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hangsawoman's reviews
313 reviews
The Strange Library by Haruki Murakami
4.0
Half on hour or so in the company of Murakami is half an hour well spent, and that's how long it took me to read this brief but beautiful short story. The actual piece itself isn't his most dazzling tale but the reason this is so enjoyable is the presentation of it; the illustrations taken from archive books and the graphic design.
Lines Composed a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey by William Wordsworth
3.0
Wordsworth was a really sad lad wasn't he
Preface to the Lyrical Ballads by William Wordsworth
1.0
I hate this it made me want to hide in my wardrobe. I'm only adding it so I can get closer to my reading challenge goal
Cane by Jean Toomer
3.0
As seems to be a theme with a lot of modernist texts, I'm not sure how I feel
The Wine-Dark Sea by Robert Aickman
4.0
I tend to review collections by rating each story individually so I suppose I'll do that here again.
The Wine-Dark Sea--4/5 (spooky women on an island is Aickman 101)
The Trains--1/5 (all of his worst elements are packed into this one story. Just skip it honestly. It's overlong, and the conclusion is just stuffed with event that makes no sense, and not in the good way.)
Your Tiny Hand is Frozen--4/5 (more of traditional ghost story than I was expecting, but it also has adultery, so...)
Growing Boys--4.5/5 (unexpected in the best of ways.)
The Fetch--5/5 (I would rate this 10/5 if that rating could make any sense. This is the best Aickman story I have read. It's so, so superlative, so terrifying, so fascinating and enigmatic. It's the opposite of The Trains.)
The Inner Room--3/5 (enjoyable enough but fairly by the books.)
Never Visit Venice--4.5/5 (Don't Look Now but with more contempt at tourists.)
Into the Woods--4.5/5 (deserves to be read for the scene at night in the forest alone.)
It's been a while since I read the other two collections, and maybe they call for a re-read, especially Cold Hand in Mine. In any case this is a really great book of stories, and a lot of them are deeply creepy. The Fetch sort of overshadows the others, though.
The Wine-Dark Sea--4/5 (spooky women on an island is Aickman 101)
The Trains--1/5 (all of his worst elements are packed into this one story. Just skip it honestly. It's overlong, and the conclusion is just stuffed with event that makes no sense, and not in the good way.)
Your Tiny Hand is Frozen--4/5 (more of traditional ghost story than I was expecting, but it also has adultery, so...)
Growing Boys--4.5/5 (unexpected in the best of ways.)
The Fetch--5/5 (I would rate this 10/5 if that rating could make any sense. This is the best Aickman story I have read. It's so, so superlative, so terrifying, so fascinating and enigmatic. It's the opposite of The Trains.)
The Inner Room--3/5 (enjoyable enough but fairly by the books.)
Never Visit Venice--4.5/5 (Don't Look Now but with more contempt at tourists.)
Into the Woods--4.5/5 (deserves to be read for the scene at night in the forest alone.)
It's been a while since I read the other two collections, and maybe they call for a re-read, especially Cold Hand in Mine. In any case this is a really great book of stories, and a lot of them are deeply creepy. The Fetch sort of overshadows the others, though.