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Binocular Vision
In this sumptuous offering, one of our premier storytellers provides a feast for fiction aficionados. Spanning four decades and three prize-winning collections, these 21 vintage selected stories and 13 scintillating new ones take us around the world, from Jerusalem to Central America, from tsarist Russia to London during the Blitz, from central Europe to Manhattan, and from the Maine coast to Godolphin, Massachusetts, a fictional suburb of Boston. These charged locales, and the lives of the endlessly varied characters within them, are evoked with a tenderness and incisiveness found in only our most observant seers.
No matter the situation in which her characters find themselves-an unforeseen love affair between adolescent cousins, a lifetime of memories unearthed by an elderly couple's decision to shoplift, the deathbed secret of a young girl's forbidden forest tryst with the tsar, the danger that befalls a wealthy couple's child in a European inn of misfits-Edith Pearlman conveys their experience with wit and aplomb, with relentless but clear-eyed optimism, and with a supple prose that reminds us, sentence by sentence, page by page, of the gifts our greatest verbal innovators can bestow.
Binocular Vision reveals a true American original, a master of the story, showing us, with her classic sensibility and lasting artistry, the cruelties, the longings, and the rituals that connect human beings across space and time.
418 pages, Paperback
First published January 11, 2011
307 people are currently reading
5623 people want to read
About the author
Edith Pearlman
24 books90 followersEdith Pearlman, born in 1936, published her debut collection of stories in 1996, at age 60. Last year, she won The National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction for Binocular Vision. She has published over 250 works of short fiction in magazines, literary journals, anthologies and online publications. Her work has won three O. Henry Prizes, the Drue Heinz Prize for Literature, and a Mary McCarthy Prize, among others. In 2011, Pearlman was the recipient of the PEN/Malamud Award, which puts her in the ranks of John Updike, Joyce Carol Oates, and other luminaries.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 373 reviews
March 12, 2022
In today's Lithub there is an article (excerpted from a book) on the phenomenon of women reading male and female writers, but men reading largely only male writers. Mary Ann Sieghart writes, "The Irish novelist John Boyne remembers attending a literary festival where three established male novelists were referred to in the program as 'giants of world literature,' while a panel of female writers of equal stature were described as 'wonderful storytellers.'"
Ann Patchett writes in the introduction to this massive short story collection:
Perhaps the first paragraph of this review answers the question of the second.
Two stories into my reading, I leapt to the computer and ordered a copy of this book. No way can I read this in the span of a library loan. It will take me months, as one story is a full meal—remarkably as full-bodied as a good novel. (I may add to this review once I finish.)
When my copy arrives, I will pick up reading wherever I am, return the library edition, and when I'm done, my book will be shelved with The Stories of John Cheever , which required the identical slow reading.
There is no sane reason for Edith Pearlman's talent to be a surprise to any reading person.
P.S. And thank you, Paul Secor, a smart male reader, for letting me know about this book. I echo his comments of gratitude for my GR friends.
Ann Patchett writes in the introduction to this massive short story collection:
To that great list of human mysteries which includes the construction of the pyramids and the persistent use of Styrofoam as a packing material let me add this one: why isn't Edith Pearlman famous?She considers Pearlman one of the literary giants.
Perhaps the first paragraph of this review answers the question of the second.
Two stories into my reading, I leapt to the computer and ordered a copy of this book. No way can I read this in the span of a library loan. It will take me months, as one story is a full meal—remarkably as full-bodied as a good novel. (I may add to this review once I finish.)
When my copy arrives, I will pick up reading wherever I am, return the library edition, and when I'm done, my book will be shelved with The Stories of John Cheever , which required the identical slow reading.
There is no sane reason for Edith Pearlman's talent to be a surprise to any reading person.
P.S. And thank you, Paul Secor, a smart male reader, for letting me know about this book. I echo his comments of gratitude for my GR friends.
August 28, 2022
One of the delights of hanging out at Goodreads is discovering authors of whom I had no previous knowledge. I don't recall which of my GR friends wrote a review or gave a rating to this book and tipped me off to it. Several of you have written reviews or rated it, so I'll thank all of you.
These are wonderful stories that deserve to be read, reread, and savored.
I'll share one sentence from the story "Relic and Type" which I felt captured something true and gave me a sense of the protagonist:
"It was as if they were attending not the decorous language center but the night school to which his grandfather had dragged himself a century earlier, even after ten hours of work, because on English his whole future depended."
These are wonderful stories that deserve to be read, reread, and savored.
I'll share one sentence from the story "Relic and Type" which I felt captured something true and gave me a sense of the protagonist:
"It was as if they were attending not the decorous language center but the night school to which his grandfather had dragged himself a century earlier, even after ten hours of work, because on English his whole future depended."
November 5, 2012
I read Ann Patchett’s “Introduction” to Edith Pearlman’s Binocular Vision and was seized by a desire to begin reading this collection of short stories and by a conflicting desire to savor it later like a dessert on some desert island. I have never heard of Edith Pearlman. Of course, I could not wait. I started reading slowly, making sure I had stories left to tie me over on a recent vacation. I read one story at a time and I was loathe to finish the last.
This turned out to be an amazing collection of short stories. Binocular Vision is the Winner of the 2011 PEN/Malamud award for excellence in short fiction and the 2012 National Book Critics Circle Award. It contained 3 prize-winning collections of stories set in many cities and countries around the world: Godolphin a fictional suburb in Boston (mostly), New York, Central America, central Europe, London, Russia, and Jerusalem.
Pearlman’s stories reflected a keen observation of the human condition. The observations were borne out of the wisdom of lived experience. Married people may find this true - "although one may never get over a failed marriage, the rage and sorrow will cease" (“Settlers”). Pearlman’s characters were fleshed out with surprising intricacy. Stories were told of exceptional children (giftedness, Down syndrome, autism); aging folks confronting illness, mortality, death of friends; couples in love, couples in crisis; unlikely friendships and unions. The titular story offered a perspective of a child peering naively into adult life and her sudden apprehension of the complexities beneath placid adult domesticity. In this and many of Pearlman’s stories, there were moments of epiphany: a piece of history that illuminated the present or a startling denouement of reality.
In “Inbound”, we observed how the lives of the families were “melded together like gumdrops on a window sill’ on account of a disabled child. Pearlman captured a sense of dislocation and displacement of people: Jews in a dusty sun beaten barrio in Central America (“A Day of Awe”) or an Asian immigrant serving as a domestic help in foreign climes (“ALLOG”). In the latter, one rejoiced over friendships that were formed in a community of vulnerable individuals. How apt that we all “live in a kind of mutual burrow” (“Aunt Telephone”). In “The Little Wife” it was touching to read about a 60-year-old visiting for the last time his old college buddy who was dying and to learn of friendships that cannot be severed in death.
One of my favorite stories is “Vallies”, about Val, a nanny much loved for her bedtime stories. Coined “vallies” by her young charges, they were not the run-of-the-mill fairy tales but rather Medieval interactive dilemmas which engaged the children in seeking solutions. How clever! As it turned out, there was more to “vallies” that surprised even the reader.
Patchett was incisively accurate in her commentary on the beauty of Pearlman’s prose: "The rhythm of the language carried the reader forward as much as the plot." There were lines that were so picturesque, I read and re-read them. I heard voices that "tingled like glass droplets" and was mesmerized by the New York sky at 5 o’clock, "royal in December, slate in March, turquoise in June, cornflower in September". I love these phrases an old gentleman alluded to while contemplating new interests and pursuits: "flowers in your wilderness, stars in your night" (“Relic and Type”).
As Ann Patchett predicted, by the time I got to the end of several of Pearlman’s stories, I found myself turning to the front cover and starting over. The stories are so rich with nuances they offer new insights when revisited. Binocular Vision is a literary treasure.
This turned out to be an amazing collection of short stories. Binocular Vision is the Winner of the 2011 PEN/Malamud award for excellence in short fiction and the 2012 National Book Critics Circle Award. It contained 3 prize-winning collections of stories set in many cities and countries around the world: Godolphin a fictional suburb in Boston (mostly), New York, Central America, central Europe, London, Russia, and Jerusalem.
Pearlman’s stories reflected a keen observation of the human condition. The observations were borne out of the wisdom of lived experience. Married people may find this true - "although one may never get over a failed marriage, the rage and sorrow will cease" (“Settlers”). Pearlman’s characters were fleshed out with surprising intricacy. Stories were told of exceptional children (giftedness, Down syndrome, autism); aging folks confronting illness, mortality, death of friends; couples in love, couples in crisis; unlikely friendships and unions. The titular story offered a perspective of a child peering naively into adult life and her sudden apprehension of the complexities beneath placid adult domesticity. In this and many of Pearlman’s stories, there were moments of epiphany: a piece of history that illuminated the present or a startling denouement of reality.
In “Inbound”, we observed how the lives of the families were “melded together like gumdrops on a window sill’ on account of a disabled child. Pearlman captured a sense of dislocation and displacement of people: Jews in a dusty sun beaten barrio in Central America (“A Day of Awe”) or an Asian immigrant serving as a domestic help in foreign climes (“ALLOG”). In the latter, one rejoiced over friendships that were formed in a community of vulnerable individuals. How apt that we all “live in a kind of mutual burrow” (“Aunt Telephone”). In “The Little Wife” it was touching to read about a 60-year-old visiting for the last time his old college buddy who was dying and to learn of friendships that cannot be severed in death.
One of my favorite stories is “Vallies”, about Val, a nanny much loved for her bedtime stories. Coined “vallies” by her young charges, they were not the run-of-the-mill fairy tales but rather Medieval interactive dilemmas which engaged the children in seeking solutions. How clever! As it turned out, there was more to “vallies” that surprised even the reader.
Patchett was incisively accurate in her commentary on the beauty of Pearlman’s prose: "The rhythm of the language carried the reader forward as much as the plot." There were lines that were so picturesque, I read and re-read them. I heard voices that "tingled like glass droplets" and was mesmerized by the New York sky at 5 o’clock, "royal in December, slate in March, turquoise in June, cornflower in September". I love these phrases an old gentleman alluded to while contemplating new interests and pursuits: "flowers in your wilderness, stars in your night" (“Relic and Type”).
As Ann Patchett predicted, by the time I got to the end of several of Pearlman’s stories, I found myself turning to the front cover and starting over. The stories are so rich with nuances they offer new insights when revisited. Binocular Vision is a literary treasure.
October 25, 2021
This was overall a good read. There were a lot of short stories in this collection – 34. Average length was about 12 pages (small print).
For me, I rated 15 of the 34 as being 3.5 stars or greater…you can’t ask much more of a collection to be that good. Average rating once I tallied up all the stars was 3.0. So I would rate this as 3 strong stars. 😊
But don’t take my word on it: It won the 2011 National Book Critics Circle Award.
All of the short stories came from somewhere else —either from 3 books of short stories she previously wrote, and/or from literary magazines and journals in which she published them. Since this collection came out, she came out with another one — Honeydew (2015). She is 85 years young.
Stories I liked were the following:
• Tess —— 4 stars
o Heart-breaking story but very good.
• Inbound — 4 stars
o A child gets separated from her parents walking down a busy street. What happens next?! 😮
• Elder Jinks — 3.5 stars
o Older couple get married…have a falling out…do they get divorced? 😮
• The Noncombatant — 3.5 stars
• Vaquita — 3.5 stars
• Allog — 3.5 stars
• Toyfolk — 3.5 stars
• If Love Were All — 4 stars
o This story is continued on in two more stories….that were just OK in my opinion
• How to Fall — 4 stars
• Rules — 5 stars
• Unravished Bride
o I loved this story because I was anticipating how it was going to end up and it ended up in a way I had not thought of…a most impressive story by Pearlman.
• Binocular Vision — 3.5 stars
• Lineage — 5 stars
o Very clever. A woman has a stroke in a hospital and is speaking Russian to the doctors….and says she is an illegitimate daughter of the executed Tsar of Russia, Nicholas II…doctors don’t know what she is saying while she is talking, but they ask one of the residents who speaks Russian later on what she was talking about….resident says “it was a folktale, more or less.”
• Vallies
o Sad and bittersweet and a good story. An unexpected ending.
• Girl in Blue with a Brown Bag — 3.5 stars
This collection had an Introduction by Ann Patchett but unfortunately I could not read it because the library copy I receive had those pages torn out of it. Or I guess a patron did it….. 😕
Reviews
• https://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/16/bo...
• https://www.theguardian.com/books/201...
• https://fictionwritersreview.com/revi...
For me, I rated 15 of the 34 as being 3.5 stars or greater…you can’t ask much more of a collection to be that good. Average rating once I tallied up all the stars was 3.0. So I would rate this as 3 strong stars. 😊
But don’t take my word on it: It won the 2011 National Book Critics Circle Award.
All of the short stories came from somewhere else —either from 3 books of short stories she previously wrote, and/or from literary magazines and journals in which she published them. Since this collection came out, she came out with another one — Honeydew (2015). She is 85 years young.
Stories I liked were the following:
• Tess —— 4 stars
o Heart-breaking story but very good.
• Inbound — 4 stars
o A child gets separated from her parents walking down a busy street. What happens next?! 😮
• Elder Jinks — 3.5 stars
o Older couple get married…have a falling out…do they get divorced? 😮
• The Noncombatant — 3.5 stars
• Vaquita — 3.5 stars
• Allog — 3.5 stars
• Toyfolk — 3.5 stars
• If Love Were All — 4 stars
o This story is continued on in two more stories….that were just OK in my opinion
• How to Fall — 4 stars
• Rules — 5 stars
• Unravished Bride
o I loved this story because I was anticipating how it was going to end up and it ended up in a way I had not thought of…a most impressive story by Pearlman.
• Binocular Vision — 3.5 stars
• Lineage — 5 stars
o Very clever. A woman has a stroke in a hospital and is speaking Russian to the doctors….and says she is an illegitimate daughter of the executed Tsar of Russia, Nicholas II…doctors don’t know what she is saying while she is talking, but they ask one of the residents who speaks Russian later on what she was talking about….resident says “it was a folktale, more or less.”
• Vallies
o Sad and bittersweet and a good story. An unexpected ending.
• Girl in Blue with a Brown Bag — 3.5 stars
This collection had an Introduction by Ann Patchett but unfortunately I could not read it because the library copy I receive had those pages torn out of it. Or I guess a patron did it….. 😕
Reviews
• https://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/16/bo...
• https://www.theguardian.com/books/201...
• https://fictionwritersreview.com/revi...
March 31, 2023
Very much in the vein of Flannery O'Connor and Eudora Welty. Her characters are often provincial misfits constrained by a feeling of being pinched and shoved into a corner to eccentric acts of behaviour, like the old couple who take up shoplifting. She especially likes to write about children and the elderly. Thoroughly enjoyed all these stories.
August 21, 2024
This collection of short stories has been on my bedside table for two and a half years. I am not sure what motivated me to buy it, since at the time I was trying not to buy more books and for the most part succeeding. Whatever the cause, I am most thankful. I have loved short stories since high school, if not before—a long time. By my count I have read 68 short-story collections, and this was one of the best.
There is a series of three stories in the collection about Sonya, an American woman in her 50’s, who goes to London to help refugees escaping Europe. She provides a home and new life for Lotte, a French teenager who plays the violin. Roland, who initially hired Sonya, has fallen in love with her and visits her occasionally throughout the war. After the war, Roland persuades Sonya to move with him to Europe and manage a Displaced Person (DP) camp. In the final story, Roland and Sonya move to NYC; they are married now and easing into retirement.
Most of the stories in this collection are 10-12 pages long, but by the end of each of these relatively short short stories, you feel you know the people and the place so very well. I was amazed at Edith Pearlman’s ability to describe place, despite using such a variety of locations for her stories. Godolphin, a suburb of Boston, is the locale used most often, but for instance, there are a handful of stories set in Central American and they felt more authentic than many authors who set most of their stories in Central America.
In another story I thoroughly enjoyed, Allog, a man, husband and father from a Southeast Asia island nation, travels to Israel under a treaty that allows him to stay temporarily to care for an elderly Israeli citizen. His patient lives in an apartment building and Joe befriends and becomes an intimate aide to many of the apartment tenants through an array of small kindnesses. Again, the locale feels authentic.
In maybe my favorite story of the collection, On Junius Bridge, Miss Huk owns and manages an inn in Bulgaria. She had gone to college in Budapest but returns home afterwards, unattracted by the city and so many other humans in close vicinity. A billionaire arrives with his wife and son. The son, Lars, is limited in what interests him; he likes learning the classification of animals, plants and insects. Miss Huk feels an affinity for Lars that she speaks about with his father.
I have learned that the short stories I love don’t always appeal to others. The quality of these stories, though, is so consistent, the characters so intimately portrayed, the settings so truly painted, that I must applaud loudly and be grateful that they came my way.
There is a series of three stories in the collection about Sonya, an American woman in her 50’s, who goes to London to help refugees escaping Europe. She provides a home and new life for Lotte, a French teenager who plays the violin. Roland, who initially hired Sonya, has fallen in love with her and visits her occasionally throughout the war. After the war, Roland persuades Sonya to move with him to Europe and manage a Displaced Person (DP) camp. In the final story, Roland and Sonya move to NYC; they are married now and easing into retirement.
Most of the stories in this collection are 10-12 pages long, but by the end of each of these relatively short short stories, you feel you know the people and the place so very well. I was amazed at Edith Pearlman’s ability to describe place, despite using such a variety of locations for her stories. Godolphin, a suburb of Boston, is the locale used most often, but for instance, there are a handful of stories set in Central American and they felt more authentic than many authors who set most of their stories in Central America.
In another story I thoroughly enjoyed, Allog, a man, husband and father from a Southeast Asia island nation, travels to Israel under a treaty that allows him to stay temporarily to care for an elderly Israeli citizen. His patient lives in an apartment building and Joe befriends and becomes an intimate aide to many of the apartment tenants through an array of small kindnesses. Again, the locale feels authentic.
In maybe my favorite story of the collection, On Junius Bridge, Miss Huk owns and manages an inn in Bulgaria. She had gone to college in Budapest but returns home afterwards, unattracted by the city and so many other humans in close vicinity. A billionaire arrives with his wife and son. The son, Lars, is limited in what interests him; he likes learning the classification of animals, plants and insects. Miss Huk feels an affinity for Lars that she speaks about with his father.
I have learned that the short stories I love don’t always appeal to others. The quality of these stories, though, is so consistent, the characters so intimately portrayed, the settings so truly painted, that I must applaud loudly and be grateful that they came my way.
May 15, 2013
As good as Munro, Cheever, Trevor. Supremely good.
February 28, 2020
A master of the form ... And the form is one I don't usually love. But Pearlman packs as much character, plot, emotion and lovely writing into a handful of pages as most writers do in 400. Her meditations on aging, and particularly, solitarinesss are clear eyed and honest - you feel that she is saying things that other writers daren't say. Her gentle acceptance and understanding of the many many ways that people organize their lives and their affections puts many younger writers to shame. I should pick some favorites - certainly the trilogy of stories set during and after ww2, but also Aunt Telephone, and the very first story, and the Salinger-esque cousins, and the twin fathers with cancer, and Allog... The whole book deserves savoring but not in one gulp. It's too rich, painful and exquisite for that.
April 24, 2013
Believe the hype. A seemingly unspectacular writer who builds the lightest trap around you and you are caught in the elegant depiction of a world of love and irritation, humour and spiciness. Complex, exquisite, resonant stories of - mainly - middle class citizens of Godolphin (a fictional suburb of Boston), usually Jewish, and their various mis/adventures in love, family and work (mainly academic, sometimes political). Following or suppressing an erotic impulse; dealing with the needs of children; often spiked with illness, or pending death, in a couple the 2nd world war: the characters are so real they stand in front of you and you can hear them breathe. Easily bears comparison with Alice Munro and Doris Lessing's best short fiction, which is the highest praise from me.
I have been reading and re-reading the stories for nearly two months now and know I will continue to dip into the pages over and over. I'll probably come back and add to this review as well, but for now highly recommended to all my short story reading friends.
I have been reading and re-reading the stories for nearly two months now and know I will continue to dip into the pages over and over. I'll probably come back and add to this review as well, but for now highly recommended to all my short story reading friends.
August 11, 2012
Edith Pearlman, winner of this year’s National Book Critics’ Circle Award, has quietly published dozens of stories over the last forty years in small literary magazines. Although many were selected for anthologies and “best-of” awards, few readers had heard of her until the University of North Carolina Wilmington published Binocular Vision - New and Selected Stories in 2011.
Pearlman mainly writes about women. Most are Jewish. Many are older, smart, and career-minded. Some are refugees. Though her style is understated and direct, she captures the subtle changes in her characters’ lives with fresh, well-placed metaphors.
A doctor living in a Central American country, working as health minister for a precarious liberal government, impulsively gives a precious diamond to a poor young mother, despite knowing that she herself will need the money it would bring when she is forced into political exile.
A young American teenager observes a poker game between her parents and their rabbi the night before her synagogue receives a Czech torah, and she begins to comprehend the delicate ramifications of chance in all of their lives.
A doctor confronts a fatal illness and takes her life into her own hands.
An Asian man immigrates to Israel as a caretaker and brings hope and life to the downcast residents of a poor apartment complex.
These stories don’t startle or shock; they build to a soft boil with detailed observation. In “Hanging Fire,” for example, Nancy, a plain twenty-one-year-old “whose long chin had been designed as a bookmark,” returns home to Maine after graduating from college and attending a friend’s wedding. In the long dull summer she comes to terms with the choices in front of her after being rejected by the local tennis pro for whom she carries a flame:
“Nancy soared. She felt detached, exalted. To be defeated, she realized, is also to be disburdened. One travels lighter. Nevertheless…Leo’s cough drop eyes shone.” She imagines the passionate encounter that will never happen. Still, she’s strong enough and wise enough to turn down a pale suitor from college whom she doesn’t love.
In Pearlman’s stories, there is a frank acknowledgment of changes beyond the individual’s control, of life leading to sadness, grief and death. What illuminates each is Pearlman’s respect for the dignity of life, the defiant gesture and, ultimately, the acceptance of what is.
Pearlman mainly writes about women. Most are Jewish. Many are older, smart, and career-minded. Some are refugees. Though her style is understated and direct, she captures the subtle changes in her characters’ lives with fresh, well-placed metaphors.
A doctor living in a Central American country, working as health minister for a precarious liberal government, impulsively gives a precious diamond to a poor young mother, despite knowing that she herself will need the money it would bring when she is forced into political exile.
A young American teenager observes a poker game between her parents and their rabbi the night before her synagogue receives a Czech torah, and she begins to comprehend the delicate ramifications of chance in all of their lives.
A doctor confronts a fatal illness and takes her life into her own hands.
An Asian man immigrates to Israel as a caretaker and brings hope and life to the downcast residents of a poor apartment complex.
These stories don’t startle or shock; they build to a soft boil with detailed observation. In “Hanging Fire,” for example, Nancy, a plain twenty-one-year-old “whose long chin had been designed as a bookmark,” returns home to Maine after graduating from college and attending a friend’s wedding. In the long dull summer she comes to terms with the choices in front of her after being rejected by the local tennis pro for whom she carries a flame:
“Nancy soared. She felt detached, exalted. To be defeated, she realized, is also to be disburdened. One travels lighter. Nevertheless…Leo’s cough drop eyes shone.” She imagines the passionate encounter that will never happen. Still, she’s strong enough and wise enough to turn down a pale suitor from college whom she doesn’t love.
In Pearlman’s stories, there is a frank acknowledgment of changes beyond the individual’s control, of life leading to sadness, grief and death. What illuminates each is Pearlman’s respect for the dignity of life, the defiant gesture and, ultimately, the acceptance of what is.
March 6, 2014
19:45 Sunday R4
"These stories are an exercise in imagination and compassion.. a trip around the world.." ANN PATCHETT, author of Bel Canto
Blurb: Edith Pearlman has been writing stories for decades and is in her mid seventies. Recognition duly arrived in America with various awards, but only recently has her collection, Binocular Vision, been acclaimed in Britain. Now there's chance to hear three of the tales on radio, and be acquainted with a voice that is compelling and new to us...
Reader Lydia Wilson
Producer Duncan Minshull.
June 11, 2012
Binocular Vision: New & Selected Stories by Edith Pearlman is a jewel of a book. Each short story is exquisitely crafted-beautifully written with characters fully realized and alive. Whether describing an elderly man's experience in South America or a child dealing with a dysfunctional family in a Boston suburb, Pearlman's stories draw the reader in to her universe.
June 17, 2021
This is a collection of well written short stories that feature extraordinarily ordinary individuals who encounter those ordinary experiences with extraordinary defining power (the terminal illness of a friend, a romance unconsummated, the childhood recognition that what you believed may not be true, religious celebrations) and who move through them with the extraordinary grace that is shockingly ordinary.
September 5, 2011
A stunning collection of short stories. The final story, 'Self Reliance', finishes it off perfectly.
September 25, 2011
Finishing this book made me want to go back to my other goodreads reviews and consider knocking them down a star or two so I could make it clear how incredibly wonderful this collection is. Perhaps my favorite book of 2011, and in a year when I also read Cutting for Stone and The Master and Margarita that's saying something.
Unlike many of my friends, I do love short stories, so I didn't have that obstacle to overcome. But this collection is a particular gem. Like some of the earlier reviewers, I found myself re-reading the stories and slowing down even more as I reached the end. I read the "Jan Term" at least four times, both because I couldn't stop marveling at how tightly it was put together, how lovingly it was told, but also because I didn't want to move on to the final stories.
I'm so grateful for Ann Patchett's glowing introduction, which inspired me to pick up this volume.
Unlike many of my friends, I do love short stories, so I didn't have that obstacle to overcome. But this collection is a particular gem. Like some of the earlier reviewers, I found myself re-reading the stories and slowing down even more as I reached the end. I read the "Jan Term" at least four times, both because I couldn't stop marveling at how tightly it was put together, how lovingly it was told, but also because I didn't want to move on to the final stories.
I'm so grateful for Ann Patchett's glowing introduction, which inspired me to pick up this volume.
March 3, 2021
He intentado leer completa esta colección de cuentos, pero me he rendido al llegar a la mitad. Desde luego, me encuentro lejísimos del embeleso que muestra Ann Pattchet en el prólogo, en el que solo le falta decir que leer a Edith Pearlman te cura los juanetes, la acidez de estómago y hasta la miopía. Dios me libre, si algún día publico algo, de prologuistas tan entusiastas.
Supongo que para apreciar los cuentos de Edith Pearlman lo más importante es que te guste el tipo de relato que escribe. Un relato muy estadounidense, muy slice of life, muy de escritores para otros escritores, muy Master of Fine Arts in Writing (y eso que Edith Pearlman, creo, no ha pasado por ningún MFA). ¿Te gustan Cheever o Updike? Entonces hay bastantes probabilidades de que te haga tilín lo de Edith Pearlman. Y sin tanta misoginia, mira qué bien.
O puede que ni por esas. Puede que te aburran mortalmente estos relatos, como me ha pasado a mí. A mí el slice of life me gusta a condición de que la tajada esté muy bien elegida o se presente con gracia. Como hacía, por ejemplo, Lucia Berlin. No me parece el caso de Edith Pearlman. Casi todos sus relatos se centran en gente de mediana edad, judíos, y con una posición acomodada, a quienes apenas les sucede gran cosa, y que de todos modos reaccionan como si su suministro de agua llevara ya incorporado el Prozac. El primer cuento que me hizo plantearme abandonar esta lectura trataba sobre un grupo de personas en torno a cuarenta o cincuenta años, todas ligadas a la misma sinagoga, que se reúnen para jugar al póker y hacer timoratas apuestas de unos pocos centavos. Hay pocas cosas más aburridas que contemplar una partida de póker en la que no puedes ver qué cartas lleva cada jugador, y una de ellas es que encima te la narren. Aparte de una mirada de cierta intensidad del rabino a la mujer del anfitrión, no hay nada que sugiera que por debajo de la acción hay alguna historia con más enjundia. Eso es lo que me enerva de estos cuentos: lo que te cuentan es lo que hay, y lo que hay no es demasiado emocionante. No hay esa maravillosa potencialidad, esas sugerencias que puedes encontrar, por ejemplo, en los cuentos de Raymond Carver.
En otro de los cuentos encontramos esto: «No tenían televisión y su licuadora era solo de tres velocidades». ¿Qué hacer con esa frase? En otro contexto no me quedaría duda de que se trata de una ironía, pero lo cierto es que, aparte de que no hay demasiado humor en los cuentos de Edith Pearlman, todo ese relato se basa en describir, con una condescendiente sorpresa, la vida de una familia que vive de una manera sencilla y al margen del consumismo. Una pareja con hijos que no se mueve en las corrientes de afluencia económica y cultura de los protagonistas de los otros cuentos, y a los que se describe, en consecuencia, con ese tono de divertida superioridad con que algunas personas consideran a los niños. Si al aburrimiento ya sumamos el mosqueo por esas demostraciones de condescendencia (que no son exclusivas de este relato, no hay más que ver cómo retrata Sudamérica), apaga y vámonos. Otro libro que va a parar a la lista de inacabados.
Al menos, pienso, todo ese entusiasmo de los críticos por los cuentos de Edith Pearlman demuestra algo: al final encuentras a tu público, aunque tenga que ser a los setenta años. Es la única sensación reconfortante que me ha proporcionado este libro.
P. S.: Inicialmente le había puesto solo una estrella a este libro, porque me ciño al significado que le da Goodreads a esa calificación, «No me ha gustado». Pero justo después he leído una novela tan rematadamente mala, que he tenido que subirle la calificación a Visión binocular a dos estrellas.
Supongo que para apreciar los cuentos de Edith Pearlman lo más importante es que te guste el tipo de relato que escribe. Un relato muy estadounidense, muy slice of life, muy de escritores para otros escritores, muy Master of Fine Arts in Writing (y eso que Edith Pearlman, creo, no ha pasado por ningún MFA). ¿Te gustan Cheever o Updike? Entonces hay bastantes probabilidades de que te haga tilín lo de Edith Pearlman. Y sin tanta misoginia, mira qué bien.
O puede que ni por esas. Puede que te aburran mortalmente estos relatos, como me ha pasado a mí. A mí el slice of life me gusta a condición de que la tajada esté muy bien elegida o se presente con gracia. Como hacía, por ejemplo, Lucia Berlin. No me parece el caso de Edith Pearlman. Casi todos sus relatos se centran en gente de mediana edad, judíos, y con una posición acomodada, a quienes apenas les sucede gran cosa, y que de todos modos reaccionan como si su suministro de agua llevara ya incorporado el Prozac. El primer cuento que me hizo plantearme abandonar esta lectura trataba sobre un grupo de personas en torno a cuarenta o cincuenta años, todas ligadas a la misma sinagoga, que se reúnen para jugar al póker y hacer timoratas apuestas de unos pocos centavos. Hay pocas cosas más aburridas que contemplar una partida de póker en la que no puedes ver qué cartas lleva cada jugador, y una de ellas es que encima te la narren. Aparte de una mirada de cierta intensidad del rabino a la mujer del anfitrión, no hay nada que sugiera que por debajo de la acción hay alguna historia con más enjundia. Eso es lo que me enerva de estos cuentos: lo que te cuentan es lo que hay, y lo que hay no es demasiado emocionante. No hay esa maravillosa potencialidad, esas sugerencias que puedes encontrar, por ejemplo, en los cuentos de Raymond Carver.
En otro de los cuentos encontramos esto: «No tenían televisión y su licuadora era solo de tres velocidades». ¿Qué hacer con esa frase? En otro contexto no me quedaría duda de que se trata de una ironía, pero lo cierto es que, aparte de que no hay demasiado humor en los cuentos de Edith Pearlman, todo ese relato se basa en describir, con una condescendiente sorpresa, la vida de una familia que vive de una manera sencilla y al margen del consumismo. Una pareja con hijos que no se mueve en las corrientes de afluencia económica y cultura de los protagonistas de los otros cuentos, y a los que se describe, en consecuencia, con ese tono de divertida superioridad con que algunas personas consideran a los niños. Si al aburrimiento ya sumamos el mosqueo por esas demostraciones de condescendencia (que no son exclusivas de este relato, no hay más que ver cómo retrata Sudamérica), apaga y vámonos. Otro libro que va a parar a la lista de inacabados.
Al menos, pienso, todo ese entusiasmo de los críticos por los cuentos de Edith Pearlman demuestra algo: al final encuentras a tu público, aunque tenga que ser a los setenta años. Es la única sensación reconfortante que me ha proporcionado este libro.
P. S.: Inicialmente le había puesto solo una estrella a este libro, porque me ciño al significado que le da Goodreads a esa calificación, «No me ha gustado». Pero justo después he leído una novela tan rematadamente mala, que he tenido que subirle la calificación a Visión binocular a dos estrellas.
March 24, 2012
"Binocular Vision" is a beautiful yet challenging collection: it is an important read, and yet story after story the reader must be willing to rise to the occasion, connect the dots, paddle around in a world with little context, and eventually emerge enlightened.
Not surprisingly, this is the structure of the stories themselves: Pearlman begins in media res with little tangible anchoring, and pushes through the day-in-day-out life of her characters until something poignant emerges. I confess: as a reader, this formula (while beautiful in its artful way) is difficult, and one must succumb to this difficulty, or abandon the story entirely. In this way, Pearlman defines her audience immediately: those with a patient temperament, and those in love with the short fiction form.
The collection--just as the title might imply--is a binocular glimpse into a wide array of ordinary people. Pearlman's characters range from Jewish Holocaust survivors, Russian immigrants, American children, marital couples, and WW II nurses. However, just as soon as we have a "handle" on a character or situation, the focus shifts, and what we understood previously (in a limited, magnified frame) dissipates entirely, until we see a new reality in a wider context.
Pearlman, in my opinion, accomplishes this most profoundly in the title story itself (the story of a young boy misunderstanding what he sees when spying on his next-door neighbors), "Inbound" (the story of a young girl who is running away from the responsibility of having a younger sister with Down's Syndrome), "The Noncombatant" (the story of an old war veteran who has a heart condition, but still finds himself chasing after possibilities), "Hanging Fire" (the story of a woman who goes to live with her aunts, and finds herself trapped in life and seriously considering the advances of an older man), and "Lineage" (the story of a Russian woman in a hospital who says she's the daughter of a tsar).
In each of these, Pearlman gives readers a delightful twist--or "refocusing"--that has us questioning our assumptions and understanding of reality, truth, morality, and love. A gorgeous collection, "Binocular Vision" is a must-read, but one that must be approached with great patience, openness, and hard work.
Not surprisingly, this is the structure of the stories themselves: Pearlman begins in media res with little tangible anchoring, and pushes through the day-in-day-out life of her characters until something poignant emerges. I confess: as a reader, this formula (while beautiful in its artful way) is difficult, and one must succumb to this difficulty, or abandon the story entirely. In this way, Pearlman defines her audience immediately: those with a patient temperament, and those in love with the short fiction form.
The collection--just as the title might imply--is a binocular glimpse into a wide array of ordinary people. Pearlman's characters range from Jewish Holocaust survivors, Russian immigrants, American children, marital couples, and WW II nurses. However, just as soon as we have a "handle" on a character or situation, the focus shifts, and what we understood previously (in a limited, magnified frame) dissipates entirely, until we see a new reality in a wider context.
Pearlman, in my opinion, accomplishes this most profoundly in the title story itself (the story of a young boy misunderstanding what he sees when spying on his next-door neighbors), "Inbound" (the story of a young girl who is running away from the responsibility of having a younger sister with Down's Syndrome), "The Noncombatant" (the story of an old war veteran who has a heart condition, but still finds himself chasing after possibilities), "Hanging Fire" (the story of a woman who goes to live with her aunts, and finds herself trapped in life and seriously considering the advances of an older man), and "Lineage" (the story of a Russian woman in a hospital who says she's the daughter of a tsar).
In each of these, Pearlman gives readers a delightful twist--or "refocusing"--that has us questioning our assumptions and understanding of reality, truth, morality, and love. A gorgeous collection, "Binocular Vision" is a must-read, but one that must be approached with great patience, openness, and hard work.
January 23, 2013
I don't usually read short stories. I like to get lost in the same story for months. But I saw that Edith Pearlman was an older writer. living not far from me, who had won awards, so I thought I'd try her out. Her stories turned out to be good--each one a perfect little gem with an unexpected but, in retrospect, thoroughly logical ending. They covered a wide range of topics. Twenty-one were "selected" -- from her past publications. Thirteen were new. The "selected" had primarily, but not exclusively, Jewish themes. The new were primarily, but not exclusively, about aging and dying. Among the "selected," a trilogy on people working with displaced persons during WW II was especially satisfying, as was a powerful one called "The Story," in which two couples whose kids had married each other try to be friendly over a yawning gap in experience. The painful "story" that one character tells goes right over the head of her child's spouse's father in a way that lingers in memory. Among the new stories, I loved one about a girl attending a progressive high school while taking charge of a lot of beyond-her-years issues at home. She is required to volunteer during her January break and write a term paper. The story is funny and touching and deep in a way that most of Pearlman's stories seem to be. I like knowing that women writers are still kicking at a mature age, in some cases just emerging. (See my blog entry about "emerging" at 77 in Japan, http://suzannesmomsblog.com/2013/01/2....)
April 2, 2015
Edith Pearlman has been writing for 40 years but got "discovered" in the last couple of years. She has been winning awards, including the National Book Critics Circle Award last year. I discovered her this month when I went to a book club discussion of Binocular Vision.
She writes short stories. I used to read short stories when I was a child but not so much lately. Why is that? My working theory was one too many New Yorker short stories that left me hanging. But maybe, too, because I like to invest some time in the story. Or I don't want it gone too fast. In short stories you more nearly find out about somebody rather than get to know him or her.
Now I've read at least six of these stories. I'm going to check the book back in, but I know where to find it. The stories didn't leave me hanging. They zero in. They are about looking and seeing, as the name suggests. Except the title story is about looking but not seeing. The first story is about looking for somebody. "Settlers" is about events that make the protagonist see more than he wanted to. "Caper" is about looking for one's lost youth (and looking to one's love) in a shocking and degrading way. There. That'll give a flavor, at least.
The stories don't reflect back on the reader so much as train an exceedingly penetrating eye at the characters.
She writes short stories. I used to read short stories when I was a child but not so much lately. Why is that? My working theory was one too many New Yorker short stories that left me hanging. But maybe, too, because I like to invest some time in the story. Or I don't want it gone too fast. In short stories you more nearly find out about somebody rather than get to know him or her.
Now I've read at least six of these stories. I'm going to check the book back in, but I know where to find it. The stories didn't leave me hanging. They zero in. They are about looking and seeing, as the name suggests. Except the title story is about looking but not seeing. The first story is about looking for somebody. "Settlers" is about events that make the protagonist see more than he wanted to. "Caper" is about looking for one's lost youth (and looking to one's love) in a shocking and degrading way. There. That'll give a flavor, at least.
The stories don't reflect back on the reader so much as train an exceedingly penetrating eye at the characters.
August 26, 2012
Binocular Vision, by Edith Pearlman: "Cautious words make the story convincing."
I have been trying to fathom what it is about Edith Pearlman’s marvelous Binocular Vision (Lookout Books, January 2011) that makes this story collection such a treasure. That is why it was almost a relief to stumble upon the “cautious words” quote attributed to her and referenced in the title of this review. In truth, there doesn’t seem to be a single recklessly placed word in the 34 stories—13 of them previously unpublished—of this, her most recent collection.
How then, I kept wondering in making my way through one astonishingly understated tale after another, could it be that I’d never heard of Pearlman before my partner’s enthusiastic recommendation?
Happily, I’ve since discovered, I can take comfort in the fact that Binocular Vision and its author seem to have taken even much of the mainstream literary establishment by surprise. This is strange given that Pearlman is the author of over 250 works of short fiction and non-fiction, as well as three previous story collections; it is doubly strange when one considers that Binocular Vision is the only book ever to be nominated for the National Book Award, the Story Prize, and the National Book Critics Circle Award in the same year. That distinction will, in short order, prove justifiable to anyone fortunate enough to undertake Pearlman’s collection of short fiction.
This reader, for one, would be hard pressed to recall stories more alive with intelligent, thoughtful, highly principled characters—men, women, and children confronting a variety of human predicaments odd and frightening, heartbreaking and humorous. I can honestly say there isn’t a story among the 34 that I didn’t like and there are at least five or six that I count among the best I’ve read.
That Pearlman’s protagonists face their individual dilemmas while maintaining an eerie sense of calm detachment seems in keeping with the author’s “cautious” approach to story telling. Indeed, Pearlman’s prose is so deceptively simple and coolheaded, so composed, that the reader sometimes barely notices the thermostat being turned up a few emotional degrees until suddenly, they are in the flush of a breathtakingly revelatory moment.
In the story, “Inbound,” a precocious seven-year old girl accidentally separated from her parents during a Boston day trip undergoes an intellectual/psychic transformation and returns to her parents in the first blush of a dawning adult sensibility.
****She foresaw…that as she became strong her parents would dare to weaken. They too might tug at her clothing, not meaning to annoy…She felt her cheek tingle, as if it had been licked by the sad, dry tongue of a cat…She had to return to her family now; she had to complete the excursion.****
In the beautifully moving “Tess,” a mother looks in lovingly on her bedridden daughter, afflicted from birth with permanent physiological and neurological damage, and then calmly surpasses—in a single compassionate act—all the well-intentioned humanity of an entire hospital’s professional staff.
****I put the blanket back on. I watched her ear for a while. All those windings and curves. My little girl’s little ear.
I got the toy she liked best from the windowsill. The red floppy dog. They always forgot it. I put it in a corner of the crib. Then I unscrewed the end of the heart tube from the aqua clothespin and I slipped it under the blanket so the blood would pool quiet and invisible like a monthly until there would be no more left.****
In another gem, “On Junius Bridge,” a scrupulously reserved innkeeper—whose establishment provides safe-haven to an ever-changing gaggle of introverts and misfits—foils the kidnapping of a wealthy guest’s autistic son and is shocked to find herself offering a well rehearsed sanctuary.
****“Lars is not particularly precocious, doesn’t read anything except entomology, doesn’t even read very well,” [the boy’s father said.]
She favored him with her expressionless gaze.
“My brother in New york… he too is…narrow.” She spoke at last, as loudly as she could. “It is possible that in a century or two the interpersonal will cease to be of value.”
“Practiced by a few eccentric devotees,” he agreed. “Like swordplay.”
“I could keep the boy,” she heard herself cry.
“No,” he said, perhaps sparing her, perhaps turning the remainder of her life to ash.****
The collection’s final piece, the stunning “Self-Reliance,” presents a retired physician in her 70s who, confronted with resurgent cancer, decides to navigate the ultimate life challenge with typical independence.
****Cornelia pushed off vigorously, then used a sweep stroke to turn the canoe and look at the slate roof and stone walls of her house…Then, as if she were her own passenger, she opened a backrest and settled herself against it and slid the paddle under the seat. She drank her concoction slowly, forestalling nausea.
Sipping, not thinking, she drifted on a cobalt disk under an aquamarine dome. Birches bent to honor her, tall pines guarded the birches. She looked down the length of her body. She had not worn rubber boat shoes, only sandals, and her ten toenails winked flamingo.****
These are stories that steer clear of facile epiphany, that (as in real life) rarely achieve resolution, but that relish—always with an understated modesty—the sudden disclosure of a simple, sometimes unexpectedly fundamental, verity.
Perhaps it really is, then, that brilliantly executed modesty, that ‘cautious’ artistry, that renders Pearlman’s stories so beautifully and completely…convincing.
Jack A. Urquhart is the author of several works of fiction, including the story collection, "So They Say," and the short story, "The say you can stop yourself breathing."
I have been trying to fathom what it is about Edith Pearlman’s marvelous Binocular Vision (Lookout Books, January 2011) that makes this story collection such a treasure. That is why it was almost a relief to stumble upon the “cautious words” quote attributed to her and referenced in the title of this review. In truth, there doesn’t seem to be a single recklessly placed word in the 34 stories—13 of them previously unpublished—of this, her most recent collection.
How then, I kept wondering in making my way through one astonishingly understated tale after another, could it be that I’d never heard of Pearlman before my partner’s enthusiastic recommendation?
Happily, I’ve since discovered, I can take comfort in the fact that Binocular Vision and its author seem to have taken even much of the mainstream literary establishment by surprise. This is strange given that Pearlman is the author of over 250 works of short fiction and non-fiction, as well as three previous story collections; it is doubly strange when one considers that Binocular Vision is the only book ever to be nominated for the National Book Award, the Story Prize, and the National Book Critics Circle Award in the same year. That distinction will, in short order, prove justifiable to anyone fortunate enough to undertake Pearlman’s collection of short fiction.
This reader, for one, would be hard pressed to recall stories more alive with intelligent, thoughtful, highly principled characters—men, women, and children confronting a variety of human predicaments odd and frightening, heartbreaking and humorous. I can honestly say there isn’t a story among the 34 that I didn’t like and there are at least five or six that I count among the best I’ve read.
That Pearlman’s protagonists face their individual dilemmas while maintaining an eerie sense of calm detachment seems in keeping with the author’s “cautious” approach to story telling. Indeed, Pearlman’s prose is so deceptively simple and coolheaded, so composed, that the reader sometimes barely notices the thermostat being turned up a few emotional degrees until suddenly, they are in the flush of a breathtakingly revelatory moment.
In the story, “Inbound,” a precocious seven-year old girl accidentally separated from her parents during a Boston day trip undergoes an intellectual/psychic transformation and returns to her parents in the first blush of a dawning adult sensibility.
****She foresaw…that as she became strong her parents would dare to weaken. They too might tug at her clothing, not meaning to annoy…She felt her cheek tingle, as if it had been licked by the sad, dry tongue of a cat…She had to return to her family now; she had to complete the excursion.****
In the beautifully moving “Tess,” a mother looks in lovingly on her bedridden daughter, afflicted from birth with permanent physiological and neurological damage, and then calmly surpasses—in a single compassionate act—all the well-intentioned humanity of an entire hospital’s professional staff.
****I put the blanket back on. I watched her ear for a while. All those windings and curves. My little girl’s little ear.
I got the toy she liked best from the windowsill. The red floppy dog. They always forgot it. I put it in a corner of the crib. Then I unscrewed the end of the heart tube from the aqua clothespin and I slipped it under the blanket so the blood would pool quiet and invisible like a monthly until there would be no more left.****
In another gem, “On Junius Bridge,” a scrupulously reserved innkeeper—whose establishment provides safe-haven to an ever-changing gaggle of introverts and misfits—foils the kidnapping of a wealthy guest’s autistic son and is shocked to find herself offering a well rehearsed sanctuary.
****“Lars is not particularly precocious, doesn’t read anything except entomology, doesn’t even read very well,” [the boy’s father said.]
She favored him with her expressionless gaze.
“My brother in New york… he too is…narrow.” She spoke at last, as loudly as she could. “It is possible that in a century or two the interpersonal will cease to be of value.”
“Practiced by a few eccentric devotees,” he agreed. “Like swordplay.”
“I could keep the boy,” she heard herself cry.
“No,” he said, perhaps sparing her, perhaps turning the remainder of her life to ash.****
The collection’s final piece, the stunning “Self-Reliance,” presents a retired physician in her 70s who, confronted with resurgent cancer, decides to navigate the ultimate life challenge with typical independence.
****Cornelia pushed off vigorously, then used a sweep stroke to turn the canoe and look at the slate roof and stone walls of her house…Then, as if she were her own passenger, she opened a backrest and settled herself against it and slid the paddle under the seat. She drank her concoction slowly, forestalling nausea.
Sipping, not thinking, she drifted on a cobalt disk under an aquamarine dome. Birches bent to honor her, tall pines guarded the birches. She looked down the length of her body. She had not worn rubber boat shoes, only sandals, and her ten toenails winked flamingo.****
These are stories that steer clear of facile epiphany, that (as in real life) rarely achieve resolution, but that relish—always with an understated modesty—the sudden disclosure of a simple, sometimes unexpectedly fundamental, verity.
Perhaps it really is, then, that brilliantly executed modesty, that ‘cautious’ artistry, that renders Pearlman’s stories so beautifully and completely…convincing.
Jack A. Urquhart is the author of several works of fiction, including the story collection, "So They Say," and the short story, "The say you can stop yourself breathing."
October 14, 2020
There was nothing wrong about this but I also didn't feel like there was anything extraordinary about the stories at all. I have no idea why it won / was nominated for so many awards. Personally, I like literary short story collections by Atwood, Moore, and Murakami, just to name a few, all way more than this.
September 8, 2016
Binocular Vision: New and Selected Stories is a collection of short stories by the American author Edith Pearlman. I can’t recall exactly when I first heard of this writer, but it was a year or so after her collection won the National Book Critics Circle Award for fiction (an American literary award) in 2011. Pearlman’s career in writing spans four decades and over 250 of her short stories have been published in magazines, literary journals, anthologies and online publications. I’ve often seen her described as one of literature’s best-kept secrets or undiscovered greats, but I’m so glad to have found her through this excellent collection of stories, published in the UK by Pushkin Press.
Binocular Vision contains a total of 34 stories, 13 of which are new to this collection. Many of the stories are set in the fictional suburb of Godolphin, Boston, but others take us to Central America, wartime London and Europe. We meet a young girl separated from her parents, lost in an unfamiliar place; a former US army officer returned from the Second World War, only to find himself battling against cancer; the owners of a second-hand toy shop, a couple who have experienced great sadness in their past – so many individuals, too many to mention here.
Pearlman’s characters are distinctive, finely-sketched and utterly believable. She has a sharp eye for detail in her descriptions of people, settings and mood. In Settlers, the opening chapter alone gives us the sense that its lead character, Peter, is somewhat solitary and forlorn:
One early Sunday morning Peter Loy stood waiting for the bus downtown. It was October and the wind was strong enough to ruffle the curbside litter and to make Peter’s coat flap about his knees, open and closed, open and closed. He wouldn’t have been sorry if the wind had removed the coat altogether, like a disapproving valet. It had been a mistake, this long glen-plaid garment with a capelet, suitable for some theatrical undergraduate, not for an ex-schoolteacher of sixty-odd years. He had thought that with his height and thinness and longish hair he’d look like Sherlock Holmes when wearing it. Instead he looked like a dowager. (pg. 40, Pushkin Press)
How skilfully Pearlman captures a scene in just a few sentences. In Home Schooling, two eleven year-olds observe a group of four girls who have just whirled into a pizza parlour:
They swept to the counter to order their pizzas. We studied their various backs (erect, round-shouldered, slim, bisected by a braid) and their various stances (jumpy, slouching, queenly, hands in back pockets) and their noses as they turned their profiles this way and that, and their languor or purpose as they visited the jukebox or ladies’ room, and their ease as they more or less assembled at their table, one always getting up for something, where are the napkins anyway, talking, laughing, heads together, heads apart, elbows gliding on the table. The girl with glasses – I was pretty sure her name was Jennifer, so many girls were Jennifers – sat in a way that was familiar to me, her right knee bent outward so that her right foot could rest on the chair, her left thigh keeping the foot in place like a brick weighing down a Christmas pudding. This position caused a deep satisfying cramp; I knew that pain. (pg. 234)
You can read the rest of my review here:
https://jacquiwine.wordpress.com/2014...
Binocular Vision contains a total of 34 stories, 13 of which are new to this collection. Many of the stories are set in the fictional suburb of Godolphin, Boston, but others take us to Central America, wartime London and Europe. We meet a young girl separated from her parents, lost in an unfamiliar place; a former US army officer returned from the Second World War, only to find himself battling against cancer; the owners of a second-hand toy shop, a couple who have experienced great sadness in their past – so many individuals, too many to mention here.
Pearlman’s characters are distinctive, finely-sketched and utterly believable. She has a sharp eye for detail in her descriptions of people, settings and mood. In Settlers, the opening chapter alone gives us the sense that its lead character, Peter, is somewhat solitary and forlorn:
One early Sunday morning Peter Loy stood waiting for the bus downtown. It was October and the wind was strong enough to ruffle the curbside litter and to make Peter’s coat flap about his knees, open and closed, open and closed. He wouldn’t have been sorry if the wind had removed the coat altogether, like a disapproving valet. It had been a mistake, this long glen-plaid garment with a capelet, suitable for some theatrical undergraduate, not for an ex-schoolteacher of sixty-odd years. He had thought that with his height and thinness and longish hair he’d look like Sherlock Holmes when wearing it. Instead he looked like a dowager. (pg. 40, Pushkin Press)
How skilfully Pearlman captures a scene in just a few sentences. In Home Schooling, two eleven year-olds observe a group of four girls who have just whirled into a pizza parlour:
They swept to the counter to order their pizzas. We studied their various backs (erect, round-shouldered, slim, bisected by a braid) and their various stances (jumpy, slouching, queenly, hands in back pockets) and their noses as they turned their profiles this way and that, and their languor or purpose as they visited the jukebox or ladies’ room, and their ease as they more or less assembled at their table, one always getting up for something, where are the napkins anyway, talking, laughing, heads together, heads apart, elbows gliding on the table. The girl with glasses – I was pretty sure her name was Jennifer, so many girls were Jennifers – sat in a way that was familiar to me, her right knee bent outward so that her right foot could rest on the chair, her left thigh keeping the foot in place like a brick weighing down a Christmas pudding. This position caused a deep satisfying cramp; I knew that pain. (pg. 234)
You can read the rest of my review here:
https://jacquiwine.wordpress.com/2014...
May 16, 2013
If anyone can prove to me there's a better short story writer than Edith Pearlman, I'll eat my keyboard. Why I haven't stumbled on to her long ago is as big a puzzle to me as why I've missed all the other people and things that have zipped by behind my back over the years. Don't trust my assessment? How about Ann Patchett who says in her introduction to Binocular Vision, "Put her stories beside those of John Updike and Alice Munro. That's where they belong." Amen, I say, Amen.
When you have such a treasure chest of gems in front of you, you're tempted to pick favorites. At least I am. So I tried. Hmmm. How about the linked stories of Sonya and her work in the WWII refugee camps and subsequent efforts to reintegrate into American society? Or perhaps the story of brother-sister incest that makes the taboo seem almost normal, or at least not a cause for stoning. I could go for the one about the American toy company executive trying to set up a division in a European city where everyone speaks a bewildering array of languages and his hosts' daughter seems to have vanished without explanation. Oh, how about the one about the love affair between the transportation minister and the artist, the one where a one night stand turns into a "love-of-my-life" kind of thing, except they see each other only once every ten years or so, and that from afar.
So, no, I give up, no favorites. In a way, each one is my favorite because Pearlman fashions them all with exquisite care, every sentence a gem--gems within the larger gem of the story within the larger gem of this whole brilliant collection. (Bad metaphor, I know, unless you're in a paranormal universe.) Here are a couple of sample passages I chose not only for their craftsmanship but to illustrate her geographic, cultural, and linguistic range:
Señora Marta Perera de Lefkowitz, minister of health, listened and memorized. Her chin was slightly raised, her eyelids half lowered over pale eyes. This was the pose that the newspapers caricatured most often.
My god, how much is revealed, how much suggested, how much concealed in that passage. You could make a long list.
Or from "Purim Night" (lots of Judaic themes in Pearlman's stories) when Ida's trying to explain to a young German boy how Esther saved the Jews way back when.
"A girl with good looks and a beautiful hat can work miracles," Ida said, "Witholding the fuck. And that word, Ludwig, is improper ... Ludwig ran away.
The whole legend of Esther and the kernel of the story itself lies in that short passage.
And the whole art form of the short story is contained and explained in this stunning collection. Buy it. Read it. Be inspired and amazed.
When you have such a treasure chest of gems in front of you, you're tempted to pick favorites. At least I am. So I tried. Hmmm. How about the linked stories of Sonya and her work in the WWII refugee camps and subsequent efforts to reintegrate into American society? Or perhaps the story of brother-sister incest that makes the taboo seem almost normal, or at least not a cause for stoning. I could go for the one about the American toy company executive trying to set up a division in a European city where everyone speaks a bewildering array of languages and his hosts' daughter seems to have vanished without explanation. Oh, how about the one about the love affair between the transportation minister and the artist, the one where a one night stand turns into a "love-of-my-life" kind of thing, except they see each other only once every ten years or so, and that from afar.
So, no, I give up, no favorites. In a way, each one is my favorite because Pearlman fashions them all with exquisite care, every sentence a gem--gems within the larger gem of the story within the larger gem of this whole brilliant collection. (Bad metaphor, I know, unless you're in a paranormal universe.) Here are a couple of sample passages I chose not only for their craftsmanship but to illustrate her geographic, cultural, and linguistic range:
Señora Marta Perera de Lefkowitz, minister of health, listened and memorized. Her chin was slightly raised, her eyelids half lowered over pale eyes. This was the pose that the newspapers caricatured most often.
My god, how much is revealed, how much suggested, how much concealed in that passage. You could make a long list.
Or from "Purim Night" (lots of Judaic themes in Pearlman's stories) when Ida's trying to explain to a young German boy how Esther saved the Jews way back when.
"A girl with good looks and a beautiful hat can work miracles," Ida said, "Witholding the fuck. And that word, Ludwig, is improper ... Ludwig ran away.
The whole legend of Esther and the kernel of the story itself lies in that short passage.
And the whole art form of the short story is contained and explained in this stunning collection. Buy it. Read it. Be inspired and amazed.
November 4, 2015
Well, for me Edith Pearlman isn't up there with Alice Munro, whatever Ann Patchett says. When she's good, she's very good indeed: Inbound, Rules, Capers, Self-Reliance, the trilogy of stories set in Displaced Persons camps (especially The Coat]). But quite a few other stories left me cold -- particularly but not solely those that seemed to require more familiarity with Jewish culture than I have. Best taken in small doses -- I took a break to read other books between stories.
The greatest pleasures here are in piercing insights and beautiful turns of phrase:
The greatest pleasures here are in piercing insights and beautiful turns of phrase:
A smile, or something like it, landed on his large face and immediately scurried off. She suspected that, like many fat men, he danced well.
... her heavy lips folded like arms
She meant to slip away as she often did at parties, fearful that she was restraining people ambitious to be elsewhere.
Meager sunlight slipped like an envelope into one after another of her high windows and then lay on the floor as if waiting to be picked up.
May 25, 2017
Sometimes superlative reviews are misleading. Definitely not in this case. Edith Pearlman is a master of the craft of the short story at the absolute top of her game. These are quiet stories yet each one holds a piquant bite; either the unexpected twist or a perfectly constructed foreshadowing leading achingly towards the inevitable conclusion. It is evident to me that Ms. Pearlman loves her characters. She gives them inner lives so that they are able to reflect on their experiences and the resilience to create a life of meaning regardless of the circumstances in which they find themselves; in other words, they 'choose life.'
put-aside
January 26, 2015I heard about this author from Ann Patchett, who wrote the introduction to this collection. She mentioned specifically "Self Reliance" and it is true that story is quietly devastating. But it comes at the end. I read several other stories and am a little embarrassed to find that some of the stories I didn't understand. Will have to think about them to see what I missed.
June 15, 2021
An engaging, very well written collection of 34 short stories consisting of 21 selected stories published between 1977 and 2004 and 13 'new stories' published between 2005 and 2010. Most of the stories are 10 to 12 pages.
The stories cover a variety of characters and situations, with the 13 'new stories', mostly are about ageing and dying. The 21 selected stories include a number on Jewish themes.
Pearlman's characters range from Jewish Holocaust survivors, Russian immigrants, American children, couples and old people. The stories cover a wide range of scenarios.
'Binocular Vision' is the story of a young boy misinterpreting what he sees in spying on his next-door neighbours. My favourite is 'The Story', which is about a powerful, tragic true event being told and the listener not taking it in and understanding/empathising with the storyteller. 'If Love were All', 'Purim Night' and 'The Coat' include the same characters who work with displaced people during World War II. 'Inbound' tells the story of a young girl who runs away from the responsibility of having a younger sister with Down Syndrome. In 'Self Reliance' a retired gastroenterologist faces her own mortality.
In each of these stories, Pearlman provides the reader with interesting characters and situations.
A very good, well written, short story collection.
This book was first published in 2011 and won the National Book Critics Circle Award. Pearlman was also the recipient of the PEN/Melamud Award.
The stories cover a variety of characters and situations, with the 13 'new stories', mostly are about ageing and dying. The 21 selected stories include a number on Jewish themes.
Pearlman's characters range from Jewish Holocaust survivors, Russian immigrants, American children, couples and old people. The stories cover a wide range of scenarios.
'Binocular Vision' is the story of a young boy misinterpreting what he sees in spying on his next-door neighbours. My favourite is 'The Story', which is about a powerful, tragic true event being told and the listener not taking it in and understanding/empathising with the storyteller. 'If Love were All', 'Purim Night' and 'The Coat' include the same characters who work with displaced people during World War II. 'Inbound' tells the story of a young girl who runs away from the responsibility of having a younger sister with Down Syndrome. In 'Self Reliance' a retired gastroenterologist faces her own mortality.
In each of these stories, Pearlman provides the reader with interesting characters and situations.
A very good, well written, short story collection.
This book was first published in 2011 and won the National Book Critics Circle Award. Pearlman was also the recipient of the PEN/Melamud Award.
August 22, 2023
A collection of thoughtful stories that I found to be understated yet intelligent. There were a few very luminous pieces and also a few that were too understated. It's also a very large collection of stories (34 of them), so things run together after a while. With any long collection of short stories I find it's usually best to dip in and out of them over time rather than read them straight through as I have just done. I never seem to take my own advice on that. Edith Pearlman is not a widely known or widely read author, but I feel that she is worth getting acquainted with.
March 9, 2012
I get where Pearlman gets the name from this collection, but I’ll get to that in a minute.
The short story as an art form is more wide open than most readers – and writers ¬– realize. Short fiction can depict characters at a depth that makes some novels look amateurish. And the form can tell the most audacious of tales, or portray culture in ways that inform as much as does history. All this in 300 words or in 20,000. When an author and an editor compile a collection such as this one, you can expect connecting threads – tenuous ones, or threads so thick and interwoven they all but approach a novel. Or, in Pearlman’s case here, the stories are a montage, the connections cultural, and stylistic.
A good many of these stories are of Jewish culture, with the Holocaust and Jewish diaspora looming like thunderclouds. Pearlman’s approach is to people her stories in impeccably taut, almost masculine prose – the sort that would make Hemingway sit back and take note.
The collection’s name? Clearly, she bores into singular moments of her characters’ lives, using nondescript things as metaphors for aspects of these lives. In doing so, Pearlman must leave hazy the grander context of her characters’ lives: place, many degrees of family nuance, history. In this sort of story, the reader must follow the author into an almost microscopic view of her characters’ lives, their moments of story. The down side for readers of this most artful type of fiction is that he/she must grasp for context, must survey the blurred corona surrounding this microscopic vision in order not to feel lost is space.
I understand this sort of approach, but it isn’t easy from the reader’s standpoint – in fact, when, in the case of this collection, the structure and approach to characterization are so similar from story to story, it’s hard to want to finish them. I kept turning pages, wanting something to change, to make me breathe refreshed at story’s end and look forward to the next, unexpected literary adventure. Sadly, I didn’t find that here.
The short story as an art form is more wide open than most readers – and writers ¬– realize. Short fiction can depict characters at a depth that makes some novels look amateurish. And the form can tell the most audacious of tales, or portray culture in ways that inform as much as does history. All this in 300 words or in 20,000. When an author and an editor compile a collection such as this one, you can expect connecting threads – tenuous ones, or threads so thick and interwoven they all but approach a novel. Or, in Pearlman’s case here, the stories are a montage, the connections cultural, and stylistic.
A good many of these stories are of Jewish culture, with the Holocaust and Jewish diaspora looming like thunderclouds. Pearlman’s approach is to people her stories in impeccably taut, almost masculine prose – the sort that would make Hemingway sit back and take note.
The collection’s name? Clearly, she bores into singular moments of her characters’ lives, using nondescript things as metaphors for aspects of these lives. In doing so, Pearlman must leave hazy the grander context of her characters’ lives: place, many degrees of family nuance, history. In this sort of story, the reader must follow the author into an almost microscopic view of her characters’ lives, their moments of story. The down side for readers of this most artful type of fiction is that he/she must grasp for context, must survey the blurred corona surrounding this microscopic vision in order not to feel lost is space.
I understand this sort of approach, but it isn’t easy from the reader’s standpoint – in fact, when, in the case of this collection, the structure and approach to characterization are so similar from story to story, it’s hard to want to finish them. I kept turning pages, wanting something to change, to make me breathe refreshed at story’s end and look forward to the next, unexpected literary adventure. Sadly, I didn’t find that here.
July 27, 2017
I have been looking forward to reading Binocular Vision for several years, and I dearly hoped that I wouldn’t be disappointed when I began it . I liked how diverse the stories were at first, but I must admit that those which featured the same characters didn’t appeal to me all that much. I liked the freshness and individuality of those tales where everything and everyone was new. The random order of the tales worked well, and throughout I believe that the most developed characters were the children.
As with the majority of short story collectiions, some of the vignettes in Binocular Vision were far stronger than others, and the themes and settings did occasionally blend into one another a little, which was a shame. Pearlman does a marvellous job of presenting many themes, however, ranging from identity, society and conformity – or the lack thereof – to religion, illness and the fine balance between and fragility of life and death.
My favourite stories were ‘Inbound’, ‘Tess’, ‘Home Schooling’, ‘Granski’, ‘Capers’, ‘On Junius Bridge’, ‘Lineage’, ‘Vallies’ and ‘Self-Reliance’.
As with the majority of short story collectiions, some of the vignettes in Binocular Vision were far stronger than others, and the themes and settings did occasionally blend into one another a little, which was a shame. Pearlman does a marvellous job of presenting many themes, however, ranging from identity, society and conformity – or the lack thereof – to religion, illness and the fine balance between and fragility of life and death.
My favourite stories were ‘Inbound’, ‘Tess’, ‘Home Schooling’, ‘Granski’, ‘Capers’, ‘On Junius Bridge’, ‘Lineage’, ‘Vallies’ and ‘Self-Reliance’.
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