Customer Reviews

Anthropology

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Anthropology is the first book by Dan Rhodes. It was published in the UK in early 2000 to little publicity. Seeing a copy in a bookshop I picked it up, read a few of the 101 word stories, purchased; and during the year have been thrusting the book onto friends, and relatives telling them they must read it.

This collection of stories cannot be simply categorised. Their common threads are that each is 101 words long, each deals with an aspect of a relationship (with an increasingly bizarrely named collection of female partners). The stories are very short, dark, cynical, bitter, moving. But, most importantly they are peppered with humour, sometimes gentle, sometimes surreal, sometimes absurd, sometimes harsh. In brief vignettes Rhodes says more about love and masculinity, than is said in far longer works.

It took me one train journey to first read the book through, but this is too indulgent. The stories are as distilled as poetry, should be savoured. Since the first reading I have returned to the book regularly, and will often recall scenarios, brief expressions.

Part Borges, part Calvino, part Brautigan, this short story collection was for me book of the year in 2000.

If you enjoy Calvino's Invisible Cities, Brautigan's Revenge of the Lawn, anything by Borges, or James Meek's Last Orders you will enjoy this book.

this book contains 101 stories written in 101 words each about weird girlfriends, relationships, romance and love. if you like the classic 'exercises in style' by the french writer raymond queneau who wrote a simple short story in over a hundred different ways, you'll like this book.

I tried for years to write novels. I had plenty of good ideas, but my writing collapsed after just a few chapters. Thinking I was finished, I stumbled on Anthropology by Dan Rhodes, a brilliant collection of 101 stories, each of 101 words. These transcendental mini-dramas inspired me: why spend months on a novel when I could write several stories in a day? I worked joyously on my Rhodesian gems, and before I knew it I had a book. However, although literary agents loved it, they said it was unpublishable, because it had already been done by Dan Rhodes....

Anthropology is a collection of humorous, surreal, cleverly crafted short stories with a special twist. Each of the 101 stories by Dan Rhodes is precisely 101 words in length. Each funny, heartbreaking, sweet, and true tale is told economically while capturing the many complex emotions that encompass the notion of love. Here is love in all its aspects, fancies, facets, and guises. Anthropology is one of those anthologies that will be read again and again, clearly establishing Dan Rhodes as a skilled, innovative, and talented writer to be reckoned with and sought out in the future.

This little book took me about 2 hours to read. Though its small sections do not allow for any sort of plot or character development, the formula works very well. Instead of a story, the reader is treated to little burst from the main character's life. Always focused on his love live(s), they can be funny or tragic, profound or slightly irritating. Their strength is in their simplicity.

Pick this one up you won't be disappointed.

I was intrigued by the polka-dotted book at the library; I was in love by the third page. Dan Rhodes is, quite frankly, amazing. Anthropology can be read over and over again and only gets better.

Dan Rhodes book is peopled by amusing losers, remorseless heartbreakers and the truly clueless. His ability to convey in 101 words what would take many writers several paragraphs is impressive. I laughed out loud to many of the stories and even read a few aloud to a friend. The only drawback is that the stories all focus on dysfunctional relationships often with a cruel and unloving girlfriend as the subject, so the stories began to grate when read together. I figured that out early and decided to only read a few stories before bed. Much better approach and much funnier when taken in small bits.

Anthropology is a collection of 101 101-word micro fictions. The www has given the nano, micro, sudden, flash, postcard, short short, etc. fiction formats an environment in which to proliferate, and they have. The phenomenon is not, in itself, necessarily encouraging. I have to resist the inclination to think of it as literature for people with severely truncated attention spans. But that is probably just wrong-headed. The micro narrative, like haiku, is an art, and as such, can be quite sophisticated. Dan Rhodes is one of the most talented micro artists I've ever come across.

The first story, entitled "Anthropology," begins: "I loved an anthropologist." Already the reader may anticipate tragedy. Worse even than falling in love with a nun or a psychologist, the object of our hero's affection is professionally compelled to embrace foreignness, to incorporate a perspective so liberal in its scope that the cultural foundations of their relationship are doomed to relativity.

Are we even surprised when, in the second sentence, we learn that "She went to Mongolia to study the gays." Not only has she crossed an ocean and ascended to the high plateaus of another continent, but she has embedded herself among people of alternative sexual persuasions. Even with the best of intentions, can the reader realistically expect her to maintain her professional objectivity? Probably not. And sadly, we learn that "she decided that her fieldwork would benefit from assimilation." She needs to be accepted, so she "worked hard to become as much like them as possible."

When the letter arrives ending their romance, we can't help but feel we have witnessed the inevitable. Our hearts ache along with the hero as he imagines her "herding those yaks in the freezing hills, the peak of her leather cap shielding her eyes from the driving wind, her wrist dangling away, and nothing but a handlebar mustache to keep her top lip warm."

Powerful stuff! And there are a hundred more. In Ashes, a young man must decide what to do with the ashes of his recently deceased girlfriend. In Baby, the narrator's girlfriend has been pregnant for over two years. There are some doubts, but the congratulatory day finally arrives. In Beauty, the narrator's girlfriend is so beautiful, "she has never had cause to develop any kind of personality." Is it her absence of personality that allows her to take the consequences of her beauty so nonchalantly in stride? In Binding, a young and somewhat forgetful mother has her baby's best interest at heart when she smashes the infant's toes with a rock. In Blind, the narrator has gone blind and his girlfriend exploits the opportunity to start dressing sloppily. This creates a problem for him that the reader may not see coming.

Charles Bukowski wrote that "Love is all right for those who can handle the psychic overload. It's like trying to carry a full garbage can on your back over a rushing river of piss." In Anthropology, the psychic overload is there, but it's more like trying to balance a glass of champagne over a gurgling stream of laughter. Definitely check it out.

Bizarre, insightful and compelling. I had to show it to a friend. I watched while she read. A minute with a quizzical look on her face, then she would say, "Whaaaat?!?" and start laughing. Also, I love the girlfriends' names.

Each 101-word story in this book (there are 101 of them) is a well crafted little masterpiece. A whole story gets told, sometimes with a quirky twist at the end, in 101 words, no more, no less. Most of them have the narrator grieving over a breakup, giving those stories a poignant sweetness. Others are just plain weird, but fun. Some are sad, but funny. All are trippy, about women named Treasure, Skylark, or Miracle. You know, you just have to read this little book for yourself. Your only regret will be that it is so short.