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heypretty52's review
3.0
Finally finished chugging through. Despite some clever ideas, Keret's stories fall short on execution. Perhaps something is lost in translation or perhaps the writing style just isn't for me.
wtb_michael's review
2.0
These brief absurd stories left me pretty cold - there are flashes of humour and pathos, but it all felt too arch and self-consciously wacky to me.
torts's review
4.0
Keret's short stories are strange and amusing and perplexing (not always all at once). The last story was especially amusing, and reading the author's biography in the back definitely made me want to see the non-literary stuff that's been based on his stories.
kevinwkelsey's review against another edition
3.0
It's definitely different, and some of the stories are great, but there are a lot of mediocre ones too. Kneller's Happy Campers – like the film adaptation, Wristcutters – is really wonderful.
aquaviolin07's review
3.0
This review was written on 5/27/08.
I don't remember who it was who said writing about short stories that are even shorter than a review is difficult, but he was right. I enjoyed reading more of Keret's stories (collected here in The Bus Driver Who Wanted to be God and Other Stories), even if it was in translation. I will get to the original one day or another...
My absolute favorite was "Rabin's Dead," because of the originality, because of my strange interest in Rabin and Israel and the world in the 90s, because of the political and apolitical aspects of Keret's writing. I enjoyed the trip that was "Kneller's Happy Campers," although it was by far the strangest piece of writing I had ever read. I really like "Pipes," and, I guess the "is-there-isn't-there" (as it is referred to in the book) life after death idea..."Breaking the Pig" was my first favorite story, and it was nice to read it here again, in this collection.
Keret's writing doesn't strike me as genius (though nothing really does), but I really like the originality; that is something translation at least preserves. Where else can you read about a uterus being displayed at a museum, or a special place for people who committed suicide? At the same time, Keret's writing reveals the normal sides of life. His characters are happy bums—or, cheerful losers who know why they are losers, and kids who are wise for their age but at the same time, still kids. They are the embodiment of the little smiling man who is committing suicide on the front cover.
Overall, the book is an enjoyable read, even if it is better in the original. (It has a tone in translation that I don't pick up in the original.) It's certainly worth reading, and that's all I really have to say.
I don't remember who it was who said writing about short stories that are even shorter than a review is difficult, but he was right. I enjoyed reading more of Keret's stories (collected here in The Bus Driver Who Wanted to be God and Other Stories), even if it was in translation. I will get to the original one day or another...
My absolute favorite was "Rabin's Dead," because of the originality, because of my strange interest in Rabin and Israel and the world in the 90s, because of the political and apolitical aspects of Keret's writing. I enjoyed the trip that was "Kneller's Happy Campers," although it was by far the strangest piece of writing I had ever read. I really like "Pipes," and, I guess the "is-there-isn't-there" (as it is referred to in the book) life after death idea..."Breaking the Pig" was my first favorite story, and it was nice to read it here again, in this collection.
Keret's writing doesn't strike me as genius (though nothing really does), but I really like the originality; that is something translation at least preserves. Where else can you read about a uterus being displayed at a museum, or a special place for people who committed suicide? At the same time, Keret's writing reveals the normal sides of life. His characters are happy bums—or, cheerful losers who know why they are losers, and kids who are wise for their age but at the same time, still kids. They are the embodiment of the little smiling man who is committing suicide on the front cover.
Overall, the book is an enjoyable read, even if it is better in the original. (It has a tone in translation that I don't pick up in the original.) It's certainly worth reading, and that's all I really have to say.
craigwallwork's review
5.0
Etgar Keret has been decorated the prestigious title of Israel's hippest young writer, and from what I’ve read by his books, The Bus Driver Who Wanted to Be God, The Nimrod Flip Out, and Gazza Blues, he's worthy of the title.
His work is, as noted on Amazon, snapshots that illuminate with intelligence and wit. Hilarity and anguish are the twin pillars of his work. Keret covers a remarkable emotional and narrative terrain - from a father's first lesson to his boy to a standoff between soldiers caught in the Middle East conflict to a slice of life where nothing much happens. Don’t expect huge amounts of text, his books a short and sweet, but that said, his stories pack and powerful punch.
Keret's work has had a real impact on my own writing. While I admire slice-of-life prose, I think if you've got the chance, and a blank piece of paper, then you should really try and take the reader somewhere they're not expecting. Keret does this really well. His series of shorts (very short shorts), $9.99, have just been made into a stop motion film by Tatia Rosenthal.
I really encourage anyone out there with an interest in the strange and bizzare to go and search out his work. In truth, I keep a copy of The Bus Driver Who Wanted to Be God on my coffee table at all times and refer back to it whenever I get disheartend with whatever I'm reading. It acts as a reminder that there is still wonderful work being produced.
His work is, as noted on Amazon, snapshots that illuminate with intelligence and wit. Hilarity and anguish are the twin pillars of his work. Keret covers a remarkable emotional and narrative terrain - from a father's first lesson to his boy to a standoff between soldiers caught in the Middle East conflict to a slice of life where nothing much happens. Don’t expect huge amounts of text, his books a short and sweet, but that said, his stories pack and powerful punch.
Keret's work has had a real impact on my own writing. While I admire slice-of-life prose, I think if you've got the chance, and a blank piece of paper, then you should really try and take the reader somewhere they're not expecting. Keret does this really well. His series of shorts (very short shorts), $9.99, have just been made into a stop motion film by Tatia Rosenthal.
I really encourage anyone out there with an interest in the strange and bizzare to go and search out his work. In truth, I keep a copy of The Bus Driver Who Wanted to Be God on my coffee table at all times and refer back to it whenever I get disheartend with whatever I'm reading. It acts as a reminder that there is still wonderful work being produced.
rosseroo's review
5.0
Although wildly popular in his native Israel, this collection is the first of Keret's work to be published in the US. Two-thirds of the small book is given over to 22 equally small short stories, all ranging from 5-8 pages or so. These stories are difficult to characterize, although they generally feature alienated males (often children or teenagers), and the writing is universally deft and satirically witty with an underlying tone of irony and sorrow-occasionally drifting into unreality. Any description of them would not do them justice at all. I don't read enough American writers to think up a good comparison, although I would say Kerst shares some of Jonathan Lethem and Mark Jude Porier's territory. However, what the stories more similar to is some of the short fiction that came out of Scotland in the early to mid-'90s from people like Gordon Legge, Duncan McLean, and James Kelman, who also write very brief stories. Perhaps most of all, the book bears comparison to the absurdist fables of another Scot, Magnus Mills (All Quiet on the Orient Express, The Restraint of Beasts, Three To See The King). The novella which occupies the final third of the book, "Kneller's Happy Campers", about the afterlife of those who commit suicide, is especially redolent of Mills' odd and affecting mix of black humor and fantasy. The collection is drawn and translated from Keret's bestselling collections in Israel, and one can only hope that more makes it into English and across the shores.