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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The Clash of Love, Karma, Ego, Social Caste x 10!, August 6, 2001
This was a new experience for me. As a male who likes short stories and has read dozens of anthologies, this book by a woman about men and women made me feel like a voyeur unable to turn his eye away from the keyhole. The author is incredibly skilled and insightful as she takes the reader on 10 very enjoyable rides through periods in a number of lives -- each artfully constructed around romantic relationships (some in crisis) -- and each with the presence of at least one cat. The gemlike stories are so gripping several could turn into screen plays. They are interesting, unpredictable and provocative. The psychological elements reminded one of Ibsen, the social caste clashes brought to mind the fine 18th and 19th -Century English writers, and the romantic entanglements twisted by karma evoked certain French authors. There is no need to describe plots. As soon as you start to read, you will know you are in very competent hands. The cats are important in different ways in different stories. I note that practically all the other reviewers are women, so I felt I should add my voice by saying to male readers, "If you want to know what 'They' are really thinking, read this book!"
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Best Collection of Short Stories I've read in a Long Time, May 28, 2003
This review is from: Of Cats and Men: Stories (Paperback)
Ms. de Gramont's book is masterfully written in a no-nonsense, very readable style. Only a person who is passionate about writing could create stories that unfold so gracefully. In every story you will find passion that ebbs and flows with tension and resolution, symbolism at every level of the human psyche, adroit dialogue that helps to construct each anecdote, and of course, cats and men. What amazed me most is that from cover to cover you couldn't add, subtract, or change a word to improve the book. "Of Cats and Men" is a combination of dexterity in communication and great storytelling. I will be first in line to buy her next book
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The Landscape of Relationship & The Nature of the Beast, May 25, 2001
Nina de Gramont's new book of stories subtly navigates the not so subtle terrain between men and women with feline élan. And while the humans of this book couple and uncouple; rage, reconcile, and make up, the cats do what cats do best----inhabit a world that is wholly their own. Of course inevitable comparisons will arise between the humans and the animals that keep them, but the best stuff really comes from de Gramont's prose which is precise and singing. She has a flare for the fatal last line and for turning a moment suddenly dark, as she does in "the closest place," a story about a newly pregnant woman whose mentally ill brother-in-law has come to visit. In the final scene, the narrator comes closest to the bare, brutal truth in stark articulation that nearly unearths both her and her husband. But don't be fooled, there's comedy among the ruins, a laugh where you least expect it. "One thing nobody tells you about the mentally ill," the narrator of " the closest place" begins, "is how infuriating they are." There's also a hilarious episode in "the politeness of kings" where a soon to be fiancé shambles into his very proper prospective in-laws' bedroom, only to make [a fool] out of himself with the apology the next morning. The image of his hulking mass swaying over the mortified in-laws "wearing nothing but a paisley boxer shorts" is as funny as it is affecting. De Gramont's characters are a soothing mixture of civility and gambol---and this is the crux of their struggle---not what it means to be in relationship, but what it means to be human (or animal, for we all know cats are so much better at manners and propriety than we are) in a world where people try to make order out of death and mental illness and broken hearts. De Gramont's stories remind us that beneath its laced up veneer, love is a messy set compromises, and men and women are as ragged and wind-whipped as the Cape Cod beaches featured in the stories. Incidentally, it's no accident that de Gramont's stories find themselves on the edge of wilderness----from the front range town in the Colorado Rockies to the Cape----these locations evoke the same tension the characters feel: that something in one's nature might turn dark at any moment, that the nature of the beast might very well reveal itself. And in the final story, "Lieutenant Island" de Gramont's themes come home to roost. In it, a young widow returns to Cape Cod and inhabits the wild landscape of her first marriage, a place where she must quite literally give in to the tide, which makes passage to and from her home impossible at certain times of the day and night. Once aligned with the natural world, Tara is free to take up loving again. In the end, de Gramont wants to examine what it means to be human or animal and judging from these stories, her answer lies somewhere in the indecipherable space of loving and desire, that like Lieutenant Island "floated away on a wide, unchangeable sea." This good stuff.
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