World Famous Comics: Forty Stories (Penguin Classics)
Forty Stories (Penguin Classics)
By: Donald Barthelme Publisher: Penguin Classics Average Rating: Binding: Paperback Label: Penguin Classics Number of Items: 1 Number of Pages: 272 Publication Date: January 25, 2005 Release Date: January 25, 2005
Product Description: William H. Gass has written of Donald Barthelme that “he has permanently enlarged our perception of the possibilities open to short fiction.” In Forty Stories, the companion volume to Sixty Stories, we encounter a dazzling array of subjects: Paul Klee, Goethe, Captain Blood, modern courtship, marriage and divorce, armadillos, and other unique Barthelmean flights of fancy. These pithy, brilliantly acerbic pieces tangle with the ludicrous, pose questions that remain unresolved, and challenge familiar bits of language heretofore unexamined. Forty Stories demonstrates Barthelme’s unrivaled ability to surprise, to stimulate, and to explore.
Amazon.com Review: Like the title says, here are 40 short works culled from across Barthelme's career. Along with the similarly titled 60 Stories, this book provides one of the best samplings currently in print of Barthelme's unrivaled humor, his melancholy, the poetry of his line, and his considerable intellect. It includes pieces such as the famous "Sentence," (a single, several-page-long, unfinished sentence), "The Flight of Pigeons From the Palace," one of the writer's illustrated stories, and "Overnight To Many Distant Cities."
angus kennedy While very challenging and insightful, I found many of the stories to be superficially "cute" and a little self-indulgent. Not as satisfying as I thought it would be.
son of a son of a son........ The Marx brothers and origami have an affair. They name the bastard Donald barthelme.
The Perfect Motivation As an aspiring writer, these stories by Barthelme give me hope that experimental literature still thrives in this sound byte-, laugh track-, talking head-prompted, fast-paced MTV culture of ours. For the most part, the stories take a level of patients foreign to the average reader, but are so creative, so clever, so breathtaking (to sound cliché)--and let's not forget: short (most average 6ish pages)--and so on that before you even have a chance to let one story sink in, you're already well into the next. Which, I might add, is a good thing. The stories challenge but, unlike contemporaries who mimic Barthelme's style, are not challenging in such a way as to detract or distract. They stick with you long after you've read them and, like Eggers says in his introduction, it's hard for someone who writes to make it through a page without being struck by an idea of their own. Inspiring stuff.
Marvelous collection by one of America's most unique writers Donald Barthelme is one of the very few masters of the short short story. The only others that come to mind are Saki, Borges, and Franz Kakfa. Few of the stories in this collection extend past three pages. All are marked by the same virtues evident throughout the collection: surreality, inventiveness, enormous humor, a sensitivity to our collective culture. Some have commented on the collection being uneven. Perhaps. But the stories are quite diverse, and I suspect that what some find uneven is actually their diversity, some of them appealing more to one's particular bias more than others.
This is a great collection for shaking up your perception, for making you reconceptualize the short story form. Anyone liking these stories should go on to try some Saki (the author, not the beverage). Although not as surreal as Barthelme, his stories are just as short, just as funny, and just as delightful.
A good, if a bit uneven, collection This collection has many great short stories within it. Often, within this book, Barthelme shows himself to be an extremely creative and insightful writer. "Jaws" is a good example of this. Basically, it's a story about how people deal with their dissatisfaction in relationship; how lovers cope with significant others' inevitable inability to meet all their (the lovers') expectations. It follows a workers at a local A & P while he mediates the relationship of two customers (who are married to each other). He acts as a sort of counciler in their marriage. The interaction between the couple is extremely humorous, and yet very sad (as, I suppose, dysfunction can often be). It's an excellent piece of work, and it deals with a common theme throughout this collection: The dissatisfaction of couples in long-lasting relationships. "Chablis," "The Genius," and "Paul Klee..." are also all excellent short stories. They exhibit Barthelme's ability to be humorous and yet still get at an interesting/serious point (that is, not lose himself in zaniness).
After such praise, however, I must admit that this collection isn't without flaw. Out of the forty stories that are included in this book, I felt that about ten of them could have been pruned away. These stories (for example, "On the Deck," and "Blue Beard") seemed unfulfilled, and worse, overwritten. These, perhaps could have used a little more focus on content rather than style. It's true with almost any collection of short stories that not all of them are good, enjoyable, or interesting (that is, not all of them will catch your imagination). However, with this book there seemed to be quite a few of those. So despite the fact that many of the stories in this collection are great, I'm only giving it three stars.
I would recomend this to anyone in search of a humorous, challenging read. I would also, recomend this to someone who is interested in cutting edge, stylized short stories (after all 25-30 of them in this collection are very good). Many of the short stories in this collection are written in an unusual manner. For instance, "The Bodygaurd" is compose almost entirely of questions. I'm also of the opinion that those of you who like both Kurt Vonnegut jr. and Thomas Pynchon would find this collection interesting.
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