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kamckim's review against another edition
4.0
I have read this one before. The stories are great, but the last two are from his novels SERENA and “the other one that was made into a movie starring Noah Wylie.” So, if you already have those books, you might just want to check this out at your local library.
jrobinw's review against another edition
3.0
I love Ron Rash's writing. It is beautiful in description, lyrical, and in many ways poetic. The stories in this book are good stories, but also sad stories. I'm not looking for a book of fluff, just some hope thrown into some of the stories.
librarianinthewoods's review against another edition
4.0
Excellent short stories set in Appalachia. Interesting to read "Pemberton's Bride" which was written later edited and expanded into the novel, Serena. The original short story has an different ending than the novel.
heyfarahey's review against another edition
4.0
"Some grief is like barbed wire that's been wrapped around a tree.The longer it's there,the deeper the barb go,the closer to the tree's heart."
Chemistry and Other Stories is a gripping collection of stories set in Appalachia, a rural community struggling with the arrival of a new era. I liked how the author manages to cover the entire class of the social spectrum, from bourgeois to the lowest class of the society. Some people might not like it because it is quite slow-paced but it was okay for my liking.
3.8/5 for Chemistry and Other Stories by Ron Rash. Recommended!
Chemistry and Other Stories is a gripping collection of stories set in Appalachia, a rural community struggling with the arrival of a new era. I liked how the author manages to cover the entire class of the social spectrum, from bourgeois to the lowest class of the society. Some people might not like it because it is quite slow-paced but it was okay for my liking.
3.8/5 for Chemistry and Other Stories by Ron Rash. Recommended!
julian12's review
5.0
Honesty from Chemistry and Other Stories
Ron Rash’s story collection Chemistry and other stories is powerful spare and beautiful work. He knows the Carolinas and the Appalachians intimately. His stories range from historical settings to a much more contemporary world. The story ‘Honesty’ shows the worlds of those who struggle colliding in a dark and unexpected way with those seemingly breezing through existence. It seems a most unlikely situation – an academic and his wife – he taking a year off to try to be a real writer as opposed to churning out what is required as a literary professor. The wife who is part of the admin at the same college has a mocking attitude to his struggle. She encourages him to answer a lonely heart personal ad and use it as material for an article. What follows perhaps seems a bit contrived. The woman he is contacting is poor and desperate and when he meets her at the restaurant things take a darker turn as he gets more out of his depth. I think the work is perhaps not to be taken as pure realism at face value – it operates perhaps more on a symbolic level. The unbridgeable distances between people’s different lives. The sacrifices and losses on both sides of the divide. The more powerful side represented by the lecturer finds himself vulnerable in a deeper way than ever could be dreamed. There is a sense of the bright glittering surface of our lives smothering unknown depths of humanity that remain stifled below – potential not ever to be realised.
The whole thing seems partly ridiculous and contemptible but with a latent power that despite the reader’s disbelief refuses to go away. Above all with Rash it is the style and the achievement of phrases that seduce irrespective of the uneasy content of the story.
Ron Rash’s story collection Chemistry and other stories is powerful spare and beautiful work. He knows the Carolinas and the Appalachians intimately. His stories range from historical settings to a much more contemporary world. The story ‘Honesty’ shows the worlds of those who struggle colliding in a dark and unexpected way with those seemingly breezing through existence. It seems a most unlikely situation – an academic and his wife – he taking a year off to try to be a real writer as opposed to churning out what is required as a literary professor. The wife who is part of the admin at the same college has a mocking attitude to his struggle. She encourages him to answer a lonely heart personal ad and use it as material for an article. What follows perhaps seems a bit contrived. The woman he is contacting is poor and desperate and when he meets her at the restaurant things take a darker turn as he gets more out of his depth. I think the work is perhaps not to be taken as pure realism at face value – it operates perhaps more on a symbolic level. The unbridgeable distances between people’s different lives. The sacrifices and losses on both sides of the divide. The more powerful side represented by the lecturer finds himself vulnerable in a deeper way than ever could be dreamed. There is a sense of the bright glittering surface of our lives smothering unknown depths of humanity that remain stifled below – potential not ever to be realised.
The whole thing seems partly ridiculous and contemptible but with a latent power that despite the reader’s disbelief refuses to go away. Above all with Rash it is the style and the achievement of phrases that seduce irrespective of the uneasy content of the story.
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