Wow, I finished a book dated 2012. My excuse is that I only got it at the end of September so give me a break, please!
This collection was like anything i have read before. It is made up of 35 different stories, 35 different authors and all from 28 different countries in Europe like Ireland, Wales, Ukraine, Spain and Slovakia, to name a few. The stories are centered around themes like love, desire, elsewhere, war, music, evil or family, which is really nice in a short collection as it gives the reader a string to hang their thoughts on.
Most of the stories were enjoyed but some, a minority were challenging for me. Some of these were a hybrid of myths and reality, a story genre I am not the keenest on but am in awe of, at the same time! Because, this collection aims to cover so much in terms of themes, voices and countries, it can be hard to not take it all in. It took me a couple of months to get through it, with some stories being easy reading and other requiring silence!
These were all translated into English from the native language and each one is translated so well that the reader would not be able to tell. I had not heard of most, nearly all of the writers, (only our Gabriel Rosenstock) which awoke me as the usual writers can take up space where new voices and freshness needs time to be aired and dried.
Some of my most enjoyable stories were Zlatka, an erotic piece that starts with he narrator enjoying having her hair washed and ending in a scary red lipstick message being graffitied across said hairdresser’s window. This strange lucidity is narrated by a dog and does things perfectly, right down to the tragic ending where the dog repeats a poem that his master liked. It sounds cliched and as if this story has been done before but it hasn’t, honest. Really liked Gabriel Rosenstock’s Everthing emptying int white and am thinking that this may be a memoir from the man himself of a powerful attraction the author feels an attraction to a student from Lipica(where?) and uses the myth as a narrative device. It works here. Down there they don’t mourn, a Norwegian tale where the young narrator is drawn into dossing from a class at school. The student that tempts him is weird, the narrator knows that but the ending rises up violently. You’ll love it.
There are many more that I loved, the new Best European Fiction 2013 is only out so I am hoping it won’t make me wait until September for this one.
This week, the Irish Independent paper is including a supplement for Leaving Cert students and generally interested writers, I would think!
Today, it focuses on spelling, grammar, word power, paper 1 of leaving cert and the short story. We have a lovely, little article by the late Maeve Binchy about being a writer but we also get to see exactly how much the English curriculum has changed snce I was at school. I am a primary school teacher so post-primary teachers, feel free to interject if I have any details incorrect!
Students have a choice of discussion and narrative essays. Short stories are included under the narrative essay section of the paper.
Short story
Let’s look at exactly what an average 17-18 year old is asked to do as part of a pressurised exam.
Option:Short story:Short story writers( the 17/18 year old) is asked to write a short story in which the central character is faced with an important decision or where the character is eager to leave home or how about a short story where two unusual characters meet for the first time.
Student are expected to study and practice the short story form as a flexible and sophisticated genre, and no candidate can memorise prepared material( how they will measure this, I don’t know?), and be confident of using their material effectively. LEt me carry on. There is also an article written by Dermot Bolger, who advises the would be students on the art of writing a short story. It is an excellent article. He gives plenty good advice and urges the students to create a believable story where an “examiner might forget about the bundle of exam scripts waiting for scrutiny.”
I have a couple of issues with this. If I want to attempt to write a story, it can take me months of researching, brainstorming with the writing group and writing draft after painstaking draft and I am a beginning writer! Imagine an established writer being asked to write a short story in the pressures of the exam environment of 3 hours and make it magical, brilliant and special just like one of the examples given, namely Cecelia Ahern. Hmmm, I think Cecelia herself would struggle with this task. She writes her novels on a 9-5 working day basis.
As a 17 year old student, I may have tried a patchy first draft of a story but I certainly wouldn’t be comfortable submitting this to an examiner who may “get” my story or who may just be judging it by fixed criteria.
Can a short story be evaluated this way and should it? Would a better option not be to help the student look at established short story writers and establish how the craft is developed. It is strange seeing as this student will be heading off to university and will be expected to do this very thing. I certainly don’t remember being asked to write a magical, special short story for an examiner in less than three hours along with a personal essay and a discussion essay. That is pressure and pointless.
Am I looking at this the wrong way? I feel anxious for any student attempting this as we would never ask adults to create a brand new short story under this type of pressure.
Mary Costello, her of China Factory fame is now spreading her wings and flying off to BBC Radio! Here’s the link to catch her reading some of her short stories on the BBC.
The Spinning heart by Donal Ryan:Reviewed by Simon Lewis
Sometimes nagging isn’t a bad thing. For the last couple of months, Rozz has been at me to read The Spinning Heart by Donal Ryan. She was claiming that I would really like it and I stubbornly ignored her until we were packing for a New Year’s trip away where she forced me to put the book in my rucksack. We were on the ferry from Rosslare and I had planned to take advantage of the ship’s free wifi when the “moderate” sailing conditions left me face down on a pillow. When I woke up, there was only about twenty minutes before we arrived at Pembroke so I took the book out and started. By the end of the first paragraph I was hooked.
The Spinning Heart is a collection of chapters with a different narrator in each one. All the narrators are connected in some way to Bobby Mahon, the protagonist, and first narrator of the book. All the characters write in the first person and each have their own unique voice and way of portraying their world, a small village in the middle of nowhere in Ireland, post Celtic-Tiger where most of the men were in the building trade and have been left in the lurch by a guy they worked for. As each character takes to the stage, we learn a little bit more about how they are coping with this sudden adversity in their lives.
The thing that jumped out to me was that I could instantly see every small village in Ireland in each of the characters. Donal Ryan has captured the voice of early 21st century rural Ireland – men who had to underachieve because it was expected of them, the appetite for gossip amongst certain women and those who are either too simple or too trapped to do anything about where they are. The book is wrapped up nicely with a chapter from Bobby’s wife, Triona, who clears up any ideas that we may have had through reading some of the other characters.
I’m really glad Rozz made me read this book. The only problem now is that I believe that because of this triumph, the suggestions are going to come more regular and I may find my rucksack becoming weightier.
I felt under pressure to write my favourite reads of 2012. The thing is that this article should have been published in 2013, surely? But, in the last few days I have read loads of “Best of 2012” articles so I thought I had better get to work!
This article is very easy to write as 2012 has been packed full with brilliant, brilliant short stories. But, it was really, really hard to choose only ten but I tried! It’s all down to personal taste.
The short form is everywhere. Personally, 2012 has been the year that I have been reintroduced to this form. If you read my blog, you will know how much I rate Kevin Barry. I am convinced that I would not have delved further into the short story form without his brilliant work. I also think out of all the short stories I have read this year, his work stands way out. But, I’ve spoiled it slightly for you so read on!
10-Fish anthology 2012
God, I hate that term-emerging writers but I am not so foolish to think all writers are the same. In Fish we get some great short stories in the form of unpublished and not famous authors from all over the world. This anthology also includes a section on memoirs, poetry and flash fiction. I think this anthology sends a calling to all “aspiring” writers. If you want to write but haven’t quite then read these stories. Some of them are good, some are great and some are way above anything you might write! But, good writing should push you on and inspire you. This is why Fish is great.
10-European Fiction 2012
My husband bought me this when he went to the Dalkey Book Festival…without me. I became very sick and had to take to the bed. I was gutted but he came back with a lovely book! This book is made up of fiction from all over Europe and is compiled into themes of love, hate, lust, etc. I read a lot of Irish fiction so each story gave me a new experience. Very accessible and very quirky.
9-William Trevor Selected stories
Of course, Trevor is the master of the genre. His Selected stories collection is a massive volume so I downloaded it to my kindle. He writes easily and brilliantly on Irish and English life and characters. Stories that will cry and think. He gets the short story like no other. He the man.
8-The beautiful indifference by Sarah Hall
The-Beautiful-Indifference
I really enjoyed these stories, all very much different characters and settings but with a full-on theme of landscape, animals and humans, we are left trying to breath for air. Something I will read again.
7-Mother America by Nuala Ni Chonchuir
The great thing about this book is that you can pick it up, read one story and think about it for a few days before you delve into another. Or you can read it all in one go!
All of the stories are delightful and capture that important moment of life that a good short story should and then rising to a satisfying conclusion. The stories never get too long or tedious. some are only of a few pages, which is great to see flash fiction taking its rightful place in the short story collection.
6-Some kind of beauty by Jamie O’ Connell
The cover grabbed me first then the author’s photo made me read on. Okay, Jamie O Connell is an attractive and wonderfully polite young man but he also writes well. I liked his stories because of the different world they threw me into. Jamie has a great knack for writing in varying voices from gay to child like to very female. A great debut. I want more!
5-The China Factory by Mary Costello
The China Factory
This is Mary Costello’s first short story collection and I am jealous. Her stories are honest and raw, touching on the pain of the human condition. A beautiful book with a cover that I loved! If you have to get one new Irish short story writer this year, get this. The Stinging Fly offer a package in which you can but this book and a subscription to their stinging fly magazine. Bonus!
4-Homesick by Roshi Fernando
I came across Roshi Fernando by accident and thankfully so! I heard her read at the Cork short story festival in September. Some other author didn’t show up. I don’t even remember who that was meant to be now! Roshi’s Homesick is a series of short stories that flick between different protagonists and times in their lives, beginning with a New Years Eve party and ending with a funeral. Incredibly heart warming, sad and makes the theme of the foreigner in a strange country become incredibly meaningful. It read like a short story anthology or a novel. Loved. Loved. Loved.
3-The shelter of neighbours by Eilis Ni Dhuibhne
Eilis Ni Dhuibhne is the one really. This collection merges Irish myths and modern like extremely well. She doesn’t go over board with this as this type of myth-o-mixing can grate on me. Some of her stories share characters and places, giving a wonderful sense of the community to the whole affair. I think that short story collections that merge shared characters and locations are going to be more prominent in 2013.
2-Granta book of Irish short stories edited by Anne Enright
I really, really like anthologies. Anne Enright edited this and that’s the reason I think it works so well. The flow of the stories are effortless. I remember attempting to write up a Top ten of my favourite stories in this collection. It began to turn into a top forty or something so I gave up. If you want to read perfect short stories, any of these in here will do! (Kevin Barry also has one in here too. Just saying.)
1-Dark lies the island and There are little islands by Kevin Barry
I’ll be honest; I read both of Kevin’s short story anthologies and his novel, City of Bohane in one go! I was booked into see him read at Bantry and arranged to have a mini interview with him so I had to know my stuff! Kevin gets Ireland. He gets Irish weather. His writing is overly dramatic and silly but I bet you won’t find one writer that comes near to what he does. He has reinvigorated the form. Put him on the Leaving Cert and watch the interest in English class grow. If you get a chance to hear him read, I promise you he will entertain you! It’s not hard to predict that he will expand into film very quickly but don’t get too big, Mr Barry! And don’t forget that you do short stories really, really well!
Review:Silver Threads of Hope-an anthology in aid of Console
I am becoming more and more obsessed with covers of books. It’s not a bad thing, is it?
Well, Silver Threads of Hope-an anthology of short stories has the most divine cover. It would suit a dark mahogany type sitting room, perched at the corner of a dark coffee table. Which is kind of what we have! The cover, designed by Martin Gleeson is a festive set of silvery strings or threads across a navy blue striped background. Navy is my black.
Eoin Purcell from New Island Books sent me on a copy of Silver Threads of Hope to review on rozz.ie and I was delighted to be able to do so.
The book is my idea of bliss, warmth, duvet days, warm drinks and hope…of course, hope. This anthology is sold in aid of Console, a suicide and prevention service. Of course, I had heard all about it first from Nuala at womenrulewriter.blogspot.com as she attended the launch night. What drew my attention was there was a new Kevin Barry story in it and even better his story featured first as it the anthology was listed in alphabetical order!
Kevin Barry has a brilliantly funny story called Supper Club where awful, hateful people make…em..awful, hateful food. Great fun and typical Barry style.
The anthology has one of the best ranges I have read, it is made up of longer, medium length, short and really short stories. Some are quite serious like I’ve hardly slept at all by Trevor Bryne, a story about an ordinary day which ends in sadness and Squidinky by Nuala Ni Chonchuir. But, some are pure entertainment and slliness( I use the word silliness in a complimentary way!) like Urban myths by Emma Donoghue, Karaoke by Roddy Doyle and Prisoner by John Kelly.
I really, really loved Prisoner, it’s a great comedic romance written in the male voice based in a town which is clearly based on Dingle. A young guy sits at the bar in a hotel and waits to see his true love get married off to an idiot. Don’t worry, there is a happy ending, this is a book about hope!
Some…(scratch that)one is downright “interesting” like the Bendy Wood experiment. Help? Explain?
But, my favourites were Windows of Eyes by Christine Dwyer Hickey and Yes by Colm Keegan. I hate picking favourites but you will have your own too. Windows of Eyes is about a journey through Dublin that a homeless woman takes. It all goes along at a slow pace, nothing happens until the very last paragraph. It’s what the woman does that shocks you and that takes you right out of your snug, little, warm house into her reality. Brilliant.
Yes is a story about ice, coldness and a husband’s struggle to survive after his wife is killed in a car accident that he caused. A truly hopeful story that describes the outdoors in a way you have never read before.
Silver Threads of Hope is a brilliant read, it is suited to all tastes and ages. There are traditional, entertaining, moving and more literary short stories features here. The anthology links the theme of hope very well but I wonder why the Editor decided to situate the stories in an alphabetical order as opposed to any other way.
Not only is this is a great showcase of the Irish writer and how generous they were to donate their stories but with all the sad news about suicides in Ireland this year, it’s great that proceeds will go to C onsole. Though, don’t but it just because you want to give t Console, buy it if you want to immerse yourself in a warm fuzzy feeling of hope as you navigate your way through some of the best new and old fiction writers that Ireland has. An excuse in itself.
Here’s my review of Nuala Ni Chonchuir’s latest short story collection. Nuala is reading at the Dublin Book Festival this year and her book is rather good!
This was my first book from Nuala that I had read. I have came across Nuala through her blog and at various literary readings in the last while. She is incredibly generous with her time and comments on readers’ blogs. Now, it’s my turn to be generous with my comments and time.
Mother America is quite a female book. We can see that from the title and most of the stories focus in on women, mothers, sisters and wives. Having said that, it doesn’t prevent Nuala from writing brilliant narratives from a male perspective either. The short story collection opens with Peach which is written from a male perspective. Its opening line demands your attention
There was a pregnant woman getting drunk in the back lounger.
Dearie me. I was ready immediately with my judgements on this woman who turns out to be quite a tragic lady in the end. This story will hit you with the rawness of feeling and pity you feel for the two main protagonists.
Nuala’s stories range from the really short type like The Egg Pyramid;a story that uses the story of the Mexican painters Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera. It focusses on Diego’s and his infidelity with Frida’s sister Cristina. It uses this as a comparison with the woman in the story and her sister. Crushing stuff in very few words.
Letters is one of those really good short stories where you have so many questions to ask about the characters within it. The story opens with a mother opening her son’s letter. We find out this woman relocated to America for her son but has been effectively dumped and left there to do battle with a country she feels like an alien in. Nuala creates a believable character and made me feel rather angry at her son!
Nuala is also brilliant at creating stories from the past. Triangle boy, Moongaxer, Scullion and My name is William Clongallen all speak of women from the past but they all tell of themes of infidelity, love identity and women’s struggles. Universal themes that can be found throughout all of her stories.
The great thing about this book is that you can pick it up, read one story and think about it for a few days before you delve into another. Or you can read it all in one go!
All of the stories are delightful and capture that important moment of life that a good short story should and then rising to a satisfying conclusion. The stories never get too long or tedious. some are only of a few pages, which is great to see flash fiction taking its rightful place in the short story collection.
I just finished his short story collection Cheating at Canasta. I found this in the bargain bin in Eason’s for €3! A shame, really when we see other forms of “Writing” getting the top three positions in the reader’s list.
But, it was great for me as this was the first time I had the chance to properly read Trevor’s writing since my U.C.D Arts days. It also was a welcome piece of calmness after Nathan Englander’s What we talk about when wetalk about Anne Frank. Trevor simply writes exquisite pieces of life.
The collection opens with The Dressmaker’s child, which was featured in the Granta Book of Irish Short Stories. The Dressmaker’s child is a wonderfully horrific story of death and moving statues of Holy Mary. It take on a supernatural feel and ends in the way a short story should, in complete wonder. Unfortunately, Men of Ireland is a story that we are only all too familiar with, the story of clerical child abuse. Trevor plays with the reader right until the end and made me feel a bit guilty for disbelieving a homeless man and the story that had stuck with him all of his life. Bravado is a violent and bloodthirsty story and leaves an imprint on the characters and the readers. At Olivehill shows how time and history is irrelevant to some. A mother is left defending her heritage while her sons push modern life onto her home. The children is a story about a grieving father and his daughter and how she copes when her father begins to see another woman and bring her and her children into their house. The grieving daughter shows her anger by reading her deceased mother’s books, a form of rebellion and defiance to what she see her father doing.
The last story was quite blissful in a sick, demented way. Folie a deux is about a man who starts to see someone from the past in his everyday life. This man he sees is not real but the memories of what happened are. We are led skillfully back into the man character’s childhood and into a horrid story of how an innocent game went wrong. This never leaves the narrator’s thoughts and it wouldn’t leave mine, to be honest either!
The collection is a sad and melancholic one. Trevor is not the judge of moralistic lives. Many crimes happen in these stories yet I didn’t feel worn down or depressed by their darkness. Secrets are never left that way and each of the character’s secrets are revealed by the end of the story. They will sit with you.
I just love the way Trevor tells a seemingly simple narrative about simple characters that we can bond with and feel for immediately. There is no need for artistic or literary references here. He does not need to be clever. Instead, he observes life and people and transforms one particular movement in a character’s life, capturing it at the right moment of catharsis.
Wow, I finished a book dated 2012. My excuse is that I only got it at the end of September so give me a break, please!
