Customer Reviews

The Country Ahead of Us, The Country Behind

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I'm aghast when I read the reviews of my fellow readers but then I take in account the common misperception that a short story is somehow easier to write or a lesser achievement than a novel. The truth is that short stories are more difficult to write, every sentence must punctuate, there is no breathing room. In the two novels I have read of Guterson, the endless pages of description are wonderful but can be top-heavy at times, whereas these stories are lean creations, leaving me wanting more. While it's no Pigeon Feathers, Guterson has been handed the wordsmithing baton from Updike, and the rich prose reminds me of Updike, satiating a yearn I have for quality short stories. I thoroughly enjoyed these, I liked them better than either of his novels, I hope he writes more.

This audio collection contains two cassettes and unabridged versions of many of the short stories in Guterson's collection, but not all stories are included in the audio version. Sorry I can't tell you which ones are here, cause the cover for some reason has no contents listed, and narrator Campbell Scott often moved so fast from one story to the next I never heard the title of half of them.

By and large, I liked the stories on tape number one, especially the poignant tale of two brothers growing up in the 1960's whose family leaves their Oregon coastal motel and moves to Seattle. I think that one was titled "Day of the Moonwalk" or something like that. There is a real sense of nostalgia here, and the interplay between the brothers was heartwarming as they realized they didn't share a bedroom anymore, and as they scoured downtown Seatlle for a basketball hoop.

I also enjoyed the duckhunting tale (probably "Opening Day"), as well as the doomed romance between a bookish young girl and a minor league pitching prospect. I thought the book was narrated effectively by actor Campbell Scott (he of the movie "Singles"), who handled dialogue especially well.

However, especially once we get to tape two, Guterson sometimes lapses into an overly descriptive, somewhat experimental style that probably would give creative writing professors nationwide fits. I was particularly appalled by the story involving the young guy who wanders over an old man's land in Massachusetts, on his way to a nursing home to care for the elderly. Throughout the story, Guterson bombards the reader with an endless array of adjectives and adverbs, over-extending his sentences with unnecessary verbal flourishes that ruined the otherwise mediocre story for me. Hemingway, always a proponent of lean, unflowery prose, would have spun in his grave had he heard this one.

I really liked Snow Falling on Cedars, and Guterson has a knack for writing about the Pacific Northwest and using the setting as an integral part of the story. These stories show a young writer first experimenting and finding his voice, with a handful of successes surrounded by an occasional clunker.

My daughter said Guterson is a good writer. She is right. This collection of his short stories is interesting, thought-provoking, sometimes upsetting.

Guterson's stories are set, loosely, in the Northwest; Washington, I take it. They are the narratives of men who remember events or chains of events that had meaning to them, but who offer no interpretations. That is left to us. Though the specific events weren't all familiar to me, the situations and feelings were.

All of the stories in the collection deal with boys growing into men, of poor starts and poor transitions into manhood, of friends who drifted away, of love that was thrown away. Some of the pictures Guterson draws are sorrowful, as when he remembers the hunt on which his father began to show the first unmistakable signs of old age, and the romance that the author left behind to become a baseball star.

This road that we travel with Guterson, the one stretching behind and ahead, is a hard one. It's full of pain. But the journey's to a better place, and we have to make it. The stories affected me powerfully, especially as I read them in middle age.

Guterson is not shallow, and his prose is often difficult. In a few stories the syntax was so involved that I had to read passages several times. Sometimes I understood them. Other stories were written simply; they communicated easily to me. The fault is largely mine; I had been reading so many escape novels that I wasn't in shape to contend with stories full of real thought written in challenging style. But Guterson's writing isn't easy. When he wrote these stories he was younger. Was he under the close guidance of a mentor he wanted to impress, and so felt encouraged to exercise his prose?

I'll try the other Guterson book my daughter recommended when I can find it. This young Guterson is a good writer with a good early insight into something worth examining. He's older now. With a little age undoubtedly will have come more stability of expression.

This collection of short stories is flat, unmoving, and quite pretentious. I remain completely unimpressed.

Had I read this before I heard of Snow Falling on Cedars, I would not have read my all-time favorite novel. The poetic language and eloquent description that so impressed me in Snow Falling on Cedars seemed over done and contrived in this collection.

Yes, it shows a bit of promise -- just not enough to be worth reading. I recommend skipping this collection if it isn't required reading. However, I do look forward to reading a collection of short stories by David Gutterson once he has mastered the art of subtlty and once he has learned to moderate his flare for description.

I'm surprised how many really did NOT like his stories. It seems that after reading his novel, they wanted greater things from these early short stories. I found lots of promise in these short stories with much of the subtle style that he uses later in Snow Falling. The strongest stories in the collection involve young boys growing up in the Northwest. Although the action is lots of hunting and fishing, there is a major undercurrent of emotional tension and frustration. In some ways, these remind me of some of Hemingway's early stories, not so much in terms of style, but setting. The Hunters, for instance, brought back images of Hemingway's The Battler. If I could have given this collection 3 1/2 stars, I would have, but it's just short of 4. Still, I enjoyed almost every story in the collection. Guterson is a "show" not tell type of writer, so I suspect some readers weren't watching closely enough. There's beauty and depth in some of these stories.

An excellent selection of short stories. The author's eye and talent for looking into a characters thoughts and behaviors is clearly developing here. They really show how much of his later novel themes were coming about in both characterization and settings.

Guterson in smaller bites. The pictures evoked by "Snow Falling on Cedars" and the thoughts from "East of the Mountains" come
differently, but every bit as clearly.
Not as different as "The Other", and perhaps that was due to the medium.
I look forward to his next novel, more than short stories.

I liked the stories, but I preferred Snow Falling on Cedars to this one. Mostly because I'm not a huge short story fan.

It surprises me to see the mixed reviews for The Country Ahead of Us, the Country Behind. I found (most of) the stories to be well conceived, beautifully written, and poignant.
I first read Mr. Guterson's Snow Falling on Cedars and East of the Mountains and I will say that his collection of short stories is a much different literary experience. It stems, I think, from the fact that the approach in writing a short story is much different than writing a novel (I am a budding writer myself, dabbling in short stories). Narratives must be much more concise, and are often centered around a specific single idea or event. There is no room for fluff, and for the most part, Guterson executes these ideas very well in this collection.
Dealing primarily with characters and locations in the Pacific Northwest, all the stories are worth a look but the strongest showings here are "Wood Grouse on a High Promontory Overlooking Canada", "Opening Day", and "Arcturus".
As a nota bene, I believe this work was published before his full length novels and Guterson's staccato writing style is more prominent here, but is often used to great effect. Worth a look in any case for any fan of Guterson's work.

A beautifully written collections of short stories that explores the many facets of the human life. Guterson has managed to evoke the emotions through the use of situations that draws us deeper into the human mind and soul. Beautiful and captivating.