10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Even Twenty-Two Point Two Percent Ain't Bad, January 17, 2007
Elliot Perlman's collection of short stories, THE REASONS I WON'T BE COMING, was a Christmas gift that I put on my stack of books to be read. I'm not sure how it worked its way to the top of the pile so quickly, but after reading the wee introductory offering, "Good Morning, Again" I had to read the other eight.
I found all nine to be good stories, and, as other reviewers have pointed out, the final piece was an excellent representation, and perhaps even a stand-alone work, but for me, the story that was the most powerful and complete was "I Was Only in a Childish Way Connected to the Established Order." Besides being well crafted, with most of the characters highly developed, it was a story describing the allusiveness of sanity. Examining what is crazy, and what is normal through the eyes of a poet is nothing new, but here Perlman takes a fresh approach, moving from a blissful city life to the stress and strain of a country existence.
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9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
more entertaining wisdom from Perlman, March 6, 2006
This review is from: The Reasons I Won't Be Coming (Hardcover)
Though these stories are perhaps not as creatively sophisticated as Perlman's novel, SEVEN TYPES OF AMBIGUITY (shich I strongly recommend), they are nonetheless compelling and satisfying in their own right. My understanding is that he wrote them prior to SEVEN TYPES . . . , so they offer a glimpse into the tremendous potential that was to be fuly realized in the longer work. That said, I thoroughly enjoyed this collection. Perman's voices are memorable, and his themes are poignant. The first and last stories, for example, are two of my favorites, yet they are completely different in style, setting, plot and characterization. In this way, I believe that the shorter literary form serves Perlman's talent for versatility well. Indeed, it is exciting to consider what he will give us next.
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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Reasons To Read "Reasons...", May 25, 2007
Perlman's writing style is the kind of deceptively simple literary pulp that might finally bring intelligent books back into vogue. The mass-produced mush that often clots the shelves of bookstores has its place, but it has also made works of genius tiresome affairs for most people. No one likes to be talked down to, least of all by an inanimate object.
Perlman's writing follows in the footsteps of authors like
Cheever and
Carver, men who throw their ten cents in but make it look like two. These are the kinds of works that don't fly over the head, but that are also much deeper and more dangerous than they initially seem. As a result, people don't feel alienated by the text, nor do the intelligentsia feel slighted by the material.
Short stories are tough acts for novelists, though. Even if Perlman's deft strokes show in the tales of this book, his limitations are likewise revealed. How to contain, in a handful of pages, the breadth and beauty that these guys more artfully employ in hundreds of pages or more? Below is a brief list of the stories, in order of accomplishment.
1 Star - MANSLAUGHTER - An overlong excuse for Perlman to use the technical knowledge he has gained in his work as a barrister. The fluctuating narratorial threads and the ambivalent emotion of the piece showcase the post-modern emotion behind concepts like "guilt" and "justice," but the overall product is bloated, unwieldy, and boring in the way of uber-technical curios.
2 Stars - THE HONG KONG FIR DOCTRINE & SPITALNIC'S LAST YEAR - Both of these are brief character pieces that suffer from opposite maladies. The first has an ending that is far too on the nose; the strength of the metaphor that Perlman employs (the title's doctrine) is sapped by his overt use of it. The second, about a grad student with lousy luck (mostly in love), has an ending so foggy and unrefined that it makes a mockery of the word "last" in the title. If that's where the impetus of the story is to lie, in the word "last," then I'd suggest the story didn't need to be quite so deliberate with its details.
3 Stars - YOUR NIECE'S SPEECH NIGHT & A TALE IN TWO CITIES - The former is a stream-of-consciousness look at the thoughts of a man who is jilted by a duplicitous lover. The story is told in the fashion that Perlman seems to enjoy the most (i.e. to "you"), and although it is a remarkably intense piece, the narrator's muddled mess of a mind makes it hard to read. Ultimately, the monologue collapses under the cleverness of the plot and the stupidity (or ignorance) of the main character. The latter story is a brief treatise on the historical persecution of Russian jews mingled with a tongue-in-cheek detective story about a missing brother. Both stories have Perlman's flair for language and revelation, but the two threads do NOT mix well at all. Perlman is good, but not good enough to flop back and forth between weighty social portents and breezy barroom jokes.
4 Stars - GOOD MORNING, AGAIN & THE REASONS I WON'T BE COMING & I WAS ONLY IN A CHILDISH WAY CONNECTED TO THE ESTABLISHED ORDER - The mental flotsam that fills a man's head in the post-dawn hours after a one-night stand. The simple and somehow unsurprising steps that lead numbly and quietly to a seemingly happy couple's separation. The steady wasting away of a poet's sanity and the things it takes for him to find his own heart again. Solidly driven, all of these pieces, and containing the multi-layered punch of Perlman's seductive prose.
5 Stars - IN THE TIME OF DINOSAURS - Writing from the perspective of a young boy who watches his family fall apart, the pathos and tender withdrawl of this story is eloquently realized. No maudlin strings are pulled, and emotion is consciously toned down, so that the young child's experiences seem ever more present. Perlman refuses to inject his narrator's world with the judgements and understandings of a man more mature, allowing his readers to do that for him. The effect is stunning.
It's the good and the bad. The dull and the sparkling. Short story collections are often hit and miss. As far as this book's score, well, you do the math.
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