Scan barcode
jamesdanielhorn's review
3.0
Phase Three of my trek through the short stories of Joy Williams, I have made my way through Honored Guest; and so far, it’s my least favorite. This is not to say these stories are bad (many are excellent), their were just not quite as many that were as deeply intriguing and affecting to me as the other collections.
The book starts off very strong. The titular story, Congress, and Marabou are all outstanding and you can read many others on here going deeper into them, particularly Congress. I may talk a bit more in depth about some of these in my review of The Visiting Privilege, but for now I’ll move it along.
That story, “The Visiting Privilege” initially published in this collection, was my least favorite due to its fat-phobic content. Again, I plan to go into a bit more detail about it in my other review, but it just bothers the hell out of me when skinny women (or anyone for that matter) write fat characters and only depict them as fat and negative. It sours the whole experience for me. Not only did this story do that, but it left the two women nameless for much of the story simply calling them the fat twins, then the main character nicknamed them (negative) and then continued to just identity them by their body type. Yuck.
If I am being honest with myself, I found much of the rest of this collection was kind of unmemorable. Maybe I was annoyed by the previous story but, I just didn’t connect with them. I did however notice the sort of jaded disconnection in the characters, that really made Harrow work for me. Particularly in “Fortune”and “Substance” but the rest as well. The other collection hinted at this, but here it seems to have become a style point for Ms Williams.
As I have been doing with these collections in other reviews, I’d like to go a bit deeper on the omissions from the Visiting Privilege. In this case we only lost one story “Claro” which I cannot for the life of me understand why they would leave this out. For me it was the highlight of the book. It also feels so Joy Williams, that it would have fit perfectly in a demonstrative omnibus, it’s not overlong or too short, and it really does not feel derivative. It did remind me of Juan Rulfo’s work, but not in an homage kind of way. Simply in the “Life for Life’s sake, and life can be cruel” way this story unfolds, which is not unlike many of her others. This has been the biggest oversight in the exclusions.
So for me this collection is absolutely still worth reading just that some are “good not great” but “good not great” for Joy Williams is still exceptional. If fat-phobia bothers you like it does me, skip TVP.
The book starts off very strong. The titular story, Congress, and Marabou are all outstanding and you can read many others on here going deeper into them, particularly Congress. I may talk a bit more in depth about some of these in my review of The Visiting Privilege, but for now I’ll move it along.
That story, “The Visiting Privilege” initially published in this collection, was my least favorite due to its fat-phobic content. Again, I plan to go into a bit more detail about it in my other review, but it just bothers the hell out of me when skinny women (or anyone for that matter) write fat characters and only depict them as fat and negative. It sours the whole experience for me. Not only did this story do that, but it left the two women nameless for much of the story simply calling them the fat twins, then the main character nicknamed them (negative) and then continued to just identity them by their body type. Yuck.
If I am being honest with myself, I found much of the rest of this collection was kind of unmemorable. Maybe I was annoyed by the previous story but, I just didn’t connect with them. I did however notice the sort of jaded disconnection in the characters, that really made Harrow work for me. Particularly in “Fortune”and “Substance” but the rest as well. The other collection hinted at this, but here it seems to have become a style point for Ms Williams.
As I have been doing with these collections in other reviews, I’d like to go a bit deeper on the omissions from the Visiting Privilege. In this case we only lost one story “Claro” which I cannot for the life of me understand why they would leave this out. For me it was the highlight of the book. It also feels so Joy Williams, that it would have fit perfectly in a demonstrative omnibus, it’s not overlong or too short, and it really does not feel derivative. It did remind me of Juan Rulfo’s work, but not in an homage kind of way. Simply in the “Life for Life’s sake, and life can be cruel” way this story unfolds, which is not unlike many of her others. This has been the biggest oversight in the exclusions.
So for me this collection is absolutely still worth reading just that some are “good not great” but “good not great” for Joy Williams is still exceptional. If fat-phobia bothers you like it does me, skip TVP.
choala's review against another edition
4.0
Not to brag, but Daniel Clowes recommended this author to me. She is awesome and dark and weird.
kewlpinguino's review against another edition
4.0
Joy Williams is great. I've read that that this collection isn't her best, which means I'll probably like her other stuff more, which would be pretty great. Her stories are oblique as hell, like George Saunders, but they manage to show a certain American mood of quiet disillusionment that never quite manifests (even when the stories are set abroad). "Congress" was strange but funny, "The Visiting Privilege" was intriguing, and the title story was great too.
lucasmiller's review against another edition
5.0
I'm not sure when I started scanning the shelves of used bookstores for Joy Williams. This might be another product of a year or so of close reading of Tao Lin's old blog in 2005-2006. A strange episode in my literary life. I remember becoming obsessed with the K-Mart Realists. I had a group of friends the first year of college who would pass around Amy Hempel's collected stories talking about it in hushed tones. I read Anne Beattie's Chilly Scenes of Winter. I discovered Lorrie Moore. I had pretended to be more familiar with Donald Barthelme for awhile, but started reading Frederick Barthelme in earnest. All of these writers cover many different micro genres, few of which are actually considered "dirty realism" or "Kmart realists" but they are all closely linked in my mind, still. Extremely affecting short stories where not much happens. My favorite genre.
I read Breaking and Entering and Taking Care in undergrad. A novel and a short story collection that seemed intertwined, similar settings and characters. My favorite story in the collection is a chapter in the novel. I reread the stories often. The rest of Williams books seemed hard to find or mysterious. I never bought books online at this point. If I couldn't find it at used bookstores, I didn't read it. This was part of the reason why it was so exciting to come across Honored Guest. A brand new hardback edition for cheap. At the time, a more talented friend of mine had started a blog, and inspired me to try and write more. I decided I would read each story in this collection and write (not on the internet) a summary/review, and eventually cobble together an essay on Joy Williams. This must have been in 2008-2009.
I cam home last week and saw the book mark still there, sitting between the fifth and sixth stories in the collection. I still have the abandoned essay on my computer."she has pioneered the profound statement wrapped in the mundane facts of day to day life, touched with desperation." It runs to a grand total of 496 words. It only mentions the first story in the collection. I did not go back and reread, I marched through. and finished the remaining seven stories in my parents basement.
I love Joy Williams writing. She writes like people think. Strange connections, meandering thoughts. Plots that are just set upon the table and left unexamined. Often stories end with a harrowing or shocking event that evokes tender emotions in the narrator of the story. People seem damaged in these stories, attempted suicides, long term illnesses, cancer, but there is a strain of humor that really resonates all of the place. The uncomfortableness of dealing with other people. Eccentricity as deeply disturbing and funny. These short stories never make me feel sad, even though so many of them are about deeply sad people and situations. I have still never read another author who can evoke these contradictory and complex feelings as easily as Joy Williams. I've been trying to figure them out for years now.
I read Breaking and Entering and Taking Care in undergrad. A novel and a short story collection that seemed intertwined, similar settings and characters. My favorite story in the collection is a chapter in the novel. I reread the stories often. The rest of Williams books seemed hard to find or mysterious. I never bought books online at this point. If I couldn't find it at used bookstores, I didn't read it. This was part of the reason why it was so exciting to come across Honored Guest. A brand new hardback edition for cheap. At the time, a more talented friend of mine had started a blog, and inspired me to try and write more. I decided I would read each story in this collection and write (not on the internet) a summary/review, and eventually cobble together an essay on Joy Williams. This must have been in 2008-2009.
I cam home last week and saw the book mark still there, sitting between the fifth and sixth stories in the collection. I still have the abandoned essay on my computer."she has pioneered the profound statement wrapped in the mundane facts of day to day life, touched with desperation." It runs to a grand total of 496 words. It only mentions the first story in the collection. I did not go back and reread, I marched through. and finished the remaining seven stories in my parents basement.
I love Joy Williams writing. She writes like people think. Strange connections, meandering thoughts. Plots that are just set upon the table and left unexamined. Often stories end with a harrowing or shocking event that evokes tender emotions in the narrator of the story. People seem damaged in these stories, attempted suicides, long term illnesses, cancer, but there is a strain of humor that really resonates all of the place. The uncomfortableness of dealing with other people. Eccentricity as deeply disturbing and funny. These short stories never make me feel sad, even though so many of them are about deeply sad people and situations. I have still never read another author who can evoke these contradictory and complex feelings as easily as Joy Williams. I've been trying to figure them out for years now.
rpmirabella's review against another edition
5.0
All I can say is that these stories changed my life. Everyone should read Joy Williams.
matthewcpeck's review against another edition
5.0
This is the third of William's story collections that I've read, and it's my favorite. As in the career arc of Cormac McCarthy, her move to the American Southwest seems to have opened up new channels of imagination. Her earlier collections were all about fractured families and alienated young women. The protagonists still run along those lines in 'Honored Guest', but it's death that's creeping in every tale here, overtly or covertly. Williams reminds the reader of how fragile and absurd human existence is over the course of these 12 perfect stories, which never, ever head in the expected direction, in terms of both plot and characterization. In 'Congress' a forensic anthropologist takes up hunting and fashions a lamp out of four deer legs; his wife becomes enthralled by this lamp and attributes to it animate, conscious qualities; after the husband suffers profound brain damage from falling asleep in a deer stand and driving his own arrow through his brain, they embark on a road trip to a taxidermy museum with a cultishly adored proprietor, who spontaneously names the wife as his successor...you know, that tired old story.
Other favorites: the haunting, sad title story, the blackly comic 'Charity', 'Visiting Priveleges'. These stories are both carefully controlled and crazy, and, as any Joy Williams fan will tell you: addictive. Take the advice of those fans and the many writers that esteem her so highly, and read 'Honored Guest' or 'The Quick And The Dead', already. You can meet children like this:
"I think of God as a magician," ZoeBella whispered, looking closely at Janice. "A rich magician who has a great many sheep who he hypnotizes so he won't have to pay for shepherds or fences to keep them from running away. The sheep know that eventually the magician wants to kill them because he wants their flesh and skin. So first the magician hypnotizes them into thinking that they're immortal and that no harm is being done to them when they get skinned, that on the contrary it will be very good for them and even pleasant. Then he hypnotizes them into thinking that the magician is their good master who loves them. Then he hypnotizes them into thinking that they're not sheep at all. And after all this, they never run away but quietly wait until the magician requires their flesh and their skin."
Other favorites: the haunting, sad title story, the blackly comic 'Charity', 'Visiting Priveleges'. These stories are both carefully controlled and crazy, and, as any Joy Williams fan will tell you: addictive. Take the advice of those fans and the many writers that esteem her so highly, and read 'Honored Guest' or 'The Quick And The Dead', already. You can meet children like this:
"I think of God as a magician," ZoeBella whispered, looking closely at Janice. "A rich magician who has a great many sheep who he hypnotizes so he won't have to pay for shepherds or fences to keep them from running away. The sheep know that eventually the magician wants to kill them because he wants their flesh and skin. So first the magician hypnotizes them into thinking that they're immortal and that no harm is being done to them when they get skinned, that on the contrary it will be very good for them and even pleasant. Then he hypnotizes them into thinking that the magician is their good master who loves them. Then he hypnotizes them into thinking that they're not sheep at all. And after all this, they never run away but quietly wait until the magician requires their flesh and their skin."
an_enthusiastic_reader's review against another edition
4.0
Piercing, rattling, disorienting, indicting.
rdebner's review against another edition
I wanted to like this book. Each story started out with an interesting premise, but then the sense or cohesion of the story quickly devolved. Characters would say things that made no sense. I suppose you could interpret the stories as Kafka-esque, but they were even more bizarre and jolting than that.
emmkayt's review against another edition
3.0
I can tell these short stories are well-written - their opaque literariness is a dead giveaway. I found the first pair especially interesting. In the titular story, a dying single mother and her teenage daughter are unable to communicate meaningfully, while in "Congress," which was beautifully bizarre, a woman's most meaningful relationship ends up being with a lamp she becomes emotionally attached to. But as I moved through the collection, I was increasingly alienated. So much "wait, what?", such unrelenting isolation, lack of meaning, lack of connection. I didn't really 'like' most of it, but those first two were well worth it. Maybe 2.5 stars? But giving stars seems as meaningless and uncommunicative as, you know, the entire world if we lived in a Joy Williams story. Hey, wait...