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Barbara Gowdy

We So Seldom Look on Love Paperback – January 1, 1997

by Barbara Gowdy (Author)

20 ratings

Now in paperback, this masterfully crafted story collection by the author of the internationally best-selling novel Mister Sandman is a haunting book that is certain to both disturb and entertain. With a particular focus on obsession and the abnormal, We So Seldom Look On Love explores life at its quirky extremes, pushing past limits of convention into lives that are fantastic and heartbreakingly real. Whether writing about the dilemma of a two-headed man who attempts to expunge his own pain, the shock of a woman who discovers she has married a transsexual, the erotic delusions of a woman who repeatedly exposes her body to an unknown voyeur, or the bizarre predilections of a female necrophile (a story made into the acclaimed motion picture, "Kissed"), Gowdy convinces us with incisive detail, only to disarm us with black humor.

Print length

256 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Steerforth
Publication date

January 1, 1997
ISBN-10

1883642000
ISBN-13

978-1883642006
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Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

From the author of the blockbuster Mister Sandman comes a gathering of unusual characters captured in the outrageous and humorous situations for which Barbara Gowdy has become famous. Teasing the taboos, Gowdy creates a marriage dialogue between a woman and her transsexual fiancé, who she thought was a man, and litigation between Samuel and Simon who share the same two-headed body. She peoples her stories with Siamese twins, a necrophile, and a pathetically lonely exhibitionist. And she brilliantly illustrates how uncomfortably close a connection comedy has to human suffering. The title story has been adapted into a movie called "Kissed.

Review

"Barbara Gowdy invites herself, and us, into taboo territory where love and disgust mingle freely. Nothing seems to hold back the narrative flow, not propriety, not politics, not even that ambiguity we once called good taste . . . Gowdy writes about the macabre, but she writes like an angel." -- Carol Shields, Boston Globe

Publisher : Steerforth; Reprint edition (January 1, 1997)
Language : English
Paperback : 256 pages
ISBN-10 : 1883642000
ISBN-13 : 978-1883642006
Item Weight : 9.8 ounces
Dimensions : 5.5 x 0.5 x 8.5 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #2,245,783 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #24,802 in Short Stories Anthologies
- #35,539 in Short Stories (Books)
- #187,029 in American Literature (Books)

Customer Reviews:
20 ratings

Customer reviews

5 star		67%
4 star		9%
3 star		9%
2 star 0% (0%)		0%
1 star		14%

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Top reviews from the United States

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Christy Leigh Stewart

Reviewed in the United States on July 25, 2010

Verified Purchase

There are fantastic stories in here like the beautiful necrophiliac or the two headed man personifying good and evil, but my favorite story was the one about the foster children. Gowdy told the story in a beautiful and loving way that made it far more arresting then other pieces I've read like it in which the authors try to be shocking.

Helpful

BagelSabrinaMittens

Like a Literature palette cleanser, in a good way.

Reviewed in the United States on June 17, 2016

Verified Purchase

A delightfully bizarre collection of short stories. If you're looking for something different, in bite-sized chunks, "We So Seldom Look On Love" will deliver.

Helpful

Jeanine M Claar

Great collection

Reviewed in the United States on April 17, 2013

Verified Purchase

I love her writing style. The movie Kissed prompted me to get this book and now I'm glad I did.

Helpful

A. Bishop

A beautiful and quirky world with hard choices

Reviewed in the United States on June 24, 2011

The author invites the reader into the minds of some curious characters who might be worthy of severe criticism, but the reader is invited to explore them without judgement like an anthropology ethnography. The characters are usually slightly naive, inexperienced, innocent, introspective, and acting in good faith. And they don't know it, but they are awfully quirky. Over the course of the stories they are learning just how quirky they are.

The world these stories takes place in is reminiscent of the playful black-humour novel Geek Love: A Novel by Katherine Dunn (1989) . Just slightly magical, which permits the flaws of the characters to be charming, highly visible, ridiculous, and perhaps ultimately allegorical. Also reminiscent of Margaret Atwood (another Canadian), particularly in the intensely self-aware and introspective nature of the characters--they spend a lot of time evaluating themselves and thinking. The last novel I'm reminded of is And the Ass Saw the Angel, Revised Edition by Nick Cave, except AASA is a difficult read and might have been more approachable in short story form.

The short story format is used well. Gowdy has a particular knack for ending short stories at the right time--before all the strings are tied up. A sensitive reader might occasionally find an ending heavy handed as it wraps up with commentary on the theme, but I found those endings an opportunity to spend a little more time with the the story and think about the ethical dilemmas posed.

I have a suggestion--Read this book but skip the first story. I think it is a disaster. Perhaps it was placed first as a warm-up to the world the stories take place in but it lacks the glowing life of the remaining stories. It also suffers from burdensome over-narration of internal thoughts of multiple characters that don't drive the story, has a total failure of imagination in trying to express a characters fascination with the visual world, and occasionally the description of physical events defy common sense and feel clumsy in a way that the editor should have dealt with. And it is entirely too long for the story it contains. The conceit is clever enough, just poorly executed.

First story aside, this is a charming collection of short stories and I'm distressed that there are only 9 reviews. (I was just writing a one-star review of The Girl With the Dragon tattoo which at this time has 2,733 reviews.) I think a sophisticated reader would enjoy this book unless they regularly find deeply introspective characters exhausting, despise magical realism (I liked this despite hating the emotional latino magical realism of Like Water For Chocolate, probably because LWFC wants to be magical while simultaneously utterly depressingly serious), or aren't prepared to approach circus freaks with a sense of humour.

Helpful

Cathleen

Gowdy's a master at making the unusual

Reviewed in the United States on April 23, 2003

An utterly amazing collection of short stories, many of which are related to one another, so they fit well together as a group. She has a knack for taking the most unusual or unconventional characters and situations and making them seem so realistic and sympathetic. One thing that always strikes me is that she seems to care about her characters so much. Despite their flaws, despite their outright freakishness at times, she, because of her affection for them, is able to convey to the reader their fundamental humanity. As a result, the focus is taken away from whatever makes them different, and we are instead drawn to see the similarities between them and ourselves.
Some images from this book will stay with me forever. Silvie and Sue as well as Simon and Samuel, two sets of siamese twins, each with their own story, for example. Incomparable characterization, simple but profound writing style, this book is absolutely unforgettable.
And, if I can sneak in another recommendation, check out "Mister Sandman" by the same author - as much as I loved this one, that one's even better!

3 people found this helpful

Helpful

belladena

Wow!

Reviewed in the United States on March 30, 2000

I'm not surprised - I knew Gowdy was an artist when I picked up her novel "Falling Angels" by accident. This book of short stories is an incredible and dizzying fall into the world of the bizarre - where everything that is off-the-wall, quirky, and unacceptable, becomes normal, textured, and sprinkled with a bit of reality - though not to the point of being ho-hum. Oh, no! Barbara Gowdy will grab you by the neck and MAKE you admit it's a beautiful world, filled with odd, gorgeous people. I love this author - she is the only writer I've ever known who revels and celebrates the crazy shapes and colours of the human animal.

9 people found this helpful

Helpful

Lytton Bell

Can necrophilia be heroic? You bet!

Reviewed in the United States on September 17, 2008

If you have ever had romantic yearnings for a corpse, or imagined a prom queen boning ('scuse the pun) some embalmed remains, this books is for you. I have never experienced a mental pathology in a way that made me so wistful and contemplative, so empathetic and receptive and alive. Give it a try! This book will open you petal by petal, to the sun.

2 people found this helpful

Helpful

Amazon Customer

Divine

Reviewed in the United States on November 18, 2002

I picked this book up on a whim, and discovered a jewel. The stories humanize those made inhuman by society and its constraints, and at the same time show the deeply ingrained pain they endure due to their differences. For those who enjoy Katherine Dunn's darkness (so stunningly seen in Geek Love), this book should be your next read.

One person found this helpful

Helpful

Top reviews from other countries

Came in good condition. I had no problems

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on October 28, 2015

Verified Purchase

Bought it for my sister. Came in good condition. I had no problems.

J. Scott Vauthier

The product is good. Gowdy also is a good Writer - however ...

Reviewed in Canada on October 22, 2017

Verified Purchase

The product is good. Gowdy also is a good
Writer - however I'm only giving this 3 stars as I felt some of the stories were dated and overly fetishized - this has the short story that was made into movie about necrophillia titled 'kissed'. Quick read.

Penny Mitton

Disappointing and weird.

Reviewed in Canada on August 31, 2013

Verified Purchase

All I can say is that these stories are really weird. It was chosen by our book club but what a disappointing read.

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