Descent of Man: Stories (Contemporary American Fiction) [Paperback]

T.C. Boyle (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 27, 1990 | Series: Contemporary American Fiction

A mad, hilarious collection of short stories, wherein Boyle offers his unique view of dictators, animals, scientists, explorers, collectors, teetotalers, and others.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Depicting Lassie, Idi Amin, chimps and a Norse poet, "Boyle has X-ray vision when he considers the incongruities of the way we live and the things we do. He manages to find weak spots, capitalize on them, build from them wild and absurd stories that give a new dimension to black humor," observed PW .
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 18 and up
  
• Paperback: 240 pages
• Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics) (July 27, 1990)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0140299947
• ISBN-13: 978-0140299946
• Product Dimensions: 7.8 x 5 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,083,667 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

T. C. Boyle is the author of eleven novels, including World's End (winner of the PEN/FaulknerAward), Drop City (a New York Times bestseller and finalist for the National Book Award), and The Inner Circle. His most recent story collections are Tooth and Claw and The Human Fly and Other Stories.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Often uneven, usually funny, always inventive., December 18, 2000

By 

darragh o'donoghue - See all my reviews

This review is from: Descent of Man: Stories (Contemporary American Fiction) (Paperback)

As with most first collections of short stories, 'Descent of Man' is pretty uneven. Too many stories feel like sketches for comedy shows, one joke spun out for pages. There are a few that are Kafka-lite, others a little too in love with the sound of their own voice; the last story, in its detached misogyny, leaves a nasty taste in the mouth.

This is still a highly entertaining book. Themes, subjects, charaters, motifs etc. recur, as the antiseptic, over-confident world of modern capitalism is blighted by beasts, nature, disasters: those things so alien to us we can never predict or destroy them, try as we might. This is an ugly re-vision of Darwin, evolution in reverse, survival of the sneakiest. The Boyle gallery of finks, thieves, perverts, latterday Josef Ks, cuckolds, killers, greed- and ambition-devouring monsters are not a pretty lot, but raise some delicious laughs.

There are some excellent pastiches here of Borges, Wells, Haggard etc., but, and perhaps this is the flaw, we're always reading Boyle. 'The Second Swimming' (about Mao's birthday celebrations), 'The Big Garage' (the mock-Kafka tale of a motorist's car breaking down) and 'The Extinction Tales' (an extraordinary catalogue of historical 'progress') at least are masterpieces. A fun way to enjoy the end of the world.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Melange of Boyle's Greatest, December 14, 2000

By 

[e-mail] (Washington,D.C.) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Descent of Man: Stories (Contemporary American Fiction) (Paperback)

... This could be one of the best collections of short stories by an author I have ever read in my entire life. The title story is utterly brilliant and one of the most amusing. My favorite, HEART OF A CHAMPION, is the one I thought brought about the most internal laughter, the story of a boy and his collie. Other favorites, most of them more thought-provoking than ha-ha-worthy include THE SECOND SWIMMING, A WOMAN'S RESTAURANT, THE EXTINCTION TALES, and DROWNING. A strange thing I noticed: the stories seem to progress from funny to gloomy according to their appearance. I had originally planned to exchange this book with a friend once I was done, but when I had finished it I knew that I would want to read this again. Of all the emotions these stories force you to accept, disappointment isn't one of them.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars T. C. Boyle is a new Kurt Vonnegut, October 19, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Descent of Man: Stories (Contemporary American Fiction) (Paperback)

The scarcastic humor found in "Desent of Man" was remesiant of Kurt Vonnegut and Franz Kafka. I enjoyed how T. C. Boyle picked apart the over-inflacted egos of the Gifted. He had one burned alive for taking a photograph of God dead. The Nihilistic pleaseure of a collector going out on a limb to collect an ancient beer can and his discription of a Researchers sexual experements with apes impressed me. No other book had such a darkly scarcastic vain and yet was written with intellegence. I also liked the twists in his stories thay kept the book exciting and alive. Like Hitchcock you will never know what "nice" fate T. C. Boyle has in mind for his pompus characters.