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Instruction Manual For Swallowing
Robotic insects, in-growing cutlery, flesh-serving waiters in a zombie cafe... Welcome to the surreal, misshapen universe of Adam Marek’s first collection; a bestiary of hybrids from the techno-crazed future and mythical past; a users’ guide to the seemingly obvious (and the world of illogic implicit within it). Whether fantastical or everyday in setting, Marek’s stories lead us down to the engine room just beneath modern consciousness, a place of both atavism and familiarity, where the body is fluid, the spirit mechanised, and beasts often tell us more about our humanity than anything we can teach ourselves.
'There's a transgressive thrill to Adam Marek's debut collection of short stories that's not simply a result of the potency of the subject matter... delightful.'
- The Guardian.
'Early McEwan meets David Cronenberg.... genuine, unsettling talent'
- The Independent.
Winner of the 2011 Arts Foundation Fellowship in Short Story Writing
Short-Listed for the 2010 Sunday Times EFG Private Bank Short Story Award
Long-listed for the Frank O'Connor International Short Story Prize
'There's a transgressive thrill to Adam Marek's debut collection of short stories that's not simply a result of the potency of the subject matter... delightful.'
- The Guardian.
'Early McEwan meets David Cronenberg.... genuine, unsettling talent'
- The Independent.
Winner of the 2011 Arts Foundation Fellowship in Short Story Writing
Short-Listed for the 2010 Sunday Times EFG Private Bank Short Story Award
Long-listed for the Frank O'Connor International Short Story Prize
186 pages, Kindle Edition
First published June 1, 2007
11 people are currently reading
403 people want to read
About the author
Adam Marek
35 books85 followersAdam Marek is the author of three short story collections: Instruction Manual for Swallowing, The Stone Thrower, and, most recently, The Universe Delivers the Enemy You Need. His stories have appeared on BBC Radio 4, and in many magazines and anthologies, including The Penguin Book of the British Short Story. He is an Arts Foundation Short Story Fellow. He loves collaborating with scientists on creative projects, and recently visited CERN to write a story for the Collision: Stories from the Science of CERN anthology, featured on the BBC Click television programme. He regularly works with SciFutures, using storytelling to help prototype the future.
Visit Adam online at: www.adammarek.co.uk
“Early McEwan meets David Cronenberg…Genuine, unsettling talent.”
The Independent
“…this bold young writer is refreshing the form.”
Financial Times
“…hits the target every time.”
The Guardian
“Adam Marek is one of the best things to have happened to the short story this century…Any day now the word ‘Marekian’ is going to enter the language.”
Alison MacLeod, author of Unexploded
Visit Adam online at: www.adammarek.co.uk
“Early McEwan meets David Cronenberg…Genuine, unsettling talent.”
The Independent
“…this bold young writer is refreshing the form.”
Financial Times
“…hits the target every time.”
The Guardian
“Adam Marek is one of the best things to have happened to the short story this century…Any day now the word ‘Marekian’ is going to enter the language.”
Alison MacLeod, author of Unexploded
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 44 reviews
July 5, 2010
I found this book because I’ve been interested in submitting something to the publishers, Comma Press, for some time. And I also thought it was one of the coolest titles of a book I’ve seen for a while. The Instructional Manual For Swallowing by Adam Marek is not your average book. It doesn’t quite fit anywhere, which is why you need to read it.
As I’m always searching for strange and wonderful short stories that match, and surpass, the likes of Etgar keret, I was really excited at the prospect of Robotic insects, a restaurant for zombies, and a woman pregnant with 37 babies. In truth, I was damn near peeing my pants. And Marek didn’t disappoint, well, not too much. The first story really blew me away. 40 Litre Monkey tells the tale of a pet shop owner who measures all his animals by their volume. It was funny, sad and very surreal. My expectations were raised, and although the second story in the collection, the one about the pregnant woman with 37 babies, didn’t quite hit me squarely on the chin as the first, I could tell Marek had a gift for pulling you from the page.
The subsequent stories that followed had a little more weight to them, which is probably why they dragged me to real world very quickly. It’s not that these stories are bad, it’s just that based on the first two stories, I was convinced Marek would be my guide to the dark places in his mind. Instead, he decided it would be best all round to “coast” for a while before throwing back the curtain. Ramping it up with stories about a man fighting both testicular cancer and a monster tearing up the city, a boy who can extract cutlery from his body, and the title story which illustrates how the body might function if it was controlled from within by a person, makes Marek an author to keep your eye on.
Sure, with any short story collection, there are going to be lulls. Fortunately, there are not many here. From one story to the next, you’re caught between laughing, reeling back in surprise, and dropping to your knees with wonder. As the blurb perfectly illustrates, as you turn the first page you enter the “surreal, misshapen universe of Adam Marek’s first collection, where the body is fluid, the spirit mechanised and beasts often tell us more about our humanity than anything we can teach ourselves.”
The price tag is worth it for the stories, 40 Litre Monkey, and The Instructional Manual For Swallowing.
As I’m always searching for strange and wonderful short stories that match, and surpass, the likes of Etgar keret, I was really excited at the prospect of Robotic insects, a restaurant for zombies, and a woman pregnant with 37 babies. In truth, I was damn near peeing my pants. And Marek didn’t disappoint, well, not too much. The first story really blew me away. 40 Litre Monkey tells the tale of a pet shop owner who measures all his animals by their volume. It was funny, sad and very surreal. My expectations were raised, and although the second story in the collection, the one about the pregnant woman with 37 babies, didn’t quite hit me squarely on the chin as the first, I could tell Marek had a gift for pulling you from the page.
The subsequent stories that followed had a little more weight to them, which is probably why they dragged me to real world very quickly. It’s not that these stories are bad, it’s just that based on the first two stories, I was convinced Marek would be my guide to the dark places in his mind. Instead, he decided it would be best all round to “coast” for a while before throwing back the curtain. Ramping it up with stories about a man fighting both testicular cancer and a monster tearing up the city, a boy who can extract cutlery from his body, and the title story which illustrates how the body might function if it was controlled from within by a person, makes Marek an author to keep your eye on.
Sure, with any short story collection, there are going to be lulls. Fortunately, there are not many here. From one story to the next, you’re caught between laughing, reeling back in surprise, and dropping to your knees with wonder. As the blurb perfectly illustrates, as you turn the first page you enter the “surreal, misshapen universe of Adam Marek’s first collection, where the body is fluid, the spirit mechanised and beasts often tell us more about our humanity than anything we can teach ourselves.”
The price tag is worth it for the stories, 40 Litre Monkey, and The Instructional Manual For Swallowing.
April 22, 2015
As the title implies, Marek's stories are about the ways in which, particularly through language, aspects of the everyday are made unfamiliar to us. In these uncanny tales there is something almost Lacanian about the way words lead not to understanding but instead reveal the world as ultimately unknowable.
They are also suggestively 'post-secular'. With their mini-epiphanies and their odd moments of lyricism they hint at something like intelligent design. However, as one critic has noted, the stories in this collection repeatedly fall 'just short of revelation', suggesting that to seek metaphysical explanations for the events in our lives is mistaken. In this way the stories act as a denial of their own premise, using what is invented and artificial in the written world to imply that our lives beyond the page are, in fact, contingent and untidy, that what we might recognise as underlying purpose or plan is merely coincidence.
Marek's stories are written in a voice that is personable but, like much modern popular or genre fiction, relies not upon literary technique to achieve their effects but too often upon a kind of cinematic shorthand. Images - Godzilla attacks, zombie-killing rampages - read like film treatments. Moments that aspire to an emotional resonance feel more like they've been lifted from a movie. (These are aside from errors that should have been picked up in the editing - I'm not sure, for example, exactly how it's possible to be both simultaneously clenching one's teeth and chewing the inside of one's mouth?).
Marek, therefore, makes for a potentially interesting story-teller but a less than satisfactory writer.
They are also suggestively 'post-secular'. With their mini-epiphanies and their odd moments of lyricism they hint at something like intelligent design. However, as one critic has noted, the stories in this collection repeatedly fall 'just short of revelation', suggesting that to seek metaphysical explanations for the events in our lives is mistaken. In this way the stories act as a denial of their own premise, using what is invented and artificial in the written world to imply that our lives beyond the page are, in fact, contingent and untidy, that what we might recognise as underlying purpose or plan is merely coincidence.
Marek's stories are written in a voice that is personable but, like much modern popular or genre fiction, relies not upon literary technique to achieve their effects but too often upon a kind of cinematic shorthand. Images - Godzilla attacks, zombie-killing rampages - read like film treatments. Moments that aspire to an emotional resonance feel more like they've been lifted from a movie. (These are aside from errors that should have been picked up in the editing - I'm not sure, for example, exactly how it's possible to be both simultaneously clenching one's teeth and chewing the inside of one's mouth?).
Marek, therefore, makes for a potentially interesting story-teller but a less than satisfactory writer.
August 19, 2020
Not usually a fan of short stories, but I have to say I enjoyed this immensely. Such a great range of odd sci-fi stories and bazaar tales. Definitely recommend.
February 7, 2008
I picked up this book to try a new genre. I thought it was a collection of science fiction/fantasy short stories. While there’s an element of oddity in all of the stories, not all of them seemed obviously to me to be science fiction/fantasy. I think I’m just a novice in this genre. Marek has a pretty good and wacky imagination. Some of the stories were quite intelligent. Three stars because I’m comparing it with the only other collection of fantasy/science fiction short stories that I’ve read: Italo Calvino’s unquestionably-five-star Cosmicomics.
April 24, 2012
Instruction Manual for Swallowing is Adam Marek's first collection according to his website, but I can only assume that he had written pretty widely before creating this compilation of his work. There's little flab on show here, and absolutely no sign that Comma simply collected up every short story he'd ever written, threw a front cover on it and released the new book into the world.
Instead, what we have is a series of highlights, a set of stories where each successive tale trumps the one before it in some respect and where the very best stuck in my mind and popped back up as I lay in bed in the dark.
Like Paul Magrs' Salt Publishing collection, 'Twelve Stories', this is a book about a universe gone slightly and unexpectedly askew. Futuristic tales about metal wasps with red LEDS in their heads and Godzilla rising from the waves and destroying an un-named western city jostle for space with grotesque tales about a woman giving birth to thirty-seven foetuses and suicidal cheerleaders.
These are surreal stories in the proper sense of the word: placing the bizarre into the mundane world, juxtaposing the impossible with the probable, scattering hints of the banal in a universe gone mad. Zombies roam middle England, a man dresses in tea towels and gardening gloves to fight deadly robotic insects and nine foot tall Gilbert and George step out of stained glass into the Tate Modern, wielding giant willies.
It's actually this contrast and the presence of a prosaic background which prevents the book becoming a little too one note for comfort. There's a fine line between 'askew' and 'wacky', but luckily Marek stays on the right side of that line and if the occaisonal story dips a little, it tends to be when - as with the slight tale, 'Sushi Plate Epiphany' - he forgoes this surreal strand and attempts straight-forward story-telling in a straight-forward setting.
At times, I was reminded of John Irving ('Thanks to the monster, he'd stopped dying for a second' ponders the titular hero of 'Testicular Cancer vs the Behemoth'), at others of a more restrained Philip K Dick ('Robot Wasps' and 'A Gilbert and George Talibanimation' in particular) or even David Cronenberg (the slice of gross out horror, best exemplified by 'Belly Full of Rain'), and at others still, of nobody in particular, which was best of all.
Marek is apparently working on a second collection and a novel - can't wait.
Instead, what we have is a series of highlights, a set of stories where each successive tale trumps the one before it in some respect and where the very best stuck in my mind and popped back up as I lay in bed in the dark.
Like Paul Magrs' Salt Publishing collection, 'Twelve Stories', this is a book about a universe gone slightly and unexpectedly askew. Futuristic tales about metal wasps with red LEDS in their heads and Godzilla rising from the waves and destroying an un-named western city jostle for space with grotesque tales about a woman giving birth to thirty-seven foetuses and suicidal cheerleaders.
These are surreal stories in the proper sense of the word: placing the bizarre into the mundane world, juxtaposing the impossible with the probable, scattering hints of the banal in a universe gone mad. Zombies roam middle England, a man dresses in tea towels and gardening gloves to fight deadly robotic insects and nine foot tall Gilbert and George step out of stained glass into the Tate Modern, wielding giant willies.
It's actually this contrast and the presence of a prosaic background which prevents the book becoming a little too one note for comfort. There's a fine line between 'askew' and 'wacky', but luckily Marek stays on the right side of that line and if the occaisonal story dips a little, it tends to be when - as with the slight tale, 'Sushi Plate Epiphany' - he forgoes this surreal strand and attempts straight-forward story-telling in a straight-forward setting.
At times, I was reminded of John Irving ('Thanks to the monster, he'd stopped dying for a second' ponders the titular hero of 'Testicular Cancer vs the Behemoth'), at others of a more restrained Philip K Dick ('Robot Wasps' and 'A Gilbert and George Talibanimation' in particular) or even David Cronenberg (the slice of gross out horror, best exemplified by 'Belly Full of Rain'), and at others still, of nobody in particular, which was best of all.
Marek is apparently working on a second collection and a novel - can't wait.
May 29, 2012
I haven't received my copy yet, just received notice I had won. 03/15/12
Received my copy last night and hope to start soon. I have 15 in front plus my current read. 3/29/12
Started yesterday, 5/28/12
Finished 5/31/12
This book is a collection of short stories that are bizarre. There really is not other word for it. The people that are in the stories find themselves in strange situations, where all sorts of odd things happen to them. One woman pregnant with 37 babies? A man obsessed with the weight of his pet monkey? And yes, there is even a zombie story.
Okay, once again, I thought I would give short stories a shot. This book was better than others I have read. The stories were quick reads, and sort of interesting in a completely illogical way. The story that bothered me the most was the man with the obsession of the weight of his pets. I have no idea why this one bothered me most, but it did. The rest were a bit odd, but didn't disturb me like that one did. Since they were so different, I am not sure I could pick a favorite. I was waiting for a zombie story, so that one didn't shock me (interesting ideas/plot though)
Received my copy last night and hope to start soon. I have 15 in front plus my current read. 3/29/12
Started yesterday, 5/28/12
Finished 5/31/12
This book is a collection of short stories that are bizarre. There really is not other word for it. The people that are in the stories find themselves in strange situations, where all sorts of odd things happen to them. One woman pregnant with 37 babies? A man obsessed with the weight of his pet monkey? And yes, there is even a zombie story.
Okay, once again, I thought I would give short stories a shot. This book was better than others I have read. The stories were quick reads, and sort of interesting in a completely illogical way. The story that bothered me the most was the man with the obsession of the weight of his pets. I have no idea why this one bothered me most, but it did. The rest were a bit odd, but didn't disturb me like that one did. Since they were so different, I am not sure I could pick a favorite. I was waiting for a zombie story, so that one didn't shock me (interesting ideas/plot though)
April 30, 2018
None of these stories are about what you expect. My favourite was Cuckoo, i think, because its elusiveness works so well; it has a well-rounded story that doesn’t give all of its pieces up at once. Robot Wasps and Meaty’s Boys are two that also sit strong in my mind. Meaty’s Boys is one of the longest stories in the book, but seemed to fly by in no time at all. It is also the story with the most well-built world. Though the world we glimpse in Robot Wars was fascinating and left me wanting to know more about it.
These weird little glimpses into strange quirky worlds are what i love about the best short stories. They don’t all make sense, they don’t all have an underlying message or meaning, and they don’t follow any kind of pattern. They’re mostly just light-hearted gems to while away a few minutes while you’re waiting for the bus. And if a few of them have any kind of depth to them, well, that’s a bonus for those who want to search for it.
A longer review can be read at my book blog: Marvel at Words.
These weird little glimpses into strange quirky worlds are what i love about the best short stories. They don’t all make sense, they don’t all have an underlying message or meaning, and they don’t follow any kind of pattern. They’re mostly just light-hearted gems to while away a few minutes while you’re waiting for the bus. And if a few of them have any kind of depth to them, well, that’s a bonus for those who want to search for it.
A longer review can be read at my book blog: Marvel at Words.
September 11, 2012
I received this book through Goodreads's First Reads program.
In this book are fourteen (sixteen, if you count the bonus stories in the back) of the most inventive, disturbing, and entertaining short stories I've ever read. Many of the stories are simply bizarre: a man, shopping for a new pet, finds himself in a shop where the owner sorts the animals by volume. A group of men hunt the flesh of humans to feed to the patrons of their zombie restaurant. A little boy finds a splinter in his toe; upon extraction, it turns out to be an entire fork. Other stories add the uncertainties and comedies of everyday human life into the mix: a new father struggles to find meaning and direction in parenthood after his wife gives birth to 37 babies. Another man, after learning that he has testicular cancer, brawls with a giant lizard monster rampaging through the city. Yet another man is annoyed to find there's a wasp nest in his backyard, only this is a world where the insects are all robotic.
The stories are all very fun to read and very imaginative without being so weird that the reader gains nothing from reading them. Each story balances the fantastic, grotesque, and strangely hilarious with the dullness and drama of everyday life, creating a rich and unique experience for every reader.
I loved it. Thanks for the book!
In this book are fourteen (sixteen, if you count the bonus stories in the back) of the most inventive, disturbing, and entertaining short stories I've ever read. Many of the stories are simply bizarre: a man, shopping for a new pet, finds himself in a shop where the owner sorts the animals by volume. A group of men hunt the flesh of humans to feed to the patrons of their zombie restaurant. A little boy finds a splinter in his toe; upon extraction, it turns out to be an entire fork. Other stories add the uncertainties and comedies of everyday human life into the mix: a new father struggles to find meaning and direction in parenthood after his wife gives birth to 37 babies. Another man, after learning that he has testicular cancer, brawls with a giant lizard monster rampaging through the city. Yet another man is annoyed to find there's a wasp nest in his backyard, only this is a world where the insects are all robotic.
The stories are all very fun to read and very imaginative without being so weird that the reader gains nothing from reading them. Each story balances the fantastic, grotesque, and strangely hilarious with the dullness and drama of everyday life, creating a rich and unique experience for every reader.
I loved it. Thanks for the book!
January 4, 2013
I can see why the publishers at ECW thought to give me this collection when I told them that I'm a huge fan of Etgar Keret; Adam Marek cites Keret as one of his inspirations in the BackLit interview included in this edition. Marek's stories gravitate much more to the grotesque than Keret's, however they maintain a similar balance of the mundane and the fantastic. Instruction Manual for Swallowing lacks some of the emotional resonance of Keret's works, however it is an enjoyable and disturbing foray into the absurd. An impressive debut.
Read
July 30, 2011Brilliant. The stories are weird, fantastic and touchingly human.
May 12, 2021
3.5 stars, rounded up to 4.
I really like the surrealness of this collection of short stories, and there are some in here that will resonate with me for a long time. Unfortunately, I didn't think all the stories were made equally - some felt bizarre for the sake of it rather than to make an actual point, and even the endings of the best stories tended to drop off in a slightly inconclusive way. Nevertheless, the bizarreness and the concepts are excellent, as is Marek's very direct prose. I did enjoy the collection a lot.
I really like the surrealness of this collection of short stories, and there are some in here that will resonate with me for a long time. Unfortunately, I didn't think all the stories were made equally - some felt bizarre for the sake of it rather than to make an actual point, and even the endings of the best stories tended to drop off in a slightly inconclusive way. Nevertheless, the bizarreness and the concepts are excellent, as is Marek's very direct prose. I did enjoy the collection a lot.
June 28, 2019
This is a book on it’s own. I have never read anything like it. Each short story is bizarre in it’s own way but written so well that it is also utterly believable. The stories are like vivid dreams - some of them nightmares - which are so real it feels like you are living them, but also fall over the edge of reality. Incredible. I do feel the need to read something lighthearted and “nice” afterwards as an antidote!
June 27, 2019
This is an unusual book, it was given to me by my best friend, a writer, who knows the author.
It's a series of short stories. Ones that are deeply disturbing. Yet totally gripping. It's a cross between J G Ballard and Steven King. If you like either of those, go for it, but expect to be challenged. It will be a hard ride, but worth it.
It's a series of short stories. Ones that are deeply disturbing. Yet totally gripping. It's a cross between J G Ballard and Steven King. If you like either of those, go for it, but expect to be challenged. It will be a hard ride, but worth it.
August 19, 2017
A bunch of spooky tales combined ordinary life with fantastical element, most of which begin promisingly but ends weakly. I do find "Belly Full of Rain", "Cuckoo" and "Meaty's Boys" both entertaining and thought-provoking.
January 16, 2018
A mixture of quirky tales that are as fun as they are disturbing, each giving the reader the thrill of never quite knowing what the next page will bring. A gem for fans of short stories, a pin to burst boredom, and a surefire way of reading yourself into a smile.
April 25, 2024
I was absolutely captivated by every one of these stories, the imagination on show is breathtaking.
My only gripe with the book is the way that the author writes women. His female characters did not feel as fleshed out (or as frequent) as his male ones.
My only gripe with the book is the way that the author writes women. His female characters did not feel as fleshed out (or as frequent) as his male ones.
March 5, 2018
Strange and captivating short stories. The best I've read lately and I could not put the book down.
January 8, 2020
More like a 3.5 as it was a mixed bag
March 3, 2023
One of the best short story collections I have ever read!
November 22, 2017
A dark and hilariously twisted collection of stories that constantly surprised, entertained touched and sometimes revolted me.
Involving all sorts of genres but all surreal or dark and about relationships in a way, either metaphoricaly or at their darker, usually hidden edge. It made me laugh out loud or left me at the end of my seat.
My personal favourite is 'The centipedes wife' it did not go the way I expected, and it takes a great writer to make me sympathise for a giant, monstrous yet oddly polite centipede!
Secondly I would choose 'Testicular cancer vs. the Behemoth' for it's pitch perfect analogy and it's pitch black humour.
Thirdly, 'Cuckoo' for it's twists, complexities and compelling plot.
Bonus mentions go to 'Robot wasps' for it's inventive and satirical look at the future and also the title story for it's initiative creativity.
Involving all sorts of genres but all surreal or dark and about relationships in a way, either metaphoricaly or at their darker, usually hidden edge. It made me laugh out loud or left me at the end of my seat.
My personal favourite is 'The centipedes wife' it did not go the way I expected, and it takes a great writer to make me sympathise for a giant, monstrous yet oddly polite centipede!
Secondly I would choose 'Testicular cancer vs. the Behemoth' for it's pitch perfect analogy and it's pitch black humour.
Thirdly, 'Cuckoo' for it's twists, complexities and compelling plot.
Bonus mentions go to 'Robot wasps' for it's inventive and satirical look at the future and also the title story for it's initiative creativity.
November 9, 2012
These are very modern stories. By that I mean Marek favours slices of life and vignettes to your more traditional beginning, middle and ending approach but I don't see this as a bad thing—I'm very fond of this style of writing—but I can see others feeling short-changed. For example, in the first story a man goes into a pet shop to discover that the pets there are sold by their volume. The shopkeeper is an amiable sort and when the customer asks what his biggest pet is he's taken to see the forty-litre baboon. The two discuss the market for voluminous pets and the man demonstrates how he ascertains a pet's volume (a large tank of water is involved); the shopkeeper is most annoyed when it turns out that the baboon is only thirty-nine litres. After this detour the customer discusses his needs and seems about ready to settle for a Madagascan nightingale lemur when the story ends. In the second story a woman learns that she has thirty-seven foetuses inside her and we watch the lengths she has to go to to keep all thirty-seven. That's it. No moral. No punch line.
These stories are presented deadpan but there's a lot of dark humour here. A man is injured in a forest and is cared for by a giant talking centipede that fights the urge to eat him because he smells like his now dead wife (the centipede's not the man's). No explanation is given. This is just the way the world is. The same goes for the man who'd plagued by a nest of robot wasps. We do learn that the government has created other robotic insects so presumably the real ones have died out and this is their way of preserving the ecological balance of Nature but that's me just guessing.
Most are hard to classify too. In 'Meaty's Boys' we are faced with a unique zombie apocalypse because these zombies can still interact with those who haven't "turned" and "nearly all retained the ability to get out their credit cards." That really has to be the funniest line in the book and the funniest image: zombies queuing up outside a restaurant to buy bits of bodies but the majority of the stories could actually take place in the real world. In 'Jumping Jennifer' a college girl apparently tries to commit suicide by jumping out of a window and all the story consists of is watching her friends deal with the tragedy. In 'Cuckoo' a married man befriends a sixteen-year-old girl convinced that she's his daughter all grown up even though his daughter is still with him and his wife and still a little girl. In 'Boiling the Toad' a man sees his sweet girlfriend's sexual proclivities take an unexpected and unwelcome turn; the central metaphor is particularly powerful in this one because, it seems, a toad will hop out of a pan of boiling water but if you sit him in a pan of cold water and bring it to the boil he'll just sit there.
The blurb on the cover (from The Independent) says: "Early McEwan meets David Cronenberg" and that's not such a bad take. Other reviewers have mention Dahl (which I can see) or Kafka (which is a bit of a stretch for me). The fact is I could pick any one of these stories and find someone to compare it to but that really doesn't do the man justice. It's the fact that they were all written by the same man that I find interesting. He has a new book coming out next year and I would definitely be interested in reading more by him.
These stories are presented deadpan but there's a lot of dark humour here. A man is injured in a forest and is cared for by a giant talking centipede that fights the urge to eat him because he smells like his now dead wife (the centipede's not the man's). No explanation is given. This is just the way the world is. The same goes for the man who'd plagued by a nest of robot wasps. We do learn that the government has created other robotic insects so presumably the real ones have died out and this is their way of preserving the ecological balance of Nature but that's me just guessing.
Most are hard to classify too. In 'Meaty's Boys' we are faced with a unique zombie apocalypse because these zombies can still interact with those who haven't "turned" and "nearly all retained the ability to get out their credit cards." That really has to be the funniest line in the book and the funniest image: zombies queuing up outside a restaurant to buy bits of bodies but the majority of the stories could actually take place in the real world. In 'Jumping Jennifer' a college girl apparently tries to commit suicide by jumping out of a window and all the story consists of is watching her friends deal with the tragedy. In 'Cuckoo' a married man befriends a sixteen-year-old girl convinced that she's his daughter all grown up even though his daughter is still with him and his wife and still a little girl. In 'Boiling the Toad' a man sees his sweet girlfriend's sexual proclivities take an unexpected and unwelcome turn; the central metaphor is particularly powerful in this one because, it seems, a toad will hop out of a pan of boiling water but if you sit him in a pan of cold water and bring it to the boil he'll just sit there.
The blurb on the cover (from The Independent) says: "Early McEwan meets David Cronenberg" and that's not such a bad take. Other reviewers have mention Dahl (which I can see) or Kafka (which is a bit of a stretch for me). The fact is I could pick any one of these stories and find someone to compare it to but that really doesn't do the man justice. It's the fact that they were all written by the same man that I find interesting. He has a new book coming out next year and I would definitely be interested in reading more by him.
November 16, 2024
This is a great collection, full of dark humour.
As with any short story collection some are more forgettable than others. But others, especially those leaning into the surreal, like The Centipede's Wife and Belly Full of Rain, really stand out for their combination of the fantastical with complex psychological introspection. There's a really gifted writer here, and after rereading this I have bought his second collection.
Standouts:
Belly Full of Rain, The Centipede's Wife, Meaty's Boys, Jumping Jennifer, The 40-Litre Monkey.
Belly Full of Rain is an excellent piece about all the fears and insecurities of a man about to be a father, amplified by a belly full of kids so large the mother requires porcine skin grafts.
The Centipede's Wife is a surreal story about gilt, desire and our inability to forgive ourselves. Plus giant talking centipedes.
The 40-Litre Monkey is an interesting portrait of obsession, eccentricity, and the complex relationships we have with the objects of our obsession.
Meaty's Boys is a fresh take on the zombie genre, with a suitable dose of dark humour.
Boiling the Toad felt a bit like McEwan. I mean that in both a good and bad way. The titular Instruction Manual for Swallowing shows some range with its Borgesian premise.
As with any short story collection some are more forgettable than others. But others, especially those leaning into the surreal, like The Centipede's Wife and Belly Full of Rain, really stand out for their combination of the fantastical with complex psychological introspection. There's a really gifted writer here, and after rereading this I have bought his second collection.
Standouts:
Belly Full of Rain, The Centipede's Wife, Meaty's Boys, Jumping Jennifer, The 40-Litre Monkey.
Belly Full of Rain is an excellent piece about all the fears and insecurities of a man about to be a father, amplified by a belly full of kids so large the mother requires porcine skin grafts.
The Centipede's Wife is a surreal story about gilt, desire and our inability to forgive ourselves. Plus giant talking centipedes.
The 40-Litre Monkey is an interesting portrait of obsession, eccentricity, and the complex relationships we have with the objects of our obsession.
Meaty's Boys is a fresh take on the zombie genre, with a suitable dose of dark humour.
Boiling the Toad felt a bit like McEwan. I mean that in both a good and bad way. The titular Instruction Manual for Swallowing shows some range with its Borgesian premise.
July 18, 2024
The only thing better than Adam Marek’s book of fantastic short stories is imagining how he possibly came up with them. Absurd, darkly comic and at times head-scratchingly bizarre, Marek’s talent for rending the supernatural or outrageous in real, human terms is mind-boggling. A couple finds out they are pregnant with 37 babies. A man is diagnosed with cancer just before the city he lives in is attacked by a Godzilla-like beast. A pet shop sells animals by volume. A man working in a restaurant for zombies finds out the meat is locally-sourced. Another man travels to the inner workings of his mind only to discover the controls are manned by Busta Rhymes. The premise is always wildly weird, but Marek manages to take the fantasy from unbelievable to relatable in a few short pages, surprising you with emotional insight not usually attributed to the sci-fi section. This is a gem of a collection---no story left behind.
Originally posted at The Coast (https://www.thecoast.ca/arts-music/in...)
Originally posted at The Coast (https://www.thecoast.ca/arts-music/in...)
May 14, 2012
Though the stories in Instruction Manual for Swallowing range widely in the stories being told, there is a common feeling they share. In each story, the effort to be wildly imaginative seems forced and awkward. Marek's voice as a story teller is indifferent at best. He seems to care more about what he can force his characters to do to serve his desire to be a fantastical writer than develop them to respond with authentic emotions to the crazy surreal situations in which they find themselves. It may simply be that I am not a good person to review this kind of writing, though I am certainly drawn to fabulist story telling. But I felt as if there was nowhere to arrive at the end of the tale.
May 6, 2012
Promising starts that I actually like a lot (+ great titles) and disappointing endings. Flat unattractive characters who don't let you neither love them nor hate them + excessive use of gimmicks and an absolutely unexplainable need to explain them (the worst case: that of "Testicular cancer vs. the Behemot" in which there's entire paragraph explaining the meaning of the trick that the author is doing in that very moment, as if the story was told to 10-years old kids who wouldn't see the obvious...). If these were photos, they might be interesting as a collection of curiosities (as snapshots of the personages in "Freaks" or something), but as literature they are definitely not enough.
January 5, 2015
When our pens bring on tomorrow
And deliver the alchemic promises of paradise
And the ruin of all human structure-
Rot the purists.
Rot the hand that hands you only fantasy,
Where freedom binds us to a romantic moon,
And upright values always have a willing partner.
Rot the doomsayers who blot out your sun,
Where reckless ambition shined on us,
With a cloud of human folly and ruin .
Talent in tales of tomorrow depends on more
Than just the sun or the moon,
It needs an Ass to bray at perfection,
And a Fool to see the beauty in discord.
This edition is instructive in that regard.
And deliver the alchemic promises of paradise
And the ruin of all human structure-
Rot the purists.
Rot the hand that hands you only fantasy,
Where freedom binds us to a romantic moon,
And upright values always have a willing partner.
Rot the doomsayers who blot out your sun,
Where reckless ambition shined on us,
With a cloud of human folly and ruin .
Talent in tales of tomorrow depends on more
Than just the sun or the moon,
It needs an Ass to bray at perfection,
And a Fool to see the beauty in discord.
This edition is instructive in that regard.
Read
July 29, 2014Adam Marek is a master of the surreal and the absurd. The stories in this collection, his first, are imaginatively plotted and compelling to say the least. If one has to choose favourites these would be The Forty Litre Monkey, Testicular Cancer vs the Behemoth and the eponymous -- Instruction Manual for Swallowing. He has this uncanny talent of slipping unnoticed from the real to the netherworld of dreams, fears and black despair. His politics is hot glowing, his vision about the future eerily attractive. Instruction Manual for Swallowing leaves us uneasy yet asking for more. Five stars.
May 26, 2016
So impressed with this collection. We're thrown into a different world with each story but within a couple of sentences you're completely enthralled. You're then brutally lifted from that world and thrown into another, and another, and another. Sometimes the stories are predominantly gruesome and visceral, others are poignant and emotional, others are hilarious, and all contain elements of all of these things. Highly recommended.
January 21, 2013
Adam Marek has a strange mind. It's great though, because this collection of short stories are bizarre and quite brilliantly warped. From robot wasps, to sculptures in the Tate Modern coming to life, measuring animals by volume, massive centipedes and cats who like ipods - weirdness is ramped up to 11.
Thoroughly recommended if you're a fan of Stephen King's short story collections.
Thoroughly recommended if you're a fan of Stephen King's short story collections.
August 23, 2015
Adam Marek has a way of just creeping you out! some of the short stories in this book are beautiful, funny, interesting reads, and then others are downright creepy, and the most interesting thing about it the stories people find to be good and the ones they find to be bad differ from person to person well worth the read if you're into strange and abstract stories with a dark theme!
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