Field Study

by Rachel Seiffert

Rachel Seiffert, author of The Dark Room, powerfully evokes our need for human connection in this brilliant and haunting group of stories. From the title piece, in which a young biologist conceals his discoveries at a polluted river from a local woman, to the family aided by an enemy in 'The Crossing', to the old man weighing his regrets in 'Francis John Jones, 1924 -' Seiffert's acclaimed, refined prose movingly captures the lives of her characters in their most essential, secret moments.

A Rocky Mountain News Best Book of the Year.

Genres: Fiction, Short Stories, 21st Century, British Literature

250 pages, Paperback

First published July 20, 2004

About the author

Rachel Seiffert is one of Virago’s most critically acclaimed contemporary novelists. Her first book, The Dark Room, (2001) was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize, and made into the feature film Lore. In 2003, she was named one of Granta’s Best of Young British Novelists, and in 2011 she received the EM Forster Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Field Study, her collection of short stories published in 2004, received an award from PEN International. Her second novel, Afterwards (2007) third novel The Walk Home (2014), and fourth novel A Boy in Winter (2017), were all longlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction. Her books have been published in eighteen languages.

Seiffert’s subject is ordinary lives in extraordinary times. Her characters have included the 12-year-old daughter of an SS officer in 1945, a Polish seasonal worker on a German asparagus farm after the fall of the iron curtain, and – most recently – a young Ukrainian man faced with the choice between resistance and collaboration during the Nazi occupation.

Rachel Seiffert has taught creative writing at Goldsmiths College and Glasgow University, and delivered seminars at the Humboldt University Berlin, Manchester University, and the Faber Academy in London, amongst others; she is a returning tutor at the Arvon Foundation. Her particular interest is teaching writing in schools, delivering workshops for the East Side Side Educational Trust in Hackney, Wellington College in Berkshire, and a number of state secondaries in south east London. She is currently Writer in Residence at Haseltine School in SE26, and works with First Story at St Martin in the Fields Secondary in Tulse Hill.

Reviews

[Banu Yıldıran Genç · Rating 4 out of 5]

özellikle doğu almanya’dan, polonya’dan, britanya’nın kırsal kesimlerinden, şehirlerin görünmeyen işsizlerinden, kimsesizlerinden örülmüş öyküler...
çocuklarıyla tek başına başa çıkmak zorunda olan anneler, çocuklarıyla baş edemeyen aileler, modern dünyanın zorlukları ve bunların doğayla ya da bir sokakla garip bir biçimde bütünleşmesi...
rachel seiffert her öyküde bir taş ağırlığı ekliyor okura, hele ilk ve son öykünün bütünlüğü bunu daha da artırıyor.

[Seda · Rating 5 out of 5]

Muazzam. Hep öykünün aslında çok da düşkün olmadığım bir tür olduğunu zannederdim. Oysaki bu durumun esas sebebi türün gerçekten iyi örneklerine az rastlamış olmammış. Bu kitap bence “boş yok” diye tabir edilecek cinsten, her öyküyü ayrı bir keyifle okudum, ritmi hiç aksamadı. Kesinlikle bir gün tekrar okurum.
Umarım yayınevi yazarın diğer kitaplarını da basar, malum döviz sebebiyle yabancı yayınlara ulaşmak çok zorlaştı.

[Michelle]

Solid collection, always impressed by an author who draws out genuine emotion with such a bare-bones writing style. Found myself thinking about these stories throughout the day, especially The Late Spring and The Crossing.

[Kayıp Rıhtım]

Öykü kitaplarını okumayı sever misiniz? Peki kıyıda köşede kalmış güzide işleri? Eğer bu ikisine de cevabınız evetse ve hâlâ Yüz Kitap‘tan haberdar değilseniz gelin önce bu yayınevini sizlere kısaca anlatayım. Bu mütevazı kuruluş, yaklaşık 2 yıl önce kuruldu ve şimdiye kadar 12 eserle okuyucularının karşısına çıktı. Kendilerinin güzel ve saygı duyulası bir idealleri var; şimdiye kadar Türkçeye hiç çevrilmemiş, görece ünlü olmayan öykü kitaplarını ve yazarlarını özenli bir seçki ve editoryal çalışmayla dilimize kazandırıyorlar. Sayelerinde bu değerli isimlerin dünyalarına konuk olmakla birlikte, kendileriyle tanışma imkânına da sahip oluyoruz.

Bense kendilerini ilk olarak Bulgar yazar Miroslav Penkov’un Batının Doğusu adlı eseriyle tanımıştım. Hem gördüğüm itinalı çeviri hem de iyi editörlük karşısında saygı duymuştum. Değerli eserleri kazandırıyor olsalar bile bu konulara önem verilmese hayal kırıklığı olurdu. Ayrıca Penkov’un kalemi de harikaydı, sonuçta bir okur olarak tatmin olmuş şekilde ayrıldım öykülerin başından.

- Cem Altınışık

İncelemenin tamamı için: https://kayiprihtim.com/inceleme/gunu...

[Iain · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thoughtful and touching stories written in a clear and straight-forward style. As in 'The Dark Room', Seiffert lets the situation and the story speak for itself without recourse to unnecessary literary pyrotechnics or over-reliance on pathos. A few of these stories, such as 'Dimitroff' and 'Dog-Leg Lane' seem more like novel extracts than self-contained short stories, the characters crying out for more space, more narrative, more examination, but I've always felt that's a good thing in a short story. The lives in the story don't begin and end there, they have a past and a future that continues after the page is turned and so can live on in the reader's imagination. She also avoids the 'surprise ending' so beloved by short story theorists, a gimmick that is surely beyond its best before date.

[Renklikalem · Rating 5 out of 5]

cok basit bir dille muthis gercek portreler cikaran oykuler var gunun sonu yok’ta. neredeyse mayis ayina yayarak okudum bu oykuleri. hep elimin altindaydi ve arada acip bir resme bakar gibi okudum. resim, portre deyince, bazi oykulerde gercekten yazarin anlattigi atmosferi gordum sanki, bir tablo gibi, bir sanat eseri gibi, tarafsiz ama cok gercek, cok etkileyici. oyku severler icin mutlaka! oyku sevmeyenler icinse oldukca istah acici, denemeye deger, farkli ve incelikli oykuler.

[Polat Özlüoğlu · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sadece son öykü için bile okunur bu kitap, kaldı ki diğer öyküler zaten Güzel. Polonya, Doğu-Batı Berlin, Almanya bölünmeden, bölündükten sonra ve duvar öncesi ve sonrası tarihin tozlu sayfalarında kalan insan hikayeleri oldukça gerçek, yalın ve yakıcı bir sadelikle anlatılıyor. İnsanın gözüne sokmadan çok akıcı bir anlatım tarzına sahip bir yazar. Kahramanların duygu coğrafyasını inanılmaz bir üslupla aktarıyor yazar öykülerde. Bir iç sıkıntısı, bir boşluk duygusu kalıyor geriye.

[Karen Kao · Rating 4 out of 5]

Field Study is the title of a short story collection by Rachel Seiffert. It is also the title of her opening story. On a river that borders Poland and East Germany, a young scientist takes samples. He suspects pollution from the factory upstream. He worries about its effects on a boy and his mother splashing downstream.

Summer and the third day of Martin’s field study. Morning, and he is parked at the side of the track, looking out over the rye he will walk through shortly to reach the river. For two days, he has been alone, gathering his mud and water samples, but not today.

When this collection was published in 2004, critics remarked upon the sentence fragments Seiffert so frequently uses. Ali Smith called them “a kind of liberation and muscularity.” The title story earned Seiffert a place in Granta’s Best of Young British Novelists. Another story in Field Study, “The Crossing” garnered the International PEN David T.K. Wong Prize.

These were not the stories that drew me in. The ones I liked are quieter and perhaps more desperate.

To read the full review, please visit my website for Children's Hour.

[Neslihan Cangöz · Rating 5 out of 5]

Yazarın öykülerini anlatma tarzını çok sevdim. Kısa fakat üzerinde çok düşünüldüğü belli müthiş cümlelerle insan hayatındaki önemli kırılma anlarını anlatıyor. İlk öyküde olduğu gibi (aşık olduğu kadının adama kahkahalarla gülmesi) veya bir çocuğun ölümle tanışması gibi...

[Rachel O'Brien · Rating 4 out of 5]

Seiffert's prose is sparse and purposeful, yielding remarkably insightful and empathetic character studies. These stories are just about perfect.

[Beverley · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting stories & fascinating historical locations and events.

[Kenny · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read the dark room a decade ago,and parts of it still ring in my mind, so I www.expecting good things from a powerful writer. I wasn't disappointed,. The post communist ones of field study and second best, are excellent, while the highlight for me was Dmitriov which dealt with post communist identity powerfully, but with a sense of humour, I think the only time she ever allows this to shine through.

I'd read the crossing assuming from her work it was a post ww 2 story, but the lack of this time setting meant it could have been set around any modern conflict from then through the Balkan wars. The stories set in Britain are all around mundane life, indeed kitchen sink drudgery. Where she succeeds here is jumping in with characters that do feel full, like the reader has come in half way through a novel rather than starting a short story.

A good collection, serious, diffuse and thought provoking.

[Keith · Rating 3 out of 5]

While I generally find novels far preferable to short stories - this is the second anthology from Seiffert that I have read. "The Dark Room" trilogy was much more powerful (really three short novellas), but I found these to be well written stories that for some reason captured me. A little off the track of what I normally like.

[Niamh · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was fantastic - sparse, minimal and absolutely beautiful. It left me wanting more; I'll definitely be reading more by Rachel Seiffert. It's great to read from a professional point of view, in particular. It's very hard to make such minimalist writing so complex, and reading it is a real lesson from a master.

[Rebecca Dauber · Rating 2 out of 5]

Field Study had some interesting characters and a wide variety of stories. Some of the short stories were very slow moving, and I found myself not really caring what happened to the characters. Of the 11 stories in the book, there were 3 that I actually anticipated getting to the ending to see how things turned out for the characters.

[Anne Sanow · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really loved The Dark Room, but in this collection I find Seiffert's writing less clean and spare than I do simply flat and uninspiring. Settings seem vague, and the characters without affect.

[Jess · Rating 2 out of 5]

I don't know what it is about short stories, but they usually leave me feeling unsatisfied, like there should be more to it. I have stumbled on a few great collections, but this wouldn't be one of them. It was a good book, it just didn't really move me one way or the other.

[Samantha Williams · Rating 2 out of 5]

For a book full of short stories, this book was pretty good. I don't love this book, it just didn't grab me like most books, but it still is a good book. Maybe if I re-read a second time, I'll like it more.

[Nicole Jacob · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm not a huge fan of short collections, I prefer the novels. This drew me with its mysterious cover and unique title. However, I felt like some lacked a solid ending, I was left really wanting more and I never got the answers I was looking for in the stories.

[Emily · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very well written and thought-provoking short story collection. There were 11 stories and I enjoyed all of them! Now that I know I like her writing style I'm looking forward to reading Rachel Seiffert's other book, 'The Dark Room.'

[Cindywho · Rating 3 out of 5]

European short stories chock full of melancholy. Some have to do with the tension between East and West, a few are set in the past. They slid through my mind like fading pearls. (November 23, 2004)

[Shawn · Rating 3 out of 5]

the apathy in these characters was so disturbing it distracted me from Ms. Sieffert's clean writing style.

[Rita]

Yesterday's reading inspired me not only to buy this book instantly but start reading right away!