The 44 stories of Dreams of a Robot Dancing Bee—long-awaited by fans of Tate’s poetry—will come as a welcome surprise to readers unfamiliar with his previous work. Tate seems both awed and bemused by small town life, with its legends, flights of fancy, heightened emotions, tragedies and small ruptures in the fabric of ordinary existence.
| ||||||||||||||||||
Book Description
Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
Tate brings a poet's touch to the short stories in this astounding and bizarre collection, reflecting the writer's flair for black humor and absurdity as he explores the nooks and crannies of ordinary life. Tate is a blunt, sharp narrator who takes his stories in unexpected directions, and his talent for brevity surfaces in the many short-short entries that pack a powerful conceptual wallop in just a few pages. The longer stories aren't always as effective, but they still showcase the gifts of a remarkably versatile author who handles subjects ranging from politics and business to romance, marriage and infidelity. The political angle surfaces in "Traces of Plague Found Near Reagan Ranch," a cheeky tale about a prominent politician's son who finds himself longing for a simple life until his father is shot. Tate also plays the relationship card with aplomb in several stories, including "The Torque-Master of Advanced Video," a yarn about a video store manager whose romance begins to go sour when his tyrannical boss turns up the heat on him at work. Occasionally the stories are so strange that they simply defy categorization "Beep," for instance, deals with a character who barks out strange noises in inappropriate situations, while the title story is a brief poetic musing about a middle-class man's growing sense of alienation: "I am an experiment, a mechanical bee placed near the hive." Tate's style is definitely an acquired taste, but fiction lovers who come to this book with an open mind will find themselves challenged and entertained by a brilliant writer with a very fertile imagination. (Dec. 1)Forecast: Tate has won both the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award for his poetry, which will help draw attention to this excellent small press offering.
Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
From The New Yorker
Like forty-four test tubes, these stories contain a series of meticulously prepared chemistry experiments. In most, two disparate characters result in a highly unstable compound, producing a fizz, a moral insight, and a sense of personality as destiny. A wife realizes that her husband is crazy. A husband realizes that his wife is crazy. A closet boxing fanatic decides to run off to Egypt with a sexy young boxing fanatic. Whatever the dysfunction, Tate, the long-acclaimed poet, uses a disarmingly pedestrian voice to lure the reader to a place of bizarre poignancy. He makes eccentricity look good, as a poet should.
Copyright © 2005 The New Yorker
Copyright © 2005 The New Yorker
Product Details
Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
|
Customer Reviews
|
Share your thoughts with other customers:
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
9 of 19 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Not Mush,
By A Customer
This review is from: Dreams of a Robot Dancing Bee (Hardcover)
This is a terrific book. You deserve it. The sparks Tate throws riffing these short stories -- better than nothing you've read recently. Trust me. Get out your wallet.
Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
|
|
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Tags Customers Associate with This Product(What's this?)Click on a tag to find related items, discussions, and people.
|
Sell a Digital Version of This Book in the Kindle Store
If you are a publisher or author and hold the digital rights to a book, you can sell a digital version of it in our Kindle Store.
Learn more
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
Listmania!
|
|
