Collection of stories about people who are far from home, all, in thier way, discovering life, death, and eros.
Book Description
Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com Review
The first half of this short story collection presents the sexual education and awakening and education of Cass, whom we first meet at age 10, watching her aunt bathe herself in a stream, and who eventually lands in Paris and launches affairs with her aunt's lover and her own brother. These libertine adventures are related in a cool, detached style reminiscent of Marguerite Duras. Mazur is concerned not with passion and ecstasy but with the delicate, subtle tracery of the sense, the scent of durian, the look of the male genitalia, the whisper of silk on skin. Cass is touched lightly, if at all, by guilt, and no terrible consequences result from her incestuous love. She is also a sharp, wry observer of family life, and Mazur leavens her erotic exploration with a couple of riotous family dinners.
From Publishers Weekly
Mazur takes her readers on a journey around the world in 11 often subtly connected short stories that are meant to appeal to the senses and the gypsy spirit. In Singapore she evokes the smell of orange trees; in Paris the griffins and monkeys perched on an old cathedral; in Boston the "beginning pulses of the wind" as a hurricane begins. Mazur records the sensation of the present while each of her characters, in a distinct voice, records the past that surrounds it. The clever nuances of the stories (particularly those involving the figure of Cass) are immensely pleasing. When Cass is modeling nude for her Aunt Marika in "Backlighting," the reader understands both the significance of their relationship and the complexity of the younger woman's attachment to France as related in "Privacy," the first story in the collection. The apex of Cass's journey occurs in "The Lights of Love"; she is in Singapore, recounting her French odyssey for Max, the amorous husband of a close friend. Here, Cass's dialogue is skillfully crafted to reply to questions that were left unanswered at the end of "Foreign Things." Mazur's writing is generously descriptive and lyrical and her dialogue is subtly apt, but most of all it is rare to find a collection that works as coherently as this.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Silk: sensual satisfying stories,
By A Customer
This review is from: Silk (Paperback)
Grace Dane Mazur is a biophysicist, and has a scientist's
eye for detail. But she's also a poet, to judge by her
skillful use of words, and she has a painter's
appreciation for the language of natural light.
Many of the stories in this slim collection are connected. They relate crucial, character-forming episodes in the life of Cassandra. The stories are set in Paris, the American Northwest, and South East Asia and are filled with the sensual experiences of foreign life - the reverent silence of catacombs, the roar of a monsoon and the exotic taste of durian. But best of all are the characters. They are complex, human and falliable. It is a delight to watch them change and grow from one story to the next. We first meet Cassandra as a young girl, then as a graduate student in Paris and again as a working scientist. Some of the stories are told in the first person (Cassandra's point of view) and some in the third person; this mix of viewpoints allows the author to give us a fuller appreciation of Cassandra's character. Highly recommended, especially if you've been to Paris or South East Asia, or ever eaten a durian.
5.0 out of 5 stars
A wonderful collection of short stories,
This review is from: Silk (Paperback)
Silk is a collection of eleven short stories. Several of the stories are about the sexual development of a woman we first meet at age ten, Cass. The stories about Cass are very bold and have the power to shock. She first gets a sense of the notion of sexuality when she watches her aunt, who is enough younger than her mother so she does not see her maternally, enjoying an erotic stimulation from bathing nude from the waist down in a fast flowing stream. I think Mazur shows incredible narrative skill and subtly with this theme as just as ten year old Cass is confused initially by what her aunt is doing, the reader of the story is also confused as to what is happening and what is going on in the mind of Cass. In a very shocking story, we see the long term incestuous relationship of the now young adult Cass and her older brother. This is a very daring story that Mazur powerfully develops and once we understand how it happens we are on the edge of accepting, even though we know we cannot. Another reason I liked these stories is that the people in them are into interesting things and talk about them in a way that seems real. I was simply fascinated in one of the stories when an older woman who was an expert on French cave art speculated about what the music of the painters of the famous cave images might have been like. Her account of the recreation of this music was fascinating and made perfect sense. The stories are also set in interesting places from the art quarters of Paris, to Cambridge, Ma, to Singapore. I really enjoyed it when one of the characters buys a durian at a Vietnamese market for her boyfriend. Durians smell so bad that airlines in Thailand, where they are common, will not let people on the plane carrying them. They are also so heavy, imagine a bowling ball with protruding spikes, that every year several people sitting under a durian tree (OK not a bright place to take a nap) are killed when a falling fruit hits their head. I have had several times Durian meringue pie and I really like it but it might not be for everyone. The people in the stories also have interesting professions they are passionate about, not just jobs. Some of the characters work are curators in museums and some do research work on silkworms, something the author did herself for years. The title story, "Silk" centers on the life of a woman who has dedicated her working life to the study of silk worm eggs. I learned a lot about silk worms from this story and one other one also. Silk is a wonderfully collection of short stories about interesting engaged by life people, sometimes hurt and pushed into partially destructive behavior by loneliness. It also about competition of women for men. The prose in these stories is exquisite. There is a lot to be learned from these stories but that is an incidental pleasure. At places I gasped at the beauty of the stories.
3.0 out of 5 stars
Exotic and poetical,
By Reader "cvrcak1" (Boca Raton, FL) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Silk (Paperback)
I have picked out this book at my local library's summer booksale. I realy liked the title. I love silk and just wearing it brings back the memories of the wonderful time I have pent in Southeast Asia. I was curious to find out the author's reasons for choosing the title. It was delight to find out that this talented writer is both scientist and a poet, cosmopolitan in cast of characaters she introduces in her stories - as well as wonderful places around the world used for staging some of her stories. Her characters are complex and vulnerable. Some of the stories are connected, so in some ways the book feels like a sort of novella, too. After reading it I had a feeling that this book is strongly personal for Ms. Mazur and that it has its strength in the possibility of being semi-autobiography mixed with dash of fiction.
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