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bob625 's review for:
Trying To Save Piggy Sneed
by John Irving
In the past I've associated Irving with big sprawling 600 page novels, but as you'd expect he's a splendid writer of short fiction also. Trying To Save Piggy Sneed is a slim collection of six short stories and two essays.
Interior Space is markedly better than the other short stories, in both complexity and pleasure. This really felt like it could've been expanded or incorporated into a full length novel, and, ah, how I wish it were so. Teenage gonorrhea, a boisterous German, new age interior design and a great whopping walnut tree. What a joy.
Another one of my favourites was Brennbar's Rant, in which the cognac swilling, cigar smoking, pockmarked Ernst Brennbar disrupts a snobby dinner party conversation on the validity of different minorities groups by ranting on the injustices experienced by the most discriminated against minority group of them all: pimpled people. Zitism, the unmentioned prejudice against those of us with temperamental skin. A hilarious, balanced, perfectly realised story.
It was also a delight to reread The Pension Grillparzer, though I hadn't forgotten much since reading The World According To Garp almost precisely one year ago. I wasn't quite as enamoured this time as I was the first time round, but it's still a charming, chucklesome tale.
The rest are all inventive and memorable little squibs, apart from one dud (Almost In Iowa). A satisfying collection if you're in need of a burst of Irving's antics, but can't be bothered committing to a longer work.
Interior Space is markedly better than the other short stories, in both complexity and pleasure. This really felt like it could've been expanded or incorporated into a full length novel, and, ah, how I wish it were so. Teenage gonorrhea, a boisterous German, new age interior design and a great whopping walnut tree. What a joy.
Another one of my favourites was Brennbar's Rant, in which the cognac swilling, cigar smoking, pockmarked Ernst Brennbar disrupts a snobby dinner party conversation on the validity of different minorities groups by ranting on the injustices experienced by the most discriminated against minority group of them all: pimpled people. Zitism, the unmentioned prejudice against those of us with temperamental skin. A hilarious, balanced, perfectly realised story.
It was also a delight to reread The Pension Grillparzer, though I hadn't forgotten much since reading The World According To Garp almost precisely one year ago. I wasn't quite as enamoured this time as I was the first time round, but it's still a charming, chucklesome tale.
The rest are all inventive and memorable little squibs, apart from one dud (Almost In Iowa). A satisfying collection if you're in need of a burst of Irving's antics, but can't be bothered committing to a longer work.