The Country Ahead of Us, The Country Behind (Vintage Contemporaries)

Rating:
Summary: Better than Snow
Review: I'm aghast when I read the reviews of my fellow readers but then I take in account the common misperception that a short story is somehow easier to write or a lesser achievement than a novel. The truth is that short stories are more difficult to write, every sentence must punctuate, there is no breathing room. In the two novels I have read of Guterson, the endless pages of description are wonderful but can be top-heavy at times, whereas these stories are lean creations, leaving me wanting more. While it's no Pigeon Feathers, Guterson has been handed the wordsmithing baton from Updike, and the rich prose reminds me of Updike, satiating a yearn I have for quality short stories. I thoroughly enjoyed these, I liked them better than either of his novels, I hope he writes more.

Rating:
Summary: beautiful writing
Review: The short story much more demanding of an author than a novel is, yet David Guterson's writing is much better here than in Snow Falling on Cedars. Fantastic.

Rating:
Summary: A very mixed bag
Review: This audio collection contains two cassettes and unabridged versions of many of the short stories in Guterson's collection, but not all stories are included in the audio version. Sorry I can't tell you which ones are here, cause the cover for some reason has no contents listed, and narrator Campbell Scott often moved so fast from one story to the next I never heard the title of half of them.

By and large, I liked the stories on tape number one, especially the poignant tale of two brothers growing up in the 1960's whose family leaves their Oregon coastal motel and moves to Seattle. I think that one was titled "Day of the Moonwalk" or something like that. There is a real sense of nostalgia here, and the interplay between the brothers was heartwarming as they realized they didn't share a bedroom anymore, and as they scoured downtown Seatlle for a basketball hoop.

I also enjoyed the duckhunting tale (probably "Opening Day"), as well as the doomed romance between a bookish young girl and a minor league pitching prospect. I thought the book was narrated effectively by actor Campbell Scott (he of the movie "Singles"), who handled dialogue especially well.

However, especially once we get to tape two, Guterson sometimes lapses into an overly descriptive, somewhat experimental style that probably would give creative writing professors nationwide fits. I was particularly appalled by the story involving the young guy who wanders over an old man's land in Massachusetts, on his way to a nursing home to care for the elderly. Throughout the story, Guterson bombards the reader with an endless array of adjectives and adverbs, over-extending his sentences with unnecessary verbal flourishes that ruined the otherwise mediocre story for me. Hemingway, always a proponent of lean, unflowery prose, would have spun in his grave had he heard this one.

I really liked Snow Falling on Cedars, and Guterson has a knack for writing about the Pacific Northwest and using the setting as an integral part of the story. These stories show a young writer first experimenting and finding his voice, with a handful of successes surrounded by an occasional clunker.