteorologist Dave Santana.” And in the title story, a long fraught friendship comes undone when three buddies get impossibly lost on a lake it is impossible to get lost on. In Diane Cook’s perilous worlds, the quotidian surface conceals an unexpected surreality that illuminates different facets of our curious, troubling, and bewildering behavior.
Other stories explore situations pulled directly from the wild, imposing on human lives the danger, tension, and precariousness of the natural a pack of not-needed boys take refuge in a murky forest and compete against each other for their next meal; an alpha male is pursued through city streets by murderous rivals and desirous women; helpless newborns are snatched by a man who stalks them from their suburban yards. Through these characters Cook What is at the root of our most heartless, selfish impulses? Why are people drawn together in such messy, complicated, needful ways? When the unexpected intrudes upon the routine, what do we discover about ourselves?
As entertaining as it is dangerous, this accomplished collection explores the boundary between the wild and the civilized, where nature acts as a catalyst for human drama and lays bare our vulnerabilities, fears, and desires.
Told with perfect rhythm and unyielding brutality, these stories expose unsuspecting men and women to the realities of nature, the primal instincts of man, and the dark humor and heartbreak of our struggle to not only thrive, but survive. In “Girl on Girl,” a high school freshman goes to disturbing lengths to help an old friend. An insatiable temptress pursues the one man she can’t have in “Meteorologist Dave Santana.” And in the title story, a long fraught friendship comes undone when three buddies get impossibly lost on a lake it is impossible to get lost on. In Diane Cook’s perilous worlds, the quotidian surface conceals an unexpected surreality that illuminates different facets of our curious, troubling, and bewildering behavior.
Other stories explore situations pulled directly from the wild, imposing on human lives the danger, tension, and precariousness of the natural a pack of not-needed boys take refuge in a murky forest and compete against each other for their next meal; an alpha male is pursued through city streets by murderous rivals and desirous women; helpless newborns are snatched by a man who stalks them from their suburban yards. Through these characters Cook What is at the root of our most heartless, selfish impulses? Why are people drawn together in such messy, complicated, needful ways? When the unexpected intrudes upon the routine, what do we discover about ourselves?
As entertaining as it is dangerous, this accomplished collection explores the boundary between the wild and the civilized, where nature acts as a catalyst for human drama and lays bare our vulnerabilities, fears, and desires.
257 pages, Paperback
First published October 7, 2014
170 people are currently reading
5670 people want to read
About the author
Diane Cook
32 books479 followersDiane Cook is the author of the novel, THE NEW WILDERNESS, and the story collection, MAN V. NATURE, which was a finalist for the Guardian First Book Award, the Believer Book Award, and the Los Angeles Times Art Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction. Her writing has appeared in Harper's, Tin House, Granta, and other publications, and her stories have been included in the anthologies Best American Short Stories and The O. Henry Prize Stories. She is a former producer for the radio program This American Life, and was the recipient of a 2016 fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts. She lives in Brooklyn, New York.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 296 reviews
November 26, 2020
I read this book after the author’s other full-length publication, her debut novel, “The New Wilderness” was shortlisted for the 2020 Booker Prize.
This book is a series of short stories inspired by nature documentaries. In interviews the author said “that's how a lot of the stories in Man v. Nature came about … Through thinking, reading, watching nature documentaries, or just observing the natural world. I'm mostly interested in how humans are still animalistic and whether we once had a wilder existence than we do now.” and also how she often went away to the woods to write where “I’d witness wild tragedies, too: predation, death, abandonment, grief. I became curious about how a person might react to the kind of hardships that exist in the wild. It became one of the preoccupations of the book. I wondered under what circumstances those more primal instincts might rear up again in us. How many of our basic behaviors are really just small or large efforts to survive.”
And that really gives the template/recipe for many (and certainly the best) of the stories in this collection:
Take a natural occurrence
Apply to the human world
Add an element of exaggeration or absurdity
Use the story to explore our primal instincts
Use the story to explore wider aspects of our society
So for example:
“A Wanted Man” looks at an Alpha Male, but by the idea of a man who has sex with and impregnates every woman he comes across. At first this is used to explore male violence and dominance but at the end I was left reflecting on the pressure that come with an inability to conceive
“It's Coming” examines a predator raid by an attack on the financial district by what could be an unnamed B-movie type monster, starts as an examination of behaviour in the face of extreme danger (selfishness, everyone for themselves, Stan and Susan – whose behaviour is echoed a little by Bea and Glenn at the start of The New Wilderness) and becomes a possible analogy for Financial crisis, perhaps even the attitude of the super-rich to climate change (selfish reactions of people or even nations to climate change being more directly examined in “The Way The End of Days Should be” – a story which now perhaps acts as a metaphor for how nations are reacting to COVID).
“The Mast Year” uses the concept of the occasional years of bumper crops produced by oak or beech trees (and the way in which they can cause knock on effects on the natural system by providing plenty for those who eat their crops) by looking at a woman who enjoys a year of extraordinary fortune only to be plagued by supplicants. The story among other things can be seen as an examination of positive boasting on social media, of celebrity culture, of the pressures and self-abrogation of motherhood or even the extended family obligations placed on successful emigrants.
“Somebody’s Baby” is perhaps the strongest in the whole collection: based on birds whose fledglings are regularly attacked by predators it thinks of a town where a man regularly steals babies, waiting for weeks and months for a single moment of inattention. The story works as a mediation on the worries of being parents of a new born, on infant mortality in other parts of the world and in earlier times, on the stress of miscarriage, and, cleverly as the story finishes as a mediation on the stages of the grieving process – with its provocative question “If you could suddenly get back everything you’d already said goodbye to, would you want it?”
For me this author works so much better in this form than in the novel form
She herself has commented: “For me, short stories are like falling in young love. Exciting, whirlwind, fast, a little bewildering, all-encompassing, everything. And the novel was like marriage (or long-term partnership, or whatever is your term). Novels take forever, they sometimes feel like a slog, or feel suffocating. But they are considered, weighty, enveloping, satisfying.” – however I feel that the shorter firm works better to sustain the analogy that she wants to draw and to explore it. “The New Wilderness” simply I think could not sustain an idea for 50 pages – let alone the 400 plus to which it ran and was anything but weighty or satisfying.
The second thing that makes these stories work and have impact is the extreme/absurd element that they bring in – the author is excellent Kafka-style, in using absurd elements to draw our her concepts. This also gives the story bite and removes any nullifies any criticism of internal inconsistency, implausibility or lack of fidelity to real life.
Again the author herself commented: “In my [short] stories there is often a fantastical thing that happens in a fairly familiar world. In the novel I wanted it to be plausible even as it is speculative and not real. I wanted whatever this world was to be possible. That was part of what would give the story its power.”, and although I can understand her aims, they simply did not work with the novel – not only did she not have enough ideas to sustain a novella (let alone a novel), she also struggled to retain any real meaningful and coherent world building, so that occasional lapses into the unlikely (it was interesting how many people thought at first the novel was some form of satire) serve only to undermine rather than accentuate her story.
Overall definitely worth a read – much more so than “The New Wilderness”.
This book is a series of short stories inspired by nature documentaries. In interviews the author said “that's how a lot of the stories in Man v. Nature came about … Through thinking, reading, watching nature documentaries, or just observing the natural world. I'm mostly interested in how humans are still animalistic and whether we once had a wilder existence than we do now.” and also how she often went away to the woods to write where “I’d witness wild tragedies, too: predation, death, abandonment, grief. I became curious about how a person might react to the kind of hardships that exist in the wild. It became one of the preoccupations of the book. I wondered under what circumstances those more primal instincts might rear up again in us. How many of our basic behaviors are really just small or large efforts to survive.”
And that really gives the template/recipe for many (and certainly the best) of the stories in this collection:
Take a natural occurrence
Apply to the human world
Add an element of exaggeration or absurdity
Use the story to explore our primal instincts
Use the story to explore wider aspects of our society
So for example:
“A Wanted Man” looks at an Alpha Male, but by the idea of a man who has sex with and impregnates every woman he comes across. At first this is used to explore male violence and dominance but at the end I was left reflecting on the pressure that come with an inability to conceive
“It's Coming” examines a predator raid by an attack on the financial district by what could be an unnamed B-movie type monster, starts as an examination of behaviour in the face of extreme danger (selfishness, everyone for themselves, Stan and Susan – whose behaviour is echoed a little by Bea and Glenn at the start of The New Wilderness) and becomes a possible analogy for Financial crisis, perhaps even the attitude of the super-rich to climate change (selfish reactions of people or even nations to climate change being more directly examined in “The Way The End of Days Should be” – a story which now perhaps acts as a metaphor for how nations are reacting to COVID).
“The Mast Year” uses the concept of the occasional years of bumper crops produced by oak or beech trees (and the way in which they can cause knock on effects on the natural system by providing plenty for those who eat their crops) by looking at a woman who enjoys a year of extraordinary fortune only to be plagued by supplicants. The story among other things can be seen as an examination of positive boasting on social media, of celebrity culture, of the pressures and self-abrogation of motherhood or even the extended family obligations placed on successful emigrants.
“Somebody’s Baby” is perhaps the strongest in the whole collection: based on birds whose fledglings are regularly attacked by predators it thinks of a town where a man regularly steals babies, waiting for weeks and months for a single moment of inattention. The story works as a mediation on the worries of being parents of a new born, on infant mortality in other parts of the world and in earlier times, on the stress of miscarriage, and, cleverly as the story finishes as a mediation on the stages of the grieving process – with its provocative question “If you could suddenly get back everything you’d already said goodbye to, would you want it?”
For me this author works so much better in this form than in the novel form
She herself has commented: “For me, short stories are like falling in young love. Exciting, whirlwind, fast, a little bewildering, all-encompassing, everything. And the novel was like marriage (or long-term partnership, or whatever is your term). Novels take forever, they sometimes feel like a slog, or feel suffocating. But they are considered, weighty, enveloping, satisfying.” – however I feel that the shorter firm works better to sustain the analogy that she wants to draw and to explore it. “The New Wilderness” simply I think could not sustain an idea for 50 pages – let alone the 400 plus to which it ran and was anything but weighty or satisfying.
The second thing that makes these stories work and have impact is the extreme/absurd element that they bring in – the author is excellent Kafka-style, in using absurd elements to draw our her concepts. This also gives the story bite and removes any nullifies any criticism of internal inconsistency, implausibility or lack of fidelity to real life.
Again the author herself commented: “In my [short] stories there is often a fantastical thing that happens in a fairly familiar world. In the novel I wanted it to be plausible even as it is speculative and not real. I wanted whatever this world was to be possible. That was part of what would give the story its power.”, and although I can understand her aims, they simply did not work with the novel – not only did she not have enough ideas to sustain a novella (let alone a novel), she also struggled to retain any real meaningful and coherent world building, so that occasional lapses into the unlikely (it was interesting how many people thought at first the novel was some form of satire) serve only to undermine rather than accentuate her story.
Overall definitely worth a read – much more so than “The New Wilderness”.
June 15, 2014
After hearing the enthusiasm from our Harper-Collins rep about this book of short stories, I snatched up an ARC and began reading it that day. I highly recommend it for anyone who likes short stories. While each story is unique, they all explore human behavior and examine how we interact with each other. This book is entertaining, moving, and at times a bit scary, considering what it can make you realize about yourself and the people you encounter. While reading several of the stories, I found myself wondering how I would react in the same strange situation. If you can get your hands on an ARC of this, you should immediately. If not, then make sure you get it when it comes out in October.
February 27, 2015
So this is where we are. George Saunders brought us here, and the short story in its popular form now exists in this place where our realistic emotions clash up against fantasy-interruptive forces derived from social anxiety. Ok. Diane Cook has built a bunch of worlds here that exist in the same space as our own with slightly grotesque differences. These stories are paranoid, brutal, hypersexual, and funny --- sometimes all of those things at once. She sets up rules quickly -- there's a man who steals babies and it's just an accepted part of this town; a person who is having good fortune will suddenly find themselves hosting thousands of people searching for their own fortune, no questions asked --- and then builds a realistic world around those rules. It's very impressive and infinitely readable. If there are any drawbacks, it's that through all this talent and inventiveness, it never really digs in emotionally to fuck you up.
November 10, 2014
What a dark, crazy, sexy, uncomfortable, cool collection of stories! Reminded me of Bender, Link, and Millhauser, but at the same time, wholly original.
July 18, 2019
I’m a big fan of alternate reality theories and endless existential possibilities they bring with them. I got the vibe of Black Mirror (TV show) from reading Man V. Nature and I was thoroughly lost in imaginations.
When we strip away all the social and cultural constructs, we are left with natural instincts. This book explores the world where such is the case. Get ready to be mentally disturbed and have your principles challenged cause you get to see what can happen when humans become indistinguishable from animals.
When we strip away all the social and cultural constructs, we are left with natural instincts. This book explores the world where such is the case. Get ready to be mentally disturbed and have your principles challenged cause you get to see what can happen when humans become indistinguishable from animals.
June 10, 2018
4,5 stars
April 8, 2015
I have been following Diane Cook since we published her in Salt Hill in 2012 as the winner of the Calvino Prize for her story “Somebody’s Baby,” wherein a man has been stealing village babies for years.
In full disclosure, I was lucky enough to do an interview with Diane for Fanzine and I asked her to send me some artifacts of her process. What she ultimately sent were photographs of beautiful landscapes and photographs of dead things. This is true. She sent me a picture of a severed deer hoof, another one of a decomposing rodent—hair and all—and, my absolute favorite, innards. To something completely unrecognizable.
It is no accident that these photos are actually transmutations of the stories in Man V. Nature.
I’ll quote from myself now and say that in Diane Cook’s debut collection, we get stripped to our essential elements: aggression, grief, the impulse to dominate or be dominated, selfishness & self-preservation, and cowardice, which is giving into fear in the face of great stakes.
Cook’s precise and unflinching debut reminds us that our stink is not so different from the stink of neo-man—and don’t we ever forget it. And don’t we stop running, and don’t we trust anything but our own instincts. And yet: the unmistakable resilience driving the characters in this work reminds us that survival is as much about holding on as it is about moving on.
Ira Glass likes most that “these stories are dispatches from the end of the world, [but it] turns out to be a surprisingly familiar place.”
April 9, 2015
I enjoyed every story in this collection, but my favorite was 'Meteorologist Dave Santana'. It's the most character-driven, the least dependent on "out there" twists, the most comic, and the most satisfying to read in the sense that main character shows realistic growth by the end. Most of the other stories are also good, especially if you like your fiction on the dystopic and/or surreal side.
January 14, 2025
A very uneven dystopian short story collection. There were some memorable images, but overall too many bizarre stories that felt bizarre for the sake of it, that stayed vague and merely uncomfortable. Cook is clearly a talented author but I can't say I enjoyed reading this book for the most part.
October 11, 2014
The most visible thread in all the stories is how close to reality the humans act. Their selfishness, their rationalisations, their brutal nature in the face of all things. For that you could call this a peek into various psyches, but they're really all just our own.
It's a collection you'll want to keep picking up again, and putting down because you don't want to rush through it. You'll want to soak in each world and marvel at how horrible and desperate people are. And resilient they can be. Their world is gone, in various fashions, and what we have to deal with is ourselves. It's always the way.
Dark, brutal landscapes await as the writing takes you on through desolate worlds you wouldn't want to really live in, but you can't walk away from either. Less about the environments and wholly on character, each person that comes through the pages is a real treat. And a threat. You'll know these people. You probably are some of them.
A fine disturbing collection of short stories set to give your morals and conscience something to check against. Hopefully you'll be better in the lowest of cases, but in reality, we know we're not that far from it. And that, that read of human nature, is what keeps you coming back to each story.
(Review copy provided by publisher through Goodreads First Reads.)
It's a collection you'll want to keep picking up again, and putting down because you don't want to rush through it. You'll want to soak in each world and marvel at how horrible and desperate people are. And resilient they can be. Their world is gone, in various fashions, and what we have to deal with is ourselves. It's always the way.
Dark, brutal landscapes await as the writing takes you on through desolate worlds you wouldn't want to really live in, but you can't walk away from either. Less about the environments and wholly on character, each person that comes through the pages is a real treat. And a threat. You'll know these people. You probably are some of them.
A fine disturbing collection of short stories set to give your morals and conscience something to check against. Hopefully you'll be better in the lowest of cases, but in reality, we know we're not that far from it. And that, that read of human nature, is what keeps you coming back to each story.
(Review copy provided by publisher through Goodreads First Reads.)
February 5, 2016
Cook's theme here is, of course, man versus nature, but within this theme the stories themselves run the gamut from man literally versus nature to man versus human nature and everything in between! The interesting and unexpected thing about this collection is that most of the stories are set in post apocalyptic and even somewhat dystopian worlds. Worlds in which spouses are assigned rather than chosen and children are determined to be necessary or not. Worlds overcome by natural and unnatural forces. Worlds in which the unbelievable are everyday occurrences.
Some of Cook's stories are amusing, some are shocking, and most fall somewhere in between. All of them are a bit weird, to be honest, but every one of the chosen pieces for the collection fit together to perfectly illustrate Cook's obvious talent as a storyteller.
A couple of my personal favorites in the collection are "Moving On," where a newly widowed woman faces a new life without her husband, all the while waiting for a new husband to bid for her hand and "Somebody's Baby," a tale that brings to mind legends of changelings.
Man v. Nature is quirky and dark, likely to hit the spot for a particular set of readers, but it's also an altogether fantastic collection.
Some of Cook's stories are amusing, some are shocking, and most fall somewhere in between. All of them are a bit weird, to be honest, but every one of the chosen pieces for the collection fit together to perfectly illustrate Cook's obvious talent as a storyteller.
A couple of my personal favorites in the collection are "Moving On," where a newly widowed woman faces a new life without her husband, all the while waiting for a new husband to bid for her hand and "Somebody's Baby," a tale that brings to mind legends of changelings.
Man v. Nature is quirky and dark, likely to hit the spot for a particular set of readers, but it's also an altogether fantastic collection.
May 29, 2015
3.75/5, but I'll round up. Cook has a assured handle on her prose, which she applies to a welter of stories that at first seem disparate, but quickly resolve into a pattern. Most are surrealist, some are acerbically funny, and all keep at least one eye trained on the brutal competition at the heart of man and the heart of nature. She has a penchant for stories that read like blood-soaked fairy tales or fables, where the symbolism or subtext bubbles just below the surface. Some of the stories have speculative or SF conceits, but several of the strongest entries shine a macabre light on everyday reality or a dreamlike facsimile thereof. My main complaint about the collection is that she often hits with a sledgehammer when a rock pick would do; there's a brash lack of subtlety to most of her pieces. While this is effective in some aspects (and on a story level, keeps things brisk and entertaining), it feels a bit like the volume is turned up to mask some of the flimsiness of the worldview. I look forward to reading more of her work in the future.
September 19, 2015
Deliciously dark, absurdist and fresh. Best collection I've read this year. The stories are gutsy and twisted, all taking place in this rather horrifying world which Cook wisely presents as matter-of-fact, thereby allowing her to explore our darker impulses and obsessions. If anything, this collection is about how people not only endure under bizarre, often cruel conditions, but how they remain essentially flawed throughout their ordeals. The "heroes" of these tales are not heroic because they are noble or rise to the challenge, but rather because they refuse to give up their all-too-human frailties and selfishness throughout their struggle.
September 20, 2021
Man V. Nature is a collection of 12 short stories. It is very hard to rate a collection that ranges from fantastic to total disappointment. These three are the best in the collection: The Way the End of Days Should Be, Man V. Nature, and The Not-Needed Forest, all speculative fictions set in the end of our time, piercing, shocking, and brutal. The last one reminds me of Lord of the Flies. Girl On Gill is a surreal and disturbing little story.
I find the longest story, Meteorologist Dave Santana, is a big disappointment, so is The Mast Year. A Wanted Man is totally pointless.
I find the longest story, Meteorologist Dave Santana, is a big disappointment, so is The Mast Year. A Wanted Man is totally pointless.
August 26, 2015
3 parts Brothers Grimm + 2 parts Twlight zone + 1 part absurdist humour = 1 very happy reader.
I think this is the first time I've ever enjoyed every story in a short story collection. Highly recommended.
I think this is the first time I've ever enjoyed every story in a short story collection. Highly recommended.
October 14, 2021
A solid story collection.
September 17, 2022
4.5⭐️ I hated it and I loved it. I loathed reading it yet I couldn’t put it down. Skin crawled, stomach turned, brain tingled. Fascinating…
April 28, 2022
dark! diane cook understands that a short story really should be a weird little idea. the first couple were knock outs, but I started to lose interest as I read more stories. not sure if that's because I got tired of the apocalyptic/dystopian premises (some of which were a liiiitle gimmicky). but like. she can write. it's such a smart collection about human nature under bizarre circumstances.
favorites: moving on, the way the end of days should be, it's coming, the mast year
favorites: moving on, the way the end of days should be, it's coming, the mast year
December 29, 2024
Diane Cook’s “The New Wilderness” has lived rent free in my head since I read it so, savoring more from her, I finally picked up her only other book, made up of short stories from her submissions to magazines and journals. This was fun, in that dark kind of way.
September 5, 2020
wow! one of the most bizarre books i have ever read. sometimes it made me feel uncomfortable, sometimes it thrilled me. if you are looking for short stories that will surprise you, this is it. what a captivating read!
June 13, 2021
A quirky collection of 12 short stories, this was Diane Cook's first published book.
Many have a dystopian flavour - the world as we know it but with new rules of one which has been devastated by flooding - and others have a more contemporary feel but all feature Man pitting himself against the natural world in some respect or other.
I won't say it's my favourite book of short stories ever but it was okay - 6.5/10.
Many have a dystopian flavour - the world as we know it but with new rules of one which has been devastated by flooding - and others have a more contemporary feel but all feature Man pitting himself against the natural world in some respect or other.
I won't say it's my favourite book of short stories ever but it was okay - 6.5/10.
March 20, 2022
Not all these stories will stay with me, but many will. The terrifying ones, I mean, and there are plenty. A few of them rehearse the timeless war between the sexes, and they all ring true to me, but others tell of a world on the precipice of its end, and how we as a species will behave when we realize that is where we are. Those all ring true, as well.
March 9, 2018
My favorite books as of late have been story collections that are bound by ideas rather than characters or plot. Man V. Nature is an example of this. Though Diane Cook's writing didn't move me or elicit pleasure in the way that contemporary fiction often does, these apocalyptic and subtly horrific thought experiments should be admired for their incredible originality and quiet brutality.
December 3, 2014
omg. these stories are fabulous. a few duds, of course, but all worth it for that last story!
January 25, 2015
Loved the bolts of familiarity and dread in these surreal/speculative stories. Reminded me of Stephen King, favorably.
Read
August 6, 2020I have no idea how to rate this book. I found it to be maybe one of the crudest things I've ever read. And yet it's been over a week and I'm still thinking about the stories - going over them in my head, scouring over another layer of meaning, craving a re-read. But then I sat down to type out all the quotes and immediately wanted to never open it again.
"Homeless is a word of destitution.... We're not trod upon by soggy feet... But undeniably we are experiencing a lack. I respond, 'Friend, we are worldless.'"
"A lesser man might be feel threatened by a drunk fondling him in his bed, but I am not a lesser man. I think it's soothing. Another's need is a funny thing. It's so often cloying but sometimes with the right person it can be the most comforting thing in a day. I find that despite everything in this moment I feel quietly happy."
"If you could suddenly get back everything you'd already said good-bye to, would you want it?"
"And though she had her children back she still felt grief for what could have been or what would never be. Maybe this is what her neighbors had tried to tell her: motherhood was naturally replete with loss."
"The way she looks at me I can't figure out if there is something about the world I don't know yet or the other way around. There's something about the world that isn't real to her yet either. Like doctors or problems with simple solutions. The world is where things feel too hard to explain and so they stay a secret."
"In there opinion [she] was scary. That was their word for people who were better than them at everything and always had been. She'd stopped playing humble years ago. And because of it adults avoided her. They didn't know how to be around someone with no secret shame, guilt, trauma, or self-hatred."
"She faked a yawn to protect the small wound she felt opening in her."
"She should like this comment but coming from him it sounded like an accusation."
"Those who woke next to her were proud to confess some shortcoming as though vulnerability was a new trend."
"...the small scale arousal that comes from meeting someone just like you."
"Since when was what she wanted not part of the plan?..She'd succumbed to this new era of sentimentality and weakness in which possibility was dead and buried and there were actually some things you just don't do."
"Then strangely, shamefully she wanted to take it back. Her offer felt false. And yet she'd said it. Was that what she really wanted? More of that? or did she want something new? She hated all this dry thinking."
"He acted more in lover with her than ever. And so it felt like much less."
"She felt a strong desire to be alone. But she didn't know how long that feeling would last. And she didn't equate that desire with knowing what she really wanted."
"Homeless is a word of destitution.... We're not trod upon by soggy feet... But undeniably we are experiencing a lack. I respond, 'Friend, we are worldless.'"
"A lesser man might be feel threatened by a drunk fondling him in his bed, but I am not a lesser man. I think it's soothing. Another's need is a funny thing. It's so often cloying but sometimes with the right person it can be the most comforting thing in a day. I find that despite everything in this moment I feel quietly happy."
"If you could suddenly get back everything you'd already said good-bye to, would you want it?"
"And though she had her children back she still felt grief for what could have been or what would never be. Maybe this is what her neighbors had tried to tell her: motherhood was naturally replete with loss."
"The way she looks at me I can't figure out if there is something about the world I don't know yet or the other way around. There's something about the world that isn't real to her yet either. Like doctors or problems with simple solutions. The world is where things feel too hard to explain and so they stay a secret."
"In there opinion [she] was scary. That was their word for people who were better than them at everything and always had been. She'd stopped playing humble years ago. And because of it adults avoided her. They didn't know how to be around someone with no secret shame, guilt, trauma, or self-hatred."
"She faked a yawn to protect the small wound she felt opening in her."
"She should like this comment but coming from him it sounded like an accusation."
"Those who woke next to her were proud to confess some shortcoming as though vulnerability was a new trend."
"...the small scale arousal that comes from meeting someone just like you."
"Since when was what she wanted not part of the plan?..She'd succumbed to this new era of sentimentality and weakness in which possibility was dead and buried and there were actually some things you just don't do."
"Then strangely, shamefully she wanted to take it back. Her offer felt false. And yet she'd said it. Was that what she really wanted? More of that? or did she want something new? She hated all this dry thinking."
"He acted more in lover with her than ever. And so it felt like much less."
"She felt a strong desire to be alone. But she didn't know how long that feeling would last. And she didn't equate that desire with knowing what she really wanted."
September 4, 2017
I've never really been a fan of short stories because they've not had time to captivate me enough to like the story however Diane Cook's Man V. Nature was something else.
It was one hell of a ride with the most far out and fantastical stories. I really believe that each story could be a basis for some very different Hollywood movies. I think I enjoyed the last story the most because I actually craved more of it and didn't want it to end. The rest were great too but were the right length, I didn't feel they needed expanded on. There were only one or two stories that I didn't get but I'd say that's still a good collection of shorts.
I felt the concept wasn't nature as in the trees and animals but human nature, human emotion and how we react to certain situations, even the most whimsical story made you step back and think 'huh, I wonder what I'd be like if I were in this story.'
x
It was one hell of a ride with the most far out and fantastical stories. I really believe that each story could be a basis for some very different Hollywood movies. I think I enjoyed the last story the most because I actually craved more of it and didn't want it to end. The rest were great too but were the right length, I didn't feel they needed expanded on. There were only one or two stories that I didn't get but I'd say that's still a good collection of shorts.
I felt the concept wasn't nature as in the trees and animals but human nature, human emotion and how we react to certain situations, even the most whimsical story made you step back and think 'huh, I wonder what I'd be like if I were in this story.'
x
December 23, 2021
Outstandingly haunting. Diane Cook's version of "Nature" is Nature, yes, but it's also what we as humans are in the context of that nature--our primal, dark underselves. The pieces of us we have a hard time acknowledging: who and what we want, what we give and what we keep, the definition of brutality and tenderness (that sometimes they are the same), how we ache and connive and bend.
In Cook's wasteland world of twilit stories, nothing is preached. The meanings lie in the plain, blunt, ugly, simple truths of each tale. Her characters speak in a voice so direct and unapologetic, it calls out for candid conversation with the reader's own deep, hidden voice.
These short stories have a late bite, an aftertaste that sticks around and appears, like once-forgotten dreams, in the echo of its reading, bitter and heavy.
In Cook's wasteland world of twilit stories, nothing is preached. The meanings lie in the plain, blunt, ugly, simple truths of each tale. Her characters speak in a voice so direct and unapologetic, it calls out for candid conversation with the reader's own deep, hidden voice.
These short stories have a late bite, an aftertaste that sticks around and appears, like once-forgotten dreams, in the echo of its reading, bitter and heavy.
June 18, 2020
This book is amazing! The description really intrigued me, but it didn’t prepare me for how well-written and brilliant it is. Each story is so unnervingly good! I didn’t think I would like the book so much because it’s not usually what I read, but Diane Cook is so good that even if it’s not your cup of tea, you’ll be hooked. It’s REALLY good. The stories are unique and they do tell you a lot about human nature. It’s very interesting. I am pleasantly surprised and in awe of this book, and I do recommend it for anyone, no matter the reading preferences.
December 9, 2019
This book is the perfect example of how short stories should be written! All the stories are crisp and punch yuh in your gut. The stories are surreal, have got dream-like qualities. At times, I felt, if Diane has written these stories while living those in her dreams or what :)
All the stories are straight forward and brutal to the extremes. In simple words, those are all raw, raw plots, raw emotions, the conversations are honest. Some of the stories were a cultural shock to me.
All stories explore human nature, human interactions, our struggle against nature. In many of these stories, Diane has explored sexuality pretty boldly.
1. Moving on - it can be categorized as speculative fiction. After her husband's death, the widow is isolated in a shelter like-facility to 'move On' and to get prepared for the next partner. The end is going to shock yuh!
2. The Way End of days should be - It's about drowned world and two neighbors. Yuh are going to remember your interactions with your neighbor while reading this one. Be prepared to get punched in your guts!
3. Somebody's baby - Frankly speaking, I could not decipher this story... Somebody, please help me.
The story was scary.
4. Girl on Girl - Can anyone please explain this story to me?
5. Man V. Nature - It's about 3 close-knit friends are lost in the lake (impossible but well, let's take it as an allusion) and how they fall apart.
6. Marrying Up - aptly pictures about how women generally submit to their partners, may those be good or bad. How women justify being with them and how everything changes, when the baby is born. This story boldly explores the blindness in relationships.
7. It's coming - This is a perfect example of dark humor. It is about, how important it is to live our present no matter what the situation around you is.
8. Meteorologist Dave Santana - About an insatiable, nymphomaniac woman. The end of the story is devastating!
9. The Mast Year - Reveals, how things can turn in seconds and how one should not take the life granted.
10. The Not-Needed Forest - This reminded me of Lord of Flies. :)
So, if yuh want to get a crash course in human interactions and also want to get battered, bruised while learning it, then dive in this book :)
All the stories are straight forward and brutal to the extremes. In simple words, those are all raw, raw plots, raw emotions, the conversations are honest. Some of the stories were a cultural shock to me.
All stories explore human nature, human interactions, our struggle against nature. In many of these stories, Diane has explored sexuality pretty boldly.
1. Moving on - it can be categorized as speculative fiction. After her husband's death, the widow is isolated in a shelter like-facility to 'move On' and to get prepared for the next partner. The end is going to shock yuh!
2. The Way End of days should be - It's about drowned world and two neighbors. Yuh are going to remember your interactions with your neighbor while reading this one. Be prepared to get punched in your guts!
3. Somebody's baby - Frankly speaking, I could not decipher this story... Somebody, please help me.
The story was scary.
4. Girl on Girl - Can anyone please explain this story to me?
5. Man V. Nature - It's about 3 close-knit friends are lost in the lake (impossible but well, let's take it as an allusion) and how they fall apart.
6. Marrying Up - aptly pictures about how women generally submit to their partners, may those be good or bad. How women justify being with them and how everything changes, when the baby is born. This story boldly explores the blindness in relationships.
7. It's coming - This is a perfect example of dark humor. It is about, how important it is to live our present no matter what the situation around you is.
8. Meteorologist Dave Santana - About an insatiable, nymphomaniac woman. The end of the story is devastating!
9. The Mast Year - Reveals, how things can turn in seconds and how one should not take the life granted.
10. The Not-Needed Forest - This reminded me of Lord of Flies. :)
So, if yuh want to get a crash course in human interactions and also want to get battered, bruised while learning it, then dive in this book :)
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