Unspeakable Practices, Unnatural Acts [Paperback]

Donald Barthelme (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: 1969

One of the US's most sylish and original satirists - a collection of stories

Product Details

• Paperback: 165 pages
• Publisher: Bantam; First Edition edition (1969)
• ASIN: B000EVHCM4
• Product Dimensions: 6.9 x 4.2 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,592,639 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A collection of surreal stories, July 26, 2002

By 

Michael J. Mazza - See all my reviews
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This review is from: UNSPEAK PRACTICES (Paperback)

"Unspeakable Practices, Unnatural Acts" is a collection of 15 short stories by Donald Barthelme. The pieces contained are as follows: "The Indian Uprising," "The Balloon," "The Newspaper Here," Robert Kennedy Saved from Drowning," "Report," "The Dolt," "The Police Band," "Edward and Pia," "A Few Moments of Sleeping and Waking," "Can We Talk," "Game," "Alice," "A Picture History of the War," "The President," and "See the Moon?". The collection as a whole is surreal, often bizarre, and often a lot of fun.

My favorites from this collection are as follows: "The Balloon," in which a giant balloon is inflated over Manhattan (this story in particular raises questions about the nature and meaning of art); "The Dolt," about a man "preparing to take the National Writers' Examination" (this one contains segments of a story-within-the-story); "The Police Band," about the hoped for "triumph of art over good sense"; "Game," a claustrophobic psychological study of two officers confined in what sounds like a missile launching site; and "See the Moon?", a warped look at parenthood and academia (this story has quite a bit of alliteration and amusing wordplay). This collection as a whole reveals Barthelme to be an inventive practitioner of the short story form.

0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars unspeakable practices, March 17, 2009

By 

E. Douglas Mitchell (kings valley oregon) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Unspeakable Practices, Unnatural Acts (Mass Market Paperback)

I read "the school" in an anthology, and liked it. But I guess I'm too straight, as these stories are a bit off the wall to me...

0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Washington Post-Modernist Marsh, January 18, 2006

By 

Far Lefkas (Balto.-WDC metro area) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Unspeakable Practices, Unnatural Acts. (Paperback)

In my junior & senior years in college, I skipped studying to read Barthelme: alienation in the social swamp has altered actions. Barthelme's characters don't look @one another; they "regard" one another; they interpret dreams as easily as some whine about their bosses ("Madame Cherokee's Dream Book flew into his hand."). They "listened for loudness."

I still don't think I can explain what postmodernism is, but it can't be nearly as funny as Barthelme. Some of his finest "fragments" are here: "The President" ("Who is this person @, Miss Kagle, & what is he to you?"); "Report"; "Edward & Pia"; "Game"; & the mother fragment, "See the Moon" ("See the moon? It hates us."), an interior monologue to his unborn child ("little Gog").

Like so many writers, Barthelme's best stuff is squeezed into a few volumes: this is one of them.