Customer Reviews

Randall Jarrell's Book of Stories (New York Review Books Classics)

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this is a superb anthology of stories, poems, fables and more collected by poet/novelist randall jarrell to illuminate the notion of "storytelling as a fundamental human impulse, one that announces itself at the moment, hidden in infancy, that dreams begin..." authors include kafka, chekhov, rilke, robert frost, gogol, elizabeth bowen, brecht, peter taylor, hans christian anderson, the book of jonah, anonymous, the brothers grimm, isaac babel, chuang t'zu, blake, tolstoy, turgenev, dinesen, among others. reading this reaffirms why i love to read, and puts in to relief that narrative timelessness so often missing in contemporary fiction. strange and dreamy, each story swallows you whole. i've read this twice and will return again.

For some years, this has been one of my favorite collections of miscellaneous short stories. The variety is impressive, and the editorship by Randall Jarrell is delightfully idiosyncratic and eclectic. I like the fact that he includes a few fairy tales and even the Biblical Book of Jonah, in addition to modern masters of the story form like Isak Dinesen and Frank O'Connor. Note that there are not many American or English short stories, however. Just for the record, the contents of the collection are: RANDALL JARRELL: Introduction;FRANZ KAFKA: A Country Doctor; ANTON CHEKHOV: Gusev;RAINER MARIA RILKE: The Wrecked Houses; The Big Thing; ROBERT FROST: The Witch of Co̦s; GIOVANNI VERGA: La Lupa; NIKOLAI GOGOL: The Nose; ELIZABETH BOWEN: Her Table Spread; LUDWIG TIECK: Fair Eckbert; BERTOLT BRECHT: Concerning the Infanticide, Marie Farrar; LEO TOLSTOY: The Three Hermits; PETER TAYLOR: What You Hear from `Em?; HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN: The Fir Tree; KATHERINE ANNE PORTER: He; ANONYMOUS: The Red King and the Witch; ANTON CHEKHOV: Rothschild's Fiddle; BROTHERS GRIMM: Cat and Mouse in Partnership; E. M. FORSTER: The Story of the Siren; THE BOOK OF JONAH; FRANZ KAFKA: The Bucket-Rider; SAINT-SIMON: The Death of Monseigneur; ISAAC BABEL: Awakening; CHUANG T'ZU: Five Anecdotes; HUGO VON HOFMANNSTHAL: A Tale of the Cavalry;
WILLIAM BLAKE: The Mental Traveller; D. H. LAWRENCE: Samson and Delilah; LEO TOLSTOY: The Porcelain Doll; IVAN TURGENEV: Byezhin Prairie; WILLIAM WORDSWORTH: The Ruined Cottage; FRANK O'CONNOR: Peasants; ISAK DINESEN: Sorrow-Acre.