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Review
‘The stories in this collection are so immediately appealing you can devour them one after the other’ Independent on Sunday
Product Description
A wonderful collection of stories from the much-loved Salley Vickers.
The stories in this long-awaited collection by Salley Vickers all deal with psychological aspects of love: love given and withheld, love craved and lost, love met and disappointed; the differing shades of loves between friends, between parents and children, between children and other adults; love even, in one case, for a pet.
Psychologically acute, sharply written in lucid and often witty prose, these stories, set in Venice, Greece and Rome as well as London and the English countryside, take us into the complex geography of the human heart. Sometimes joyous and humorous, sometimes melancholy and poignant, this collection confirms Salley Vickers' reputation as one of our most subtle and engaging writers.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
26 of 26 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
Salley Vickers' well-known light touch and shrewd psychological analysis is brilliantly displayed in this collection of stories exploring the theme of love. The theme is captivatingly portrayed in the title story, whose subject, Aphrodite naked but for a wonderful hat in a painting by Cranach, suggestively adorns the cover. The stories are clever, poignant, wise and often disconcerting and strange. Few are about resolved love, many about the gaps, tragedies and pot holes of love. There are several slightly ghostly stories (I especially liked the one about the poet John Keats) and some very funny ones too (Mrs Radinsky about a medium and The Deal about a precocious six-year old getting the better of her parents). But my favourite was The Indian Child where a 'loquacious' Shakespeare meets and talks with his own creations. For those who loved Miss Garnet's Angel this is vintage Vickers beautifully presented and in cracking form.
10 of 10 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
Salley Vickers is one of my favourite novelists so I was delighted to find this, her first collection of short stories. She proves herself to be a master of the form, which seems particularly well suited to her deceptively subtle style. The lightness of touch disguises some sudden dives into depths of emotion, so that the reader is frequently caught off guard by the twist in the tale, as in the clever title story of the collection, or The Buried Life, which is a painfully accurate account of the pitfalls of making new relationships when there are children. But there are happy stories here too, such as the delightful Shakespearian fairy tail, The Indian Child, or the witty Green Bus to St Ives, about an unusual late love affair. Exquisite stuff!
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
I am not wild about collections of short stories generally - either the stories are overcompressed or too slight, or the sheer variety of the subject matter jars. This is a collection which I feel steers a good middle course. In confining the theme to love, the collection has sufficient cohesion. But each story has something a little different to say, and one reads it with a smile of enjoyment or acknowledgement.
Having said that though, I recently read Midsummer Night in the Workhouse - Diana Athill's collection of short stories about love, and in terms of skill, point and vision I felt these were quite a long way ahead. Part of the problem with the Vickers collection is that her calm semi detached - quasi psychoanalytical? - approach does place a barrier between the reader and the story. One observes wisely, from a distance; with Athill one lives the experience with her ...
So a pleasant enjoyable read, but not likely to be your book of the year.
Having said that though, I recently read Midsummer Night in the Workhouse - Diana Athill's collection of short stories about love, and in terms of skill, point and vision I felt these were quite a long way ahead. Part of the problem with the Vickers collection is that her calm semi detached - quasi psychoanalytical? - approach does place a barrier between the reader and the story. One observes wisely, from a distance; with Athill one lives the experience with her ...
So a pleasant enjoyable read, but not likely to be your book of the year.
Most Recent Customer Reviews
I didn't realise
I really enjoy Salley Vickers books; she's very inventive and kind - and keeps you guessing. The kind of books that I tend to keep and re-read. Read more
Published 6 months ago by C. A. Godden
Disappointingly Unoriginal
Having recently read Amy Bloom's outstanding "Where the God of Love Hangs Out" I was bound to compare these two collections of short stories. Read more
Published 8 months ago by clara76
Clumsy writing, trite story lines, scenes from a soap
The worst short stories I have ever read. They have the intellectual content of a radio soap opera. The prose is clumsy and needs a decent editor.
Published 10 months ago by Alan
Short Stories Re-discovered
I have never been a great fan of short stories or collections of them. I generally find that they are too dense and esoteric, trying to cram to much into a genre which does not... Read more
Published 14 months ago by A. J. Russell-pattison
Disappointing
I have been a big fan, I expect like many others, since Miss Garnett's Angel but I was very disappointed with this collection of short stories which I found rather facile.
Published 18 months ago by Mrs. G. M. Phillips
Delightful
Having read a number of Salley Vickers books, I always look out for a new one. Usually I am not a short story reader but I was delighted by this book. Read more
Published 18 months ago by Ella
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