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The Fat Man in History
If, in some post-Marxist utopia, obesity were declared counterrevolutionary, how would a houseful of fat men strike back? If it were possible to win a new body by lottery, what kind of people would choose ugliness? If two gun-toting thugs decided to take over a business—and run it through sheer terror—how far would their methods take them?
These are the questions that Peter Carey, author of The Tax Inspector and Oscar and Lucinda, brilliantly explores in this collection of stories. Exquisitely written and thoroughly envisioned, the tales in The Fat Man in History reach beyond their arresting premises to utter deep and often frightening truths about our brightest and darkest selves.
These are the questions that Peter Carey, author of The Tax Inspector and Oscar and Lucinda, brilliantly explores in this collection of stories. Exquisitely written and thoroughly envisioned, the tales in The Fat Man in History reach beyond their arresting premises to utter deep and often frightening truths about our brightest and darkest selves.
192 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1974
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898 people want to read
About the author
Peter Carey
102 books1,033 followersLibrarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name. Not all books on this profile are by the same author. See this thread for more information.
Peter Carey was born in Australia in 1943.
He was educated at the local state school until the age of eleven and then became a boarder at Geelong Grammar School. He was a student there between 1954 and 1960 — after Rupert Murdoch had graduated and before Prince Charles arrived.
In 1961 he studied science for a single unsuccessful year at Monash University. He was then employed by an advertising agency where he began to receive his literary education, meeting Faulkner, Joyce, Kerouac and other writers he had previously been unaware of. He was nineteen.
For the next thirteen years he wrote fiction at night and weekends, working in many advertising agencies in Melbourne, London and Sydney.
After four novels had been written and rejected The Fat Man in History — a short story collection — was published in 1974. This slim book made him an overnight success.
From 1976 Carey worked one week a month for Grey Advertising, then, in 1981 he established a small business where his generous partner required him to work only two afternoons a week. Thus between 1976 and 1990, he was able to pursue literature obsessively. It was during this period that he wrote War Crimes, Bliss, Illywhacker, Oscar and Lucinda. Illywhacker was short listed for the Booker Prize. Oscar and Lucinda won it. Uncomfortable with this success he began work on The Tax Inspector.
In 1990 he moved to New York where he completed The Tax Inspector. He taught at NYU one night a week. Later he would have similar jobs at Princeton, The New School and Barnard College. During these years he wrote The Unusual Life of Tristan Smith, Jack Maggs, and True History of the Kelly Gang for which he won his second Booker Prize.
He collaborated on the screenplay of the film Until the End of the World with Wim Wenders.
In 2003 he joined Hunter College as the Director of the MFA Program in Creative Writing. In the years since he has written My Life as a Fake, Theft, His Illegal Self and Parrot and Oliver in America (shortlisted for 2010 Man Booker Prize).
Peter Carey was born in Australia in 1943.
He was educated at the local state school until the age of eleven and then became a boarder at Geelong Grammar School. He was a student there between 1954 and 1960 — after Rupert Murdoch had graduated and before Prince Charles arrived.
In 1961 he studied science for a single unsuccessful year at Monash University. He was then employed by an advertising agency where he began to receive his literary education, meeting Faulkner, Joyce, Kerouac and other writers he had previously been unaware of. He was nineteen.
For the next thirteen years he wrote fiction at night and weekends, working in many advertising agencies in Melbourne, London and Sydney.
After four novels had been written and rejected The Fat Man in History — a short story collection — was published in 1974. This slim book made him an overnight success.
From 1976 Carey worked one week a month for Grey Advertising, then, in 1981 he established a small business where his generous partner required him to work only two afternoons a week. Thus between 1976 and 1990, he was able to pursue literature obsessively. It was during this period that he wrote War Crimes, Bliss, Illywhacker, Oscar and Lucinda. Illywhacker was short listed for the Booker Prize. Oscar and Lucinda won it. Uncomfortable with this success he began work on The Tax Inspector.
In 1990 he moved to New York where he completed The Tax Inspector. He taught at NYU one night a week. Later he would have similar jobs at Princeton, The New School and Barnard College. During these years he wrote The Unusual Life of Tristan Smith, Jack Maggs, and True History of the Kelly Gang for which he won his second Booker Prize.
He collaborated on the screenplay of the film Until the End of the World with Wim Wenders.
In 2003 he joined Hunter College as the Director of the MFA Program in Creative Writing. In the years since he has written My Life as a Fake, Theft, His Illegal Self and Parrot and Oliver in America (shortlisted for 2010 Man Booker Prize).
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 91 reviews
December 6, 2014
As If
Many of the reviews of this fantastic collection of short stories mention the following comment by Peter Carey:
"The trouble with academics is that they try too hard to understand these stories ....
"They should relax. The stories are only about what they seem to be about.
"They are, if you like, a collection of 'what if' stories. I took a dozen or so hypotheses and asked what would happen if ...."
Try as I did to avoid citing this comment, it sums up the appeal of the collection perfectly.
I love the expression "what if”, not to mention the German phrase, "als ob".
I even started to mark every time I saw the word "if" in the book, to see what I might discover.
Yet, the more I contemplated Carey’s comment, the more I appreciated how glib and potentially self-deprecating it is, in an almost typically Australian way.
When anybody sits down and wonders whether and what if, they are effectively utilizing their imagination.
So Carey was really just explaining the creative process in the simplest possible language he could conceive.
His comment and his approach are at once both simple and profound.
The Sweetest Manoeuvres
The closest literary analogies I can think of are Italo Calvino, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Heinrich Böll and Franz Kafka.
Peter Carey’s fiction was first published by University of Queensland Press.
This was a happy coincidence for me, because it was based in my home city of Brisbane, even though I went to University in Canberra.
The Publication Manager at UQP at the time, Craig Munro, was of particular interest to me, because he had written a biography of the politician P.R. (Inky) Stephenson, and my nickname since primary school had been "Inky".
Peter Carey’s first work was somehow recognizable as Australia or parts of the world that Australians might visit. Yet, it was somehow also otherworldly (like "Mad Max").
This world was a product of the imagination. Isolated, insulated from the rest of the world, like the rest of us, Carey created a vivid world of his own.
It was like an adolescent virgin male dreaming of what sex might be like. Your visions are almost better than the real thing:
"He is on top of her and she, giggling and groaning, manoeuvres sweetly below him, reciting nursery rhymes with her arse."
Unravelled Dreams and Shadows
At the same time, as with your first sexual experience or first venture into the world, there was a real risk that it might all come undone. Even asleep, the narrator's head is filled with "unraveled dreams."
In the story "Peeling", the male protagonist undresses a woman in his bedroom, until she is wearing nothing but an earring. She pleads with him to leave it in place, but he is compelled to use force:
"It is not, it would appear, an earring at all, but a zip or catch of some sort. As I pull, her face, then her breasts, peel away. Horrified, I continue to pull, unable to stop, until I have stripped her of this unexpected layer."
There are more layers to come, but you will have to discover them yourself.
A Shadow of Your Future Self
Just as there are layers, there are boundaries, some self-imposed:
"Daphne was not a beautiful girl, although she had a striking body with very long legs and big tits which she displayed to their most incredible advantage.
"...during this summer she moved in with Eddie, and Eddie was frightened, flattered, and almost in love with her.
"He felt like a man who's bought a racing car he's too frightened to drive fast.”
Equally, we are plagued by our shadows:
"…shadows are merely mirrors to the soul, and the man who stares into a shadow box sees only himself, and what beauty he finds there is his own beauty, and what despair he experiences is born of the poverty of the spirit.”
Of Beauties and Mysteries One Can Only Imagine
This is the world within which Carey works. Only, he proceeds to manufacture one more shadow, the shadow cast by his own creativity:
"…elusive, unsatisfactory, hinting at greater beauties and more profound mysteries that exist somewhere before the beginning and somewhere after the end."
For an Australian, these beauties and mysteries might also exist somewhere other, somewhere more exotic, than Australia.
When it was first published, this collection captivated me, as did, in a lesser way, the follow-up, "War Crimes."
I never really warmed to Carey's first novel, "Bliss", or his subsequent novels. I never really gave them a chance though. I was too enthralled by my first love.
I have to remedy this myopia. I have to make room for new loves.
Many of the reviews of this fantastic collection of short stories mention the following comment by Peter Carey:
"The trouble with academics is that they try too hard to understand these stories ....
"They should relax. The stories are only about what they seem to be about.
"They are, if you like, a collection of 'what if' stories. I took a dozen or so hypotheses and asked what would happen if ...."
Try as I did to avoid citing this comment, it sums up the appeal of the collection perfectly.
I love the expression "what if”, not to mention the German phrase, "als ob".
I even started to mark every time I saw the word "if" in the book, to see what I might discover.
Yet, the more I contemplated Carey’s comment, the more I appreciated how glib and potentially self-deprecating it is, in an almost typically Australian way.
When anybody sits down and wonders whether and what if, they are effectively utilizing their imagination.
So Carey was really just explaining the creative process in the simplest possible language he could conceive.
His comment and his approach are at once both simple and profound.
The Sweetest Manoeuvres
The closest literary analogies I can think of are Italo Calvino, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Heinrich Böll and Franz Kafka.
Peter Carey’s fiction was first published by University of Queensland Press.
This was a happy coincidence for me, because it was based in my home city of Brisbane, even though I went to University in Canberra.
The Publication Manager at UQP at the time, Craig Munro, was of particular interest to me, because he had written a biography of the politician P.R. (Inky) Stephenson, and my nickname since primary school had been "Inky".
Peter Carey’s first work was somehow recognizable as Australia or parts of the world that Australians might visit. Yet, it was somehow also otherworldly (like "Mad Max").
This world was a product of the imagination. Isolated, insulated from the rest of the world, like the rest of us, Carey created a vivid world of his own.
It was like an adolescent virgin male dreaming of what sex might be like. Your visions are almost better than the real thing:
"He is on top of her and she, giggling and groaning, manoeuvres sweetly below him, reciting nursery rhymes with her arse."
Unravelled Dreams and Shadows
At the same time, as with your first sexual experience or first venture into the world, there was a real risk that it might all come undone. Even asleep, the narrator's head is filled with "unraveled dreams."
In the story "Peeling", the male protagonist undresses a woman in his bedroom, until she is wearing nothing but an earring. She pleads with him to leave it in place, but he is compelled to use force:
"It is not, it would appear, an earring at all, but a zip or catch of some sort. As I pull, her face, then her breasts, peel away. Horrified, I continue to pull, unable to stop, until I have stripped her of this unexpected layer."
There are more layers to come, but you will have to discover them yourself.
A Shadow of Your Future Self
Just as there are layers, there are boundaries, some self-imposed:
"Daphne was not a beautiful girl, although she had a striking body with very long legs and big tits which she displayed to their most incredible advantage.
"...during this summer she moved in with Eddie, and Eddie was frightened, flattered, and almost in love with her.
"He felt like a man who's bought a racing car he's too frightened to drive fast.”
Equally, we are plagued by our shadows:
"…shadows are merely mirrors to the soul, and the man who stares into a shadow box sees only himself, and what beauty he finds there is his own beauty, and what despair he experiences is born of the poverty of the spirit.”
Of Beauties and Mysteries One Can Only Imagine
This is the world within which Carey works. Only, he proceeds to manufacture one more shadow, the shadow cast by his own creativity:
"…elusive, unsatisfactory, hinting at greater beauties and more profound mysteries that exist somewhere before the beginning and somewhere after the end."
For an Australian, these beauties and mysteries might also exist somewhere other, somewhere more exotic, than Australia.
When it was first published, this collection captivated me, as did, in a lesser way, the follow-up, "War Crimes."
I never really warmed to Carey's first novel, "Bliss", or his subsequent novels. I never really gave them a chance though. I was too enthralled by my first love.
I have to remedy this myopia. I have to make room for new loves.
January 29, 2018
If there's one thing I think goes against postmodernist writers, it might be that they are sometimes too clever for their own good, creating dense stories full of pointless cerebration, without taking the most important factor into consideration, the reader. Thankfully for me breezing through Peter Carey for the first time I found he didn't suffer from this problem. The stories that make up this collection were both stimulating and entertaining, without being pompous or impenetrable. Carey mixes science fiction, surrealism, naturalism and capitalism to great effect, along with the title story, another two I found really good were "War Crimes" and "Puzzling Nature of Blue", examining human nature from different angles, he never loses sight of the characters humanity, something that is widely done in fiction . Not all stories grabbed me however, two or three I didn't particularly like, but most range from being good to very good, I wouldn't say any of the stories reach masterpiece status though. Was expected something much more weird and obscure, but overall I was surprised at just how accessible they were. I applause his splendid writing here, but will definitely need to read one of his novels before heaping too much praise on him.
August 13, 2012
Review by Helen Hagemann
The Fat Man in History, first published in 1974 by UQP, is a collection of twelve short stories and the least well known of Carey’s work. The stories contain many aspects of Australian life, its landscape and people. The title story, The Fat Man in History, is about a group of rather large men who live in a share house, yet they are the “Fat Men Against the Revolution" (fat now being synonymous with reactionary). Peeling depicts the relationship of an older man imposing his sexual impulses on his upstairs neighbour, an abortionist and collector of dolls. “Peeling” is a simulacrum of ‘peeling an onion’ where the man strips down her body to reveal one of her bare, white painted dolls. American Dreams has a simple premise of a man building a wall around his property. It is also a satirical look at how townsfolk dream their American dreams. They watch American films at the Roxy, and dream, if not of America, then at least of becoming wealthy, owning modern houses, and big motor cars. Their hometown, it seems, is the least of their concern when it comes to their aspirations.
On another level, however, the stories in this volume remain simply fantastical tales of seemingly foreign worlds and unlikely situations: ten years after its publication Carey said of the collection, "The trouble with academics is that they try too hard to understand these stories .... They should relax. The stories are only about what they seem to be about. They are, if you like, a collection of 'what if' stories. I took a dozen or so hypotheses and asked what would happen if ...."
Peter Carey was born in 1943 in Bacchus Marsh, Victoria where his parents ran a car dealership. He worked in advertising and wrote fiction in his spare time. Four of his novels were rejected before his short story collection, The Fat Man In History, was published which made him an overnight success.
He has won the Booker Prize twice, his first in 1988 for Oscar and Lucinda, the second time in 2001 with The True History of the Kelly Gang. Carey has won the Miles Franklin Award three times and his latest books are Parrot and Olivier in America (2010) & The Chemistry of Tears (2012). Married for the third time, Carey has two sons and lives in New York.
I have read his novels including Bliss, The Tax Inspector, Oscar & Lucinda and Jack Maggs, however I think his collection 'The Fat Man in History' was a superior read, a great page turner and probably because of all the stories quirky premise, believe it was way ahead of its time.
Helen Hagemann (2012)
The Fat Man in History, first published in 1974 by UQP, is a collection of twelve short stories and the least well known of Carey’s work. The stories contain many aspects of Australian life, its landscape and people. The title story, The Fat Man in History, is about a group of rather large men who live in a share house, yet they are the “Fat Men Against the Revolution" (fat now being synonymous with reactionary). Peeling depicts the relationship of an older man imposing his sexual impulses on his upstairs neighbour, an abortionist and collector of dolls. “Peeling” is a simulacrum of ‘peeling an onion’ where the man strips down her body to reveal one of her bare, white painted dolls. American Dreams has a simple premise of a man building a wall around his property. It is also a satirical look at how townsfolk dream their American dreams. They watch American films at the Roxy, and dream, if not of America, then at least of becoming wealthy, owning modern houses, and big motor cars. Their hometown, it seems, is the least of their concern when it comes to their aspirations.
On another level, however, the stories in this volume remain simply fantastical tales of seemingly foreign worlds and unlikely situations: ten years after its publication Carey said of the collection, "The trouble with academics is that they try too hard to understand these stories .... They should relax. The stories are only about what they seem to be about. They are, if you like, a collection of 'what if' stories. I took a dozen or so hypotheses and asked what would happen if ...."
Peter Carey was born in 1943 in Bacchus Marsh, Victoria where his parents ran a car dealership. He worked in advertising and wrote fiction in his spare time. Four of his novels were rejected before his short story collection, The Fat Man In History, was published which made him an overnight success.
He has won the Booker Prize twice, his first in 1988 for Oscar and Lucinda, the second time in 2001 with The True History of the Kelly Gang. Carey has won the Miles Franklin Award three times and his latest books are Parrot and Olivier in America (2010) & The Chemistry of Tears (2012). Married for the third time, Carey has two sons and lives in New York.
I have read his novels including Bliss, The Tax Inspector, Oscar & Lucinda and Jack Maggs, however I think his collection 'The Fat Man in History' was a superior read, a great page turner and probably because of all the stories quirky premise, believe it was way ahead of its time.
Helen Hagemann (2012)
February 27, 2022
مجموعه داستان های نوشته شده توسط پیتر کری یه حال و هوای عجیبی داره. قدرت نویسندگی و تفکر نویسنده همه جای متن به چشم میخوره و در کل داستان های خوبی هستند اما من سه ستاره دادم چون اونقدری که انتظار داشتم باهاش ارتباط برقرار نکردم
-هر چیزی که به آن عشق ورزیده نشود، از صحنه ی روزگار محو خواهد شد. ما تنها به واسطه ی عشق دیگران، وجود داریم و تمام ماجرا هم همین است
-هر چیزی که به آن عشق ورزیده نشود، از صحنه ی روزگار محو خواهد شد. ما تنها به واسطه ی عشق دیگران، وجود داریم و تمام ماجرا هم همین است
August 9, 2025
For those of you who like George Saunders, here is George Saunders wearing an Akubra and writing better stories.
It's interesting when you come across stories that could have been written yesterday but were actually written decades ago. I didn't know Carey had this absurdist, magic-realist leaning start and I'm glad I've discovered it. These twelve stories are better than most modern Australian short stories. The characters are compelling, the plot taut, and the style smooth. The influence of Garcia-Marquez is clear, as is the Australian irreverent gaze at the world. It's fascinating how well Carey captured the Australian sentiment towards Americans, something that has mellowed over the last 30 years and moved to the unconscious, largely due to American media and tech insinuating itself into every facet of Australian life.
The final story The Fat Man In History has a Handmaid's Tale vibe but would never get the same coverage due to its brevity and use of the girthy as the oppressed. In saying that I felt it did just as much as Atwood's piece and used a lot less of the blunt force trauma approach to getting the message across.
There's also the sort of scintillating prose you would expect from an ex-adman. This particular paragraph drew quite a snort.
"Our relationship is beyond analysis. It was Bernard, although I prefer to name no names, who suggested that the relationship had a boyscout flavour about it. So much he knows. Bernard, who travels halfway across London to find the one priest who will forgive his incessant masturbation, cannot be regarded as an authority on the matter."
It's interesting when you come across stories that could have been written yesterday but were actually written decades ago. I didn't know Carey had this absurdist, magic-realist leaning start and I'm glad I've discovered it. These twelve stories are better than most modern Australian short stories. The characters are compelling, the plot taut, and the style smooth. The influence of Garcia-Marquez is clear, as is the Australian irreverent gaze at the world. It's fascinating how well Carey captured the Australian sentiment towards Americans, something that has mellowed over the last 30 years and moved to the unconscious, largely due to American media and tech insinuating itself into every facet of Australian life.
The final story The Fat Man In History has a Handmaid's Tale vibe but would never get the same coverage due to its brevity and use of the girthy as the oppressed. In saying that I felt it did just as much as Atwood's piece and used a lot less of the blunt force trauma approach to getting the message across.
There's also the sort of scintillating prose you would expect from an ex-adman. This particular paragraph drew quite a snort.
"Our relationship is beyond analysis. It was Bernard, although I prefer to name no names, who suggested that the relationship had a boyscout flavour about it. So much he knows. Bernard, who travels halfway across London to find the one priest who will forgive his incessant masturbation, cannot be regarded as an authority on the matter."
December 14, 2012
A flippant cruelty animates these clumsily-sketched cartoons.
September 15, 2017
The entirety of these stories is wonderful, but the most affecting by far is "The Chance." The story involves Paul, who in his current incarnation, resembles a street fighter, and Carla, one of the extremely beautiful Hups, who have vowed to endure the Lottery so as to truly embody the proletariat by being one of them. Paul does not want Carla to undergo this change; however, she cannot be swayed from fulfilling this desire. The reader is treated to a tearful love story until we come to 17: "In the dark, in the night, something woke me. My tongue furry, my eyes like gravel, my head still dulled from the dope and drink, half-conscious I half saw the woman sitting in the chair by the bed. A fat woman weeping. I watched her like television. A blue glow from the neon lights in the street showed the coarse, folded surface of her face, her poor lank greying hair, deep creases in her arms and fingers like the folds in babies' skin, and the great drapery of chin and neck was reminiscent of drought-resistant cattle from India. It was not a fair time, not a fair test. I am better than that. It was the wrong time. Undrugged, ungrogged, I would have done better. It is unreasonable that such a test should come in such a way. But in the deep grey selfish folds of my mean little brain I decided that I had not woken up, that I would not wake up. I groaned, feigning sleep and turned over. Carla stayed by my bed till morning, weeping softly while I lay with my eyes closed, sometimes sleeping, and sometimes listening. In the full light of morning she was gone and had, with bitter reproach, left behind merely one thing: a pair of her large grey knickers, wet with the juices of her unacceptable desire. I placed them in the rubbish bin and went out to buy more beer." It in this section that Carey demonstrates his true talent. The remonstration of the knickers Carla left for Paul "wet with the juices of her unacceptable desires" is perfect, full of scornful anger and rebuke. Carey follows this story with "The Puzzling Nature of Blue," a complete contrast to the rejection of the no-longer-beautiful woman. Carey obviously understands feminist theory quite well, for in "The Puzzling Nature of Blue," there is also a couple, the wife initially hating the husband, and then accepting him, a reception so complete that the story ends with her taking her husband's penis in her mouth, despite the fact that the entirety of his body is now blue.
*I realize that all of the stories in this collection are a railing against American colonialism in the 1970s, but I did not perform a metaphorical analysis. The literal textual analysis of these two stories was shattering enough.
*For fun: Find all the mentions of blue.
*Thank you, Michelle, for always finding wonderful reading material for me in the darkest of times.
*I realize that all of the stories in this collection are a railing against American colonialism in the 1970s, but I did not perform a metaphorical analysis. The literal textual analysis of these two stories was shattering enough.
*For fun: Find all the mentions of blue.
*Thank you, Michelle, for always finding wonderful reading material for me in the darkest of times.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
September 25, 2020
جزو بهترين مجموعه داستانهايي بود كه تا الان خوندم
براي منى كه كتابخوانى رو با داستان كوتاه (چخوف و آلن پو ) شروع كرده بودم پيدا كردن آثار كوتاه خواندني به شدت سخت شده بود.
داستان كوتاه در عين ايجاز بايد بتونه حس و حال شخصيت و دنياش رو به طور كامل منتقل كنه و اين توانايي نويسنده ي داستان كوتاهه كه بتونه از پسش بر بياد.
چخوف با روايت هاي شاهكارش
آلن پو با قلم هراس انگيز و شوكه كننده ش
و بايد بگم پيتر كري به عنوان يك نويسنده داستان كوتاه هيچ چيزى كم نداره
درونمايه داستان ها (بخصوص داستانِ "دوستم داري؟" و "آسياب بادي") راز آلود
و باقي داستان ها روايت گر دنيايي عجيب ساخته ذهن فوق خلاقِ نويسنده بود
اگر بخوام در اين مجموعه گلِ داستانها رو انتخاب كنم قطعا داستان "خيكى ها در تاريخ" انتخابمه.بخاطر موضوع و سبك جذاب روايتِ پلكانيش كه برام تازگى داشت
همينكه يك اثر از يك نويسنده بتونه ترغيبت كنه برى سراغ كتابهاى بعديش به نظرم كافيه و پيتر كري اين كار رو براى من انجام داد
براي منى كه كتابخوانى رو با داستان كوتاه (چخوف و آلن پو ) شروع كرده بودم پيدا كردن آثار كوتاه خواندني به شدت سخت شده بود.
داستان كوتاه در عين ايجاز بايد بتونه حس و حال شخصيت و دنياش رو به طور كامل منتقل كنه و اين توانايي نويسنده ي داستان كوتاهه كه بتونه از پسش بر بياد.
چخوف با روايت هاي شاهكارش
آلن پو با قلم هراس انگيز و شوكه كننده ش
و بايد بگم پيتر كري به عنوان يك نويسنده داستان كوتاه هيچ چيزى كم نداره
درونمايه داستان ها (بخصوص داستانِ "دوستم داري؟" و "آسياب بادي") راز آلود
و باقي داستان ها روايت گر دنيايي عجيب ساخته ذهن فوق خلاقِ نويسنده بود
اگر بخوام در اين مجموعه گلِ داستانها رو انتخاب كنم قطعا داستان "خيكى ها در تاريخ" انتخابمه.بخاطر موضوع و سبك جذاب روايتِ پلكانيش كه برام تازگى داشت
همينكه يك اثر از يك نويسنده بتونه ترغيبت كنه برى سراغ كتابهاى بعديش به نظرم كافيه و پيتر كري اين كار رو براى من انجام داد
July 25, 2025
These early short stories show a strong Donald Barthelme influence. The plots are random and odd, having no particular message nor goal, interested more in 'art for art's sake'. Then, as Carey discovers his unique storyteller's voice, he inevitably begins to find deeper characters with emotional connections.
His themes often explore how men respond to power. Narratively he sometimes uses women to decentralize this conflict and hold it under a microscope. The men either redeem themselves through finding emotional connection, or else lose themselves in vain acts, harming those around them, or become pawns in larger power structures.
——————————————-
"The Fat Man in History" is the rawest of the collection. It's satire with a simple plot structure and punch-line ending:
The political cabal of the Fat Men is merely a cyclical experiment:
"Peeling" is another Barthelme-style story with little plot and an unsettling atmosphere, where dolls invoke symbols of alienation and unanswered questions.
The story "'Do You Love Me?'" marks a turning point where Carey explores magical surrealism, reminiscent of Borges. It brings characters, emotion, and plot together in a way that improves as Carey's writing matures. Here love keeps people and places from disappearing. Cartographers mapping the land find that landscapes begin to fade in the absence of emotional connection, leaving them facing only emptiness and loss.
Only love will save people and places from disappearing
"The Chance" recalls the M. John Harrison Isabel Avens stories, but here Carey laces it with dark humor. People undergo physical genetic changes through something called the Genetic Lottery ("The Chance") to publicly express themselves. While Harrison writes of personal motives, Carey's characters are politically motivated, the results in both cases are tragic.
In "The Puzzling Nature of Blue" lowlife Vincent begins by using passive-aggression in his relationship with the narrator, which escalates to a business scheme that helps a corporation exploit local islanders for profit. He stores a harmful drug on the island that turns extremities blue, a humiliating stigma. After losing his job and falling into a downward spiral, Vincent decides he has nothing left to lose and takes the drug himself, joining the very people he once helped to harm. Rather than framing the act as heroic, it reveals an inner strength. Vincent’s girlfriend notes that his change isn't a vulgar display of power, but rather a personal decision: masculinity shaped by emotional maturity.
In "Exotic Pleasures," Lilly owns a calming alien bird. Lilly is also pregnant and supports herself and her unemployed boyfriend, Mort. Mort struggles with his male pride as Lilly turns the bird into a street act, charging the public to pet it. They struggle with their tensions, but it's ultimately irrelevant in the face of the bird's ecological side effect: its diet spreads invasive seeds of trees that invade the environment.
"The Last Days of a Famous Mime" starts with a bang, showcasing Carey's skill and humor:
Carey perfectly summarizes the state of contemporary art though the symbol of the mime:
"A Windmill in the West":
Initially the story’s another Barthelme nonsequitor, but soon the soldier's sanity is in question:
A nearby windmill takes on a Quixotic symbolism of the absurd but ominous situation (or the soldier's skewed interpretation of it):
Confronted by disorientation and a disintegrating reality, the solder finds only resignation:
"American Dreams" lifts the lid off the myth of Americana. It is perhaps only fully penetrable by outsiders more sensitive to its contradictions:
The Gleason's legacy is a scale model of the small town, initially a fascinating discovery but the ugliness is also in the details:
"War Crimes" is the darkest warning of masculine power. Appetite and vulgar displays of power and oppression serve to disguise deep-rooted fear.
Powerful corporations have over-extended their influence to a point where mistakes have lead to a post-apocalyptical capitalist ouroboros: an endless cycle where the unemployed masses are the enemy, unable to consume the excesses produced by the corrupt system, no matter how cheap.
His themes often explore how men respond to power. Narratively he sometimes uses women to decentralize this conflict and hold it under a microscope. The men either redeem themselves through finding emotional connection, or else lose themselves in vain acts, harming those around them, or become pawns in larger power structures.
——————————————-
"The Fat Man in History" is the rawest of the collection. It's satire with a simple plot structure and punch-line ending:
He says, you make me feel like the old days, good fat, not bad fat.
Eating is a total and literal act of consummation. The Fat Men would incorporate in their own bodies all that could be good and noble in the revolution and excrete that which is bad. In other words, the bodies of Fat Men will purify the revolution.
The political cabal of the Fat Men is merely a cyclical experiment:
The following results were gathered from a study of twenty-three successive "Fantonis".... Whilst it can be admitted that studies so far are at an early stage, the results surely justify the continuation of the experiments with larger groups.
"Peeling" is another Barthelme-style story with little plot and an unsettling atmosphere, where dolls invoke symbols of alienation and unanswered questions.
And she walks above my head, probably arranging the little white dolls which she will not explain and which I never ask about, knowing she will not explain, and not for the moment wishing an explanation.
She arranges the dolls in unexpected places. So that, walking up the stairs a little drunk, one might be confronted with a collection of bald white dolls huddled together in a swarm.
The story "'Do You Love Me?'" marks a turning point where Carey explores magical surrealism, reminiscent of Borges. It brings characters, emotion, and plot together in a way that improves as Carey's writing matures. Here love keeps people and places from disappearing. Cartographers mapping the land find that landscapes begin to fade in the absence of emotional connection, leaving them facing only emptiness and loss.
The results of the census play an important part in our national life and have, for many years, been the pivot point for the yearly "Festival of the Corn" (an ancient festival, related to the wealth of the earth).
It appears that for some time certain regions of the country had become less and less real and these regions were regarded fearfully even by the Cartographers, who prided themselves on their courage.
Only love will save people and places from disappearing
I try to feel love for my father, I try very, very hard.
I attempt to remember how I felt about him when I was little, in the days when he was still occasionally tender towards me.
But it's no good.
"The Chance" recalls the M. John Harrison Isabel Avens stories, but here Carey laces it with dark humor. People undergo physical genetic changes through something called the Genetic Lottery ("The Chance") to publicly express themselves. While Harrison writes of personal motives, Carey's characters are politically motivated, the results in both cases are tragic.
Those were the days before the Americans came, and before the Fastalogians who succeeded them, descending in their space ships from god knows what unimaginable worlds.
Their business was the Genetic Lottery or The Chance...
Since the puppet government had dropped its funeral assistance plan this was how poor people raised money for funerals. It was a common sight to see dead bodies in rented suits being displayed on the footpaths.
To cut a long and predictable story short, we got on well together, if you'll allow for the odd lie on my part and what must have been more than a considerable suppression of commonsense on hers.
She looked up sharply, staring directly into my eyes, and I think then she finally knew that I was serious. We sat staring at each other, entering an unreal country as frightening as any I have ever travelled in.
In "The Puzzling Nature of Blue" lowlife Vincent begins by using passive-aggression in his relationship with the narrator, which escalates to a business scheme that helps a corporation exploit local islanders for profit. He stores a harmful drug on the island that turns extremities blue, a humiliating stigma. After losing his job and falling into a downward spiral, Vincent decides he has nothing left to lose and takes the drug himself, joining the very people he once helped to harm. Rather than framing the act as heroic, it reveals an inner strength. Vincent’s girlfriend notes that his change isn't a vulgar display of power, but rather a personal decision: masculinity shaped by emotional maturity.
Bloody Vincent. Here I am, a woman of thirty-five, and I still can't handle a fool like Vincent. He's like a yellow dog, one of those curs who hangs around your back door for scraps and you feed him once, you show him a little affection, and he stays there. He's yours. You're his.
[Vincent] gave my records to a man in the pub, so he says, and if that's what he says then the real thing is worse.
[Vincent] had fallen, once more, victim to his own terrible brilliance. He had helped a colonial power (Farrow) wreak havoc and injury on an innocent people (the Upward Islanders) and he had been proud to do it.
.... I now like [Vincent] as much as I once despised him.
I know only that he walks slowly and talks calmly, is funny without being attention-seeking, accepts praise modestly and is now lying on my bed smiling at me.
In "Exotic Pleasures," Lilly owns a calming alien bird. Lilly is also pregnant and supports herself and her unemployed boyfriend, Mort. Mort struggles with his male pride as Lilly turns the bird into a street act, charging the public to pet it. They struggle with their tensions, but it's ultimately irrelevant in the face of the bird's ecological side effect: its diet spreads invasive seeds of trees that invade the environment.
The clown held the bird. The straight man was at the wheel.
In a terrestrial environment the whole process was speeded up, moisture and a less formidable ground surface accelerating the growth rate to such an extent that a single seed could emerge as a small tree on a busy freeway in less than seven days.
Mort watched the programme with the same detachment with which earlier generations had greeted oil spills or explosions in chemical plants.
Service stations in the north were overcome by green vegetation...
"The Last Days of a Famous Mime" starts with a bang, showcasing Carey's skill and humor:
The Mime arrived on Alitalia with very little luggage: a brown paper parcel and what looked like a woman's handbag.
Asked the contents of the brown paper parcel he said, "String."
Asked what the string was for he replied: "Tying up bigger parcels."
Carey perfectly summarizes the state of contemporary art though the symbol of the mime:
His popularity declined. It was felt that he had become obscure and beyond the understanding of ordinary people. In response he requested easier questions. He held back nothing of himself in his effort to please his audience.
"A Windmill in the West":
Initially the story’s another Barthelme nonsequitor, but soon the soldier's sanity is in question:
No one has told him anything except that he must not ask questions.
A nearby windmill takes on a Quixotic symbolism of the absurd but ominous situation (or the soldier's skewed interpretation of it):
To the north of the road he marked out a rough grid. Each square of this grid ... can be calculated to contain approximately one bucket of scorpions. His plan ... is to rid the desert of a bucket full for each day he is here. As of this moment one square can be reckoned to be clear of scorpions.
Walking slowly towards the caravan he looks once more at the windmill which is slowly disappearing in the dark western sky.
He flicks the carbine to automatic and, having raised it gently to his shoulder, pours the whole magazine into the sun which continues to set in the east. ... his own shadow, long and lean, stretching along the road, cast by the sun which is rising in the "west".
Confronted by disorientation and a disintegrating reality, the solder finds only resignation:
Before hanging up the major asks, what side of the wire was he on?
The soldier replies, on the outside.
... he had hoped to settle a few questions regarding the "outside" and "inside". It will be impossible to settle them now.
"American Dreams" lifts the lid off the myth of Americana. It is perhaps only fully penetrable by outsiders more sensitive to its contradictions:
What has happened is that we all, all eight hundred of us, have come to remember small transgressions against Mr. Gleason who once lived amongst us.
The Gleason's legacy is a scale model of the small town, initially a fascinating discovery but the ugliness is also in the details:
Everyone I knew was there in that tiny town. If they were not in the streets or in their backyards they were inside their houses, and it didn't take very long to discover that you could lift off the roofs and peer inside.
... I was the one who found Mrs. Cavanagh in bed with young Craigie Evans.
"War Crimes" is the darkest warning of masculine power. Appetite and vulgar displays of power and oppression serve to disguise deep-rooted fear.
Powerful corporations have over-extended their influence to a point where mistakes have lead to a post-apocalyptical capitalist ouroboros: an endless cycle where the unemployed masses are the enemy, unable to consume the excesses produced by the corrupt system, no matter how cheap.
Unemployment had become a way of life and the vagabonds had formed into bands with leaders, organizations and even, in some cases, apocalyptic religions whose leaders preached the coming of the millennium.
I was more than a little frightened. I began to understand why men raze villages and annihilate whole populations. The 22 under my arm nagged at me, producing feelings that were intense, unnameable, and not totally unpleasurable.
I had not been outside for three weeks and the heat which I had seen as air-conditioned sunshine now became a very raw reality.
BUSINESS MUST GO ON. That is what the hell we are here for... I can live in white sheets and ironed shirts and drink gin and tonic in long glasses, well away from all this.
Each man had a flamethrower strapped to his back and I smiled to think that these men had been producing food to feed those whom they would now destroy.
As I watched men run through the heat burning other men alive, I knew that thousands of men had stood on hills or roofs and watched such scenes of terrible destruction, the result of nothing more than their fear and their intelligence.
July 9, 2024
(corrections made but no alteration of opinions in July 2024).
I bought the 1974 edition 4th printing (do books still note different printings? are books even printed anymore?) in my local charity shop - published originally by the University of Queensland Press - this is Peter Carey long before he became a literary celebrity not simply in Australia never mind the UK and USA as well and the author of celebrated and prize winning works like 'Oscar and Lucinda' and 'The True History of the Kelly Gang' and one of the 20th centuries great writers of English; and it is all foreshadowed in this short brilliant collection*. Not only were the stories great in 1974 they are great now and, if I hadn't bought an original edition I wouldn't have known that these stories are fifty years old. They are as fresh, relevant, vibrant and powerful as when they were when first written - indeed many of them might have been written a year or two ago so eerily do they address events such as the war in Ukraine even though written long before the breakup of the Soviet Union was imaginable.
The very first story in the collection 'Crabs' while wonderfully prescient and dystopian could also be a foreshadowing of the very first 'Mad Max' film. It is amazing for an author to speak both for his time and to the future with such directness. Edmund White said of Carey (whether for this collection or another early work) that Carey would be great writer - and he was both right and wrong - Carey would write great things but he was already a great writer and this small collection should be better known because it is extraordinary. I would take nothing away from its antipodean nature but like all great literature it is of, but also greater than, its native roots. Great literature is universal.
These are also some of the finest speculative/weird/dystopian horror stories I have read, but of course they are far more than that. I honestly cannot praise this collection enough. If you have yet to discover Peter Carey then make an effort to find time and begin with this wonderful short story collection. If you have been disappointed in some of Mr. Crey's later works, as I have, I would encourage you to seek out this collection because I am sure it will surprise you.
*This edition is also shocking evidence in the decline in the standards of book production in the last fifty years. My 1974 4th printing shows less sign of wear and tear then books, even hardbacks, that were published less than ten years ago and it is not because the book has lived a sheltered life but because of the quality of the paper used and production standards
I bought the 1974 edition 4th printing (do books still note different printings? are books even printed anymore?) in my local charity shop - published originally by the University of Queensland Press - this is Peter Carey long before he became a literary celebrity not simply in Australia never mind the UK and USA as well and the author of celebrated and prize winning works like 'Oscar and Lucinda' and 'The True History of the Kelly Gang' and one of the 20th centuries great writers of English; and it is all foreshadowed in this short brilliant collection*. Not only were the stories great in 1974 they are great now and, if I hadn't bought an original edition I wouldn't have known that these stories are fifty years old. They are as fresh, relevant, vibrant and powerful as when they were when first written - indeed many of them might have been written a year or two ago so eerily do they address events such as the war in Ukraine even though written long before the breakup of the Soviet Union was imaginable.
The very first story in the collection 'Crabs' while wonderfully prescient and dystopian could also be a foreshadowing of the very first 'Mad Max' film. It is amazing for an author to speak both for his time and to the future with such directness. Edmund White said of Carey (whether for this collection or another early work) that Carey would be great writer - and he was both right and wrong - Carey would write great things but he was already a great writer and this small collection should be better known because it is extraordinary. I would take nothing away from its antipodean nature but like all great literature it is of, but also greater than, its native roots. Great literature is universal.
These are also some of the finest speculative/weird/dystopian horror stories I have read, but of course they are far more than that. I honestly cannot praise this collection enough. If you have yet to discover Peter Carey then make an effort to find time and begin with this wonderful short story collection. If you have been disappointed in some of Mr. Crey's later works, as I have, I would encourage you to seek out this collection because I am sure it will surprise you.
*This edition is also shocking evidence in the decline in the standards of book production in the last fifty years. My 1974 4th printing shows less sign of wear and tear then books, even hardbacks, that were published less than ten years ago and it is not because the book has lived a sheltered life but because of the quality of the paper used and production standards
July 27, 2020
in honour of completing my 2020 reading challenge, a brief review-
this was an engrossing collection of dark and twisted tales. extremely prescient for being written in australia throughout the 70s. spiritually, they fit snuggly between flannery o connor and george saunders, two short storytellers i much prefer. carey is great at elaborate world-building within an opening paragraph, but the sad sack characters were never as interesting as their surroundings.
quarantine has given me too much time to read so maybe i can double my challenge. my favourite reads this year have all been non-fic (say nothing, marie antoinette, travelling mercies) so i'm in the market for non-fic recs (especially historical biographies) as well as better fiction i can sink into.
this was an engrossing collection of dark and twisted tales. extremely prescient for being written in australia throughout the 70s. spiritually, they fit snuggly between flannery o connor and george saunders, two short storytellers i much prefer. carey is great at elaborate world-building within an opening paragraph, but the sad sack characters were never as interesting as their surroundings.
quarantine has given me too much time to read so maybe i can double my challenge. my favourite reads this year have all been non-fic (say nothing, marie antoinette, travelling mercies) so i'm in the market for non-fic recs (especially historical biographies) as well as better fiction i can sink into.
June 1, 2012
The first five stories resonate the most, but there are many in this collection that will stay with me. Such is their conceptual ingenuity (and, hey, the execution isn't half bad either – Carey knows how to wring weight and implication out of the barest of sentences). While some of the themes border on the surreal side, most of these stories are propelled by pure universal human drama.
The standouts for me were 'Do you love me?', 'The Chance' and the title story, 'Exotic Pleasures'. These three, I feel, represented a perfect marriage of high-end spec. fiction concepts and nuanced, true to life relationships. 'The Last Days of a Famous Mime' and 'Peeling' were taut and suggested a philosophical leaning lacking in the others, while 'War Crimes' and 'The Fat Men in History' were perfect bookends, representing similar, yet contrasting ends of the same spectrum.
'A Windmill in the West' was the only real letdown. It wore out its premise early and degenerated into a frustrating dirge (though, to be fair to the damn thing, that was – in part – the point).
I recently read Ian McEwan's 'First Love, Last Rites', a collection that shares a lot of similarities with this one. To Carey's credit, I actually got a lot more from this. While the prose styles and concepts are similar, the stories here are deeper, more convincing, and are more intellectually nourishing than a lot of McEwan's gimmicky early stuff tended to be.
The only detractor – and I have this a lot with short story collections – is the lack of cohesion. There doesn't seem to be any grand intent; 'Exotic Pleasures' is a hodgepodge collection of quality work. With some focusing on character and some on concept, the end impression comes off a little scattered.
The standouts for me were 'Do you love me?', 'The Chance' and the title story, 'Exotic Pleasures'. These three, I feel, represented a perfect marriage of high-end spec. fiction concepts and nuanced, true to life relationships. 'The Last Days of a Famous Mime' and 'Peeling' were taut and suggested a philosophical leaning lacking in the others, while 'War Crimes' and 'The Fat Men in History' were perfect bookends, representing similar, yet contrasting ends of the same spectrum.
'A Windmill in the West' was the only real letdown. It wore out its premise early and degenerated into a frustrating dirge (though, to be fair to the damn thing, that was – in part – the point).
I recently read Ian McEwan's 'First Love, Last Rites', a collection that shares a lot of similarities with this one. To Carey's credit, I actually got a lot more from this. While the prose styles and concepts are similar, the stories here are deeper, more convincing, and are more intellectually nourishing than a lot of McEwan's gimmicky early stuff tended to be.
The only detractor – and I have this a lot with short story collections – is the lack of cohesion. There doesn't seem to be any grand intent; 'Exotic Pleasures' is a hodgepodge collection of quality work. With some focusing on character and some on concept, the end impression comes off a little scattered.
March 22, 2012
A brilliant collection of short stories. The Chance: Set in a futuristic society, where people gamble for new bodies in a genetic lottery was creepy yet beautifully written with stark description and a sense of this could really happen? The namesake story: The Fat Man in History is about a group of fatties. Now ostracised by society where being fat is no longer acceptable and is seen as a sign of greed. Follow the character of Alexander Finch, gross and obese, as he walks out of a department store with bed sheets he has stole, as well as with several cans of smoked oysters that fill the pockets of his floppy trousers, he reflects that since the revolution, to be fat is to be an opressor.
This collection of stories certainly gives you food for thought. I really loved this.
This collection of stories certainly gives you food for thought. I really loved this.
March 16, 2019
I'd forgotten how deeply alienating Carey's early work was. Bracing reading in our current times.
October 26, 2025
Some good stuff here: Peeling, The Puzzling Nature of Blue, Exotic Pleasures, War Crimes
February 10, 2018
A stimulating and brilliantly-imaginative collection of mostly dystopian tales, often with strange premises and/or gnarly plot twists. In addition to dystopian overtones, various tales address body image, pro or anti Americanism, capitalism versus communism (or at least their byproducts), solitude, mental health, suicide, murder, guilt, revolutionary ideals, addiction, pleasure, fame, and much more. Carey's style seems to involve using characters as thought experiments, and the results are frequently enlightening, challenging, darkly-comedic, or disturbing.
4.5 Stars
Below are some blurbs about most of the stories in the book, as I found most of them enjoyable. If you want to go in totally surprised, don't read them!
1. 'The Fat Man in History' -- Finch is fat and living with other fat men in a co-housing unit, in an anti-American, post-revolutionary, Marxist world, where obesity is counter-revolutionary. Finch survives in part by stealing, and in part through the procurements of the house's thin-hating leader, Fantoni...
a) The twist:
2. 'Peeling' -- A disturbing tale of removing onion layers to reveal story, plot, clothing, skin, sex, fantasy...
3. 'Do You Love Me?' -- People and places no longer loved start disappearing in this off-hand-chilling tale reflective of modern society. It reads like an episode of 'Black Mirror', although the impact of technology on the reality is more imagined than central.
4. 'The Chance' -- Aliens (?) take over a world (ours?) and institute a genetic lottery that allows for a new body/sex/age, while keeping most memories intact. The aliens use it to make tons of 'space money', looking at the wide inter-galactic economic benefits, while humans see it as a way out of a crappy life or body, or a way to start over. Some humans, on the other hand, rebel against the incredible focus on youth and beauty the lottery enhances.
In this setting, a 'man' who has taken chances many times, currently in the body of an upper-middle-age street fighter, meets a young, beautiful woman and they fall deeply in love.
This is a touching love story, a messed up sci-fi exploration, and a damning look at our obsession with youth and beauty, and by extension, social media. It's too bad it doesn't delve deeper into the gender side of things, however. If the story had been written this decade, I'm sure it would.
Quotes/bits:
Page 57:
"It [the lottery] proved the last straw. The total embrace of a cancerous philosophy of change. The populace became like mercury in each other's minds and arms. Institutions that had proved the very basis of our society (the family, the neighbourhood, marriage) cracked and split apart in the face of a new shrill current of desperate selfishness. The city itself stood like an external endorsement to this internal collapse and recalled the most exotic places (Calcutta, for instance) where the rich had once journeyed to experience the thrilling stink of poverty, the smell of danger, and the just-contained threat of violence born of envy."
Pages 70-72: The upper-class 'Hups' -- wealthy elite paying to become hideously-ugly and fomenting revolution against the aliens and beauty
Page 74:
"'I wish you'd just shut-up,' I hissed, although she had said nothing. 'And don't patronize me with your stupid smart-talk.' I was shaking with rage. She looked me straight in the eye before she punched me. I laid one straight back. 'That's why I love you, damn you.' 'Why?' she screamed, holding her hand over her face. 'For God's sake, why?' 'Because we'll both have black eyes.' She started laughing just as I began to cry."
5. 'The Puzzling Nature of Blue' -- The story of Vincent, former board member of the Australasian branch of 'Farrow', a multinational corporation and drug giant. The opening is fantastic, describing why a woman took in the poor, sad, alcoholic shell of Vincent. The ending, ... meh.
6. 'Exotic Pleasures' -- is about a struggling couple in an economically-depressed future who discover an alien 'exotic' bird that gives people who stroke it incredible, addictive pleasure.
Pages 124-125: Things get reeeeal. Page 129: Intense!
7. 'The Last Days of a Famous Mime' -- Bloody. Odd. Short.
8. 'A Windmill in the West' -- a lone soldier in the desert slowly loses his mind in this look at loneliness, the mental effects of isolation, and the absurdity of borders and military mindsets.
9. 'American Dreams' -- Another odd and imaginative tale. A reclusive man and his wife, inhabitants of a rural town, build a 10 foot, broken glass and barbed-wire-topped wall around their hill-top property. The contents of this wall become a tourist hot-spot, and bloated tourists over-run the town and its way of life -- making for a disturbing legacy.
10. 'War Crimes' -- this book-capping tale fully embraces an Australian style dystopia similar to 'Mad Max', albeit with a veil of civility still intact. Two odd, druggie, gun-toting consultants, entirely unique in my experience of characters, drive into a failing frozen food factory complex to set it on the right course in this extreme world of desert capitalism where the stakes are as high as riches and death. Dystopian economic cowboy capitalism! Nuts! Shades of Hunter S. Thompson mixed with "Heart of Darkness" as well! Human life is valued, the middle class are lampooned, the power of middle-aged secretaries is regarded like a still-life, imagination is left to wonder...
Quotes and bits:
The opening paragraph -- a damning critique of the middle class, page 158:
"In the end I shall be judged. They will write about me in books and take care to explain me so badly that it is better that I do it myself. They will write with the stupid smugness of middle-class intellectuals, people of moral rectitude who have never seriously placed themselves at risk. They have supported wars they have not fought in, and damned companies they have not had the courage to destroy. Their skins are fair and pampered and their bellies are corseted by expensively made jeans."
Page 175, take that, middle-class!
"The middle-class intellectuals were the first to discover us and we were happy enough to have them around. They came up from the south pretending they weren't middle class. They drank our wine and smoked our dope and drove around in our Cadillac and did tours of the factory. They were most surprised to find that we dressed just like they did. We were flattered that they found us so fascinating and delighted when they were scandalized. In truth we despised them. They were comfortable and had fat-arsed ideas. They went to bed early to read books about people they would try to copy. They didn't know whether to love us or hate us."
January 31, 2021
Zbiór wyciągnięty z półki w desperacji po niefortunnej „Amnezji”. Tak się kończy ustawianie książek w dwóch rzędach: te nieprzeczytane z głębszego, równie szybko idą w zapomnienie, jak przeczytane. Nie mieszajcie książek!
4 dekady przed OT i jej „Opowiadaniami bizarnymi”, Peter Carey wpada na bardzo podobny pomysł.
Jak go wykonał, to już trzeba przekonać się samemu.
Dodam, że w pełni zasłużył na te dwa Bookery, a i miał sporo szczęścia - zgarnął je w czasach, kiedy najbardziej liczyła się literatura.
4 dekady przed OT i jej „Opowiadaniami bizarnymi”, Peter Carey wpada na bardzo podobny pomysł.
Jak go wykonał, to już trzeba przekonać się samemu.
Dodam, że w pełni zasłużył na te dwa Bookery, a i miał sporo szczęścia - zgarnął je w czasach, kiedy najbardziej liczyła się literatura.
November 16, 2023
Exotic Pleasures is a fabulous collection of Peter Carey's short stories.
The eponymous story, set in the future, sees a rural couple attempt to get work with an off-world mining company, but are sold a "pleasure bird" by a worker there instead.
The pleasure bird becomes their living, roaming from market to market, selling time stroking the bird. They've been given a bag of the weed it eats, and it craps voluminously out the car window. I won't spoil this terrific story, but it would make such a good short film, it's a modern parable.
So glad I bought this book back in the day, it seems to be Carey's least known work.
The eponymous story, set in the future, sees a rural couple attempt to get work with an off-world mining company, but are sold a "pleasure bird" by a worker there instead.
The pleasure bird becomes their living, roaming from market to market, selling time stroking the bird. They've been given a bag of the weed it eats, and it craps voluminously out the car window. I won't spoil this terrific story, but it would make such a good short film, it's a modern parable.
So glad I bought this book back in the day, it seems to be Carey's least known work.
August 3, 2012
I found this collection of short stories very refreshing in terms of voice and story content. As an American, part of the experience is probably due at least in part to cultural differences, but whatever the reason I thought these shorts were both striking and fresh. The quirkiness of the "slightly-different-from-reality" element to the stories makes this a fantastic read.
August 14, 2021
I don't know how he does it, but I do know that it's brilliant, like lucid dreams of twisted Australiana, and bizarre, and often snorting-in-public funny. I'm hooked on his stories after this collection, which is probably the best and greatest thing I've read from an Australian writer, and one of the best collections of short stories I've ever read anywhere, hands down.
December 17, 2014
I absolutely loved this one. Such a great mix of pleasant, even handed approach to life and the inventively bizarre, with a touch of the frightening as well. Enigmatic, yet not too puzzling. Just loved it.
October 18, 2014
Blimey! Had to stop reading this on the tube, a lot more penis than I'd expect from Peter Carey!
August 4, 2021
«خیکیها در تاریخ» عنوان مجموعهداستانی نوشتهی «پیتر کری» نویسندهی شناختهشدهی استرالیایی است. کری که استاد تدریس هنرهای زیبا و رشتهی نویسندگی خلاق در دانشگاه نیویورک است و سالانه تعداد انگشتشماری شاگرد را به حضور میپذیرد، بیشتر به این خاطر شناخته میشود که یکی از معدود نویسندگانی است که تاکنون موفق شدهاند بیش از یکبار جایزهی ادبی بوکر را برنده شوند. او در سال 1988 با رمان مشهورش «اسکار و لوسیندا» که اقتباس سینماییای هم از آن انجام شده، موفق به دریافت نخستین جایزهی بوکرش شده است و بار دیگر در سال 2001، با رمان «تاریخ واقعی دارودستهی کلی» این جایزه را برده است. «خیکیها در تاریخ و داستانهای دیگر» از کتابهای دیگر اوست که دربردارندهی شش تا از داستانهای کوتاه اوست. نشر «قطره» نخستینبار این کتاب را در زمستان 1392 با ترجمهی «امیلی امرایی» منتشر کرده است.
این کتاب که اولین بار در سال 1974 چاپ شده، درواقع اولین مجموعهداستان این نویسندهی مشهور است. داستانهای این کتاب بهترتیب «خیکیها در تاریخ» (که عنوان کتاب نیز برگرفته از آن است)، «دوستم داری؟»، «آسیاب بادی در غرب»، «آخرین روزهای یک دلقک مشهور»، «صنعت سایه»، و «نامهای به پسرمان» نام دارند. داستانهای کتاب با بهرهگیری از عناصر داستانهای رئال، همزمان از تمی فانتزی، گروتسکطور و آمیخته با کمدی سیاه همراه هستند که همزمان که ممکن است لبخندی از سر تلخی روی لبهای خواننده بنشانند، او را دچار وحشت نیز کنند. درواقع او با بهرهگیری از ایدههایی که شاید کم و بیش پیشپاافتاده بهنظر برسند، میکوشد فضایی خلق کند که در دل آن بتواند انتقاد سیاسیاجتماعی زیرپوستی و گاهی آشکارش را هم انجام دهد.
بارِ فانتزی داستانهای کری، چیزی است که اگر در داستانهای این اولین مجموعه، تمرکز بیشتری رویشان میشد و درواقع نویسنده بیشتر از تخیل بهره میگرفت و کمتر به المانهای رئال وفادار میماند، کتاب را تبدیل به اثری ماندگارتر میکرد. برای مثال در داستان «صنعت سایه» و کارخانهای که سایه تولید میکند، فضاسازی و بهره جستن از المانهای فانتزی کاملاً همراستا با ایده و نقدی است که نویسنده کوشیده انجام بدهد، اما در دیگر داستانها این فانتزی به حاشیه رفته است؛ که البته احتمال دارد ترجمه هم در ایجاد چنین حسی در مخاطب، تاثیر داشته باشد.
در یک مقایسهی خیلی سرسری، اگر آنچه استفانو بنی نویسندهی ایتالیایی در کافهی زیر دریا در دل فضایی تیره و گروتسک و هجوآلود به آن میپردازد را یک خط افقی درنظر بگیریم، ایدههای کری در این کتاب، روی اولین نقاطی که برای رسم آن خط روی کاغذ آمدهاند قرار میگیرند. یعنی از حدی، فراتر نرفتهاند و در یک ناحیهی خاص، درجا زدهاند.
با همهی اینها، کتاب به جهت شناختهشده بودن نویسنده چه در زمرهی نویسندگان استرالیایی و چه در سطح جهانی، پیشنهادی است. ضمن اینکه بههرحال این کتاب اولین اثر منتشرشده از یک نویسندهی مشهور است و همچنین باید آن را با عمر نویسندگی کری در آن سالها سنجید، و نیز باید با آثار تازهتر او نیز مقایسهاش کرد تا بتوان به شمایی کلی از ویژگیهای سبکی بهخصوصِ این نویسنده رسید؛ و قطعاً «خیکیها در تاریخ» شاید پیشروترین اثر او در طول نویسندگیاش باشد، اما آینهی تمام نمای سالیان نویسندگیاش خواهد بود. در مجموع کتاب سلیقهی من نبود اما پیشنهادش میکنم چون زیاد هم حجمی ندارد.
این کتاب که اولین بار در سال 1974 چاپ شده، درواقع اولین مجموعهداستان این نویسندهی مشهور است. داستانهای این کتاب بهترتیب «خیکیها در تاریخ» (که عنوان کتاب نیز برگرفته از آن است)، «دوستم داری؟»، «آسیاب بادی در غرب»، «آخرین روزهای یک دلقک مشهور»، «صنعت سایه»، و «نامهای به پسرمان» نام دارند. داستانهای کتاب با بهرهگیری از عناصر داستانهای رئال، همزمان از تمی فانتزی، گروتسکطور و آمیخته با کمدی سیاه همراه هستند که همزمان که ممکن است لبخندی از سر تلخی روی لبهای خواننده بنشانند، او را دچار وحشت نیز کنند. درواقع او با بهرهگیری از ایدههایی که شاید کم و بیش پیشپاافتاده بهنظر برسند، میکوشد فضایی خلق کند که در دل آن بتواند انتقاد سیاسیاجتماعی زیرپوستی و گاهی آشکارش را هم انجام دهد.
بارِ فانتزی داستانهای کری، چیزی است که اگر در داستانهای این اولین مجموعه، تمرکز بیشتری رویشان میشد و درواقع نویسنده بیشتر از تخیل بهره میگرفت و کمتر به المانهای رئال وفادار میماند، کتاب را تبدیل به اثری ماندگارتر میکرد. برای مثال در داستان «صنعت سایه» و کارخانهای که سایه تولید میکند، فضاسازی و بهره جستن از المانهای فانتزی کاملاً همراستا با ایده و نقدی است که نویسنده کوشیده انجام بدهد، اما در دیگر داستانها این فانتزی به حاشیه رفته است؛ که البته احتمال دارد ترجمه هم در ایجاد چنین حسی در مخاطب، تاثیر داشته باشد.
در یک مقایسهی خیلی سرسری، اگر آنچه استفانو بنی نویسندهی ایتالیایی در کافهی زیر دریا در دل فضایی تیره و گروتسک و هجوآلود به آن میپردازد را یک خط افقی درنظر بگیریم، ایدههای کری در این کتاب، روی اولین نقاطی که برای رسم آن خط روی کاغذ آمدهاند قرار میگیرند. یعنی از حدی، فراتر نرفتهاند و در یک ناحیهی خاص، درجا زدهاند.
با همهی اینها، کتاب به جهت شناختهشده بودن نویسنده چه در زمرهی نویسندگان استرالیایی و چه در سطح جهانی، پیشنهادی است. ضمن اینکه بههرحال این کتاب اولین اثر منتشرشده از یک نویسندهی مشهور است و همچنین باید آن را با عمر نویسندگی کری در آن سالها سنجید، و نیز باید با آثار تازهتر او نیز مقایسهاش کرد تا بتوان به شمایی کلی از ویژگیهای سبکی بهخصوصِ این نویسنده رسید؛ و قطعاً «خیکیها در تاریخ» شاید پیشروترین اثر او در طول نویسندگیاش باشد، اما آینهی تمام نمای سالیان نویسندگیاش خواهد بود. در مجموع کتاب سلیقهی من نبود اما پیشنهادش میکنم چون زیاد هم حجمی ندارد.
November 11, 2017
Peter Carey is an acclaimed literary writer whose work I never got around to reading until now. He certainly has a great reputation among critics - but that doesn't necessarily mean you'll enjoy an author's work. However any doubts that Carey had been elevated to lofty heights just because he's a serious literary writer were vanquished for me in this collection of readable, tightly written tales. Most take place in soft of Swiftian altered worlds though Exotic Pleasures, the title story, probably my favourite in the whole collection, is pure science fiction as it involves asteriod mining and alien birds. It's brilliant and could have been written by Philip K Dick. Other standouts are The Chance, also sci-fi-ish, and American Dreams, a seething satire of small-town life with a real twist at the end.
Business and bureaucracy are mercilessly parodied and the sheer tight descriptiveness of the writing is a pleasure - Carey's brief but memorable descriptions of sunsets and other phenomena linger in the mind. The only story I didn't like was The Fat Man in History - the alternate, inverted world it is set in just didn't appeal to me and I couldn't finish it. But the others were great.
Business and bureaucracy are mercilessly parodied and the sheer tight descriptiveness of the writing is a pleasure - Carey's brief but memorable descriptions of sunsets and other phenomena linger in the mind. The only story I didn't like was The Fat Man in History - the alternate, inverted world it is set in just didn't appeal to me and I couldn't finish it. But the others were great.
May 15, 2020
A compilation of stories from Carey's first two collections, these Australian-set stories, in which America, capitalism, and space aliens are a constant threat, quickly bring to mind the near-future sociopolitical dystopias and soft sci-fi of Saunders but were written thirty years earlier. A bit given sometimes to gotcha/weird/twist-ish endings (see: the title story, "Peeling"), these stories generally carry an often surprising emotional weight that make them a pleasure to read beyond their gimmickry. Highlights: The son of a mapmaker watches the world and its people as they begin to disappear in "'Do You Love Me?'"; a man finds love under alien occupation with a privileged woman determined to destroy her body in the name of revolution in "The Chance"; a journalist recounts an ex-businessman's redemption among the islanders he once harmed in "The Puzzling Nature Of Blue"; a couple's marriage struggles beneath the weight of expectations and the ministrations of an alien bird in "Exotic Pleasures"; a town ponders the meaning of a dead man's legacy in "American Dreams"; and a mad executive reforms a frozen-dinner manufacturer at great cost in "War Crimes."
May 26, 2021
What a book title, huh? It's the title of the first short story in the book, about a group of fat men living together in a post-revolutionary world where fat men are thought of as "enemies of the revolution" - because before the revolution only fat men (or Americans) had enough to eat.
This is a collection of short stories set in Australia that would appeal to Twilight Zone fans. They are all dystopian, with a few elements of sci-fi. Some were a little futuristic, almost post-apocalyptic. I like the occasional dystopian novel (Never Let Me Go and The Twelve are some of my favorites), so I enjoyed most of the stories. They were well-written stories also. The author has been short listed twice for the Mann-Booker prize.
Ratings for each story:
- The Fat Man in HIstory - 3*
- Peeling - 4*
- "Do You Love Me?" - 5*
- The Chance - 4*
- The Puzzling Nature of Blue - 4*
- Exotic Pleasures - 5*
- The Last Days of a Famous Mime - 3*
- A Windmill in the West - 3*
- American Dreams - 5*
- War Crimes - 3
This is a collection of short stories set in Australia that would appeal to Twilight Zone fans. They are all dystopian, with a few elements of sci-fi. Some were a little futuristic, almost post-apocalyptic. I like the occasional dystopian novel (Never Let Me Go and The Twelve are some of my favorites), so I enjoyed most of the stories. They were well-written stories also. The author has been short listed twice for the Mann-Booker prize.
Ratings for each story:
- The Fat Man in HIstory - 3*
- Peeling - 4*
- "Do You Love Me?" - 5*
- The Chance - 4*
- The Puzzling Nature of Blue - 4*
- Exotic Pleasures - 5*
- The Last Days of a Famous Mime - 3*
- A Windmill in the West - 3*
- American Dreams - 5*
- War Crimes - 3
July 15, 2025
The first Australian author I read, he has set a high bar. He manages to build dense, rich worlds in a few sentences, creating their revolutions, idiosyncrasies, slang, and historical events. Through this worlds he offers several critiques to consummerism, the US (and its cultural prominence in Australia), middle class sensibilities, American militarism, the modern family, etc. The titular story was particularly enjoyable; I did not know I needed an anthropological approach to a society of fat men in communist Australia. My favourite, however, was The Chance. The Hups perfectly encompassed a section of the middle class: given the option to renounce to their class (and in this case) beauty guilt, they took it.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
November 11, 2025
The second book of Peter Carey’s writing I’ve read. Obviously, it’s not as adherent to a traditional story arc as Kelly Gang, and can’t really compare on that basis, but I was really pleasantly surprised by this side to Carey’s imagination. It felt more free and reflective of a strong sense of humour, a wild imagination, and a desire to provoke and subvert conventional lifestyles. It’s like if David Firth’s cartoons existed in a desolate Coen Brothers portrayal of the Australian outback. They’re claustrophobic, nauseous, and stressful. They’re without platitudes and justification in a Cormac McCarthy kind of vain. Refreshing as they are creepy.
I’ve seen it said that he didn’t write these with strict intentions regarding morals or messages, and there is a consistently imposing absurdism here, resulting in simply strange characters having cringy, sickening experiences and interactions, but I do nonetheless think you can make a reasonable case for themes of self-consciousness, the rich/poor social dynamic, sexuality, hivemind, and things like that. I’d really like to read a full length novel that comes more from this part of Peter Carey’s mind, and I’ll certainly be looking into doing so. While I did really enjoy and appreciate the Kelly Gang, I feel like gave me a more definitive idea of what Peter Carey’s style is, and I think it has a very distinct allure for those with a proclivity for morbid curiosities.
Favourites: Peeling, American Dreams, War Crimes, The Chance
I’ve seen it said that he didn’t write these with strict intentions regarding morals or messages, and there is a consistently imposing absurdism here, resulting in simply strange characters having cringy, sickening experiences and interactions, but I do nonetheless think you can make a reasonable case for themes of self-consciousness, the rich/poor social dynamic, sexuality, hivemind, and things like that. I’d really like to read a full length novel that comes more from this part of Peter Carey’s mind, and I’ll certainly be looking into doing so. While I did really enjoy and appreciate the Kelly Gang, I feel like gave me a more definitive idea of what Peter Carey’s style is, and I think it has a very distinct allure for those with a proclivity for morbid curiosities.
Favourites: Peeling, American Dreams, War Crimes, The Chance
January 4, 2024
I bought it, I read it. Then I realized that I had read it completely unnecessarily and bought it completely unnecessarily. However, because despite the growing number of disappointments, I am a bibliophile and for me it is indecent to throw a completely good book (good in the sense of not content, but in good physical and material condition) into the trash, so I gave this book to someone as a gift, and this person was not so ambitious like me and instead of forcing myself to read it, she also gave it to someone else. So be careful, because such unwanted gifts are circulating around the Galaxy and one day they may surprise you unexpectedly.
April 19, 2019
This collection was incredible, and everything I was craving. I didn't realise how malnourished I was, literary-wise, until I picked up this little beaut' of a book. Very clever and dreamlike stories, a kin to Ray Bradbury and Rick bass: 'The Watch' comes to mind. Carey's stories evolve into a metamorphosis of Salvador Dali nightmarescape; early in you can taste something bizarre, and when you're nearly finished eating Carey's words he sort of swaps out your last spoonful with a mouthful of psilocybin.
More eccentric than bass in that respect.
Highly recommend this one, absolute treat.
More eccentric than bass in that respect.
Highly recommend this one, absolute treat.
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