Reviews

Melancholic Parables by Dale Stromberg

clari's review

challenging dark mysterious reflective

5.0

 I was enchanted from the title and layout of the book, knowing immediately that this would be a tome that I would love spending time with. 

casey20222022's review

challenging funny lighthearted mysterious reflective relaxing sad medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

These clever parables are full of fresh phrases, exquisite language, and surprising twists, sometimes whimsical, sometimes dark.  The sprinkling of quirky words, both invented and real, gives the stories an international, fantastical feel.  This collection is quite a journey!  And highly recommended!

msabatino's review

funny reflective fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

It was a pleasure to read Dale Stromberg’s “Melancholic Parables.” I whizzed through each unique thirteenth of the book with excitement to enter every world and hear the voices of each character. It’s a vibrant multicolor quilt of parables spanning from poetic to matter-of-fact. If you liked the recent film “Everything Everywhere All at Once,” this collection is for you.

The way the main-ish character Bellatrix Sakakino’s stories are weaved among futuristic parables, dystopian worlds, wacky turns-of-events, and everyday happenings are delightful, thoughtful, and witty. And Stromberg is a chameleon of writing styles with an arsenal of different tenses and perspectives, making each world of the parables lifelike in record time.

I found the conversation between the parable title, epigraph, and parable particularly enjoyable and thought-provoking part of reading. Some of my favorite quotes come from the epigraphs. I caught myself smiling at the title of a parable: “Excellent Problem-Causing and Critical-Drinking Skills” only to be called out by the first line “ ‘What are you smiling about, scumbag?’” I love Stromberg’s wordplay and the consciousness that his stories are being read. As a reader, I love to feel included in the experience. Beyond this consciousness of the reader, the construction of the collection is clever. The stories stack like building blocks with the tone, the characters, and themes creating a complex work. I feel that with each parable I read, I got sucked into the stories more.

I would recommend this book! It’s a must-read for anyone interested in the construction of the novel, but also for anyone who wants a book that is both thoughtful and funny.

One line that particularly spoke to me and made me laugh: “Am I just a pocket of lukewarm air?”

Particular favorites in the collection: “Ngantukisme,” “We Drink Pearls—We Sup on Peacocks’ Tongues,” “Endlessly Cutting the Deck,” “Tumpangisme,” “Insolubilia,” “Whilst This Machine Is to Him,” “Nyetovshchik,” “Desengaños del mundo,” and “Un poco alterado” . . . just to name a few :)

zillanovikov's review

dark emotional funny reflective sad slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? N/A
• Strong character development? N/A
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? N/A
• Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A

5.0

Reading Melancholic Parables is like listening to someone speaking what sounds like gibberish but you understand every word.

What is this book, this compilation of microstories? It's about all those tiny thoughts that run through your head, which you've never bothered to ask if anyone else wonders too. How would it feel to live your life twice, if you remembered everything? Is that weird feeling of being watched because of time-travelling tourists? What if there was a language in the dial-up modem buzz? Bellatrix Sakakino wonders along with you, and lives through the answers. That's part of this book. But that's not all of it, not exactly.

This is a book about being born in the wrong time, the wrong body, the wrong world. It is a book about failing to belong. It is a book about loneliness.

The microstories are absurd and deeply meaningful. I found myself wanting to quote them, but all-too-often unable to pull apart passages into neat quote-sized fragments, because sentences hung on paragraphs, on microstories, on the book. 

"Not every book is for every reader. A book must rhyme with you, or you with it."

This is a witty, clever book, but it's also a dark work: a work of uneasy ghosts and climate change, of loving your abuser and hating yourself. It might be better for me if this book didn't rhyme. But it does. This is a book for me. It might be for you, too.

(I recieved an advance copy of the book for review here and on the Night Beats blog.)