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bobbyman's review
funny
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
5.0
amalia1985's review
emotional
funny
inspiring
reflective
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
‘’Well, by now you must know yourself, honey, whatever you do, life don’t stop. It only sits a minute and dreams a dream.’’
Grace Paley’s stories are unique in their richness, commentary and tenderness in the face of adversities. And by God, we do have enough of those! Social hurdles, prejudices, family obstacles, personal insecurities that freeze us and ‘’disarm’’ us as we drown…She paints a vivid view of New York, the melting pot, the city of cultural diversity, the weariness, the struggle to find a balance between the need to ‘’belong’’ and the urge to protect and preserve your unique cultural heritage. Tradition is often in danger of sinking beneath the current of an era that changes fast.
These are stories rich in Jewish culture, told in beautiful, direct language. Daughters, sons, lovers, fathers, mothers, friends, neighbours, gossip and confessions. These are the stories of women and men who love, hate, hope, fear, believe and occasionally reject and despair. Above all, these are the stories of people who bravely rise every morning and dare to dream every night…
It would be impossible for me to refer to each story in the anthology, so here is a brief summary of the ones that have stayed with me:
The Pale Pink Roast: A divorced couple is too afraid to actually admit they still love each other.
The Loudest Voice: A Jewish girl takes part in her school’s Christmas festivities and brings down the house, despite her father’s hesitation.
The Contest: A young man is fooled by an enchanting girl who promises the world.
Faith in the Afternoon: The heated discussion between a father and a daughter over religion, heritage, history, tradition and the time that changes.
Enormous Changes at the Last Minute: A woman finds love much to the surprise (and slight dismay…) of her father.
In the Garden: Two women, one exhausted by her chronic illness and the other in pain over the future of her daughters, comfort each other in a garden, one spring afternoon in the Big Apple.
Beautiful Introduction by George Saunders.
‘’I wanted to stop and admire the long beach. I wanted to stop in order to think admiringly about New York. There aren’t many rotting cities so tan and sandy and speckled with citizens at their salty edges. But I had already spent a lot of life lying down or standing or staring. I had decided to run.’’
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maree_k's review
5.0
I loved these stories. Paley had such a brilliant, incisive, unique voice. The rhythm of her writing, the characters and their voices sunk into my skin. I couldn't compare her to another writer because there was no one else like her. Each story was a small slice of life, and her ability to recreate a place and time so economically is outstanding. Every writer of short stories needs to read this collection, no matter what genre you write in.
wtb_michael's review against another edition
5.0
What a spectacular collection! Paley is funny, warm, political and innovative, with a brilliant turn of phrase, a real love for her characters and the ability to do more in 10 pages than most novelists manage in 300. Reading this reminded me of reading [b:A Manual for Cleaning Women: Selected Stories|22929586|A Manual for Cleaning Women Selected Stories|Lucia Berlin|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1437827518l/22929586._SX50_.jpg|42499118] - that feeling, from the first story, that you were reading a classic. A good reminder to occasionally step back from the flood of new releases - classics are classics for a reason.
chellyfish's review
4.0
Having read only one of these stories before ("Samuel"), most of Grace Paley was entirely new to me. In the case of Grace, who she is heavily influences her writing. The daughter of Russian-Jews, Paley grew up in the Bronx and raised a family in Manhattan, only writing her first story when she was laid up in bed for a couple weeks, sick enough so that a nanny took her kids over to let her rest. What she wrote was what she lived: realistic fiction with women as complex main characters, unapologetically breaking into their inner lives and revealing their mentalities. A friend's husband was a publisher who told her to write more stories and he'd publish a book of them. This Collected Stories is all three of Paley's short story collections compiled together.
It's hard to believe that Paley was never educated in writing (though she studied poetry), because her prose is handled with a deft cleverness that's enviable. While she writes her stories in a more traditional way that tends to rely on character strength, she increasingly experiments with her style, most notably bunching together multiple speakers in one paragraph, and doing away with quotation marks until the last story she wrote, which is literally all over the place.
The ending there was where it got hit-or-miss for me. I thought that Paley's emphasis on character building early on was more reliable, and her Yiddish-oriented dialogue was so on point and flawless. And while I appreciate the experimentalism, and sometimes it really did hit, it lost me completely just as often -- unfortunate, because Paley is so obviously a powerhouse writer.
It's hard to believe that Paley was never educated in writing (though she studied poetry), because her prose is handled with a deft cleverness that's enviable. While she writes her stories in a more traditional way that tends to rely on character strength, she increasingly experiments with her style, most notably bunching together multiple speakers in one paragraph, and doing away with quotation marks until the last story she wrote, which is literally all over the place.
The ending there was where it got hit-or-miss for me. I thought that Paley's emphasis on character building early on was more reliable, and her Yiddish-oriented dialogue was so on point and flawless. And while I appreciate the experimentalism, and sometimes it really did hit, it lost me completely just as often -- unfortunate, because Paley is so obviously a powerhouse writer.
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