World Famous Comics: Like You'd Understand, Anyway: Stories
Like You'd Understand, Anyway: Stories
By: Jim Shepard Publisher: Knopf Average Rating: Binding: Hardcover Label: Knopf Number of Items: 1 Number of Pages: 224 Publication Date: September 25, 2007 Release Date: September 25, 2007
Following his widely acclaimed Project X and Love and Hydrogen—“Here is the effect of these two books,” wrote the Chicago Tribune: “A reader finishes them buzzing with awe”—Jim Shepard now gives us his first entirely new collection in more than a decade.
Like You’d Understand, Anyway reaches from Chernobyl to Bridgeport, with a host of narrators only Shepard could bring to pitch-perfect life. Among them: a middle-aged Aeschylus taking his place at Marathon, still vying for parental approval. A maddeningly indefatigable Victorian explorer hauling his expedition, whaleboat and all, through the Great Australian Desert in midsummer. The first woman in space and her cosmonaut lover, caught in the star-crossed orbits of their joint mission. Two Texas high school football players at the top of their food chain, soliciting their fathers’ attention by leveling everything before them on the field. And the rational and compassionate chief executioner of Paris, whose occupation, during the height of the Terror, eats away at all he holds dear.
Brimming with irony, compassion, and withering humor, these eleven stories are at once eerily pertinent and dazzlingly exotic, and they showcase the work of a protean, prodigiously gifted writer at the height of his form. Reading Jim Shepard, according to Michael Chabon, “is like encountering our national literature in microcosm.”
Superbly written journey thru time and space As others have mentioned, each story is from a different place and different era. And this is good, since it keeps one interested: if you don't like reading about American football protagonists, maybe you'll like to read about a Roman empire soldier. What is really mind boggling, and it takes some time to realize it - is that each and every story has also a different writing STYLE. It is subtle, but once you get it - you realize what an excellent, gifted author Jim Shepard is. Well researched, eclectic, and an absolute must read.
Reflection The funniest thing happened while reading "Like You'd Understand, Anyway". I didn't like it. I was telling myself how absurd these stories were and I should just put this thing down. I wasn't connecting with the book. The characters were weird and the endings were weirder.
After plodding through the book, I found myself thinking about the stories. The tsunami in Alaska, the weird family in The Zero Meter Diving Team, the soldier with the wacko father. I actually enjoyed reflecting in those stories and characters. It was like Shepard wrote the book that way. It was so far out that it burned onto your psyche.
It makes me think of some of the other books that I didn't finish because I wasn't into them. What did I miss?
Bravo! Bravo for Like You'd Understand, Anyway. It's the finest book I ever hated.
Appropriate title He's right, I don't understand. Are these his views on historical events? Are they just made up tales? The stories were entertaining and well written, but I just can't figure out if they are just made up or have some real and true ties to past events. The whole time I'm reading I was trying to figure this out, but I never did. I still don't know. If you know then read it, they are quite unique. Maybe I'm just complicating something that is simple.
A Stunning Achievement Jim Shepard is an author who has flown above most readers' radar far too long. Simply put, he is one of the five or ten finest fiction writers in America. His novel PROJECT X was far superior to VERNON GOD LITTLE--both books addressed the incendiary subject of school shootings but while DBC Pierre's book went on to win a Booker, Shepard's take on the subject (which was far superior in every aspect) hardly made a ripple. That's a shame.
LIKE YOU'D UNDERSTAND, ANYWAY shows that, if anything, Shepard is even better when it comes to writing short fiction. The stories in LIKE YOU'D UNDERSTAND range far afield, the subject matter encompassing everything from the life of first female cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova to the French Revolution as seen through the eyes of an executioner. There are tales set in Ancient Greece and pre-World War II Tibet.
Shepard's "style" is not intrusive or obvious, he is much too smart and conscientious an artist for that. His is a selfless talent, undemonstrative and restrained. The stories and characters are front and center, the author graciously declining to step from the wings and acknowledge his rightful applause.
LIKE YOU'D UNDERSTAND ANYWAY This is a wonderful book of short stories, beautifully worded illustrations of the convoluted relationships between men--brothers, fathers and sons, friends, strangers. Each story is told of a different place and time, but the theme runs constant. I don't even like short stories, as a rule. But these were great. Ordered for a gift as soon as I completed my library rental of the book.
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