Magic for Beginners in What's the Name of That Book???

Aug 29, 2008 Misha rated it really liked it

Link’s stories are the stuff of dreams—they are luminous, unpredictable shape-shifters that illuminate the inner workings of the mind. Like her first collection, Stranger Things Happen, these stories are genre-bending—they lean to the fantastical, but can’t quite be pinned down as fantasy or literary. At their spooky best, you are left bewildered and enchanted. My favorite stories in the collection are “The faery handbag” and the self-titled story which features a television show called ‘The Lib ...more

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Jun 28, 2007 Wealhtheow rated it did not like it

Shelves: fantasy

I liked "The Faery Handbag" but hated the rest. I couldn't get a handle on her stories--I had no idea what was going on or why, and I didn't care about any of the characters enough to try.
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Jun 08, 2007 Punk rated it liked it

Shelves: fantasy, short-stories

Short Stories. Link writes about magic and fantasy, domestic hauntings, the children of witches, marriage between the living and the dead, stories that bear more stories, and then turn around and swallow them up again. She has original ideas, a clever sense of humor, and light, skillful prose. I expected to love this, but I was disappointed.

I loved almost everything in Link's first book, Stranger Things Happen; those stories were like my Platonic ideal of a short story: They felt utterly complet Short Stories. Link writes about magic and fantasy, domestic hauntings, the children of witches, marriage between the living and the dead, stories that bear more stories, and then turn around and swallow them up again. She has original ideas, a clever sense of humor, and light, skillful prose. I expected to love this, but I was disappointed.

I loved almost everything in Link's first book, Stranger Things Happen; those stories were like my Platonic ideal of a short story: They felt utterly complete, enough detail that I was satisfied with what I had been given, but enough left unsaid so that I could easily imagine what might happen next. I want to get to the end of a short story and think, Oh. Closely followed by: Of course. The stories in this volume more often left me thinking, What? Closely followed by What? They felt like one of those kids' flip books where you've got the head of a fish, the middle of a fish, and then the feet of a canary. I'm not asking for an entire fish, but maybe keep it in the family, maybe the bottom third of an octopus, or the fluke of a whale. Or, if necessary, the rear of a submarine. Many of the endings felt unearned, a confusing surprise unsupported by the rest of the story.

The story I liked the most happened to be the title piece of the collection, "Magic for Beginners." The Library is a TV show, but no one knows where it comes from or even when it's going to be on. I enjoyed the depiction of fannishness and family, and the ending does the job.

"Stone Animals" was another favorite. I loved the humor and the sense of quiet menace, the familiar turned unfamiliar, unheimlich, but for such a long story the ending was pretty WTF out of nowhere. All Link needed to do to sell it was to have mentioned, somewhere in those fifty pages, that people had been going missing in the neighborhood, or the previous owners had disappeared mysteriously, and I would have bought it.

If you're interested in my reactions to the other stories, you can check out my status updates. Though I only mention it once, there's animal harm in almost every piece, and harm to children in several others.

Three stars. Even though I found the endings unsatisfying, Link's prose is its own reward and there are wonderful moments in every story in this collection. ...more

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Oct 30, 2012 J. Trott rated it really liked it

I wish I could give "Magic for Beginners" both 2 and 5 stars but this is not a goodreads option. It reads likes Jorge Borges teamed up with the Brother's Grimm, (maybe add Joss Whedon in there) and adopted contemporary US, with its vast array of mythologies as their topic. Borges added halls to the labyrinth of metaphysics, leaving the reader with a desire to re-read to actually understand, but also a fear and knowledge that perhaps not understanding was the closest thing to understanding. His w I wish I could give "Magic for Beginners" both 2 and 5 stars but this is not a goodreads option. It reads likes Jorge Borges teamed up with the Brother's Grimm, (maybe add Joss Whedon in there) and adopted contemporary US, with its vast array of mythologies as their topic. Borges added halls to the labyrinth of metaphysics, leaving the reader with a desire to re-read to actually understand, but also a fear and knowledge that perhaps not understanding was the closest thing to understanding. His work is mostly cerebral though, where Brothers Grimm get at the desire and fears in the pits of our stomaches and the apex of our nethers.

Kelly Link does both of these, while consisting failing to follow the modern rules of story-telling. Her stories have no established conflict, but follow as many old fairy tales do, a wandering path, switching protagonists, and stories, mid story, multiple times. Symbols are left unexplained, over-used. A search of the interwebs quickly reveals that this medley of Dionysian fairy tale, sci-fi, fantasy interspliced with our time and people is a conscience choice by Link. It is clear from her art that she could do the Raymond Chandler, New Yorker style realism that progresses into epiphany, if she wanted to.
She says that it is boring.

But Link's writing also is different from most science fiction and fantasy. She consistently disappoints with her ability to create expectation and then wander off in another direction. The stories have little eternal logic.

Dionysius, the god or drunk high poets, has found a priestess in Link. Her stories are votives to the unknown, casual attacks on our carefully constructed rules of narrative that we guard so jealously. We would believe, and every story that we allow ourselves to tell reinforces this, that we control our world, that it progresses through logic toward justice. In Link's stories we find a whimsy that if we are honest we must confess is a truth that is other.

For me a contemporary application of this is the upcoming American election. Both candidates talk about their plan for the economy. They patiently explain how they will fix it, working out their logic in steps, promising progress, a victory through right policy. Nobody says the truth. The economy is a monster we pretend is our pet. When it bites us we make explanations, when it beshitteth all, we explain why, but we cannot teach him not to bite or train him to our household. No-one understands him, but he can destroy us. It is fickle, immensely complex, and gambols through our houses and floats in amongst the clouds.

Which is just to say, Link is right to roughshod over our stories that insist on control, happy or at least logical endings. We don't know anything. Sometimes that can be a lot of fun. ...more

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Oct 16, 2012 Tanya rated it really liked it · review of another edition

So glad I got this e-book as part of the Humble eBook bundle! I've been meaning to read it for a while anyway. Plus, short stories are a great thing for a person such as myself, prone to stopping and starting again. I'm easily distracted.

I love Link's style. It's a bit dizzy-dreamy, absurdist, and definitely dark. But while it may frustrate someone, it definitely worked for me. If there's a stand out story in this collection, it has to be "Stone Animals," about a family who, in the pursuit of t ...more

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Feb 07, 2013 Rachel rated it it was ok

Picked up this short story collection on vacation. The stories were a mixture of magical realism and like.. absurdist fantasy. I liked the one where a family moves out to the country and everything gets haunted intangibly, and the titular story with a boy's family and the strange TV show he and his family like. Some of the other stories were just gorey and gross for no discernible reason. ...more

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Jul 21, 2015 Holly rated it liked it

Shelves: magical-realism, short-stories, read-in-2015

This one is a tough one to rate...some of these stories I really liked (The Faery Handbag, Magic for Beginners...), but some of them felt overlong I had to slog through them. Three stars feels both too generous and not high enough.

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Aug 07, 2007 Mandy rated it liked it · review of another edition

They really need to create a half star option on here, because I would've given this 3.5 stars. I really wanted to like this collection more than I did, however its not unusual for me to only like a handful of stories out of any short story collection by a single author. That being said, the first story in the book and the title story are both worth 5 stars. She definitely has a unique writing style, although some of the stories tend to run on too long and then end abruptly. I do plan on reading ...more

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May 27, 2013 steen rated it it was ok

While beautifully written, this wasn't really my cup of tea. I don't mind quirky but this was to the point of being flat-out strange. It does make me want to check out her other writings! ...more

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Jul 03, 2021 Emma rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Honestly the first three stories in this collection were so unsettling—so upsetting, frankly—they I don’t think I want to continue with this collection. Link is undoubtedly talented but I’m not sure her work is really for me.

Went back to read the rest on audio. It was all so upsetting! I am upset!

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