The Penguin Book Of The City

by Robert Drewe

In this post-industrialist age, most of the world's people are city-dwellers. Urban living, with all its challenges, pleasures and angst, is the theme for this international collection of short stories. Included are 25 stories set aginst the backdrop of the world's greatest cities.

Genres: Short Stories, Fiction, Anthologies

380 pages, Paperback

First published January 6, 1998

About the author

Robert Drewe is among Australia’s most loved writers – of novels, memoir and short stories. His iconic Australian books include The Shark Net, The Bodysurfers and Our Sunshine. He is also editor of Black Inc.’s Best Australian Stories annual series. Recently, he has revisited the short story himself, with a masterful new collection, The Rip. Jo Case spoke to him for Readings about storytelling.

Reviews

[Ian Laird · Rating 3 out of 5]

The cover of my edition has a couple admiring the Sydney Harbour Bridge appreciating the beauty of all that steel put together so wonderfully.

Sydney, however, my home city, does not feature in any of the stories in this collection let alone the bridge. Further, the concept of ‘city’ is a thin device. While Paris, London and of course New York are specifically mentioned, among others, they are the settings rather than subject to what makes them unique.

There are some insights: the unfamiliarity of John Updike’s unnamed city, in The City is important to a salesman who falls ill with appendicitis and struggles to come to terms with his new environment in his forced circumstances. Joan Didion’s reportage of Robert Evans and the Cotton Club (the film), in L.A. Noir gives Los Angeles a drugs and murder flavour; Banana Yoshimoto’s hallucinatory tale Newlywed takes place in Tokyo, has a Before the Coffee Gets Cold quality, but could be in any Japanese city. In fairness, Robert Drewe’s own story Life of a Barbarian features a Tokyo earth tremor, but not much else and isn’t a very good story anyway.

Helen Garners In Paris certainly makes much of the difference in culinary outlook between an Australian woman and her French boyfriend as they discuss what’s for dinner:
'I’m hungry,’ she said. 'Where I come from, we just eat what’s there.’
‘And it’s not a secret,’ said the man, ‘that where you come from the food is barbaric.’ (p73)
One of my favourite lines I have read before in Garner’s collection Postcards from Surfers.

Maev Binchy does a good job capturing the unctuous, urbane Harley Street abortionist attending to a girl from Ireland in Shepherd’s Bush.

But too many stories are desultory, without much thematic coherence. However, the volume is redeemed, just, by three contributions.

Will Self’s A Short History of the English Novel, has a London publishing type, Gerald, and his lunchtime companion finding the waiter is an aspiring novelist and thereafter everywhere they go they meet an unpublished hospitality worker who presses their work upon them. Drives Gerald mad.

John Cheever’s Reunion, is a sad solitary, bitter tale of a son from the sticks visiting his dad in New York. The father insults everybody in sight and the reunion fails dismally.

My favourite is Donald Barthelme’s The King of Jazz, about Hokie Mokie, the new king of jazz, who has to keep proving it. At a cutting contest two aficionados seek to identify who’s playing:

‘What’s that sound coming in from the side there?’
‘Which side?’
The Left’
‘You mean that sound that sounds like the cutting edge of life? That sounds like polar bears crossing Arctic ice pans? That sounds like a herd of musk ox in full flight? That sounds like male walruses diving to the bottom of the sea? That sounds like fumaroles smoking on the slopes of Mt. Katmai? That sounds like the wild turkey walking through the deep soft forest? That sounds like beavers chewing trees in an Appalachian marsh? That sound like an oyster fungus growing on an aspen trunk? That sounds like a mule deer wandering a montane of the Sierra Nevada? That sounds like prairie dogs kissing? That sounds like witch grass tumbling or a river meandering? That sounds like manatees munching seaweed at Cape Sable? That sounds like coatimundis moving in packs across the face of Arkansas? That sounds like-’
‘Good God, it’s Hokie!’ (p134-135)

[m d · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's always difficult to review a book of short stories... there were few really good ones here (I've made a note to look up few of the writers), but also some rubbish ones, so 3 stars it is 😉

[Gregor Smith · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bittersweet tragedy runs through the stories in this book, pooled from the urban colonies across the globe. The Book of the City provides a glance through the eyes of thirty different writers, many hailing from cultures outside of the over-prescribed 'western' filter.

So many highlights, enjoyed most if not all thirty stories, each offering something unique. Great way to open pathways to writers outside your usual streams of discovery.

Top 4 = Banana Yoshimoto - Newlywed, Graham Swift - Seraglio, Robert Drewe - Life of a Barbarian, Candida Baker - City Lights

[Lee Kofman · Rating 2 out of 5]

I gave this anthology such a low rating because I only loved 5 stories in it and everything else I found to be tedious. But those 5 were good, especially Salman Rushdie's The Free Radio. My other favorites were: Maeve Binchy’s Shepherd’s Bush, Rose Tremain’s The Stack, John Cheever’s Reunion & Bharati Mukherjee’s Nostalgia.

[Christopher Green · Rating 5 out of 5]

With this collection opening with John Updike’s “The City”, I knew I was on to a good thing. The description of the hospital in which the protagonist Carson spends a few days, and Carson’s interactions with doctors, nurses and surgeon is simply superb. Banana Yoshimoto’s “Newlywed” from her short story collection “Lizard” follows and is also wonderful. In it, a young man, disenchanted with married life, takes the train home after an evening drinking with his friends, stays on the train instead of getting off at his stop, and meets an “incredible person”. There is great variety in this collection and I think the stories work very well together. My favorite story is “A Man in the Laundrette” by Beverley Farmer - clever, a little disturbing and beautifully written, making me Google her name and look for something else she wrote.

[N Young · Rating 2 out of 5]

A hugely uneven collection of stories. They are supposed to be themed around "the city", but some are a tenuous link at best. My favourite was Salman Rushdie's The Free Radio. There were many that I can't even remember even with the titles in front of me and I only read it a week ago! That says a lot to me about the quality of the stories.

[Jack · Rating 2 out of 5]

Some good short stories on the city and city life

[Frank Callaghan · Rating 2 out of 5]

Once again I fell prey to the synopsis on the back cover. I looked at the list of contributing authors and decided that this just had to be a good read. Lots of short stories or extracts, so an easy book to pick up and put down.
It certainly was that, and in fairness the putting down was the easier part. There was not much about it that I found merited picking it up. Even those authors whose work I have previously read and enjoyed, left me disappointed. Maybe the works were too short and too varying in style and taste to offer any kind of cohesive read. I'm not sure. I don't think that was the problem, it was simply that each tale felt not very interesting, not well scripted. I moved on from story to story expecting it to get better, but overall it did not,
The Will Self piece was not too bad, but most of the others I felt were space fillers. There was nothing there that made me feel that I ought to go and get more of that writer's work and dig into it more deeply.
No, I didn't enjoy this collection at all.

[Daniel · Rating 3 out of 5]

I somehow figured this book would be better, more enjoyable, emphasising the smalll positive glimpses that occur in big city life. Having lived in a major city 14 years approx. I know only too well of a darker underside... of inequality, petty non-egaliterian attitudes, infrastructure sinking with over population and underfunding. Of people living "shells" of life seeking their next chhosen " drug" sadly freely available and utilised by many global city dwellers, of broken dreams, of domestic and street violence, of disengagement from real communities....but what about when you find yourself smiling at a fellow commuter on s packed train, when yoy drop money una store and everyone bends to pick up the money for you, when you hear a cheery bus driver wish everyone a good day. I stopped reading one story in the book it was so negative, another I found disgusting....I think people in cities need more optimism not darkness as dwelt upon in this book

[Ruby Tombstone Lives! · Rating 3 out of 5]

I've read the following stories so far:

Banana Yoshimoto - "Newlywed" - Meh. I was curious to see some of her work, but... meh. ★ ★

Jess Mowry - "Crusader Rabbit" - This is such a great short story. There are so many elements to it, it would make a great story for a book club discussion. It is only 10 pages long, but full of depth and a wide range of emotion. The story is of two homeless young people, dumpster diving for cans to cash in at a recycling centre. The younger of the two is weaning himself off heroin, with the support of the older youth. Together they find the body of a baby in a trash can. Mowry portrays the boys with such warmth, understanding and humour, it's not difficult to empathise with the boys. ★ ★ ★ ★

[ilnyb · Rating 1 out of 5]

I didn't know so many famous authors could come up with so much banal rubbishy writing.

[Sarah Headland · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've never almost missed my train station because of a book before. I did it 3 times with this one.