A chance encounter prompts an ageing professor to regret a lifetime of wasted opportunities; a beautiful wife tests her husband by making herself hideous; for the love of a girl, a boy turns himself into a violoncello. Funny, magical and strange, in these seven short stories Dan Rhodes lays bare the pain and enchantment of love.
Don't Tell Me the Truth About Love
and over 1.5 million other books are available for Amazon Kindle . Learn more
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||
Did you know you can trade in your old books for an Amazon.co.uk Gift Card to spend on the things you want? Visit the Books Trade-In Store for more details. Learn more. |
Book Description
Frequently Bought Together
Product details
Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
|
More About the Author
Discover books, learn about writers, and more.
Product Description
Amazon Review
With this new collection of short stories, Dan Rhodes keeps as his subject the intricacies and deficiencies of desire, but his methods have changed. At some junctures he appears to be aiming for the mythopoetic tone and ominous symbolism of fairy tale--more than one of these pieces, for instance, is set in a dark, foreboding, Hansel-and-Gretel type forest. An example is the story "Painting", where an artist creates a portrait of a lady so beautiful it slays with love all who see it (uncannily like Monty Python's "funniest joke in the world", which kills with laughter all who hear it). Other stories come across as mainstream, but turn out equally pixilated: "Violoncello" evolves from a family saga in modern Vietnam to a weird fable about a boy becoming a musical instrument; "Landfill" has a prosaic face but the undertone is magical realist. Yet one of the very best stories, "The Carolingian Period", is set squarely in a very real world: academia. It tells the melancholy story of an old architecture professor in too much of a hurry, and it shows quite how moving Rhodes can be especially when he isn't turning post-modern literary tricks.
Rhodes's first collection, Anthropology, was a quiver of literary arrows: an ensemble of pointed pithy and often very poignant short stories focusing principally on the anguish and lunacy of love. As such it won much praise and attention, despite, or because of, its peculiarities of style. Don't Tell Me The Truth About Love is no less intriguing. --Sean Thomas --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Review
* By the time you find the story you most relate to, you won't be sorry to be alone after all. The Sun * ...bittersweet yet absurdly magical stories that will pull at your heart strings. By forcing the hitherto unobservable, he shows us an unknown world. ... it's frequently hilarious, and certainly memorable. ...the story turns into a moving dissertation upon the nature and profundity of romantic love, and the all but unbearable effect of its loss...Not until the end do you realise just how good this book is, haunting you long after it has been put down. "For all the picturebook simplicity of Rhodes' storytelling his characters are rarely less than credible, and the emotion genuine. The Times
Inside This Book
(Learn More)
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful
By A Customer
Format:Hardcover
Someone's already described Rhodes' idea of love as "Eden with bear-traps" and that isn't far out. He's both a cynical realist and a total romantic. Of course you can find a magician to change you into a cello, so that the girl musician who doesn't love you will hold and play you forever. But there's a catch - there always is. The message of these little fables, more or less, is "love's more trouble than it's worth but that won't stop it happening". It's like reading fairytales gone terribly wrong, and always with Rhodes' highly individual, engrossing style. Unputdownable.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
If you liked Anthroplogy, then you will love this book. Each story is beautifully written and you will want to read them over and over again. Dan Rhodes has confirmed himself as one of the most important new writers of the 21st centuary.
3 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Moving up from very short- 'Anthropology''s stories are only 101 words long- to just quite short, Rhodes manages to cast the same spell of opening up a private universe in the space of a few paragraphs. These stories are lovely, funny, sad, and often surprising. I was particularly fond of 'Beautiful Consuela', but each one is a little gem. Buy this immediately and put some quality back into your reading life!
Would you like to see more reviews about this item?
›
Go to Amazon.com to see all 4 reviews
3.2 out of 5 stars
Were these reviews helpful?
Let us know
Most Recent Customer Reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
Surprising, original and funny. Classic Dan Rhodes.
I chose this book for my book group, having been given the genre of "short stories".
Like the other Dan Rhodes books I have read and loved (The Little White Car... Read more
Like the other Dan Rhodes books I have read and loved (The Little White Car... Read more
Published 1 month ago by Cicely Rose
4.0 out of 5 stars
A collection of twisted love stories
Dan Rhodes is probably a bit like Marmite, a kind of love or hate affair.
His stories are often a little twisted, often sad, sometimes silly, but usually in a strange way... Read more
His stories are often a little twisted, often sad, sometimes silly, but usually in a strange way... Read more
Published 2 months ago by YeahYeahNoh
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Great Collection of Dark Fairytales for Adults
`Don't Tell Me The Truth About Love' rather unsurprisingly given its title is a collection of love stories with a twist, brilliant, just my thing. Read more
Published 13 months ago by Simon Savidge Reads
3.0 out of 5 stars
Half-joking work-out for love
Unlike his wonderful novel, Timoleon Vieta Come Home, Rhodes's plain, stripped-down, almost disaffected style of writing adds little to the benefit of his subject in these stories. Read more
Published on 21 Sep 2009 by Eileen Shaw
5.0 out of 5 stars
Genius
If you only ever read one book in your lifetime, make it this one. Dan writes with more emotion in a few lines than many more recognised authors manage in 100 pages.
Published on 26 Feb 2001
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
Listmania!
Look for similar items by category
Feedback
- Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
- I am the Author, and I want to comment on my book.
- I am the Publisher, and I want to comment on this book.
|
