Airships

Rating:
Summary: They loved her at the Bargain Barn...
Review: A wonderful collection of stories that made me laugh outloud more than anything since the first time I read Celine. From one story to the next I was trully captivated. What sets him apart from other writers is his T.S. Eliot - like gift to come up with phrases that ring in your head like coins for years to come. No writer ever has been able to sum up a character in a single sentence like Hannah. Her husband was an intellectual in real estate... etc. The same is true in other volumes. Latouche (with metaphysical approaches named after him), is a good example.

I am not yet published but have written nine novels and hope my day will come soon. Hannah along with Richard Ford, Cormack McCarthy, Flaubert, Rilke, Celine, and Peter Handke, are my all-time favorites. Thanks for the inspiration!

Rating:
Summary: They loved her at the Bargain Barn...
Review: A wonderful collection of stories that made me laugh outloud more than anything since the first time I read Celine. From one story to the next I was trully captivated. What sets him apart from other writers is his T.S. Eliot - like gift to come up with phrases that ring in your head like coins for years to come. No writer ever has been able to sum up a character in a single sentence like Hannah. Her husband was an intellectual in real estate... etc. The same is true in other volumes. Latouche (with metaphysical approaches named after him), is a good example.

I am not yet published but have written nine novels and hope my day will come soon. Hannah along with Richard Ford, Cormack McCarthy, Flaubert, Rilke, Celine, and Peter Handke, are my all-time favorites. Thanks for the inspiration!

Rating:
Summary: Defining Work of Near Genius
Review: As a young man, this collection of stories catapaulted me into the fascinating world of stories and writing. I have since become a published author, and have never forgotten the passion for the written word that this book of eccentric, violent, strange and often hilarious stories instilled in me. I felt the need to defend this colletion from the ignoramus who misinterpreted Hannah's work, calling him a rascist and misogynist.

Rating:
Summary: For die-hard, jaded literature students only.
Review: Hannah is talented and he touches on some irresistable themes. The trouble seems that Mr. Hannah is bored and needs to turn lit on its head. He injects a sense of the surreal, magical realism, alcoholic visions and Faulkner desconstructions into stories that would be sincere and original enough without that needless showboating.

Rating:
Summary: all-in-all very good, yet something irked me . . .
Review: I admired this collection a lot. It is filled with beautiful, mostly inventive writing that features a collective whoop of good humor. Hannah is a sharp and strong and quite powerful writer and he has an ability to strip away characters until they are a raw,bloody pulp. He sees and knows and condemns these people too well, like he knows too much of this stuff and has spent all his life in contempt. This isn't, necessarily, a bad thing, and in Hannah's able hands many of the stories are legitimate treats, comprehension be damned!

But the sore root of this collection (aside from our individual tastes) is the sometimes clamouring of a drunken voice (probably legitimately drunken and occasionally veering into misunderstanding) that has some great things to say but too often finds itself distracted by an irritating minutiea. Sure, the blood and the sadness give several of these tales a needed visceral edge, the kind of voice that drags you there into the eye of the beast that is man. At other times the figures are too literal parodies, muscousy germs that struggle in the petry dish of the frequently cruel author's imagination.

In the end I would definately recommend Airships for the consistantly far-reaching attempts that these little stories of nobodies set out to explore--four or five of them I thought were absolutely wonderful. I would just offer a casual warning that a certain stretch may come when you're tired of trying so hard and find yourself simply not caring about what happens next. This is a very human reaction and one that is usually offered with the sometime forgiveness of a desire to someday return to such potential. This is a book to look over when in a mood of focused patience when you are willing to spend a week or two starting and stopping through a few pictures of hilarious misery that are warped at the edges by an ambitious refrain.

Rating:
Summary: all-in-all very good, yet something irked me . . .
Review: I admired this collection a lot. It is filled with beautiful, mostly inventive writing that features a collective whoop of good humor. Hannah is a sharp and strong and quite powerful writer and he has an ability to strip away characters until they are a raw,bloody pulp. He sees and knows and condemns these people too well, like he knows too much of this stuff and has spent all his life in contempt. This isn't, necessarily, a bad thing, and in Hannah's able hands many of the stories are legitimate treats, comprehension be damned!

But the sore root of this collection (aside from our individual tastes) is the sometimes clamouring of a drunken voice (probably legitimately drunken and occasionally veering into misunderstanding) that has some great things to say but too often finds itself distracted by an irritating minutiea. Sure, the blood and the sadness give several of these tales a needed visceral edge, the kind of voice that drags you there into the eye of the beast that is man. At other times the figures are too literal parodies, muscousy germs that struggle in the petry dish of the frequently cruel author's imagination.

In the end I would definately recommend Airships for the consistantly far-reaching attempts that these little stories of nobodies set out to explore--four or five of them I thought were absolutely wonderful. I would just offer a casual warning that a certain stretch may come when you're tired of trying so hard and find yourself simply not caring about what happens next. This is a very human reaction and one that is usually offered with the sometime forgiveness of a desire to someday return to such potential. This is a book to look over when in a mood of focused patience when you are willing to spend a week or two starting and stopping through a few pictures of hilarious misery that are warped at the edges by an ambitious refrain.

Rating:
Summary: fell flat, flat
Review: I had to read and reread and reread many of these stories in order to understand that there was nothing to understand. I have no idea what he was attempting to do, or if he attempted and did what he planned to do, I had no idea what it was he did. "Testimony of Pilot" was probably the only normal story in this collection. And I'll admit, it was a damn fine story. It amounted to twelve dollars for one story, and, that, for me, didn't feel worth it. Or maybe I'm just stupid--maybe ever story made perfect literary sense. As an avid reader of Raymond Carver, I am not easily impressed by short stories, since, being an English Major and a student of writing and Carver, I have certian expectations of short story writers. For one, don't be too literary--I get enough of Lit BS from going to class, and second, don't try to showboat or reinvent the short story. Or maybe I'm just ignorant--that could be it!

Rating:
Summary: fell flat, flat
Review: I had to read and reread and reread many of these stories in order to understand that there was nothing to understand. I have no idea what he was attempting to do, or if he attempted and did what he planned to do, I had no idea what it was he did. "Testimony of Pilot" was probably the only normal story in this collection. And I'll admit, it was a damn fine story. It amounted to twelve dollars for one story, and, that, for me, didn't feel worth it. Or maybe I'm just stupid--maybe ever story made perfect literary sense. As an avid reader of Raymond Carver, I am not easily impressed by short stories, since, being an English Major and a student of writing and Carver, I have certian expectations of short story writers. For one, don't be too literary--I get enough of Lit BS from going to class, and second, don't try to showboat or reinvent the short story. Or maybe I'm just ignorant--that could be it!