Modelový svět

by Michael Chabon, Petr Onufer (Translator)

První část knihy nese stejný název - Modelový svět - a obsahuje příběhy nepříliš úspěšných antihrdinů, kteří si často nesou nevyslovená traumata z dětství, mívají bizarní a nijak oslnivá povolání a jejich vztahy s opačným pohlavím jsou velmi nezáviděníhodné. V povídkách se dostávají do situací sice ne vysloveně dramatických, ale nějak rozhodujících pro jejich další život. Řešení oněch situací a další vývoj osudu postavy nechává autor často na domyšlení čtenáři. Povídky druhé části knihy - Ztracený svět - pak tvoří ucelenější životní příběh jednoho z takových hrdinů od dětství až k dospívání. Autor je vynikající povídkář, svým citem pro detail, psychologickou drobnokresbu a jemný hořký humor připomíná americké klasiky typu T.Williamse, J.D.Salingera i W.Allena.

Genres: Short Stories, Fiction, Literature, Literary Fiction, Contemporary, Jewish, American

149 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1991

About the author

Michael Chabon is an American novelist, screenwriter, columnist, and short story writer. Born in Washington, D.C., he spent a year studying at Carnegie Mellon University before transferring to the University of Pittsburgh, graduating in 1984. He subsequently received a Master of Fine Arts in creative writing from the University of California, Irvine.
Chabon's first novel, The Mysteries of Pittsburgh (1988), was published when he was 24. He followed it with Wonder Boys (1995) and two short-story collections. In 2000, he published The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, a novel that John Leonard would later call Chabon's magnum opus. It received the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2001.
His novel The Yiddish Policemen's Union, an alternate history mystery novel, was published in 2007 and won the Hugo, Sidewise, Nebula and Ignotus awards; his serialized novel Gentlemen of the Road appeared in book form in the fall of the same year. In 2012, Chabon published Telegraph Avenue, billed as "a twenty-first century Middlemarch", concerning the tangled lives of two families in the San Francisco Bay Area in 2004. He followed Telegraph Avenue in November 2016 with his latest novel, Moonglow, a fictionalized memoir of his maternal grandfather, based on his deathbed confessions under the influence of powerful painkillers in Chabon's mother's California home in 1989.
Chabon's work is characterized by complex language, and the frequent use of metaphor along with recurring themes such as nostalgia, divorce, abandonment, fatherhood, and most notably issues of Jewish identity. He often includes gay, bisexual, and Jewish characters in his work. Since the late 1990s, he has written in increasingly diverse styles for varied outlets; he is a notable defender of the merits of genre fiction and plot-driven fiction, and, along with novels, has published screenplays, children's books, comics, and newspaper serials.

Reviews

[Elyse Walters · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a collection of contemporary short stories....
The first story is called "S Angel". Ira attends a Jewish wedding in Los Angeles and
immediately gets his arm pinched by his aunt Lillian painfully.
He's looking for his female cousins: One who is on the crew team at Cal in Berkeley, or another cousin, who had twice, in their childhoods, allowed Ira to see what he wanted to see.
Many quirky characters....the Jewish wedding where it looks like everyone might just be trying to survive until they can get home and watch TV.

In "Ocean Ave", ....Laguna Beach, California, Bobby Lazar is sitting in Cafe Zinc with his friends newly married (goopy happy), feeling a little sick over their happiness when he's been lonely for a long time.
In walks Suzette....Bobby's old love. Bobby is trying to tell himself that he doesn't love her anymore as he looks more closely at what she is wearing:
"She had on one of those glittering, opalescent Intergalactic Amazon leotard-and-tights combinations that seem to be made of cavorted or adamantium and do not so much cling to a woman's body as seal her off from gamma rays and lethal Stardust".

There are nine more short stories....
In Part II ...the stories are connecting - coming of age issues of a guy named Nathan Shapiro.
A few of the endings to Michael's stories in Part I, don't have clear closure... reminding me of author Etgar Keret.....where the reader is left to spend some time thinking.....to figure out our own conclusions.
Fact is.....Michael Chabon can write!!!

Terrific $1.99 Kindle download special.

[notgettingenough · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nathan has gone to Chaya's place naked in the middle of the night, sort of a dare by his equally juvenile mates.

"Are you a virgin, Nathan?" she said, her mouth very close to his.

He considered his reply much longer than he needed to, trying to phrase it as ambiguously as he could. "In a manner of speaking," he said at last, blushing in self-congratulation at the urbanity of this reply.

For the rest of this review, please go here:

http://alittleteaalittlechat.wordpres...-
and-other-stories-by-michael-chabon/

[Lukáš Cabala · Rating 5 out of 5]

Niekoľko kníh za sebou som len rozčítal a odložil. V takých chvíľach sa vždy zľaknem a s obavami sa pýtam sám seba: čo ak ma to naozaj prestane baviť? A potom som otvoril túto zbierku od Michaela Chabona a pochopil, že také čosi sa nikdy nestane, lebo vždy tú budú knihy ako táto. Je dobré, že len tak nerastú na stromoch a skrývajú sa v poličkách a knižničných labyrintoch. Často sa k nim treba presekať cez akési márne čitateľské pokusy...

Chabon je pre mňa legendou vďaka knihe Dobrodružstvá Cavaliera a Claya, poviedky sú samozrejeme iná kapitola. Je v nich sentiment amerického malomesta a to je niečo na čo mám veľkú slabosť. No najviac ma dostal text, kde hrdina píše veľmi špecifickú doktorskú dizertáciu na tému Antarktické modely indukované nefokineze. No a náhodou sa hrabe kdesi v antikvariáte a na spodu jednej krabice nájde 20 rokov starú knihu na rovnakú tému... rozhodne sa ju opísať, ale ďalší dej vlastne nie je o nejakej morálnej voľbe, ťahá sa inými smermi a to je samo o sebe zaujímavé a nečakané...

[Peter · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was already a fan of Chabon's novels and just picked this one up during a short stories binge. The first few stories are fine but not mind blowing. But the last few stories (The stories about Nathan Shapiro) are in the same vein as Wonder Boys and Mysteries of Pittsburgh but so much more endearing. Nathan is a fairly normal suburban kid dealing with just growing up but with the added confusion of parents divorcing and moving on. What I liked is that the stories are not in any way melodramatic where the kids are basket cases and the parents are monsters. Everyone deals with the changes fairly well actually. But these stories ring true in a very authentic, non-showy way that is bittersweet in the best possible connotation of that word.

[Tim Lepczyk · Rating 2 out of 5]

Can definitely tell that this is Chabon's earlier work. Some of the stories seem so skeletal compared to later stuff. Also, a few seemed more like writing exercises. The stories I liked the best were a group at the end that dealt with a family named the Shapiro's and there son Nathan. There are four or five stories and it basically tells a larger story about the family going through a divorce. Also, the title story A Model World was really great with some sinister undertones.

Still love his writing, but this collection didn't do it for me.

[Mattia Ravasi · Rating 5 out of 5]

Chabon offers a few examples of the slice-of-life "literary" fiction he would later come to (sort of) despise, but does it with enough playful invention and illumination to make the experience extremely enjoyable. The second part of the collection, "The Lost World," forms a quasi-novella on the toughness of growing up, and it is especially praiseworthy.

Overall pretty much as good as Werewolves in Their Youth.

[Stef Smulders · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great stories, collection with two different parts. The first part present independent stories, told with a lot of humor and wit. The second part is a series around the boy Nathan, living through puberty and the divorce of his parents and has a more melancholical tone, without becoming melodramatic. Both parts worthwhile reading.

[El Convincente · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ay, esos cuentos que parecen capítulos de una novela incompleta. Nunca mis favoritos.

Ay, el estilo de Chabon. Un Fitzgerald diluido: una parte de Fitzgerald y dos de agua mineral.

¡Pero qué bien me sabe esa tercera parte de Fitzgerald!

¡Y qué buenos son dos de los cuentos!

. Millonarios
. El mundo perdido

Mi debilidad por el tema de las cosas que perdemos.

[MB Taylor · Rating 2 out of 5]

Finished reading A Model World and Other Stories (1991) the other night on the way home. A Model World is a small collection of short stories by Michael Chabon. This is the earliest of his works that I’ve read and it’s entertaining, but I prefer his later novels: The Adventures of Kavalier & Clay (2000) and The Yiddish Policemen's Union (2007) both of which are excellent.

A Model World is broken up into two parts: “A Model World”, 6 independent stories and “The Lost World”, 5 stories about Nathan Shapiro (aged 10 to 16, depending on the story). The stories were all good, but not as engrossing as I’d hoped. Perhaps I was just in the mood for a novel; I enjoyed the added depth provided by the 5 connected stories.

The stories in A Model World are all mainstream fiction; there’s not a fantasy, science fiction or even mystery story in the bunch. They’re just isolated episodes from the lives of some ordinary people. In “Smoke” a perhaps past his prime baseball pitcher goes to the funeral of a catcher he used to play with, in “Blumenthal on the Air” a man is living in Paris with his Iranian wife of convenience, and the stories about Nathan are glimpses into his life as his parents divorce and eventually remarry.

The strangest story in the bunch is probably “A Model World”. The story is a first person narrative, as are some of the others, but in this case the narrator (Smith) is not the main character (Levine). Smith and Levine are graduate students at a university; Smith is studying physics and Levine is working on his dissertation in meteorological engineering. A chance discovery at a book shop leads them into an unusual dinner party with the head of Levine’s dissertation committee and his wife.

Overall I’d say the stories are entertaining, and the book as a whole was enjoyable, but I don’t think I’d have missed it if I hadn’t read it.

[K · Rating 3 out of 5]

The first half of this book is hardly worth reading, and I only slogged through because I've read and enjoyed several other Chabon books by this point. The first six stories are rather uninteresting and proceed in a stilted style that makes me think they must have been composed during writing exercises in school. There's far too much baseball, inconsistent narrative points of view, awkward attempts at romance, characters with little substance, and confusing plots. I was intensely disappointed. Although you can see momentary flashes of Chabon's later brilliance, these stories weren't really worth the time.

But then I came to the second half of the book, a set of stories about Nathan Shapiro and his loving but broken family, and I was glad I'd kept reading. "Part II: The Lost World," unlike the stories of "Part I: A Model World," which I wish I could simply discard, has sharp, masterfully crafted, believable characters whose lives seem to mean something.

It's particularly interesting to have read this concurrently with two other books: The Possessed, by Elif Batuman, and Chabon's Manhood for Amateurs. Batuman, although mostly writing about Russian literature, had some harsh criticisms about short story writers and the conventions to which so many fall prey. "The Model World" was a prime example of this, a writer composing darkly postmodern, overwritten tales that tried far too hard to be clever and "different," while instead sounding exactly like every other mediocre writer. Once Chabon let go of that and dove into the semi-autobiographical Shapiro stories, his skill came shining through. At least two of the five Shapiro stories have parallels in Manhood for Amateurs, and it's clear how much of himself Chabon invested in the writing. It's visible. It's beautiful. I wish he'd tossed away the other bits of this collection and kept on writing about Nathan.

[Evan Lieberman · Rating 3 out of 5]

Michael Chabon is one of my favorite authors, and it isn't that I didn't like the book. It just felt too much like these weren't short stories but were all just first chapters to novels. To me an effective short story builds its own world quickly, sucks you in then closes it up. Pretty much all the stories just sort of trailed off. Although I did really enjoy the last grouping of stories as they followed an adolescent in "snap-shot" form at random intervals throughout his life. Good, but maybe the author just set the bar too high with all his other excellent books.

[Jake · Rating 3 out of 5]

The first half is made up of unrelated short stories. The second half are stories of one boy. The latter are definitely stronger. Maybe Chabon is just better when he has time to develop characters, like in is novels. Or maybe he was just developing as a writer when this was written. Or maybe I just wasn't feeling the first part.

[Charles Northey · Rating 3 out of 5]

Bit of a mixed bag with the cohesive second part really showing the makings of what Chabon has become as a writer, intimate and relatable being strengths, while the ambiguity and awkward mysteriousness of the first part, deserves the three stars.

[Ross · Rating 4 out of 5]

Chabon writes so skillfully and boldly on the razor’s edge between sweetness and tragedy. He demonstrates this in every one the stories in this collection.

[Lisa Shepherd · Rating 5 out of 5]

I absolutely love Michael Chabon’s voice. This felt like JD Salinger for the first set of stories and loved the autobiographical second set. A very specific slice of a person’s life. A delight to witness and be a part of.

[Oscar · Rating 3 out of 5]

Este libro de relatos de Michael Chabon, su segundo libro tras ‘Los misterios de Pittsburg’, se divide en dos partes: Un mundo modelo, formada por seis cuentos independientes entre sí, y El mundo perdido, donde los cinco cuentos que la constituyen tienen un personaje común, dándoles un de aire unidad.

Los relatos de la primera parte son más diversos: un chico que asiste a la fiesta de la boda de su prima, donde se verá envuelto en una “casi” cita; la obsesión mutua que siguen sintiendo una pareja divorciada; un estudiante que decide plagiar su tesis doctoral utilizado un libro que ha encontrado por casualidad; un hombre que decide acceder a un matrimonio de conveniencia con una iraní para darle la nacionalidad norteamericana, que busca su cariño pero sólo encuentra indiferencia y frialdad; un jugador de béisbol que asiste al funeral de un compañero; o el amor que sienten dos grandes amigos por la misma mujer.

En los relatos de la segunda parte es donde destaca el talento de Chabon como novelista. Todos ellos están protagonizados por Nathan Shapiro, un chaval que quedará marcado por el divorcio de sus padres. A través de cada cuento, vamos viendo el crecimiento como persona de Nathan: el germen de la separación de sus padres; la acostumbrada excursión en busca de libros por diversas bibliotecas de Nathan y su padre, que está a punto de irse ya de casa; una comida de Nathan y su hermano con su padre y su nueva novia; el primer amor, platónico, de Nathan hacia su vecina, una mujer casada de la edad de su madre; o la aventura en la que se mete junto con sus amigos, todos ellos bebidos, cuando buscan perder la virginidad.

Chabon es digno heredero de escritores norteamericanos contemporáneos de la talla de Salinger, Carver o Cheever, en el sentido de que en sus cuentos no busca un cuento cerrado, sino que nos abre una ventana a la existencia de alguno de sus personajes, una visión de lo cotidiano, casi diría que casual. A través de estos hechos fugaces es cuando conectamos con las emociones de los personajes, y cuando nos damos cuenta de sus complejidades y contradicciones.

[Metaphorosis · Rating 3 out of 5]

Metaphorosis Reviews

Model World and Other Stories, A
Michael Chabon

2.5 stars

I hadn't heard of Michael Chabon until last year, when I happened across a New York Times profile of Jack Vance, which quoted Mr. Chabon as someone whose opinion was of importance. Chabon spoke well of Vance, and I took note of his name. Some casual research turned him up as an award-winning and well-respected author. So when Open Road Media had a good sale, I picked up one of Chabon's short story collections.

The collection turns out to be 'older' - from 1991. Perhaps that explains my reaction, but I presume that these are also the stories with which Mr. Chabon made his mark. Some of them were first published in the New Yorker, and certainly many of the stories have that New Yorker feel - slice of life stories in which nothing much really happens. I'm afraid it's not a style that's particularly appealing to me, and I found myself highly disappointed by the collection.

The book is composed of two parts - the first, 'A Model World', of unrelated stories, and the second, 'The Lost World', of stories about Nathan Shapiro. The latter are stronger, but largely because none of the stories ever really reaches a meaningful completion, and the Nathan series at least offers a feeling of (disconnected) growth and development.

Having read the stories, I'm a bit puzzled as to why Chabon made such a splash. I found the writing to be generally good, but not in any way outstanding. I didn't really connect with any of the characters, though there were some I found interesting. Most of the stories left me with a distinct feeling of 'so what?', and while they weren't bad, I can't say I'm interested to pursue Mr. Chabon's work any further.

[El · Rating 3 out of 5]

Early in Michael Chabon's career as a published writer he published this small collection of short stories, many of which had been seen in The New Yorker first. Following his Mysteries of Pittsburgh these short stories are in many ways a continuation of what he started - several stories take place in the Pittsburgh area, and, as always with Chabon, deal heavily with relationships (between men and women, boys and their fathers, boys and their brothers, boys and their first loves/lusts).

After already reading most of his more recent novels that are packed to the brim with heart and description, going back in his time to read his short stories is intereting. His stories are short and pack a punch rather quickly. Mysteries was not a long novel itself; it's interesting to see how he has not quite honed his skill as a writer in these earlier works. The short stories, however, show promise and one can hear the voice that later grows up to write The Wonder Boys (again with the Pittsburgh!) and The Adventures of Kavalier & Clay.

This book did not fail to inspire me quite the same way a lot of his later novels have - I only wish the stories were a little longer and a little heavier in the way that I feel Chabon is meant to be read.

[Conor Bateman · Rating 3 out of 5]

I wasn't anywhere near as enamoured by this short story collection as I was by Kavalier and Clay. I felt that most of the stories in the first half of the book, under the heading "A Model World", were laden with characterising facts but never really went anywhere or connected emotionally at all. The story about the baseball player is perhaps the best in this portion of the book. The latter half, under "The Lost World", were stories surrounding the character of Nathan Shapiro. While it was interesting to watch his progression throughout the stories, the fact that they were each used as separate short stories and published in multiple publications hampers this feel of continuity and instead seems just to give a recurring name of a character to each of the stories.

[Malbadeen · Rating 4 out of 5]

there is a line in one of the stories that made me want to gasp and scream "No, Fucking way"!!! and thrown it across the room because it was so perfect - i mean it was really, really perfect. but it didn't cuz it was 6:00 in the morning and the rest of the house was asleep and i was a guest and i didn't think that would be very guest like of me. but if I weren't, if i was reading it at home (and my kids had on really thick earplugs) i would have totaly screamed "No, Fucking Way" and thrown it and then layed down and recupperated before moving on because it was that good.

[Kellie · Rating 3 out of 5]

I would give this four stars if it wasn't for the first half of the book, which is slightly reminiscent of a bundle of Creative Writing 101 exercises although with a few gems of phrasing thrown in here and there. However, the second half of the book is intriguing and well-written. A hodge podge of stories, centered upon a dissolving marriage as seen through the eyes of a boy who is also dealing with the delightfully awkward confusions that come with coming-of-age, Chabon somehow manages to avoid the trite in the situation and provides some real, if not slightly uncomfortable, insights.

[Phil · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not sure if it's me or if it's short stories but I came away feeling like I'd had a small snack when I wanted dinner. Some of the stories really delivered - enough of a cameo to get the sense in place and move me. On those occasions you really admire his skill and economy. Others left me feeling a bit empty, I wanted to know more but mainly in the way that I think he'd left too much up to me.
Prefer his longer novels where he has time to develop things more fully.

[Veronica · Rating 4 out of 5]

The beginning of this book wasn't all that spectacular but as I read on, I fell in love with Chabon's storytelling style, especially at the second part, The Lost World, as it delved into the life of Nathan Shapiro. The stories and characters are simple, very human but at the same time, whimsical and entertaining. Reading this book definitely makes me want to read more of his work.

[Alan · Rating 4 out of 5]

1992 notebook: Neat, unfurling stories set around Los Angeles, UCLA types.

[Dymbula · Rating 4 out of 5]

Chabon je výborný povídkář.

[Brad · Rating 2 out of 5]

I enjoyed the second half more than the first. Reading about the same character through all of the stories in the second half made me more emotionally invested. Better than Werewolves in Our Youth.


Summaries:
S Angel - Twenty-year-old Ira attends his cousin's wedding. He eyes a slightly older divorcee and after an introduction dances with her. But she needs a realtor, not a lover. Ira steal her pills and kisses the bride.

Ocean Avenue - Bobby Lazar spots his ex Suzette and strikes up a quick chat with her. It quickly devolves into bickering over what they each got after the split. Suzette hurls her beverage at Bobby. He chases after her, catches her, and kisses her.

A Model World - Two students: one resolves to plagiarize a study he discovers from decades ago that surprisingly has the same title as his thesis; the other (the narrator) is trying to a court a young woman married to a professor. In the case of the young woman, she is already entangled in an affair with an influential acting teacher. In the end, the plagiarizer has minor success while the acting teacher teaches the narrator, helping him become a successful actor.

Blumenthal On the Air - A blowhard disc jockey has moved from Dallas to NYC to, now, Paris, bringing along his Persian wife who married him for a green card. Their marriage seems loveless. He seems bemused by it.

Smoke - At MLB star catcher Coleman Drinkwater's funeral, minor league pitcher Matty Magee ponders loss, both of his friend and of his pitching arm. He reconnects with an old flame Beryl Zmuda, a sports columnist and comforts his godson, Coleman's son.

Millionnaires - Vince and Harry are roommates living in poor conditions in a Pittsburgh duplex. Harry returns home drunk and begins breaking dishes after a break-up with Kim. He shoves Vince, who hits his head on the floor. Vince decides he should sleep with Kim. Years pass, years after Vince and Kim's short marriage, years after Kim bore Harry's child from before she got with Vince, and the two, no longer roommates, still meet up occasionally, though it isn't the same.

The Little Knife - The Shapiro family go on a vacation to the beach in Nags Head, North Carolina. Not all is well in Nathan's parents' marriage. His parents cut the vacation short claiming they both don't feel well; Nathan and his brother Ricky are upset by this decision. By the end, Nathan is blaming himself for he difficulties in his parents' marriage.

More Than Human - Nathan and his father Dr. Shapiro enjoy going to different library branches regularly. After his dad moves out, he is left wondering what, if anything, will ever be the same.

Admirals - Nathan and Ricky are on a vacation to Annapolis with Dr. Shapiro and his girlfriend Anne. At a restaurant they go to, Nathan and Ricky spot their mom's new boyfriend Chuck (a pilot) with another woman. Dr. Shapiro spends a lot of time on the phone, which visibly bothers Anne.

The Halloween Party - Ricky lives with his dad, while Nathan lives with his mom. Nathan, now 14 y.o. has a crush on his mother's friend, Eleanor Parnell, who watches him when his mother is at work late. He resolves to tell her at the Halloween party Elanor throws, but instead just asks her to dance. 

The Lost World - Nathan is now 16 y.o. His father is remarried (to Anne) with a baby on the way; his mother is newly married to a man named Ed. Nathan is drunk and naked in his friends' car in the middle of the night. They suggest stopping by Chaya Feldman's house, because she puts out. Nathan offers to knock on her window. She recognizes him from Hebrew school and invites him in. When he drunkenly kisses her, she almost has sex with him, but stops when she learns he's a virgin. Her father is sending her to Israel for a bit to straighten her out. She tells Nathan she'll write and scrawls a letter right then. When he reads the letter later, he is disappointed with the contents. He is similarly disappointed with a letter from his father promising to love him equally with his future sibling.

[Dan Trefethen · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've enjoyed Chabon's novels, so I thought I'd pick up this old story collection from when he was just making a name for himself.

The book is divided into two sections, most of which deal with aspects of suburban life, for want of a better descriptor. Many of the stories feature a young child or teenager. They were written for magazine length stories, and most were originally published in the New Yorker. The second section deals exclusively with the Shapiro family, a New York family with two sons where the marriage is slowly breaking up, then is broken. The main character is older son Nathan who moves from pre-teen to teenager in the chronology of the stories.

These are well crafted but I can't help but feel that Chabon knew how to write a 'New Yorker' story and kept going. The language is clever with a lot of colorful metaphors. There are recurring themes of baseball and science fiction (obsessions of youth). The emotional setup often has a twist right at the end.

This is a good example of the 'classic' way a writer's career would progress: Placing a number of short stories in widely-read magazines, working his way up to writing a novel. This collection originally came out in 1991, and his breakout first novel 'The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay' appeared in 2000. This career path is not so common nowadays, but it's an interesting instance of a young writer flexing his writing muscles and working up to the Big Time (Kavalier and Clay won the Pulitzer Prize).

[Zachary · Rating 5 out of 5]

The first half of this book is a series of really beautiful but (to me) somewhat frustrating stories that showcase Chabon's incredible talent for building a world and evoking a mood in a very compact number of pages, even though the stories themselves dissipate somewhat anticlimactically. I love reading fiction and I love reading literary fiction, I hope (pretty much constantly) that I'm not the person who needs everything laid out and explained to me in great detail in order for me to "get it." But the stories in the first part of this book always felt just the tiniest bit out of my grasp, so when they careen off in unexpected directions or end in blunt ways I never felt quite able to keep up. The second cycle of stories feels more whole, though. This is helped by the fact that they share a set of characters and follow a natural progression, but even beyond this they just feel more cohesive and comprehensible, with endings that also seem to veer but in ways that make sense and matter in the scope of the whole cycle. These later stories are charming, authentic, heartbreaking, nostalgic, and somehow insanely relatable even if you (as in my case) haven't lived a life or a set of circumstances even remotely close to those of Nathan, their main, most consistent character. It's a huge testament to Chabon's skill that these stories in particular work as well as they do, and it more than made up for any frustrations I felt at the opaqueness of the book's initial tales.

[Benjamin · Rating 5 out of 5]

A collection of seven short stories concluding with a one longer story mostly centred on younger people. They include a story about a student about to plagiarise, with his friend's knowledge, an existing published work to submit as his own thesis, and two close friend who share everything except their girlfriends, that is until when one is dumped by his girl. The final story follows Nathan Shapiro from the age of ten, just before his parents divorce, to the age of sixteen and his burgeoning adolescence and sexual awareness, a story that truly touches the heart

What is evident in each of these stories is Chabon's ability, with minimal physical description, to create fully fledged characters one can empathise with. Moreover, from the very first lines one is aware that Miachael Chabon is no ordinary writer, his command of language and and the written word results in prose of supreme and unpretentious eloquence, stories full of compassion, it is simple a joy to read.

[Michael Behrmann · Rating 4 out of 5]

Michael Chabon kann auch Kurzgeschichten! Nicht dass mich das in irgendeiner Weise überraschen würde, aber es ist doch immer schön eine Vermutung bestätigt zu sehen. Wobei „Ocean Avenue“ im Grunde nur in der ersten Hälfte eine klassische Short-Story-Sammlung ist, der zweite Teil besteht nämlich aus einer Reihe zeitlich aufeinander aufbauender Geschichten um einen heranwachsenden Jungen und seine Familie die zusammen fast so etwas wie einen Kurzroman ergeben. Ausgesprochen gelungen sind beide Teile. Und selbstverständlich hervorragend geschrieben. Thematisch merkt man dass es sich um Frühwerke handelt vor allem daran dass die Ausflüge in die verschiedenen Spielarten der Genre-Literatur die seine Romane seit geraumer Zeit immer mal wieder aufweisen hier noch fehlen. Alles genauso wie man sich typisch amerikanische Kurzgeschichten eben vorstellt. Aber halt in gut. Unbedingt lesenswert!