Forty Stories (Penguin Twentieth Century Classics)
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Product Description
Product Description
This collection of pithy, brilliantly acerbic pieces is a companion to Sixty Stories, Barthelme's earlier retrospective volume. Barthelme spotlights the idiosyncratic, haughty, sometimes downright ludicrous behavior of human beings, but it is style rather than content which takes precedence.
About the Author
Donald Barthelme (1931-1989) was the author of seventeen books and the winner of a National Book Award.
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First Sentence
MY wife wants a dog. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Back Cover
MY wife wants a dog. Read the first page
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Concordance
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Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Back Cover
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I bought this story collection after hearing Indian Uprising on a New Yorker fiction podcast. I was attracted to the way the story was more about words and their sound when collected, less about logic. And after reading many of the stories, I am really glad I found this author. He has a great sense of the absurd, and his humour is subtle and enjoyable. You can pick this collection up, read a story and reflect, and come back later to dip into again and get a taste of the absurd, or touching. Highly recommended!
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
10 reviews
17 of 17 people found the following review helpful
defies imitation
29 Jun 2000
Format:Mass Market Paperback
During Barthelme's lifetime, I think many readers thought that his work would permanently alter the short story form. He achieved such powerful effects; his stories were so funny, so moving, so original and offbeat, and yet so deceptively simple and effortless-seeming. I certainly expected that other writers would come along and produce similar stories, since he had shown how it should be done, and we would be innundated with Barthelme-like fiction. But I don't think that's really happened. There have been imitators, of course, but they've been mostly embarrassingly flat, replacing the master's edgy brilliance with silly incoherence. Barthelme defies all imitators; his stories continue to stand as one-of-a-kind monuments, written in a truly singular voice by a truly singular talent, to urban life in the late 20th century. Read them. I particularly love "The Genius," with its poignant and yet absurd portrait of the world's most brilliant man, and "At the Tolstoy Museum," with its hilarious drawings of the great author's supposedly gargantuan coat, etc. It's funny because it's (somehow) true, like all of his work. "40 Stories" is the best introduction to Barthelme, so if you don't know him, this is the place to start.
12 of 13 people found the following review helpful
A good, if a bit uneven, collection
25 Nov 2001
Format:Mass Market Paperback
This collection has many great short stories within it. Often, within this book, Barthelme shows himself to be an extremely creative and insightful writer. "Jaws" is a good example of this. Basically, it's a story about how people deal with their dissatisfaction in relationship; how lovers cope with significant others' inevitable inability to meet all their (the lovers') expectations. It follows a workers at a local A & P while he mediates the relationship of two customers (who are married to each other). He acts as a sort of counciler in their marriage. The interaction between the couple is extremely humorous, and yet very sad (as, I suppose, dysfunction can often be). It's an excellent piece of work, and it deals with a common theme throughout this collection: The dissatisfaction of couples in long-lasting relationships. "Chablis," "The Genius," and "Paul Klee..." are also all excellent short stories. They exhibit Barthelme's ability to be humorous and yet still get at an interesting/serious point (that is, not lose himself in zaniness).
After such praise, however, I must admit that this collection isn't without flaw. Out of the forty stories that are included in this book, I felt that about ten of them could have been pruned away. These stories (for example, "On the Deck," and "Blue Beard") seemed unfulfilled, and worse, overwritten. These, perhaps could have used a little more focus on content rather than style. It's true with almost any collection of short stories that not all of them are good, enjoyable, or interesting (that is, not all of them will catch your imagination). However, with this book there seemed to be quite a few of those. So despite the fact that many of the stories in this collection are great, I'm only giving it three stars.
I would recomend this to anyone in search of a humorous, challenging read. I would also, recomend this to someone who is interested in cutting edge, stylized short stories (after all 25-30 of them in this collection are very good). Many of the short stories in this collection are written in an unusual manner. For instance, "The Bodygaurd" is compose almost entirely of questions. I'm also of the opinion that those of you who like both Kurt Vonnegut jr. and Thomas Pynchon would find this collection interesting.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Tree Fruits
3 Oct 2010
Format:Paperback
Just over ten years ago a deeply righteous hombre with a handle to match--Omnipot, tray bong, non?--wrote right here on Amazon a nifty little five-star review of Mister Barthelme's Forty Stories. So here's the thing: the dude's opening paragraph mirrors so exactly what I myself wanted to say about my own recent encounter with the approximately fantastic Donald Barthelme that I'm going to go ahead and reprint the whole thing and hope Mister Pot doesn't sue me:
"I laughed and laughed and laughed and laughed and laughed and couple three times was even a little sad and one two times was made pensive with head on hand till I laughed and laughed and laughed and finished the story and read it again and laughed and laughed and laughed..."
That was me to a total tee too, right down to the last laugh. Seriously, that's the whole nine yards in a single nutshell right there, O-Dog, you sum up in extra fine what a confounded pleasure it is to be shot full of magic bullets by this particular Don. Kudos to yudos in any case, Omnipot, I literally could not have put it better myself. All I can add I guess is even if the rest of you punters out there only end up reading a couple of these sublime flash fictions try to make sure the ones you choose include The Genius, Sinbad, especially Sinbad, Chablis, Construction, Lightning, RIF, and Letters to the Editore--mini masterpieces each one, massy minor triumphs in comic brevity. This dude Donald indubitably knew wherefore his Sam and knew wherefore what's more his Flann too the cheeky old devil and these wide open channels condense here to sometimes thrillingly familiar effect. In The Explanation, for instance, a zippy little page-turner composed entirely of questions and answers and illustrated to boot with a big black square, Donny Boy even manages to miraculously conflate his two rightly revered Irish forebears into one hysterical question: "Is the bicycle dead?" Brilliant. Just in case I'll mention the stupendous Sinbad one more time coz this lethally funny word weapon had me in the crosshairs from the opening salvo. One last thing: skip the utterly charmless introduction by super sap Dave Eggers, it adds precisely nothing to the otherwise wacky and wonderful proceedings and seems animated mostly by a grotesque self-consciousness laced with the lamest light touch this side of Dave Barry. Oof sez I. Remember in The Simpsons when a bespectacled Radioactive Man was about to be engulfed in a giant wave of green toxic sludge and he yells out, "My eyes! The goggles do nothing!"? Well Eggers here is the goggles. Or should that be are the goggles? Who cares, yank and flitter this witless dweeb's feeble farking flapdoodle and go directly to the straight dope by Don B. This wickedly funny wordy gurdy man is the prose equivalent of The King Biscuit Flower Hour and his shorty shorts are perfect jets of the purest japery--like the great Omnipot sez, read 'em and laugh and laugh and laugh...
"I laughed and laughed and laughed and laughed and laughed and couple three times was even a little sad and one two times was made pensive with head on hand till I laughed and laughed and laughed and finished the story and read it again and laughed and laughed and laughed..."
That was me to a total tee too, right down to the last laugh. Seriously, that's the whole nine yards in a single nutshell right there, O-Dog, you sum up in extra fine what a confounded pleasure it is to be shot full of magic bullets by this particular Don. Kudos to yudos in any case, Omnipot, I literally could not have put it better myself. All I can add I guess is even if the rest of you punters out there only end up reading a couple of these sublime flash fictions try to make sure the ones you choose include The Genius, Sinbad, especially Sinbad, Chablis, Construction, Lightning, RIF, and Letters to the Editore--mini masterpieces each one, massy minor triumphs in comic brevity. This dude Donald indubitably knew wherefore his Sam and knew wherefore what's more his Flann too the cheeky old devil and these wide open channels condense here to sometimes thrillingly familiar effect. In The Explanation, for instance, a zippy little page-turner composed entirely of questions and answers and illustrated to boot with a big black square, Donny Boy even manages to miraculously conflate his two rightly revered Irish forebears into one hysterical question: "Is the bicycle dead?" Brilliant. Just in case I'll mention the stupendous Sinbad one more time coz this lethally funny word weapon had me in the crosshairs from the opening salvo. One last thing: skip the utterly charmless introduction by super sap Dave Eggers, it adds precisely nothing to the otherwise wacky and wonderful proceedings and seems animated mostly by a grotesque self-consciousness laced with the lamest light touch this side of Dave Barry. Oof sez I. Remember in The Simpsons when a bespectacled Radioactive Man was about to be engulfed in a giant wave of green toxic sludge and he yells out, "My eyes! The goggles do nothing!"? Well Eggers here is the goggles. Or should that be are the goggles? Who cares, yank and flitter this witless dweeb's feeble farking flapdoodle and go directly to the straight dope by Don B. This wickedly funny wordy gurdy man is the prose equivalent of The King Biscuit Flower Hour and his shorty shorts are perfect jets of the purest japery--like the great Omnipot sez, read 'em and laugh and laugh and laugh...
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