Short Stories Books

What a delightful work for the very young. A Mom Duck is searching for her one "lost" duckling and searches the pond, asking the other creatures "have you seen my duckling?" Of course the duckling is not actually lost, and if you and your child look close, the duckling can be found here and there, hidden (as little ducks should be) in various locations. The kids get quite a kick out of this one as it is interactive an they must search for the little "lost" duck. The art work in this one is great and quite appearling. The simple text is repetitive and fun for the child. This is simply a fun read for the small child and a fun read for the adult reader as they help the child find the duckling. Highly recommend.

My boys LOVE animals, especially ducks, so this is a big hit. If you like "Silly Little Goose" by the same author, this one's sure to be popular in your house.

At first I thought this book was going to bomb with my 13 month old. I thought the pictures were complicated and there was not much text. But I was wrong. She loves it. She has memorized where the lost duckling is on every page and she really can't get enough of it. So, surprisingly, I highly recommend this one!

I like Wheres my Duckling, it wass a great book.Children that are just learning to read will really enjo this book. They will be able to tell what is going on in the story by just looking at the pictures.The pictures in the story are very well illustrated. I would recommend this book to early childhood teachers.

This book is filled with lovely pictures of a mother duck as she searches for her baby who wandered off.

The pictures are wonderful. The few repetitive words there are encourage my child to 'read' the book. He also loves finding the duck on every page.

I wish I could find more books like this one- simple, gorgeous pictures, a nice story with a happy ending, a lot of opportunity for other activities while you read. We find the missing duck, count the ducklings, look at the pretty colors, look for other animals and more.

Geneva Holliday has done it again!!!!! Heat, the third book in the Geneva Holliday series, is a great read. It kept me wanting more. I found myself upset when the book ended for the simple fact that the book was over. Loved it!!!!

this is a must read, I don't have a lot of leasure time; however, I will find time to read every book Ms. Holliday has written based on this hot and very exciting novel. I loved the book "Heat"

I loved this book and hated when it ended. Noah and his crazy neighbors had me cracking up!!!! The book was funny but also had serious parts and made me realize how one's life can change in an instance. I enjoyed all of Ms. Holliday's books and I can't wait for the next one. Keep up the good work.

If you enjoyed Groove and Fever, you'll definitely enjoy reading more on Noah, Chevy, Geneva and Crystal. These four friends have always had drama and this time around it's nothing different.
Noah's man wants to have a child, but Noah isn't feeling it. Their relationship is beginning to strain and Noah is trying to figure out if he loves him man or his childless life more.
Chevy is still Chevy, mooching off her friends whenever she can and living way above her means. Time's running out and she can't hold up the charade much longer.
Geneva is still doing everything she can to do something about her weight, and nothing at all. Even having a fine man that loves her isn't enough to make her accept her for herself. Can she throw away the crash diets for good and be happy?
Crystal is going through a mid life crisis and while she's running across the country to share stolen moments with a gigaloo, she's trying to get what she's missing in life.

I liked how this was part of a series, but you didn't feel like you missed something if you didn't read a book. You'd want to read them all of course because they all are great, but it isn't heavily required. Geneva Holliday did her thang once more and the novel is full of drama, humor and of course HEAT!

Reviewed by Leila

Real Divas of Literature

I THINK MS.HOLLIDAY DID A GREAT JOB WITH THIS TRIO AFTER ALL SAY AND DONE YOU KNOW WHO YOUR FRIENDS ARE NOAH LOVER GOT WHAT HE WANTED,CHEVY REALLY CHANGE,CRYSTAL SHOCK ME A LITTLE,AND GENEVA WELL THAT YOUNG MAN GOT HER SO WHAT ELES CAN I SAY BUT JUST GET THE D.... BOOK..........SMILES YOU'LL ENJOY IT.

It isn't news that older women are often portrayed in a negative light in our youth-centered culture. Some of us--those of us who have marked 50 or more birthdays--have even played a role in that, believing in our youth we should "Never trust anyone over thirty."

But there is a far older adage we live by these days: "With age comes wisdom." In Hidden Passages, a collection of eight short stories, author Vila SpiderHawk celebrates women who have reached their crone years and are living them with passion, unmitigated determination, and above all, grace.

Among the wise women Spiderhawk has created is Mima Po, a Holocaust survivor who, with the aid of the Roman goddess Juno Lucina, shows a little girl how to open her eyes and celebrate rather than fear individual differences. Our hearts break for Tichu, a young woman who has been horribly mistreated by other members of her tribe. Cast out, Tichu wanders into the realm of Grandmother Spider, who bestows Tichu with knowledge and magical gifts; gifts that, despite her mistreatment, Tichu cannot wait to share with her tribe. In the last story, we meet Lucinda, an elderly nursing home resident who is so much more than what she appears.

There is plenty of magic in these stories, magic that is written in an often subtle and always believable manner. You won't find any vindictive hags turning young men into frogs, or other equally ridiculous feats of prestidigitation. What you will find is wise, skillful women passing on the secrets of reaping what you sow; of seeing beauty in what, at first glance, is not beautiful; and the loving hands of the goddess reaching out and embracing Her daughters of all ages. This approach to magic--and the goddess--makes these stories an irresistible read to maiden, mother, and crone alike.

Vila SpiderHawk's prose vibrates with poetic resonance as her stories dealing with change, loss and awareness gently, but firmly, guide the reader on different journeys from varied perspectives. Some of the stories may sing to your soul as they seem warmly familiar, perhaps similar to your own life path in the past (or in the future), yet told from a unique perspective. Other tales may be less comforting, but they are great tools for growth and awareness. For example, "Heraulta" may challenge the reader to face parts heretofore unaddressed of one's own intense being while "Mima Po" comforts with the path to enlightenment shown that many switched on souls have perhaps experienced in similar ways. To say that this book is well-written is an understatement; Vila SpiderHawk will always have a reader in me.

^V^
G.L. Giles, Author of V3: The Vampire Vignettes ReVamped

This book opened a new door for me, one that touched me deep inside my soul and opened my eyes to experiences and lessons I might have otherwise missed. As a practising pagan for over 18 years and a hugely avid reader, I have never come across such a wonderfully written book and so different from any other I have ever read. Vila has a forever fan here.
Once I started reading HIDDEN PASSAGES I absolutely could not put it down! I read in the car, my kids' athletics, dances, ANYWHERE!!! I am currently rereading it ;-) Thanks Vila!!!! I can't wait for your next book!!!! Please tell me there will be one! You are a positive addition to the pagan community and fill the empty hole in the pagan literary world that has been open far too long!

Have you ever befriended someone whom everyone shunned? Has this person been a significant influence in your life? Have the traditions of your family been passed down through the generations and honored to this day? Do you have women, who are your friends, that you respect because of the values they keep and you live by those values every day of your life? Vila's book, "Hidden Passages," is about the love and respect we have for the women in our lives. It could be a great-grandmother, grandmother, mother, or just a friend. Her book is enchanting and will draw you in from the very first page. It is a must read that reminds us to show love and appreciation to the women who influence our everyday life. S.L. Chessor-Author
My Tongue Fell Out

Traveling and experiencing the trials and lives of eight women brings up deep rooted memories of ones own experiences in life. You cry, you laugh, and you smile along with them.
A heart felt collection all women should read and experience.

I bought this book because I wanted to read the original story from which a first season episode of Showtime's "Masters of Horror" was built around. The episode was "Incident On and Off a Mountain Road", and both the television adaptation and- I was happy to learn when I received "High Cotton" from Amazon- the original Lansdale story are top notch. In fact, the TV show was excellent largely due to its sticking extremely close to the Lansdale original.

Happily, there are many other great stories in this collection other than "Incident". As other reviewers have pointed out here, the stories range from darkly humorous to dark & gritty, the dark & gritty ones being my favorites. There are also a few good stories of the ironic and darkly poetic variety, where some poor schmuck gets an undeserved ton of bricks dropped on his life for no other reason than fate sometimes does that (I'm thinking mostly of the story involving the guy who tries to help the seemingly pathetic blind groundskeeper). The outright "funny" stories, like the one about Godzilla being in the twelve-step program (he wants to stop stomping on tourists), and the story about the inflatable dinosaur who wanted to visit Disneyland so he could meet Mickey Mouse, are also okay, but less memorable than the dark & gritty stories, which usually involve hapless characters taking a wrong turn somewhere and in short order finding themselves in the midst of one form or another of earthly hell.

Sensitive readers should note that there are many instances of racist humor, and many racist observations, throughout the book, as this or that character spouts something ignorant. In fact, there's so much of it that I started thinking that the author perhaps had a benign view of such things, or maybe even held those views himself. But, no, it ultimately becomes clear that Mr. Lansdale is just trying to accurately show how many people talk and think, and also demonstrate that such thoughts and observations can mean one of several things: that the character in question truly IS racist, or might just be a little ignorant and stupid but not truly bad. I say this because in several instances (especially in the last story), a couple of SEEMING racists meet up (after one of those wrong turns) with a group of true, hateful, monstrous racists, and... well, let's just say Mr. Lansdale makes it clear that there's a difference between dumb, ignorant spoutings and true evil.

With the exception of the occasional inflatable dinosaur and the not-as-friendly-as-it-seems housecat (and even the tales containing those offbeat elements were perfectly engaging), these are intense, dark, memorable stories, and I look forward to experiencing more Joe R. Lansdale in the near future. Just not quite yet. There's some grim stuff here, and I could use a breather.

"High Cotton" is representative of the period when Joe Lansdale was still writing hardcore horror - and no one did it better. The stories in this collection are truly disturbing and graphic, reaching splattery heights without ever straying too far from Joe's East Texas sensibilities. Plenty of sick twists and thinly veiled stabs at racial injustice to keep our more "sophisticated" readers interested. For those of us who like down and dirty country-fried horror, you can't do any better than this collection.

As more than one review has pointed out, a better title for this anthology might be The Best of Joe R. Lansdale - which the term High Cotton symbolizes (its farming parlance for an exceptionally good crop). Gathered between the covers are 21 terrific stories that show off Lansdale's considerable talent for spinning yarns that can be gruesome (Tight Little Stitches in a Dead Man's Back), funny (Steppin' Out, Summer 68), frightening (Incident On and Off a Mountain Road), and poignant (Not From Detroit), sometimes all at the same time (Drive-In Date). If you are easily offended by vulgar humor and salty language, not to mention microscopic examinations of the darker aspects of humanity, Lansdale will make for a very tough read. But stick with him, his stories are worth it. Highest recommendation.

So, "High Cotton" reprints several of Lansdale's personally selected best stories. These stories, all of them except for one are also featured in his original collections "By Bizarre Hands", "Bestsellers Guaranteed", and "Writer of the Purple Rage", and are arguably the best of the stories featured in the original (and out of print) books.

Lansdale's follow-up, "Bumper Crop" collects many of the rest, but not very many stories from "Writer of the Purple Rage." If you can get a copy of "Purple Rage" get it. It has the original "Bubba Ho-Tep" novella, which is one of Lansdale's best stories and was made into the wonderful movie starring Bruce Campbell, which may be one of the most faithful adaptations of a writer's work ever put on film.

Anyway, "Booty and the Beast" is the newest (to me) story in this collection, which centers around a specific item associated with the Virgin Mary that brings doom to those who possess it. It is an entertaining story. The best stories here, however, are the ones his true fans have read before: "The Night They Missed the Horror Show" (his signature story), "The Phone Woman", and "Tight Little Stitches in a Dead Man's Back", "Not From Detroit", and many others. The stories also have introductions by Lansdale telling how they were conceived. There is also an introduction at the front of the book explaining how he came to write short stories and why he deosn't write as many anymore.

Overall, I really enjoyed reading the stories again and I hope this one stays in print for a long time, so that readers don't have to track down out of print collections to see what a fabulous writer this man is. These are the stories that made him famous, using his unique blend of humor, horror, and gritty realism to form a truly effective story. Highly Recommended!

High Cotton by Joe R. Lansdale is the best short story collection I have ever read so far! The stories are funny and will make you laugh aloud -- so don't read this book in public places! Funny story: I was reading this book whilst waiting to board the plane in the airport, and I could not stop laughing! Security guards started to crowd around me -- just because I was acting in a 'peculiar manner' due to the loud laughing... so Joe R. Lansdale, it's your fault people are laughing out loud in public places whilst reading your book! Read this book and you will know what all the fuss is about.

If your a fan of the show grab this book!!!! Just a fan of the movies? You will be lost.

I thought this book did a terrific job of adding highlights and details to the immortals we have come to love watching and hearing about. I thoroughly enjoyed the stories by Laura Brennan, Anthony De Longis, The Postcards from Alexa (series), and Ken Gord. I did not however like a few of the stories, because they droned on, such as the staircase and death shall have no dominion. I am sure they are good stories on their own, but they did not fit in this collection of stories very well, in my opinion.

This is a wonderful book and a must read for all fans of "Highlander". The cast and crew did a marvelous job of joining forces one last time to give us several wonderful short stories. "Post Cards From Alexa" is moving and beautiful. While "Pants" is sure to give you a good laugh. I would recommend this book to any fan of the show or the movies.

This cast-and-crew short fiction anthology is one of the best I've read. Clever new story lines featuring favorite characters from the Highlander mythos ... wonderful stuff. "Postcards from Alexa" made me cry; "Pants" made me laugh. A must for any Highlander fan.

Very interesting book. Written not only by professional writers, but also by members of the cast and crew, it turns out to be a good source for new Highlander related stories, for the delight of those who followed the TV series -- and always wanted more.

Some of the short stories complete the ones developed on TV, filling those blanks you didn't see on the show; others, makes you feel as if you were watching a brand-new episode of Highlander. The stories varies from writer to writer, but yet you are able to enjoy all of them equally.

My favorites are "Post Cards From Alexa" (if you like Methos, you'll love it), "The Star of Athena" (Amanda in her better shape), "Pants" (very funny), "Consone's Diary" (MacLeod from Consone's point of view), "The Methos Chronicles Part I" (centuries of Methos' life are covered here) and "The Other Side of The Mirror" (Adrian Paul trapped in an alternative world).

Five teen girls are separated by decades but united by their love of a Nebraska farm: this focal point ties their lives together in this first novel centered around powerful female protagonists who are searching for a powerful place in the world. Letter entries explore their very different worlds and the concerns that connect them and make for gripping reading.

Hope's mom got in an accident. Ever since then she's been in a series of foster homes. Every time she goes to a foster home she takes a keepsake with her. She keeps all of her stuff in an old backpack. When her mother died, at that time, she was living at a foster home with a beautiful meadow, she took her mmother's urn and spread it across the meadow. The meadow was so beautiful! She saved a ziplock baggy with some of her mother's ashes in it. When she left that foster home, she was bound and determined to find it again. A few years after the meadow, Hope finally found the perfect family. Anna and Sarah. When Sarah wanted to take Hope to the meadow, Hope didn't realize it was the same meadow she spread her mother's ashes in.

I think that this book was really exciting and interesting. There like mysteries in the letters that "Hope" reads. It really got my attention while i read the first pages. When i started reading this book i actually didn't want to stop. I would recommend this book to other people.

The book, Holding Up the Earth, was about a girl, Hope, whose mother died when Hope was six. She went to seven foster families before she went to a lady's named Sarah. This is about how Hope overcomes her mother's death, and learns to live with Sarah. I think that this book is well written,because about every other chapter the author has a diary or a journal explaning what has happened at the farm where they live in the past. I think that this helps you better understand the book. I would recommend this book to someone who likes Realistic Fiction. As far as age groups go I would recommend this book to children ten and up because there are words that younger children probably shouldn't be reading. If you love books that will lift your spirits this is the one for you!

It is a wonderful book. How did it not get more attention?
The writing perhaps needs more detail and needs to be tightened up a bit, but there are some great lines, such as the dog "is free to wander anywhere on the farm
a sniff leads her" and some great characters. It's a fantastic tribute to the sisterhood of womanhood and to feminine links to the earth and has a wealth of ideas to
discuss (Is the missile supposed to be symbolic?).

A path of clear words directly to the feeling. Strays, the first story on the book, is just a masterpiece. Forget about complex metaphors or shining adjectives. This is a clean picture with the essential elements. Mark Richard's command of the language drive us inside a delicately composed environment of hopeless hopeful pain. The carvering after Carver. The headrest after Hempel.
A friend from Spain recommend this book.

"Strays," the opening story of "The Ice at the Bottom of the World," is one of the strongest in the collection. The first image of the story is a particularly fine example of image setting tone, and in a very short space defining characters, relationship, and place.

The title story from "The Ice at the Bottom of the World" is also a strong piece. The characters are drawn vividly and with little wasted space. The tension between the characters and within their lives is efficiently developed. There is no waste. The narrative is as lean and hard as the lives it depicts.

Both of Richard's collections remind me of the work of Larry Brown and Kevin Canty. The prose is spare, the characters are rough, the humor (what there is of it) is absurd and dark. Even though I can appreciate this sort of writing, it is not a place I would like to dwell for long. Thankfully, the collections from all these writers tend to be short. The quality of the stories also varies a great deal. Some stories are downright brilliant, others I could do without reading.

Richard is a virtuoso, a master of the craft. The first piece in the collection sets a high expectation that is fully satisfied with the writing that follows. Here are stories about the south with voices as clear as daylight. There are familiar landscapes of the south: a small cabin near the river as in "Her Favorite Story" and a farmhouse as in "Strays." This modern landscape grows, too, to include the suburbs as in "This is Us, Excellent."

There is a haunting simplicity found in Richard's characters. They live life without the fear that perhaps they should have. A sense of dramatic irony grows in the reader as if it were a play inside a theater. All of these stories are freighted with disappointment, marred by traged, or terrorized by old ghosts and various wants. There is a resigned sorrow througout and the feeling that doom is not far off like a dark cloud moving in from a distance.

What is deeply moving here is that many of the characers do not anticipate change. They do not even seem aware of it or of hope. Instead, dead things rise to the surface as in "On the Rope" where a former flood rescue worker glimpses a plastic bag caught on a fence and is brought back to memories of the "boiling waters" that drowned the town.

The immediate sorrows are understated either by voice or events that follow so that in a way, the immediate pain is cauterized. But once we look away from the wound we realize the whole body has gone with runny sores and rot.

Richard's stories speak loudly about doom, decay, and seemingly incongruous naivete in the same fashion as Steinback in The Grapes of Wrath and Faulkner in The Sound and The Fury.

What may be perhaps most disturbing here in all the lyrical prose and landscape is that the people do not change-- they are immobile like statues. What changes life then is only the inevitable event that is death.

Mark Richard's collection of stories "The Ice at the Bottom of the World" is a rare gem. Not many writers are so capable of dealing with so much and being so profound using so short a form of narrative. Some writers need hundreds of pages and don't develop so beautifully their characters or plots. Here with something like 10 pages, the author is able to break our hearts, heal it and explore some dark sides of human soul.

At his best, in stories like "Strays", "This is us, excellent" and "The Ice at the Bottom of the World" (my favorites, by the way), Richard takes his reader to a wild ride to an unknown place. But, every story has something in common: it takes a little while to realize where the writer wants to take us to - in other words, it takes some pages until he reaches the actual plot of the narrative. This is a risk device since readers may find themselves to be lost in the first paragraphs, but Richards is so good that he keeps you reading until you find where you are going to.

On the other hand, they are not easy stories. Neither the theme, nor the language is easy. This is a barrier that we have to overcome every new beginning. A daring move that every reader should accept with pleasure. His characters are normal people trying to find a place in their own world, therefore, what 'we' would call outsiders. Most stories are about them getting to know themselves better, but readers are aware of them a lot better.

Richard's "The Ice at the Bottom of the World" is a book that should be read every now and them. His stories are short - it doesn't take to long to read them - but their effects on the readers lasts even longer.

Not since William Faulkner or Eudora Welty have we seen such a consummate master of the Southern short story as Mark Richard. Like Faulkner, his style (or styles, perhaps I should say) can take some getting used to, but if you just relax, and let the words flow over you without "waiting for the paint to dry", you'll find you get the picture. Indeed, this is the same way I read Faulkner, allowing the stream of consciousness to form its own image and successive afterimages (it's a more passive kind of reading, I suppose, than what you would engage in with a post-modern novel by DeLillo, say).

The opening story, "Strays", is, in some ways, the *perfect* Southern short story. Farcical and funny, you can read the entire story online here. Do, and I bet you'll be hooked. They're all terrific, and the final story, "Feast of the Earth, Ransom of the Clay" is a triumphantly disturbing Southern gothic tale. "Fishboy" is probably the most stream-of-consciousness and disorienting of the bunch -- and if you like it, note that Richard subsequently took this story and developed it into his novel of the same name.

Very, very highly recommended!

Volume IV of "In Search of Lost Time" begins in the afternoon of the day of Princess of Guermantes's party, the one that Marcel had looked forward for so long as his definitive entrance into the world of high society. That afternoon, by spying on them, Marcel discovers with his own eyes, for the first time, homosexuality, in the form of an encounter between the depraved Baron de Charlus and the tailor Jupien, Marcel's neighbor in the property of the Guermantes. Later that evening, Marcel attends the party, attended also by a cast of characters like very few in literature: Charlus himself, a Swann close to his death, and others. The Dreyfuss cause keeps winning adepts, among them the very Prince and Princess of Guermantes, as the injustice of the sentence is revealed. In the party, Marcel continues on his way to disappointment about noblesse: they are people just like everyone else, only with grand names and big egos, but not much more.

Days later, with his mother, Marcel returns to Balbec, where, alone in his room he finally feels all the weight and sorrow of his grandmother's death, which had happened a year and a half before or so. It is a profound passage about the perception of death, everyday indifference to it, and the memories left to us by our beloved's passing away. In Balbec, Marcel reencounters with Albertine, in that perverted play of seduction and deceit, of attraction and rejection, which foreshadows a sick relationship. Disturbed by the graphic discovery of homosexuality, Marcel broods a lot about it. Two women who stay at the same hotel, and who openly show their lesbianism, awaken in Marcel a deep suspicion about Albertine's mysterious life, and so begins a torment of permanent jealousy, of anxiety and anguish which reminds the reader of the similar episode, in times gone by, of the beginning of the relationship between Swann and Odette. Meanwhile, Marcel has simultaneous relationships with a couple of maids of the hotel (literally simultaneous).

Marcel rents a car to go around with Albertine through the countryside and the coast, deepening his relationship with the capricious, naughty, annoying and elusive Albertine. In her company, he begins to frequent the little band of the social-climbing Verdurins (where Swann had met Odette years before), in the country estate they have rented from the Marquises of Cambremer. The central part of the book narrates that summer in Balbec and its surroundings, above all the wide mosaic of characters surrounding the Verdurins: insecure but arrogant Doctor Cottard and his simple wife; musician Vinteuil; the rustic and silent sculptor Ski; Professor Saniette, pathetic and constantly humiliated; and Madame Verdurin herself, presumptuous and increasingly successful in society. Over this fresco is shown the repulsive couple of Charlus and musician Morel, son of a former servant of the Prousts. Morel is the worst kind of climber and representative of sexual and moral corruption. In contrast with what happens in the first three volumes, here it seems that it is the nobles who yearn to be accepted in bourgeois society, and not the other way around. It is the bourgeois who attract interesting people: intellectuals, scientists, artists. Charlus makes a fool of himself big time, pretending everybody ignores his homosexuality, when in fact he is the target of cruel jokes and gossip. So continues the great saga of memory, sex, love, longing, and social observation of the XX Century.

Like in no one of the previous volumes, in this one the subject of homosexuality is analyzed in all its complexity. Marcel and Albertine's relationship forebodes hell. Charlus begins to sink. The bourgeois approach triumph. Like in all the previous volumes, what astounds the reader is Proust's immense power of microscopic vision to analyze individuals and dissect societies. It includes a magical reflection on dreams, as well as precious depictions of landscapes, sexual assaults, personalities and emotions.

Sodom and Gomorrah makes it difficult for those who speak of Proust and attempt to reduce his grand work to mere flowery social observation. This is a bold and often disturbing installment of la recherché, as Marcel recalls brutal homosexual sadomasochism among two of the principle characters, and has to deal with great loss and self-loathing.

The narrator also returns us to the superficial world of the Verdurins, where Swann and Odette first made their interactions in Swann in Love.

Marcel falls deeply in love with Albertine, but later discovers that she has been involved in homosexual relationships with two women, mirroring Swann's problems with Odette. There are remarkable passages on the nature of love in here: "But if something brings about a violent change in the position of that soul in relation to us, shows us that it is love with others and not with us, then by beating of our shattered heart we feel that it is not a few feet away from us but within us that the beloved creature was. Within us, in regions more or less superficial" (pg. 720)

Sodom and Gomorrah is a deeply felt and complex development in Proust's extraordinarily full and beautiful search.

I am writing here of the "Penguin Proust" translation by John Sturrock. (Much of what appears on this page is misleading, with the editorial matter referring to an audiobook and many reader reviews to an earlier translation. Even first-sentence quote is not from Sturrock's translation!)

Of the four Penguin Proust volumes I've read so far, this is my favorite--a wonderfully funny study of society (if not of sex). Proust specializes in transformations. We'll be introduced to a character and led to believe that we know everything of importance about him, only to have him turn up in a later volume as entirely different. In this volume, the remote and terrible Baron de Charlus is tranformed a pathetic tubby, besotted by the pianist Morel (himself a bit of a transformation, since he first appeared in the novel as the son of a valet).

Marcel (the narrator) meanwhile finds himself more deeply involved with Albertine, herself probably a stand-in for a male secretary of Proust's, Alfred Agostinelli. To complicate matters, I see elements of this relationship not only in the Marcel-Albertine affair, but also in the Charlus-Morel romance. It's as if Proust divided his experience into two parts, giving the romantic elements to Marcel and the comic part to Charlus.

The two romances come together at the seaside salon of the awful Madame Verdurin, who is inexorably rising in the world. In one of Proust's hundred-page setpieces, the aristocratic baron has his first clash with the social-climbing Verdurins. I found myself cheering for Charlus, whom I'd earlier learned to dislike, because he is so genuine and she is such a fraud. And I know in my heart (and through my earlier readings of this great novel) that things are not going to turn out well for Charlus. Against all logic, Proust in one of his hundred-page dissections of French society is able to keep me on tenterhooks.

The less said about Albertine, the better. I am not one of those who find her/him a convincing character. So it is with a bit of apprehension that I now turn to volume five of the Proust Penguin, containing the two books of the "Albertine cycle."

But back to Sodom (as it were): this is a wonderful translation of a riveting story. If you stick with "In Search of Lost Time" thus far, you will know that you are in the middle of one of the great experiences of your life.

"Sodom and Gomorrah," the fourth volume of Proust's masterwork "In Search of Lost Time," contains two very long set pieces that strike me as amazing achievements in the entire canon of literature. The first is an evening party at the mansion of the Prince and Princess de Guermantes attended by Proust's young narrator despite his doubt about having been properly invited, and the second is a dinner at the seaside clifftop house of the Verdurins filled with absurd but fascinating conversation. These episodes combined cover hundreds of pages of narration yet never give the impression of being stretched because Proust evokes the natural importance in every detail and human gesture, as though the course of the world depended on every little thing that transpires.

These details unify under the banner of the entire novel into a series of fictionalized memories of Proust's social life as a young man making his way through Parisian aristocratic circles and observing the events which develop his artistic conscience. These memories tend to be romanticized visions of the past, wistful dreams of what he might have really wanted his life to be: "We dream much of paradise, or rather of a number of successive paradises, but each of them is, long before we die, a paradise lost, in which we should feel ourselves lost too."

The title of the volume implies love between men and women, and men and men, and women and women. Here, the young Marcel chronicles the torrid romances of the Baron de Charlus, brother of the Duke de Guermantes, whose salon was the focal arena of the previous volume. Upon his spying--innocently, not judgmentally--on de Charlus and Jupien the tailor in an act of sodomy, he expounds on the societal attitudes confronting male homosexuality and on the ways de Charlus must go about procuring younger men for himself, such as he does with a conceited young violinist named Morel.

Meanwhile, Marcel's love affair with Albertine, the pretty girl whom he met at the seaside resort of Balbec in Volume II, is progressing slowly but not smoothly. He notices that she, as Odette used to do with Charles Swann, is beginning to play games with his propensity for jealousy, flirting first with a girl named Andree and then with Marcel's friend, the soldier Saint-Loup. As the volume wraps up, Marcel resolves to marry her, hoping to draw her away from her Sapphic inclinations.

Proust portrays a wide range of colorful supporting characters, who I have no doubt are based on people he knew in real life. While staying at Balbec, Marcel meets an eccentric family named Cambremer whom the lift-boy at the hotel mistakenly but amusingly calls Camembert and whose acquaintance provides a springboard for the dinner at the Verdurin estate. Here we experience the personalities of the physician Cottard, whose preoccupation with his Verdurin invitations affects his professional ethics; the shy, socially graceless Saniette, who is continuously bullied by Verdurin; and a pedantic bore named Brichot, who talks almost exclusively about the etymology of place names.

The motifs recurring in this volume include the society-enveloping controversy over the Dreyfus affair, the snobbery involved in invitations to certain salons, and Marcel's association with the aging and ill Swann and his wife Odette, who now have some hard-earned esteem in the Faubourg Saint-Germain. In his deeply contemplative approach to narration, Proust functions as an essayist as much as he does a novelist, but his genius is that he merges both forms seamlessly. His sentences, at least as translated into English by Moncrieff and Kilmartin, are consistently worthy of applause and inspire me to write with more sensitivity to my surroundings.

The fourth volume of "In search of lost time" (Sodom and Gomorrah) begins with the sickness of Marcel's grandmother's sickness, which will lead her to the grave. During the dissease she will be treated by doctor Huxley, whose behavior surrounding the woman's unavoidable death awakens Marcel's digressions. Once she dies, the story resumes his contact with the high spheres of society. Marcel travels once again to Balbec, where he finds Albertine again. Their relationship grows as they assist to Mme. Verdurin's gatherings. Her "wednesdays", as she calls them, now that she attends in Balbec to her group of friends. Marcel's mind games surrounding Albertine are comparable to those utilized by Charlus to manipulate his young lover, the son of an old servant of his (Marcel's) grandfather... who plays the violin. Marcel is involved in this relationship as an comunicating vessel between Charlus and his "Adonis". It is rather curious how telephones, automobiles and trains are more and more involved in the telling of the events. The encounters in the stations, the dangers of traveling in an automobile, the unpersonalized feel to talking to someone through a telephone, etc... All these entail not only technological changes, but social ones as well: how people relate to one another begins to be considered outside the reduced space of fixed spheres... now, they move all over the space, they can even be broken into pieces... their voices, their bodies, the possibility of an effective transport that also allows privacy and secrecy (such as Marcel and Albertine's travels in the car, and all the implied events surrounding this machine -involving Charlus and his young "friend").
Marcel's doubts about Albertine's likes, are more overwhelming everyday... and he finally decides to marry Albertine, to take her to Paris with him.
In this volume, Marcel Proust submerges deeper in the waters of human affections and desires. If in the second volume he began to experience love for the first time, in this one, he is experiencing love outside the protection of young idelism and romanticism... instead, he realizes the conection between love, desire, snobism and pain: the truth of love is far from being an eternal, selfless and happy feeling: it is the constant haunting of a question, the everlasting wonder about evil within and without.
It is most memorable when Marcel assists to a party and describes the unfixed nature of gender differentiation: how much can a woman look like a man, how much can a woman desire another woman... and how much like a woman can one man desire another man.

The final installment of Proust's grand `a la recherche du temps perdu' is a masterful and eloquent meditation on art, on the loss of love, and on the complex and enigmatic quality of experiencing relationships over the course of a lifetime. This is the period, the final breath of literary genius from the great Marcel Proust, who devoted his life to this great novel.

In `Time Regained,' the reader is permitted an extraordinary prolegomena on the writer's craft, a self-reflexive exposition of the literary form that prefigures post-modernity and the works of Brecht, Breton, Beckett, and all the rest of them. Proust creates a work that is more exacting, more precise and perspicacious than any work of aesthetic philosophy in the western tradition. He discloses that the art of writing is, in its essence, an act or translation.The artistic content is already contained within the mind and soul of the artist and the act of writing is an act of transporting the content to form.

This is a novel about time, and it requires time to read. In this way, Proust the reader develops a relationship with the work within the register of a temporal horizon, which mirrors the register of temporality internal to the characters and unfolding of the fictional universe that Proust has created. It is a joy to read.

Also included in this volume is Kilmartin's guide to Proust, a summation of all the central characters, events, and allusions in a la recherché for readers who (inevitably) get lost in Proust's complex literary web.

"Time Regained" is a dark ending to the "In Search of Lost Time" cycle, as Proust, sickly like his fictional narrator, unknowingly nears the end of his own life but senses its imminence. France, like the most of the rest of the world, is now a very different place. The Dreyfus affair is receding into the past under the shadow of the new war that has descended upon Europe, with Germany having ravaged Belgium and threatening to destroy London and Paris.

Many of the people with whom Marcel has associated throughout his life and whom we came to know so intimately through the pages of his chronicle are now dead, whether by disease, accident, old age, or the war. Those among the living include the Baron de Charlus, who sympathizes with the Germans and frequents a hotel that serves as a male brothel; Bloch, who has de-Judaicized his name and has assumed an English chic; and Odette and her daughter Gilberte, the latter now herself a mother, who have not so gracefully weathered the effects of aging.

Marcel himself is now an adult of at least middle age, and, as far as he is concerned, still no closer to achieving his goal of becoming a writer as he was in his youth. He has, however, started writing articles and comes to realize, as he reflects on the course of his life, that the intricate web of contacts he has made can serve as grist for his literary mill, should he decide in his waning days to take up a pen and make some contribution to letters. And, of course, over the past four thousand pages that is exactly what his author has done. Marcel muses on Time (capitalization intended), memory, and dreams as necessary elements in the creation of art, a product of so much personal pain and suffering that death can seem like a welcome reprieve.

Judging the novel as a whole now that I've finished all six volumes, I affirm that there is nothing like it, or even close to it, in literature; like "Moby Dick" or "Don Quixote" it resides in its own impenetrable legendary world of oneness. In my review of "Swann's Way," I compared Proust to Henry James, but I see now that I was way off the mark. James writes like he's throwing his weight around, imperiously demanding intellectual respect and forcing his reader into submission with his intentionally inscrutable compositions; Proust's prose, conversely, calmly and warmly invites the reader into Marcel's society and caresses him with the most delicate sensations and deepest emotions. Proust is closer to Henry Adams than he is to Henry James, but even this attempted juxtaposition is buffered by a wide margin.

Proust's style is so ornate that it is the most difficult of any writer's to describe, yet paradoxically there is nothing affected about it; he is quite possibly the most unpretentious writer in literature. He never tries to impress the reader with his erudition, even though he evidently has much, or make himself out to be something he's not; one gets the sense that what he writes is exactly what and how he thinks, as incredible as that seems. He uses humor without trying to be a comedian, sorrow without trying to be a tragedian. He is employing language simply to illustrate life and the world, and I think language has no higher calling than that.

A brilliant closing volume to the novel. It brings back the lyricism of the first two volumes. I thought in the volumes in between some of that earlier lyricism was sacrificed to the bitchiness of Proust's tone toward the aristocracy he was doubtless jealous of, and his askew view of love that stemmed from his obvious anxieties about having been homosexual. But the early lyrcism and charm of the first two volumes is largely revived in this final volume. And anyone interested in writing, as anyone who makes it to this final volume doubtless is, Proust's passages on the art of writing make rewarding reading.
The obvious flaws are that some characters who'd earlier "died" show up alive in this volume. Couples who had numerous children in earlier volumes show up in this volume having only one child; Marcel (the narrator) recognizes people and then subsequently, in the same scene, doesn't recognize them. I have NOOO idea why some editor didn't knock out these discrepancies and tighten the text. It really seems silly to me to be SOOO faithful to Proust's final manuscript as to include glaring errors. Proust was rewriting when he died. If he'd lived he would have corrected these errors and I think his intention should have been honored. But I'm still giving it five stars, since overall the experience of reading this last volume is of reading something truly brilliant.

Perhaps the most exciting publishing event of the century so far is the new translation of "In Search of Lost Time," as it is now (and more accurately) called. Finding the last two volumes is a bit of a chore, but search for ISBN 0141180366 or "Prendergast Proust" or "Ian Patterson" on Amazon. I haven't read it, but I am impressed enough by the first two volumes in this new translations that I have ordered the final two from England, where they are available in hardcover. Viking has not yet published them in the U.S. (and may not, in my lifetime) but Amazon sells the paperbacks of the British Penguin edition. They are somewhat misleadingly titled "In Search of Lost Time," which is the series title. This volume is actually titled "Finding Time Again," and the translator is Ian Patterson. (Each book has its own translator, for a total of seven. Vol. 5 contains two books and features two translators.)

I give this Modern Library edition only four stars because I am convinced that the new translation is superior. Indeed, it's not entirely clear to me who the translator is, in this case; evidently not Fred Blossom, who did the original English translation when Scott-Montcrief died before finishing the work.

The melancholy atmosphere that pervaded the close of The Fugitive is carried over into this final part of Proust's huge work. Whereas, in the preceding part, Marcel laments the loss of Albertine and his changed relationship with his long time friend, Saint Loup, the author's concerns are now much greater. France is in the midst of World War I, Paris experiencing night time air raids; and the distinction between the Guermantes' Way and Swann's Way has become even more blurred as both Gilberte, the daughter of a courtesan, and Mme. Verdurin, the insufferable salon hostess, have become members of the mystic Guermantes family. Furthermore, Saint Loup is killed in action and Marcel's hometown is occupied by the Germans. But in spite of the gravity of the events surrounding him, Marcel becomes even more self-absorbed. He still holds onto his drean of becoming a writer, but this desire begins to wane as he becomes convinced that he has neither the temperament, the knowledge nor the fortitude to follow a literary career. Then the pivotal event of the whole novel takes place: he is invited to a matinee at the new home of the Prince de Guermantes.

While waiting in an anteroom for admission to the Guermantes' reception, the author is beset by a series of sensory experiences that bring back several happy memories from his past. These recollections, both powerful and joyous, convince him that he has the ability to undertake a literary career, to be able to communicate those ecstatic moments from the past to readers of the present day. His melancholy lifted, he enters the reception to discover that his recent epiphany is only bolstered by what he finds. All around him are the decaying remnants of a fast fading aristocracy. Many of the characters that have been introduced to the reader throughout the course of the novel are met again, but now in the final years of their lives: the proud Charlus, now an obsequious old man; the Duc de Guermantes, described as a "magnificent ruin"; Gilberte, now confused with her aging mother; even Marcel becomes aware that he, too, is quickly getting old. But now seeing things with an artist's eye, Marcel becomes aware that each of these characters, as well as all those people remembered from his life, are "like giants plunged into the years, [touching] the distant epochs through which they have lived, between which so many days have come to range themeselves - in Time." Marcel's goal is clear. He will spend the rest of his life carefully bringing these giants back to life. In other words, he is ready to embark on the huge task of writing the book that the reader has just finished reading.

This part of the novel was published five years after the author's death and suffers from a lack of editing. There are many ellipses, contradictions, and time and place juxtapostion mistakes, errors that Proust would surely have tidied up if he had lived to see his work published in full. But these are paltry criticisms wthen compared to the brilliance of the total work. Unfortunately, Proust is little read these days, and many of those who attempt to read the novel are motivated by the challenge of a literary marathon more than from an awareness of the intrinsic value of the work (as I was). But regardless of the motivation, the effort (and it is an effort) is totally rewarding as the reader sees in Proust's world reflections of his own. It took me a part of seven years to read the complete novel, a period of time in which Proust's search for lost time and my own reminiscences often became linked together as the author's characters shared my own thoughts regarding things past, the specious present, and the eventual fate that awaits us all.

Kilmartin's A Guide to Proust, which is included in this volume is well worth the price of the book by itself. The guide consists of four distinct inexes to Proust's novel: characters, historical persons, places and themes. The scholarship that went into compliling these indexes is outstanding and makes it possible for the reader to spend several years (if he so wishes) in working his way through the novel without losing track of the hundreds of characters and personages included therein. One reviewer remarked, "buy this volume first"; I would only modify this advice by suggesting that the prospective reader get this volume when he purchases Swann's Way.

Nunca antes había leído algo de Benedetti, y ahora soy su más ferviente admiradora. Lo he conocido a través de La Tregua, y para mí ha sido su mejor carta de presentación. Una novela llena de humanidad, de sencillez, de ser humano. Un poema de amor hecho novela! Sus personajes se metieron tan dentro de mi alma, que me entristecí cuando la terminé. Qué bueno eres, Benedetti!!! La recomiendo siempre.

¿Han leído a Julio Ramón Ribeyro?, bueno, en "la tregua" de Benedetti encontré la misma característica que me hizo amar los libros de Ribeyro. Estos dos señores escriben de tal forma que es inevitable llegar a sentir un cariño real por los personajes, estos te inspiran ternura, pero muy profundamente, nada parecido a otros autores que he leído. Los cuentos de Ribeyro son hermosos, y también lo es "La Tregua". Esta es la historia de un hombre que está por cumplir 50 años, y espera su jubilación. Vive una vida muy solitaria, aunque la comparte con tres hijos con los cuales no tiene la mejor de las relaciones. Su historia es narrada en primera persona, en forma de diario; su vida transcurre en medio de la rutina, el aburrimiento y la soledad, pero Benedetti asombrosamente logra hacer de este relato algo muy entretenido. Por la forma en que está escrita la obra, en primera persona, es más fácil identificarte con el personaje, pues de alguna manera este señor le está contando su vida a uno. Tengan cuidado al leer otros reviews en esta misma página, pues cuentan partes de la historia que es mejor no saber antes de empezar a leerla, es mucho mejor sorprenderse. No recuerdo algún libro que al leerlo me haya hecho llorar (aunque debe haber habido alguno)...pero este lo hizo, lo confieso, una sensación alucinante. 5 estrellas se me quedan cortas, por favor léanlo.

Just the best book I have ever read, and I have read a lot. Do not hesitate one second about buying it.

this is one of the greatest works by Mario Benedetti, a story of sadness, solitude and routine. One great virtue of this book is the way it transmits all the moods that the author is presenting through it's descriptions and the way of living of the characters. La Tregua is about love, life, and the reality of a world who doesn't allows us to live as we may want to. There is people who work for a living and there are many who live to work. Share with Martin Santomé and Laura Avellaneda the social dilema that Benedetti is Presenting us.

Yoestoy de acuaro con Benedetti ciando dice que esta novela se ha sobre valorado. Es una historia simple peroesta tan bien contada que merece ser leida varias veces. No es una novela magistralpero en su sensilles radica su encanto. Es una novela linda con la que uno se siente indetificado mas de una vez. Ieal para empezr a conocer a Benedetti, porque si no se ha leido esto no se conoce todavia.