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Frip'in Aşırı Israrcı Pırtlakları
Üç haneli, küçük bir sahil köyü olan Frip’te ebeveynler, çocuklar, keçiler ve keçileri çok sevdikleri için sürekli onlara yapışmak isteyen, bir beyzbol topu büyüklüğünde, dikenli, turuncu canlılar yaşıyor: Pırtlaklar! Frip’te yaşayan çok “Becerikli” bir çocuk, pırtlakların neden olduğu zorluklarla tek başına mücadele etmeye karar veriyor. Dayanışma, iyilik, çocukluk, yetişkinlik, ahlak ve bir arada yaşama gibi kavramlar, insanın ve yaşamın içinden beslenen bu öyküyle görüş alanımıza giriyor.
Arafta adlı ilk romanıyla 2017 yılında Man Booker Ödülü’ne layık görülen Amerikalı öykücü George Saunders, her yaştan okura hitap eden bu bol hicivli öyküsünde kara mizah, oyunbozanlık ve üç boyutlu karakterler yaratmadaki ustalığını bir kez daha kanıtlıyor ve ödüllü illüstratör Lane Smith de yenilikçi çizgileriyle ona eşlik ediyor.
Arafta adlı ilk romanıyla 2017 yılında Man Booker Ödülü’ne layık görülen Amerikalı öykücü George Saunders, her yaştan okura hitap eden bu bol hicivli öyküsünde kara mizah, oyunbozanlık ve üç boyutlu karakterler yaratmadaki ustalığını bir kez daha kanıtlıyor ve ödüllü illüstratör Lane Smith de yenilikçi çizgileriyle ona eşlik ediyor.
96 pages, Hardcover
First published November 24, 2000
88 people are currently reading
2937 people want to read
About the author
George Saunders
109 books10.2k followersGeorge Saunders was born December 2, 1958 and raised on the south side of Chicago. In 1981 he received a B.S. in Geophysical Engineering from Colorado School of Mines in Golden, Colorado. He worked at Radian International, an environmental engineering firm in Rochester, NY as a technical writer and geophysical engineer from 1989 to 1996. He has also worked in Sumatra on an oil exploration geophysics crew, as a doorman in Beverly Hills, a roofer in Chicago, a convenience store clerk, a guitarist in a Texas country-and-western band, and a knuckle-puller in a West Texas slaughterhouse.
After reading in People magazine about the Master's program at Syracuse University, he applied. Mr. Saunders received an MA with an emphasis in creative writing in 1988. His thesis advisor was Doug Unger.
He has been an Assistant Professor, Syracuse University Creative Writing Program since 1997. He has also been a Visiting Writer at Vermont Studio Center, University of Georgia MayMester Program, University of Denver, University of Texas at Austin, St. Petersburg Literary Seminar (St. Petersburg, Russia, Summer 2000), Brown University, Dickinson College, Hobart & William Smith Colleges.
He conducted a Guest Workshop at the Eastman School of Music, Fall 1995, and was an Adjunct Professor at Saint John Fisher College, Rochester, New York, 1990-1995; and Adjunct Professor at Siena College, Loudonville, New York in Fall 1989.
He is married and has two children.
His favorite charity is a project to educate Tibetan refugee children in Nepal. Information on this can be found at http://www.tibetan-buddhist.org/index...
After reading in People magazine about the Master's program at Syracuse University, he applied. Mr. Saunders received an MA with an emphasis in creative writing in 1988. His thesis advisor was Doug Unger.
He has been an Assistant Professor, Syracuse University Creative Writing Program since 1997. He has also been a Visiting Writer at Vermont Studio Center, University of Georgia MayMester Program, University of Denver, University of Texas at Austin, St. Petersburg Literary Seminar (St. Petersburg, Russia, Summer 2000), Brown University, Dickinson College, Hobart & William Smith Colleges.
He conducted a Guest Workshop at the Eastman School of Music, Fall 1995, and was an Adjunct Professor at Saint John Fisher College, Rochester, New York, 1990-1995; and Adjunct Professor at Siena College, Loudonville, New York in Fall 1989.
He is married and has two children.
His favorite charity is a project to educate Tibetan refugee children in Nepal. Information on this can be found at http://www.tibetan-buddhist.org/index...
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 630 reviews
January 3, 2016
Poor Gappers! They just want to climb on the goats and shriek with happiness.
Poor goats! If they can’t sleep from the shrieking, then they can’t make milk!
A girl named Capable and her father have been trying to survive since Capable’s mother died earlier this year. Dad really would like things to stay exactly as they were that day, including the sun staying up and all his meals made of white food. Poor Capable has her hands full carrying the gappers back to the sea and preparing a chalk mixture to make Dad’s meals look white. One day, the smartest gapper realizes that Capable’s goats are fifteen feet closer than the goats of the other two families of Frip, so they descend en mass to happily visit Capable’s goats. What will she do? Will her neighbors help?
A clever enough tale, TVPGoF feels a little arch, a little self-congratulatory, a little too hip. There’s something about it that screams for attention despite lacking the charm of other children’s books (Fly by Night, The Girl Who Circumnavigated…). I guess I tentatively like the moral, although the narrative feels surprisingly condemning in the process of getting there. There is a surprising obstacle or two before it resolves as expected.
But what’s a children’s book without illustrations? And like The Stinky Cheese book, I’m not sure these pictures are designed to appeal to younger eyes. People resemble the distorted figures of A Nightmare Before Christmas. It’s a muted, fall palette and with detail more appropriate to a demographic that can appreciate the weathered patina on a house, or the jail-like costuming of the movers. A far cry, to be sure, from the books where a picture brings something about the story to be discovered. Still, the gappers manage to be almost cute, facilitating the idea that they are just animals doing their thing, and the goats are very goat-like. Artistically, it is well done, just not the kind of style that appeals to me personally.
Poor goats! If they can’t sleep from the shrieking, then they can’t make milk!
A girl named Capable and her father have been trying to survive since Capable’s mother died earlier this year. Dad really would like things to stay exactly as they were that day, including the sun staying up and all his meals made of white food. Poor Capable has her hands full carrying the gappers back to the sea and preparing a chalk mixture to make Dad’s meals look white. One day, the smartest gapper realizes that Capable’s goats are fifteen feet closer than the goats of the other two families of Frip, so they descend en mass to happily visit Capable’s goats. What will she do? Will her neighbors help?
A clever enough tale, TVPGoF feels a little arch, a little self-congratulatory, a little too hip. There’s something about it that screams for attention despite lacking the charm of other children’s books (Fly by Night, The Girl Who Circumnavigated…). I guess I tentatively like the moral, although the narrative feels surprisingly condemning in the process of getting there. There is a surprising obstacle or two before it resolves as expected.
But what’s a children’s book without illustrations? And like The Stinky Cheese book, I’m not sure these pictures are designed to appeal to younger eyes. People resemble the distorted figures of A Nightmare Before Christmas. It’s a muted, fall palette and with detail more appropriate to a demographic that can appreciate the weathered patina on a house, or the jail-like costuming of the movers. A far cry, to be sure, from the books where a picture brings something about the story to be discovered. Still, the gappers manage to be almost cute, facilitating the idea that they are just animals doing their thing, and the goats are very goat-like. Artistically, it is well done, just not the kind of style that appeals to me personally.
August 25, 2012
Welcome to Frip, population 4 adults, 5 children, 30 goats and approximately fifteen hundred gappers.
Gappers are bright orange baseball-sized critters who look something like a cross between a blowfish and a many-eyed Pac-Man. They exist seemingly only to perch on goats and shriek, causing said goats to stop giving milk and collapse from nervous exhaustion.
You can probably see that this could be a problem for the good citizens of Frip.
And thereby hangs a tale with all the makings of a classic. There is a brave young heroine, dithering ineffectual adults straight out of a Roald Dahl book, and a warm and fuzzy moral about neighbor helping neighbor, and everyone working together to achieve a goal.
And dammit! Why has no one heard of this book?
I'm not sure I've ever seen such a smooth marriage of narrative and illustration. Lane Smith's artwork is the perfect compliment for this oddball story - murky, yet playful, textured, creepy and humorous.
Seek this one out. It is a treasure waiting to be discovered.
Gappers are bright orange baseball-sized critters who look something like a cross between a blowfish and a many-eyed Pac-Man. They exist seemingly only to perch on goats and shriek, causing said goats to stop giving milk and collapse from nervous exhaustion.
You can probably see that this could be a problem for the good citizens of Frip.
And thereby hangs a tale with all the makings of a classic. There is a brave young heroine, dithering ineffectual adults straight out of a Roald Dahl book, and a warm and fuzzy moral about neighbor helping neighbor, and everyone working together to achieve a goal.
And dammit! Why has no one heard of this book?
I'm not sure I've ever seen such a smooth marriage of narrative and illustration. Lane Smith's artwork is the perfect compliment for this oddball story - murky, yet playful, textured, creepy and humorous.
Seek this one out. It is a treasure waiting to be discovered.
September 1, 2020
This is a book one could read to their kids or kids could read by themselves. It won praise from a well-known child psychiatrist (and he wrote kid’s books too), Robert Coles (as so stated by him, inside back cover: a wonderfully engaging story for our children, and for us—told with wry humor and with moral energy. We all live in this book’s world of Frip, and are connected to others in that world, no matter their nature—that’s what we’re prompted to remember by this marvelous tale.”
There are three families in the town (pretty small town!) called Frip, and each of the families have a herd of goats. And burr-like (ouch!) things called gappers every day climb from the ocean and grab onto the goats and make a shrieking sound and the goats are freaked out and don’t give milk. So every day the children of the families have to remove the gappers from the goats and throw them back into the ocean. And it takes so long to do this the children don’t get much sleep.
The gappers are not known for their intelligence, but one day one of the gappers convinces the other gappers that it would be less tiring and easy for them if they just concentrated on one of the houses and infested goats on that property. Which made the girl on that property, Capable, who had to get the gappers off the goats, extremely tired because she spent all day doing it. But the other two families were quite happy about this turn of events and felt there was probably something special about them (perhaps more intelligent than the girl and her father [mother had died] or perhaps morally better than them)…and that is why the gappers were no longer bothering them. When Capable asked for help from the other two families the families said “no dice, it’s your problem”. I won’t go on with describing the story because then I would blurt out spoilers.
I think the story will hold 4-6 year old’s interests. I don’t know about 3-year olds…it’s been so long since I read to my 3-year olds who are now in their 30s… And I think 7-year olds might read it on their own, but younger parents would know more than I.
One decided plus to this book are the wondrous colorful pastel illustrations by Lane Smith. I know him by his drawings in Roald Dahl’s ‘James and the Giant Peach’ but he also illustrated some other notable children’s books including Dr. Suess’s ‘Hooray for Diffendoofer Day’, and ‘The True Story of the 3 Little Pigs’ (Jon Scieszka, 1989).
George Saunders already was making a name for himself with short stories for adults, i.e., CivilWar Land in Bad Decline (1996) and Pastoralia (2000). He since has written two more short story collections (In Persuasion Nation [2006] and Tenth of December: Stories [2013]), picked up a MacArthur Fellowship (i.e., Genius Grant) in 2006, and won the 2017 Man Booker Prize for ‘Lincoln in the Bardo’.
One thing I wondered about (but not for to long) is why the children had to pick the gappers off the goats…like what the hell were the parents doing? Maybe because it’s a kids book and kids would be more interested in it if the main characters were like themselves. OK, I answered my own question to my satisfaction. 😉
Reviews for this book:
• https://bookpage.com/reviews/1457-geo...
• https://ew.com/article/2000/09/08/boo...
• If you want to know everything about the book, then read this review. Otherwise put this one on hold…not sure if this is a book review or a summary! https://turtleandrobot.wordpress.com/...
• “'A zany, wild book'” – Observer
• “'Capable is a heroine for modern times'” – Daily Telegraph
• “'Wonderful kinky modern fable'” – Financial Times
• “'An outstanding oddity - an eccentric and comical morality tale'” – The Sunday Times
There are three families in the town (pretty small town!) called Frip, and each of the families have a herd of goats. And burr-like (ouch!) things called gappers every day climb from the ocean and grab onto the goats and make a shrieking sound and the goats are freaked out and don’t give milk. So every day the children of the families have to remove the gappers from the goats and throw them back into the ocean. And it takes so long to do this the children don’t get much sleep.
The gappers are not known for their intelligence, but one day one of the gappers convinces the other gappers that it would be less tiring and easy for them if they just concentrated on one of the houses and infested goats on that property. Which made the girl on that property, Capable, who had to get the gappers off the goats, extremely tired because she spent all day doing it. But the other two families were quite happy about this turn of events and felt there was probably something special about them (perhaps more intelligent than the girl and her father [mother had died] or perhaps morally better than them)…and that is why the gappers were no longer bothering them. When Capable asked for help from the other two families the families said “no dice, it’s your problem”. I won’t go on with describing the story because then I would blurt out spoilers.
I think the story will hold 4-6 year old’s interests. I don’t know about 3-year olds…it’s been so long since I read to my 3-year olds who are now in their 30s… And I think 7-year olds might read it on their own, but younger parents would know more than I.
One decided plus to this book are the wondrous colorful pastel illustrations by Lane Smith. I know him by his drawings in Roald Dahl’s ‘James and the Giant Peach’ but he also illustrated some other notable children’s books including Dr. Suess’s ‘Hooray for Diffendoofer Day’, and ‘The True Story of the 3 Little Pigs’ (Jon Scieszka, 1989).
George Saunders already was making a name for himself with short stories for adults, i.e., CivilWar Land in Bad Decline (1996) and Pastoralia (2000). He since has written two more short story collections (In Persuasion Nation [2006] and Tenth of December: Stories [2013]), picked up a MacArthur Fellowship (i.e., Genius Grant) in 2006, and won the 2017 Man Booker Prize for ‘Lincoln in the Bardo’.
One thing I wondered about (but not for to long) is why the children had to pick the gappers off the goats…like what the hell were the parents doing? Maybe because it’s a kids book and kids would be more interested in it if the main characters were like themselves. OK, I answered my own question to my satisfaction. 😉
Reviews for this book:
• https://bookpage.com/reviews/1457-geo...
• https://ew.com/article/2000/09/08/boo...
• If you want to know everything about the book, then read this review. Otherwise put this one on hold…not sure if this is a book review or a summary! https://turtleandrobot.wordpress.com/...
• “'A zany, wild book'” – Observer
• “'Capable is a heroine for modern times'” – Daily Telegraph
• “'Wonderful kinky modern fable'” – Financial Times
• “'An outstanding oddity - an eccentric and comical morality tale'” – The Sunday Times
February 11, 2017
"She soon found that it was not all that much fun being the sort of person who eats a big dinner in a warm house while others shiver on their roofs in the dark. That is, it was fun at first, but then got gradually less fun, until it was really no fun at all."
A children's book by George Saunders??
Yes, it's true . . . and I just took a fond stroll down memory lane with it.
Long before I discovered Saunders' short stories, I read this sly and profound fable (initially published in 2000). I actually stumbled onto the book via the illustrator: Lane Smith. One of my son's favorite books when he was little was Jon Scieszka's THE STINKY CHEESE MAN. The stories in that book are great, but it was Lane Smith's illustrations that we loved. So I poked around for other books he'd illustrated, and lo and behold, I discovered a writer named George Saunders . . . and my son and I found the seaside town of Frip, a horde of pesky gappers, some very unhappy goats, and a generous little girl named Capable.
(If you want to know what a gapper is, you'll have to read the book!)
LINCOLN IN THE BARDO fever is in the air. And one happy side-effect of Random House's marketing campaign for Saunders' novel is that they decided to simultaneously reissue THE VERY PERSISTENT GAPPERS OF FRIP in this lovely new edition. Our old copy of the book had somehow disappeared from our home, as children's books tend to do. So it was a nice treat to win a giveaway for this new edition, and I'm grateful to have a copy back on our shelves.
So, 15 years after my first read, I find myself savoring this story all over again. It's still just as dark and subversive, and still just as compassionate. All of us could probably learn a thing or two from Capable. But just because there are important lessons in here, that doesn't mean we can't have some laughs along the way.
Without delving too deeply into politics and the current state of America, suffice it to say that I believe this gracious little book is more necessary and timely than ever.
(Thanks to Random House for an advance copy in exchange for an impartial review.)
A children's book by George Saunders??
Yes, it's true . . . and I just took a fond stroll down memory lane with it.
Long before I discovered Saunders' short stories, I read this sly and profound fable (initially published in 2000). I actually stumbled onto the book via the illustrator: Lane Smith. One of my son's favorite books when he was little was Jon Scieszka's THE STINKY CHEESE MAN. The stories in that book are great, but it was Lane Smith's illustrations that we loved. So I poked around for other books he'd illustrated, and lo and behold, I discovered a writer named George Saunders . . . and my son and I found the seaside town of Frip, a horde of pesky gappers, some very unhappy goats, and a generous little girl named Capable.
(If you want to know what a gapper is, you'll have to read the book!)
LINCOLN IN THE BARDO fever is in the air. And one happy side-effect of Random House's marketing campaign for Saunders' novel is that they decided to simultaneously reissue THE VERY PERSISTENT GAPPERS OF FRIP in this lovely new edition. Our old copy of the book had somehow disappeared from our home, as children's books tend to do. So it was a nice treat to win a giveaway for this new edition, and I'm grateful to have a copy back on our shelves.
So, 15 years after my first read, I find myself savoring this story all over again. It's still just as dark and subversive, and still just as compassionate. All of us could probably learn a thing or two from Capable. But just because there are important lessons in here, that doesn't mean we can't have some laughs along the way.
Without delving too deeply into politics and the current state of America, suffice it to say that I believe this gracious little book is more necessary and timely than ever.
(Thanks to Random House for an advance copy in exchange for an impartial review.)
August 27, 2023
Uçurum kenarında hayvancılıkla uğraşan, geri kalan sakinleri katledilmiş, sakatlanmış, iğfal edilmiş, kovalanmış, akıl almaz işkenceler ve dehşetin gölgeli dehlizlerinde fısıltılarla dahi anlatılamayacak, sadece lanetli Necronomicon'un sapkın sayfalarında anılan kötücül ritüeller sonucu, ruh dağlayan delilik spazmlarına tutularak yitip gitmiş ve sadece üç evden ibaret kalmış bir köyün -veya köyden geriye kalanın gülünç bir parodisinin- her gece denizden kopup gelen, çığlıklar atarak üstlerine çöken dehşetle yüzleşişinin hikayesi.
Kendilerine P' ıırt- La'k diyen dehşetengiz yaratıkların, yüzlercesi ve yüzlercesi kıvrılarak, yuvarlanarak, seğirerek, her gece denizden çıkmakta, bir cesede üşüşen sinekler gibi köye doluşmakta ve zavallı insanların artık ancak pamuk ipliğiyle tutunabilen zihinlerini dağlayarak yok edip, onları deliliğin kavrayan kollarına savurmaktaydı. Sadece Hadoth vadisinin mühürlü Nephren-KA yeraltı mezarlarında veya Büyük Piramit'in altındaki Nitokris'in ziyafetlerinde, Eryx'in duvarlarının altında veya Yugoth'un kilometrelerce uzunlukta ışıksız kulelerinin altında duyulabilecek korkunç haykırışlar, tarih öncesinden kalma korkuları çağırırken, Yog-sothoth'un lanetli hizmetkarları, Rüzgarda Yürüyen ve Sarı Kral'ın adını taşıyanlarla, çaresizlik ve teslimiyet içinde yok oluşlarını bekleyen insanların arasında sadece küçük bir kız çocuğu, Becerikli vardı...
Neyse efendim, çok uzatmayayım: işte hikayemizin kahramanı Becerikli, biraz eblek bir çocuk olduğundan, biraz da bu bir çocuk kitabı olduğundan, bu her gece gelen tövbeestağfurullahlara karşı her akil bireyin yapması gerektiği gibi "Hans, get ze FLAMMENWERFER!" demiyor da bunları toplayıp toplayıp denize geri atıyorlar. Artık mal olduklarından mı öyle yapıyorlar, yoksa gerçekten de "ya şimdi yüce eski falan çıkar sudan, ne gereği var?" diye bir ufak ard korkusu mu var bilemiyorum. Ben olsam verirdim alevi ama.
Bir de bunun babası var ki, ay düşman başına. Tam bir vasıfsız emmi. Bir işin ucundan tutayım, bir "derde" derman olayım yok. Bir de beyaza boyanmamış bir şey yiyemiyormuş beyefendi, hele hele... Bütün gün piiz, bütün gün içeyim, derdi o. Bir ara keçiler mi ne satılacak, bu geliyor, içkili... Ama nasıl içmiş, kıpkırmızı suratı... "Pırtklağrr..." falan bir şeyler diyor ama ne dediği de anlaşılmıyor. hohlaya hohlaya, -leş gibi rakı kokusu- anlatıyor bir şeyler, "he emmi he," diye eyliyorlaar bunu.
Bu Becerikligilin komşuları da içten pazarlıklı yavşaklar bu arada. Evi falan taşıtıyorlar, olaylar olaylar... Becerikli de yazık saf bir şey, sizin yapacağınız işi demiyor da çilesini çekiyor garibim. Böyle...
Çizimlerini çocuk kitaplarının gediklisi Lane Smith yapmış bu arada, pek de tatlılar hani. Çeviri benim yıldızımın asla barışamadığı Niran Elçi'den ama kitabın orijinalini görmedim, bu sefer ne yaptı bilemiyorum.
Kitap tatlış, kitap sevimli. Küçük iblisiniz varsa kesin, yoksa denk gelirse bir bakın işte.
edited: 08.23
Kendilerine P' ıırt- La'k diyen dehşetengiz yaratıkların, yüzlercesi ve yüzlercesi kıvrılarak, yuvarlanarak, seğirerek, her gece denizden çıkmakta, bir cesede üşüşen sinekler gibi köye doluşmakta ve zavallı insanların artık ancak pamuk ipliğiyle tutunabilen zihinlerini dağlayarak yok edip, onları deliliğin kavrayan kollarına savurmaktaydı. Sadece Hadoth vadisinin mühürlü Nephren-KA yeraltı mezarlarında veya Büyük Piramit'in altındaki Nitokris'in ziyafetlerinde, Eryx'in duvarlarının altında veya Yugoth'un kilometrelerce uzunlukta ışıksız kulelerinin altında duyulabilecek korkunç haykırışlar, tarih öncesinden kalma korkuları çağırırken, Yog-sothoth'un lanetli hizmetkarları, Rüzgarda Yürüyen ve Sarı Kral'ın adını taşıyanlarla, çaresizlik ve teslimiyet içinde yok oluşlarını bekleyen insanların arasında sadece küçük bir kız çocuğu, Becerikli vardı...
Neyse efendim, çok uzatmayayım: işte hikayemizin kahramanı Becerikli, biraz eblek bir çocuk olduğundan, biraz da bu bir çocuk kitabı olduğundan, bu her gece gelen tövbeestağfurullahlara karşı her akil bireyin yapması gerektiği gibi "Hans, get ze FLAMMENWERFER!" demiyor da bunları toplayıp toplayıp denize geri atıyorlar. Artık mal olduklarından mı öyle yapıyorlar, yoksa gerçekten de "ya şimdi yüce eski falan çıkar sudan, ne gereği var?" diye bir ufak ard korkusu mu var bilemiyorum. Ben olsam verirdim alevi ama.
Bir de bunun babası var ki, ay düşman başına. Tam bir vasıfsız emmi. Bir işin ucundan tutayım, bir "derde" derman olayım yok. Bir de beyaza boyanmamış bir şey yiyemiyormuş beyefendi, hele hele... Bütün gün piiz, bütün gün içeyim, derdi o. Bir ara keçiler mi ne satılacak, bu geliyor, içkili... Ama nasıl içmiş, kıpkırmızı suratı... "Pırtklağrr..." falan bir şeyler diyor ama ne dediği de anlaşılmıyor. hohlaya hohlaya, -leş gibi rakı kokusu- anlatıyor bir şeyler, "he emmi he," diye eyliyorlaar bunu.
Bu Becerikligilin komşuları da içten pazarlıklı yavşaklar bu arada. Evi falan taşıtıyorlar, olaylar olaylar... Becerikli de yazık saf bir şey, sizin yapacağınız işi demiyor da çilesini çekiyor garibim. Böyle...
Çizimlerini çocuk kitaplarının gediklisi Lane Smith yapmış bu arada, pek de tatlılar hani. Çeviri benim yıldızımın asla barışamadığı Niran Elçi'den ama kitabın orijinalini görmedim, bu sefer ne yaptı bilemiyorum.
Kitap tatlış, kitap sevimli. Küçük iblisiniz varsa kesin, yoksa denk gelirse bir bakın işte.
edited: 08.23
July 31, 2016
This was a fun little book that I'd say anyone of any age could enjoy. There’s a moral to the story, lain on pretty thick, as one would expect from a children’s book, but it’s a good moral nonetheless so I had no problems with that. Saunders is one of those writers who seem to never miss the mark. Plus I LOVE the illustrations in here. They’re somehow whimsical and muted at the same time, and if I was a kid, I’d be enraptured by how weird they are. Why don’t more adult books have illustrations? I can’t see any adult rolling their eyes over this book, as I suspect happens with a lot of children’s literature. Funny and cute and a little strange in just the right ways, I really enjoyed it.
September 3, 2022
Damn Gappers...
March 2, 2017
I had a hard time finding this book at the Washington, D.C., public library because, although it is about a resourceful little girl and has whimsical illustrations, it is shelved with the novels for grown-ups.
Has anyone out there every actually read this to or with an actual child? What was the child's reaction?
Saunders is sort of literary flavor-of-the-month now. I see serious people with goatees and/or tattoos reading his latest, Tenth of December, in coffee houses. It's encouraging in these times to see anyone reading anything anywhere, so no complaints, no remarks about goatees or tattoos.
As remarked here on Goodreads, there's a certain world view evident in this book that is likely to please the goatee-and-tattoo crowd. One reviewer seemed to think this book displayed anti-Christian bias because one of the (temporary) villains falls into the still-very-common trap (common across all religions) of attributing good fortune to God's favor. It seems barely worth mentioning that people who do this are really missing something very basic about the religious life, even if they go to a place of worship every week.
The religious are touchy. Compare: Elsewhere in this story, Saunders mocks the eminently mockable advice to “work smarter, not harder”. You don't see a lot of management consultants getting all stroppy on Goodreads about it.
I guess I understand the D.C. public library's decision to put this in the section with the books for grown up. They don't want a rushed parent absently pulling this off the shelf for their child's bedtime reading one week and returning enraged the next, asking what kind of morally polluting secular humanist filth the pub. lib. is peddling these days. I suppose that could happen. Even in Washington DC.
Has anyone out there every actually read this to or with an actual child? What was the child's reaction?
Saunders is sort of literary flavor-of-the-month now. I see serious people with goatees and/or tattoos reading his latest, Tenth of December, in coffee houses. It's encouraging in these times to see anyone reading anything anywhere, so no complaints, no remarks about goatees or tattoos.
As remarked here on Goodreads, there's a certain world view evident in this book that is likely to please the goatee-and-tattoo crowd. One reviewer seemed to think this book displayed anti-Christian bias because one of the (temporary) villains falls into the still-very-common trap (common across all religions) of attributing good fortune to God's favor. It seems barely worth mentioning that people who do this are really missing something very basic about the religious life, even if they go to a place of worship every week.
The religious are touchy. Compare: Elsewhere in this story, Saunders mocks the eminently mockable advice to “work smarter, not harder”. You don't see a lot of management consultants getting all stroppy on Goodreads about it.
I guess I understand the D.C. public library's decision to put this in the section with the books for grown up. They don't want a rushed parent absently pulling this off the shelf for their child's bedtime reading one week and returning enraged the next, asking what kind of morally polluting secular humanist filth the pub. lib. is peddling these days. I suppose that could happen. Even in Washington DC.
May 31, 2013
A strong 4.5 that I can't wait to read to this guy:
Looks like he's excited, too!
It's a cute and entertaining story with many valuable lessons. For example
1) A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds--or, in non-Emersonian terms, Learn to think outside the box:
2) Overcome life's hurdles
3) Be friendly to everyone
4) Care for animals
5) With help from others, the sky is the limit
6) Prance around with no pants
Well, maybe those weren't all the primary messages, but hey, I'm on an insert picture kick (sorry, Geoff). Besides, wouldn't you rather look at these pictures than read some boring review I'd write anyway? On that note, I do love the pictures in this book, too.
Looks like he's excited, too!
It's a cute and entertaining story with many valuable lessons. For example
1) A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds--or, in non-Emersonian terms, Learn to think outside the box:
2) Overcome life's hurdles
3) Be friendly to everyone
4) Care for animals
5) With help from others, the sky is the limit
6) Prance around with no pants
Well, maybe those weren't all the primary messages, but hey, I'm on an insert picture kick (sorry, Geoff). Besides, wouldn't you rather look at these pictures than read some boring review I'd write anyway? On that note, I do love the pictures in this book, too.
April 19, 2013
I would like to sit the world down and tell them a story. This story. I'll hold the book like my teacher did in 1st grade and show all the fabulous pictures. I borrowed this from the library, but will soon have a copy on my shelf. Come on over, I'll read you a story!
If you're not in my neighborhood, I urge you to go find a copy.
In a way, this reminded me of a more grown up version of The Sneetches. Wouldn't the world would be a much better place if both of these books were ingrained in our psyche?
If you're not in my neighborhood, I urge you to go find a copy.
In a way, this reminded me of a more grown up version of The Sneetches. Wouldn't the world would be a much better place if both of these books were ingrained in our psyche?
September 16, 2015
I have read this book 50 times or so to each of three children while in the 5 to 8 range, and as they grew older the conversations it spawned around community, fate, the common good, sharing, love, piety, class, and religion are almost shocking. It brings to mind just how silly our society is in attempting to shelter children from the realities of the political and social environment they live in. They can handle it - when presented properly. "The Very Persistent Gappers of Frip", provides one framework for dozens of 'teachable moments' I applaud the author.
August 10, 2016
I cataloged this when it came out. The record we imported had very little information so I was forced to read the book to find out what it was about.
I bought a copy that very same day.
This is my go-to "I need some giggles" book.
I love the mortified goats.
I love the horrid neighbors.
I love the persistent gappers.
Pretty much, I love this book. I would marry it if I were not already married.
I bought a copy that very same day.
This is my go-to "I need some giggles" book.
I love the mortified goats.
I love the horrid neighbors.
I love the persistent gappers.
Pretty much, I love this book. I would marry it if I were not already married.
January 16, 2013
(Reprinted from the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography [cclapcenter.com]. I am the original author of this essay, as well as the owner of CCLaP; it is not being reprinted illegally.)
I had the pleasure of getting to talk with legendary author George Saunders for CCLaP's podcast last week, a rare treat given how in demand he is on this latest tour even among the major media; but that meant I had to do some serious cramming in the few weeks leading up to our talk, in that (I guiltily confess) I only became aware of his existence a month ago, because of a passionate recommendation from my friend and Chicago science-fiction author Mark R. Brand, with Saunders' new book, tour, and interview opportunity being merely a fortuitous coincidence. And that's because the vast majority of Saunders' output has been short stories, while regulars know that my own reading habits veer almost 100 percent to full novels, which means he's simply and unfortunately been off my radar this whole time; but of course I'm happy to make room in my life for exquisite short-fiction writers once I learn about them (see for example my revelation after reading John Cheever for the first time a few years ago), which means that I tore through all seven books now of his career in just a few weeks recently, so I thought I'd get one large essay posted here about all of them at once, instead of doing a separate small review for each book.
And indeed, as I mentioned during the podcast as well, like Cheever I think Saunders' work is going to be at its most powerful once his career is over, and all the stories collected into one giant volume that a person reads all at once, instead of debating the merits of one individual collection over another. And in fact this is something else I said in the podcast, that I find it fun to think of Saunders' stories as essentially interchangeable tales in one big comic-book-style shared universe, albeit the most f-cked-up shared universe you'll ever spend time in: a possibly post-apocalyptic America, although whether through slow erosion or one big doomsday event is hard to determine, where the only businesses that still thrive are outlandish theme parks designed for the amusement of the now "natural betters" of our new Mad Max society, and staffed by the permanent class of have-nots which now includes a large population of genetically modified freaks, a place where ghosts are real and magic exists and the new normal is extreme cruelty at all times for all other humans left in the wreckage of a crumbled United States. And so if you look at the four story collections that Saunders has now put out -- 1996's CivilWarLand in Bad Decline, 2000's Pastoralia, 2006's In Persuasion Nation and this year's Tenth of December -- you'll see that the vast majority of all these pieces fit at least somewhat into the general paradigm just described, although with others that are much more realistic in tone but still with the same unbelievable cruelty and darkness, many of them set among racially tense situations in eroding post-industrial cities.
Yeah, sounds like a big barrel of laughs, right? And in fact this was the biggest surprise for me as well when first reading them, that Saunders is not just on the stranger side of the bizarro* subgenre, but is one of the most wrist-slashingly depressing authors you will ever find, yet this Guggenheim and MacArthur grant winner is regularly on the bestseller lists, has appeared on David Letterman and The Daily Show, gets published on a steady basis in such hugely mainstream magazines as The New Yorker and GQ, and is adored by literally millions of fans out there, many of whom would never open the cover of a book from Eraserhead Press to save their life. And that's because Saunders never talks about these things specifically to be depressing, but rather as a way of highlighting how important simple humanity is to our lives, the simple act of being humane and optimistic about the world, which he does not by writing about the humane acts themselves but what a world without them would look like. And that's a clever and admirable thing to do, because it means he sneaks in sideways to the points he wants to make, not beating us over the head but forcing us to really stop and think about what he's truly trying to say, to examine why we get so upset when this fundamental humanity is missing from the stories we're reading. Ultimately Saunders believes in celebrating life, in trying to be as helpful and open-minded to strangers as you can, in being as positive about the world at large as you can stand; but like the Existentialists of Mid-Century Modernism, he examines this subject by looking at worst-case scenarios, and by showing us what exactly we miss out of in life when this positivity and love is gone.
*(For those who are new to CCLaP, "bizarro" is a hard-to-define term but one we reference here a lot; also sometimes known as "gonzo" fiction, sometimes as "The New Weird," a lot of it comes from either the wackier or more prurient edges of such existing genres as science-fiction, horror and erotica, while some of it is more like Hunter S. Thompson or William S. Burroughs, a conceptual cloud of strangeness that has a huge cult following in the world of basement presses and genre conventions, as well as such literary social networks as Goodreads.com. If you want to think of famous examples, think of people like Kathy Acker, Mark Leyner, Will Self, Chuck Palahniuk, Blake Butler, China Mieville…and, uh, George Saunders!)
Now, of course, in all honesty, there are also a few clunkers scattered here and there in these collections as well, which is simply to be expected in a career that now spans twenty years; and when it comes to the small number of other books he's put out besides story collections, I have to confess that I found those to be a much iffier proposition. For example, there's the 2000 children's book The Very Persistent Gappers of Frip, cute enough but as inessential to an adult as any children's book is; then there's his one collection of nonfiction essays, 2007's The Braindead Megaphone, an uneven compilation of random pieces which includes some real gems (one of the best being that GQ piece mentioned, where Saunders is sent George-Plimpton-style to Dubai, and instead of the usual decrying of the ultra-rich he is surprisingly charmed by all the vacationing middle-class families), but that has an equal amount of throwaway pieces done for highly specific commissions; and then there's the only stand-alone fiction book of his career so far, the 2005 novella The Brief and Frightening Reign of Phil, which I have to confess is the only thing of Saunders' career that I actively disliked -- written in the middle of the Bush atrocities, it's obviously an attempt to do an Animal Farm-style satire about those years, but is labored in its execution, too on the nose, and in general has too much of a "quirky for the sake of being quirky" vibe, the exact thing that can most quickly kill a piece of bizarro fiction. (But then again, we perhaps shouldn't blame Saunders for this; as I've talked about many times here in the past, it seems that no indignant artist was able to write satirically about Bush in the middle of the Bush Years without producing an overly obvious ranting screed, whether that's Saunders or George Clooney or Michael Moore or Robert Redford. No wonder no good books about Nazis came out until after World War Two; as we all learned in the early 2000s, it's nearly impossible to actually live under a fascist regime and also be subtle and clever in your critique of it.)
But those are all small quibbles, of course; Saunders' bread and butter is in his short fiction, and I'm convinced that he will eventually be known as one of the best short-fiction authors in history, joining a surprisingly small list that includes such luminaries as Cheever, William Faulkner, Eudora Welty, GK Chesterton and more. Plus, as a fan of edgy and strange work, I'm thrilled that a guy like Saunders is out there, serving as a gateway of sorts between mainstream society and an entire rabbithole of basement-press bizarro titles that's just waiting for newly inspired fans to tumble down. If you're going to pick up your first Saunders book soon, go ahead and pick up the newest, Tenth of December, because it's just as good as all the others and particularly easy to find right now; but I also encourage you to dig deeper into this remarkable author's career, and to see just how far he'll pull you into the murky depths of ambiguous morality before coming bobbing back to the surface. It's been a true treat to become a fan of his work this year, and I urge you to become one as well.
Out of 10 (Tenth of December): 9.6
I had the pleasure of getting to talk with legendary author George Saunders for CCLaP's podcast last week, a rare treat given how in demand he is on this latest tour even among the major media; but that meant I had to do some serious cramming in the few weeks leading up to our talk, in that (I guiltily confess) I only became aware of his existence a month ago, because of a passionate recommendation from my friend and Chicago science-fiction author Mark R. Brand, with Saunders' new book, tour, and interview opportunity being merely a fortuitous coincidence. And that's because the vast majority of Saunders' output has been short stories, while regulars know that my own reading habits veer almost 100 percent to full novels, which means he's simply and unfortunately been off my radar this whole time; but of course I'm happy to make room in my life for exquisite short-fiction writers once I learn about them (see for example my revelation after reading John Cheever for the first time a few years ago), which means that I tore through all seven books now of his career in just a few weeks recently, so I thought I'd get one large essay posted here about all of them at once, instead of doing a separate small review for each book.
And indeed, as I mentioned during the podcast as well, like Cheever I think Saunders' work is going to be at its most powerful once his career is over, and all the stories collected into one giant volume that a person reads all at once, instead of debating the merits of one individual collection over another. And in fact this is something else I said in the podcast, that I find it fun to think of Saunders' stories as essentially interchangeable tales in one big comic-book-style shared universe, albeit the most f-cked-up shared universe you'll ever spend time in: a possibly post-apocalyptic America, although whether through slow erosion or one big doomsday event is hard to determine, where the only businesses that still thrive are outlandish theme parks designed for the amusement of the now "natural betters" of our new Mad Max society, and staffed by the permanent class of have-nots which now includes a large population of genetically modified freaks, a place where ghosts are real and magic exists and the new normal is extreme cruelty at all times for all other humans left in the wreckage of a crumbled United States. And so if you look at the four story collections that Saunders has now put out -- 1996's CivilWarLand in Bad Decline, 2000's Pastoralia, 2006's In Persuasion Nation and this year's Tenth of December -- you'll see that the vast majority of all these pieces fit at least somewhat into the general paradigm just described, although with others that are much more realistic in tone but still with the same unbelievable cruelty and darkness, many of them set among racially tense situations in eroding post-industrial cities.
Yeah, sounds like a big barrel of laughs, right? And in fact this was the biggest surprise for me as well when first reading them, that Saunders is not just on the stranger side of the bizarro* subgenre, but is one of the most wrist-slashingly depressing authors you will ever find, yet this Guggenheim and MacArthur grant winner is regularly on the bestseller lists, has appeared on David Letterman and The Daily Show, gets published on a steady basis in such hugely mainstream magazines as The New Yorker and GQ, and is adored by literally millions of fans out there, many of whom would never open the cover of a book from Eraserhead Press to save their life. And that's because Saunders never talks about these things specifically to be depressing, but rather as a way of highlighting how important simple humanity is to our lives, the simple act of being humane and optimistic about the world, which he does not by writing about the humane acts themselves but what a world without them would look like. And that's a clever and admirable thing to do, because it means he sneaks in sideways to the points he wants to make, not beating us over the head but forcing us to really stop and think about what he's truly trying to say, to examine why we get so upset when this fundamental humanity is missing from the stories we're reading. Ultimately Saunders believes in celebrating life, in trying to be as helpful and open-minded to strangers as you can, in being as positive about the world at large as you can stand; but like the Existentialists of Mid-Century Modernism, he examines this subject by looking at worst-case scenarios, and by showing us what exactly we miss out of in life when this positivity and love is gone.
*(For those who are new to CCLaP, "bizarro" is a hard-to-define term but one we reference here a lot; also sometimes known as "gonzo" fiction, sometimes as "The New Weird," a lot of it comes from either the wackier or more prurient edges of such existing genres as science-fiction, horror and erotica, while some of it is more like Hunter S. Thompson or William S. Burroughs, a conceptual cloud of strangeness that has a huge cult following in the world of basement presses and genre conventions, as well as such literary social networks as Goodreads.com. If you want to think of famous examples, think of people like Kathy Acker, Mark Leyner, Will Self, Chuck Palahniuk, Blake Butler, China Mieville…and, uh, George Saunders!)
Now, of course, in all honesty, there are also a few clunkers scattered here and there in these collections as well, which is simply to be expected in a career that now spans twenty years; and when it comes to the small number of other books he's put out besides story collections, I have to confess that I found those to be a much iffier proposition. For example, there's the 2000 children's book The Very Persistent Gappers of Frip, cute enough but as inessential to an adult as any children's book is; then there's his one collection of nonfiction essays, 2007's The Braindead Megaphone, an uneven compilation of random pieces which includes some real gems (one of the best being that GQ piece mentioned, where Saunders is sent George-Plimpton-style to Dubai, and instead of the usual decrying of the ultra-rich he is surprisingly charmed by all the vacationing middle-class families), but that has an equal amount of throwaway pieces done for highly specific commissions; and then there's the only stand-alone fiction book of his career so far, the 2005 novella The Brief and Frightening Reign of Phil, which I have to confess is the only thing of Saunders' career that I actively disliked -- written in the middle of the Bush atrocities, it's obviously an attempt to do an Animal Farm-style satire about those years, but is labored in its execution, too on the nose, and in general has too much of a "quirky for the sake of being quirky" vibe, the exact thing that can most quickly kill a piece of bizarro fiction. (But then again, we perhaps shouldn't blame Saunders for this; as I've talked about many times here in the past, it seems that no indignant artist was able to write satirically about Bush in the middle of the Bush Years without producing an overly obvious ranting screed, whether that's Saunders or George Clooney or Michael Moore or Robert Redford. No wonder no good books about Nazis came out until after World War Two; as we all learned in the early 2000s, it's nearly impossible to actually live under a fascist regime and also be subtle and clever in your critique of it.)
But those are all small quibbles, of course; Saunders' bread and butter is in his short fiction, and I'm convinced that he will eventually be known as one of the best short-fiction authors in history, joining a surprisingly small list that includes such luminaries as Cheever, William Faulkner, Eudora Welty, GK Chesterton and more. Plus, as a fan of edgy and strange work, I'm thrilled that a guy like Saunders is out there, serving as a gateway of sorts between mainstream society and an entire rabbithole of basement-press bizarro titles that's just waiting for newly inspired fans to tumble down. If you're going to pick up your first Saunders book soon, go ahead and pick up the newest, Tenth of December, because it's just as good as all the others and particularly easy to find right now; but I also encourage you to dig deeper into this remarkable author's career, and to see just how far he'll pull you into the murky depths of ambiguous morality before coming bobbing back to the surface. It's been a true treat to become a fan of his work this year, and I urge you to become one as well.
Out of 10 (Tenth of December): 9.6
December 4, 2012
Read this for the third time (it’s 84 pages, illustrated) and this time I did it aloud to Luke. It’s the story of a girl named Capable living in the town of Frip who’s exhausted from her job of brushing off gappers from her goats on a daily basis. Gappers are baseball-sized, multi-eyed creatures that adhere themselves to goats and then shriek joyfully. The goats get put out. Capable’s neighbors are buffoons and she comes up with a plan. It’s a bizarre and occasionally funny tale which has the importance of being neighborly as a lesson learned. George Saunders is more well-known for his offbeat short story collections (I’ve read ‘em). This book is gorgeously illustrated by Lane Smith (of Stinky Cheese Man fame).
I re-read this again on December 3rd, 2012 to both my kids.
I re-read this again on December 3rd, 2012 to both my kids.
March 4, 2009
While the underlying message behind this allegory is not the most original, the premise, and relationship between the goats/gappers/3 families in the town of Frip, is. Plus the gapeprs in general are rather hilarious, though I felt bad for the goats (The gappers, little tennis-ball-like eye-covered beasts love the goats and shriek with joy when upon them, but it makes the goats lie down, sad). Anyway.. the illustrations are AWESOME and elevate the book to a whole new level of enjoyable-ness. Also: Capable is an awesome name. Not subtle but that wasn't the aim, of course.
This book kind of makes me want to give Saunders a second chance- I was kind of let down by The Braindead Megaphone, but maybe he's just one of those people who is better at fiction than editorializing.
Overall, I recommend it for a quick, amusing read. I'm not sure if it's intended as a children's book or not: it could work either way..
Oh also there was a cute poke at gender roles, with two little girls who looked very pretty if they stood very still, and did so, because they wanted to look cute for boys. I thought that was a subtle and amusing message.
Edit: Actually, thinking more about it, I think this book managed to bring up quite a few complex philosophical issues (impressive consideing how short it is), such as: do people DESERVE their ill/good fortune, should you share/help your neighbors, etc etc. Actually pretty thought provoking, if you're that kind of person. Or you can read it as a straight-up, literal story, perhaps to a child, and it would still be enjoyable.
This book kind of makes me want to give Saunders a second chance- I was kind of let down by The Braindead Megaphone, but maybe he's just one of those people who is better at fiction than editorializing.
Overall, I recommend it for a quick, amusing read. I'm not sure if it's intended as a children's book or not: it could work either way..
Oh also there was a cute poke at gender roles, with two little girls who looked very pretty if they stood very still, and did so, because they wanted to look cute for boys. I thought that was a subtle and amusing message.
Edit: Actually, thinking more about it, I think this book managed to bring up quite a few complex philosophical issues (impressive consideing how short it is), such as: do people DESERVE their ill/good fortune, should you share/help your neighbors, etc etc. Actually pretty thought provoking, if you're that kind of person. Or you can read it as a straight-up, literal story, perhaps to a child, and it would still be enjoyable.
April 8, 2017
A whimsical story about loving your neighbor and being happy with what you have. All of sudden, one smart-ish gapper decides to change how gappers torment goats in the little mythical town of Frip. In response, the daughter of the goats' owner, who is improbably named Capable, is forced to change her family's life. What follows is a lesson in sharing, caring, and survival for the whole tiny town of Frip.
July 16, 2008
The world needs more children's books for adults. This is crazy good fun.
September 10, 2017
Most adults are really aseholes in this book, which seems to be the case in more children books.
At any rate a very weird and funny stories.
At any rate a very weird and funny stories.
July 29, 2022
Frip köyü üç haneden oluşuyor.Köyde yaşayanlar geçimlerini keçi sütü satarak sağlıyorlar.Bu köyde bir de tenis topu büyüklüğünde, turuncu renkli,keçilere bayılan onların postlarına sıkı sıkıya tutunup çığlıklar atan ve bu nedenle keçilerin uyumasına, süt vermesine engel olan “aşırı ısrarcı pırtlaklar”var.Bu pırtlaklardan kurtulmak ise köyün çocuklarının görevi.Özellikle de köyün en “Becerekli” çocuğunun.Becerikli; dayanışma,birlik beraberlikle bu pırtaklardan kurtulabileceğini düşünüyor.Bir yandan pırtlaklar bir yandan da köydekilerin bencilce tavırlarıyla mücadele eden bu kızın öyküsünü Lane Smith’in muhteşem illüstrasyonları eşliğinde okumak ayrı bir keyif veriyor.
“Pek çok insanın aynı şeyi yüksek sesle, tekrar tekrar söylemesi, o şeyin doğru olduğu anlamına gelmez.”
December 28, 2007
Is this a kid's book? Maybe, but I wouldn't recommend that a very young child read it, or even look at the pictures - it could be scary. Adults will find it thought provoking.
In Frip, people act with blissful ignorance, accepting the world as it is as though they understand it, but they don't. Their ignorance leads to catastrophe for a few of them, and the thoughtful determination of one character leads her to success, all through trial and error.
In today's modern world, science tries to answer the questions for us about why things are the way they are, but when it comes to our personal success and social position, many of us assume that we somehow "deserve" our fate, good or bad, and that others who suffer misfortune somehow deserve that as well. Our sophisticated social psychology may be no better than the simplemindedness of the residents of Frip in answering these questions.
The author uses allegory and simple stories to help us see our own weaknesses and foibles. He uncovers our assumptions about the world by finding the lowest common denominator and stripping away all of the familiar trappings that distract us from the truth.
Actually this is a product of a very fertile imagination. No wonder he won a MacArthur grant!
It is refreshing and fun stuff, even if you don't give it a moment of deep thought. (I think I need to read it to a kid....)
In Frip, people act with blissful ignorance, accepting the world as it is as though they understand it, but they don't. Their ignorance leads to catastrophe for a few of them, and the thoughtful determination of one character leads her to success, all through trial and error.
In today's modern world, science tries to answer the questions for us about why things are the way they are, but when it comes to our personal success and social position, many of us assume that we somehow "deserve" our fate, good or bad, and that others who suffer misfortune somehow deserve that as well. Our sophisticated social psychology may be no better than the simplemindedness of the residents of Frip in answering these questions.
The author uses allegory and simple stories to help us see our own weaknesses and foibles. He uncovers our assumptions about the world by finding the lowest common denominator and stripping away all of the familiar trappings that distract us from the truth.
Actually this is a product of a very fertile imagination. No wonder he won a MacArthur grant!
It is refreshing and fun stuff, even if you don't give it a moment of deep thought. (I think I need to read it to a kid....)
March 28, 2025
I already read this book to my son earlier this year, and I was pleasantly surprised when he asked me to read it again. He almost never asks me to read chapter books to him again, and the fact that he chose this bizarre modern folk tale leads me to believe he may be a chip off the old block.
Gappers are little spiky orange creatures that crawl out of the sea and attach themselves to goats. They love goats very much and scream in ecstasy when they are attached to one. Neither the goats nor their owners like the gappers, and it's up to the children of this three family town to brush the gappers off their goats. Our heroine, a young girl named Capable, does not enjoy this life. When an exceptionally smart gapper figures out that her goats are the easiest to love,
Saunders, who usually writes for adults, has created a smart, funny story that should appeal to people of all ages. I'd recommend TVPGoF to anyone and everyone.
Gappers are little spiky orange creatures that crawl out of the sea and attach themselves to goats. They love goats very much and scream in ecstasy when they are attached to one. Neither the goats nor their owners like the gappers, and it's up to the children of this three family town to brush the gappers off their goats. Our heroine, a young girl named Capable, does not enjoy this life. When an exceptionally smart gapper figures out that her goats are the easiest to love,
Saunders, who usually writes for adults, has created a smart, funny story that should appeal to people of all ages. I'd recommend TVPGoF to anyone and everyone.
December 2, 2015
A delightful, if not a slightly creepy, allegory mostly aimed at children, of selfishness, narrow mindedness, and uncooperative behavior being broken down by kindness. Illustrated by Lane Smith with sometimes disturbing graphical images, though well done and occasionally humorous. I'm not sure how children would react to it, but it is a worthwhile tale. Not as funny as some of Saunders' short stories.
December 27, 2016
I love this little book. Saunders' simple story about the necessity of community is as beautiful as it is weird. Lane Smith's illustrations are gorgeously grotesque. And the little funny Gappers are as charming as fictitious sea-burs can be.
Parents of the world. Do your child a favor. Read them George Saunders. The future will thank you.
Parents of the world. Do your child a favor. Read them George Saunders. The future will thank you.
April 24, 2018
Es ist schon sehr lange her, dass ich eine Parabel las, wie z.B. die von Aesoph oder Lessings Ringparabel. Darum eignet sich dieses kleine Büchlein gut zum Vorlesen, denn der Leser kann genau so etwas aus der Geschichte mitnehmen wie das Kind, dem es vielleicht vorgelesen wird. Hier lehrt uns die kleine Serena, was Hilfsbereitschaft und Herzensgüte bedeuten.
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March 18, 2015Favorite line:
""Just because a lot of people are saying the same thing loudly over and over, doesn't mean it's true."
""Just because a lot of people are saying the same thing loudly over and over, doesn't mean it's true."
November 15, 2019
Very George Saunders-esque: enjoyable, quirky and with a lesson to absorb.
June 2, 2024
Büyüklükleri tenis topu kadar, parlak turuncu renkte ve keçilere bayılan bu şeylere Pırtlaklar deniyor. Keçilere yaklaşınca tiz bir sevinç çığlığı atmaya başlayan pırtlakları da keçiler hiç sevmiyor. Hikayemizin başlangıç noktası burası aslında. Üç haneli, küçücük bir sahil köyü Frip. Ebeveynler, çocuklar, keçiler ve pırtlaklar yaşıyor burada.
Başkarakterimiz Becerikli her gece keçilere yapışan pırtlakları keçilerin üzerinden fırçalıyor ve denize atıyor. Denize düşen pırtlaklar da her sabah karaya çıkıp tekrar keçilere yapışıyorlar. Böyle devam eden bir kısır döngü içerisinde her çocuğun temel görevi keçilerden pırtlak temizlemek. Ancak bir gün pırtlaklardan birinin beyni diğerlerinden biraz daha büyük olduğu için aklını kullanarak Becerikli’nin yaşamını zora sokacak bir durum yaratıyor.
Hikayeye baktığımızda sanki gündelik hayatta karşılığı olmayan bir şey anlatıyor gibi görünse de aslında tam tersi, muhteşem bir alt metni var. Dayanışma, iyilik, ahlak, mücadele edebilmek gibi insan yaşamından beslenen bir hikaye. Tek kelimeyle bayıldım.
Metni bu kadar iyi yapan şeylerden biri de şüphesiz Lane Smith’in çizimleri. Öylesine iyi ki çizimler metnin gücüne güç katmış. George Saunders çağdaş edebiyatın önemli köşe taşlarından biri. Bunu da okuduğum her metninde hissediyorum. Çok çok sevdim. Gönülden tavsiyemdir.
Başkarakterimiz Becerikli her gece keçilere yapışan pırtlakları keçilerin üzerinden fırçalıyor ve denize atıyor. Denize düşen pırtlaklar da her sabah karaya çıkıp tekrar keçilere yapışıyorlar. Böyle devam eden bir kısır döngü içerisinde her çocuğun temel görevi keçilerden pırtlak temizlemek. Ancak bir gün pırtlaklardan birinin beyni diğerlerinden biraz daha büyük olduğu için aklını kullanarak Becerikli’nin yaşamını zora sokacak bir durum yaratıyor.
Hikayeye baktığımızda sanki gündelik hayatta karşılığı olmayan bir şey anlatıyor gibi görünse de aslında tam tersi, muhteşem bir alt metni var. Dayanışma, iyilik, ahlak, mücadele edebilmek gibi insan yaşamından beslenen bir hikaye. Tek kelimeyle bayıldım.
Metni bu kadar iyi yapan şeylerden biri de şüphesiz Lane Smith’in çizimleri. Öylesine iyi ki çizimler metnin gücüne güç katmış. George Saunders çağdaş edebiyatın önemli köşe taşlarından biri. Bunu da okuduğum her metninde hissediyorum. Çok çok sevdim. Gönülden tavsiyemdir.
September 30, 2018
Çizeri Bu Bir Kitap'tan tanıyordum. Yine kendine has tarzıyla bu bilindik öyküye harika bir hava katmıştı. Laf aramızda, ilk okuma kitaplarından olan Bu Bir Kitap'ı çok severim :)
Frip'e gelecek olursak, aynı şeyi onun için söyleyemeyeceğim. George Saunders'ın dilimize çevrilmiş "bütün" kitaplarını okudum. Bu kitaba baktığmdaysa Saunders dehası göremiyorum.
İç ısıtan, ama son derece bilindik, tahmin etmesi hiçbir şekilde zor olmayan ve yer yer mesajlar içeren bir kurgu. Yazar Saunders olmasa muhtemelen daha çok severdim, çünkü George Saunders adını gördüğümden beri beklentilerim çok yüksekti.
Ben yine Saunders kitaplarını dört gözle bekliyor olacağım. Ama bu defa olmadı diyelim.
Not: Çeviri ve editörlük kısmında harika bir iş ortaya konmuş. Kelime seçimlerine bayıldım.
Frip'e gelecek olursak, aynı şeyi onun için söyleyemeyeceğim. George Saunders'ın dilimize çevrilmiş "bütün" kitaplarını okudum. Bu kitaba baktığmdaysa Saunders dehası göremiyorum.
İç ısıtan, ama son derece bilindik, tahmin etmesi hiçbir şekilde zor olmayan ve yer yer mesajlar içeren bir kurgu. Yazar Saunders olmasa muhtemelen daha çok severdim, çünkü George Saunders adını gördüğümden beri beklentilerim çok yüksekti.
Ben yine Saunders kitaplarını dört gözle bekliyor olacağım. Ama bu defa olmadı diyelim.
Not: Çeviri ve editörlük kısmında harika bir iş ortaya konmuş. Kelime seçimlerine bayıldım.
September 25, 2012
The Very Persistent Gappers of Frip is a cautionary tale; one which demonstrates that you should not take joy in another’s misfortune, for you may someday find yourself in a similar position.
Frip is a small seaside town. So small in fact, that only three families live there—our young hero Capable and her widowed father, the Romos and the Ronsens. Though they live by the sea, their livelihood is reliant on their goats, for the goats make milk that the families can sell.
Gappers, those meddlesome creatures, love goats more than anything else. They attach themselves to the goats, and then proceed to emit a high-pitched squeal of pleasure. This is troublesome to the goats; it causes them lose sleep, lose weight, and eventually, stop giving milk.
It is the job of the children to brush the gappers off their family’s goats, gather the gappers in sacks, and empty the sacks into the sea. It takes the gappers 3 hours to crawl out of the ocean, up the cliff and back onto the goats. Therefore, the children must perform this task eight times a day. Every day.
Capable’s house is closest to the sea so the gappers always reach her goats first. When one marginally smarter gapper realizes that they can get all the goat they need from this one family, things become unbalanced.
The Romos and Ronsens couldn’t be more pleased to be relieved of their brushing duties and are all too vocal about it. Now Capable is doing the work of three families all by herself and she cannot keep up. Despite her father’s wishes, Capable asks the neighbors for help. Not only are they not willing to help, but they also blame Capable for bringing this plague upon herself! In fact, they’ve moved their houses farther away from hers so as not to “catch” whatever it is she has that has brought all the gappers to her yard, instead of spreading out over all three yards.
Capable can take no more. Though her neighbors tell her she should work harder, smarter and more efficiently than physically possible, she rounds up all her goats and sells them in a nearby town. Capable knows she’s tried her best and her best didn’t work. She decides to take up fishing; something that no one in Frip has done for quite a long time.
The gappers are forced to move onto the next family’s goats, those that belong to the Romo’s. Evidently, it had not occurred to the other families that the gappers would be back to taunt their goats once Capable’s goats were gone. With the tables turned, the Romos now look to the Ronsens for help. The Ronsens, clearly not anticipating what is to come, refuse to help.
After a series of ridiculous (yet true to life) strategies to rid themselves of the gappers, the Romos and the Ronsens find themselves in dire circumstances. Capable, initially pleased to see the families get their comeuppance, takes pity and invites them for dinner. Finally seeing the wisdom of Capable’s ways, the Romos and the Ronsens decide to sell their goats, and take up fishing. And things in this small seaside town get a little better.
But what of the gappers? With the all the goats gone they need to find a new object of devotion to which they can attach themselves and emit their loving shrieks. They soon find something perfectly suitable to their needs, creating the scene of one of my favorite book endings ever.
Frip is a small seaside town. So small in fact, that only three families live there—our young hero Capable and her widowed father, the Romos and the Ronsens. Though they live by the sea, their livelihood is reliant on their goats, for the goats make milk that the families can sell.
Gappers, those meddlesome creatures, love goats more than anything else. They attach themselves to the goats, and then proceed to emit a high-pitched squeal of pleasure. This is troublesome to the goats; it causes them lose sleep, lose weight, and eventually, stop giving milk.
It is the job of the children to brush the gappers off their family’s goats, gather the gappers in sacks, and empty the sacks into the sea. It takes the gappers 3 hours to crawl out of the ocean, up the cliff and back onto the goats. Therefore, the children must perform this task eight times a day. Every day.
Capable’s house is closest to the sea so the gappers always reach her goats first. When one marginally smarter gapper realizes that they can get all the goat they need from this one family, things become unbalanced.
The Romos and Ronsens couldn’t be more pleased to be relieved of their brushing duties and are all too vocal about it. Now Capable is doing the work of three families all by herself and she cannot keep up. Despite her father’s wishes, Capable asks the neighbors for help. Not only are they not willing to help, but they also blame Capable for bringing this plague upon herself! In fact, they’ve moved their houses farther away from hers so as not to “catch” whatever it is she has that has brought all the gappers to her yard, instead of spreading out over all three yards.
Capable can take no more. Though her neighbors tell her she should work harder, smarter and more efficiently than physically possible, she rounds up all her goats and sells them in a nearby town. Capable knows she’s tried her best and her best didn’t work. She decides to take up fishing; something that no one in Frip has done for quite a long time.
The gappers are forced to move onto the next family’s goats, those that belong to the Romo’s. Evidently, it had not occurred to the other families that the gappers would be back to taunt their goats once Capable’s goats were gone. With the tables turned, the Romos now look to the Ronsens for help. The Ronsens, clearly not anticipating what is to come, refuse to help.
After a series of ridiculous (yet true to life) strategies to rid themselves of the gappers, the Romos and the Ronsens find themselves in dire circumstances. Capable, initially pleased to see the families get their comeuppance, takes pity and invites them for dinner. Finally seeing the wisdom of Capable’s ways, the Romos and the Ronsens decide to sell their goats, and take up fishing. And things in this small seaside town get a little better.
But what of the gappers? With the all the goats gone they need to find a new object of devotion to which they can attach themselves and emit their loving shrieks. They soon find something perfectly suitable to their needs, creating the scene of one of my favorite book endings ever.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
June 17, 2016
The story of Capable, a girl who lives with her father and their goats by the sea near the village of Frip. She spends her days brushing the gappers - about the size of a baseball, bright orange, with multiple eyes like the eyes on a potato- off of the goats. Gappers *adore* goats and cling to them, and shriek in happiness. This does not make the goats happy. In fact, it keeps them from sleeping, and from giving milk, which is a problem if you sell goat milk. The children brush the gappers off, but they always come back.
One day, a smarter than the average gapper realized that Capable's house was closer than the other houses, and the gappers decided to focus their goat love there. This makes the other households very happy, but leaves Capable exhausted with all the extra work.
Saunders brilliantly encapsulates the thoughts and moral positions of some more fortunate parts of society in a letter from Capable's neighbors, responding to her request for help:
"Dear Capable, it said, we are in receipt of your letter of the other day, that other day, whenever that day was, when you sent that letter that you sent us. We regret to inform you that, although we are very sympathetic to your significant hardships, don't you think it would be better if you took responsibility for your own life? We feel strongly that, once you rid your goats of gappers, as we have, you will feel better about yourself, and also, we will feel better about you. Not that we're saying we are better than you, necessarily, it's just that, since gappers are bad, and since you and you alone now have them, it only stands to reason that you are not, perhaps, quite as good as us. Not that we hate you! We don't. We sort of even like you. Just please get rid of those gappers! Prove that you can do it, just as we proved we could do it, and at that time, and that time only, please come over, and won't that be fun, all of us standing around the fire, sharing a laugh about those bad old days when we all had gappers. Love, your neighbors."
It's a lovely little study of the ways in which we attribute skill and superiority to ourselves rather than good fortune, while at the same time blaming victims for their own predicaments.
And the illustrations are gorgeous, too. Bravo.
One day, a smarter than the average gapper realized that Capable's house was closer than the other houses, and the gappers decided to focus their goat love there. This makes the other households very happy, but leaves Capable exhausted with all the extra work.
Saunders brilliantly encapsulates the thoughts and moral positions of some more fortunate parts of society in a letter from Capable's neighbors, responding to her request for help:
"Dear Capable, it said, we are in receipt of your letter of the other day, that other day, whenever that day was, when you sent that letter that you sent us. We regret to inform you that, although we are very sympathetic to your significant hardships, don't you think it would be better if you took responsibility for your own life? We feel strongly that, once you rid your goats of gappers, as we have, you will feel better about yourself, and also, we will feel better about you. Not that we're saying we are better than you, necessarily, it's just that, since gappers are bad, and since you and you alone now have them, it only stands to reason that you are not, perhaps, quite as good as us. Not that we hate you! We don't. We sort of even like you. Just please get rid of those gappers! Prove that you can do it, just as we proved we could do it, and at that time, and that time only, please come over, and won't that be fun, all of us standing around the fire, sharing a laugh about those bad old days when we all had gappers. Love, your neighbors."
It's a lovely little study of the ways in which we attribute skill and superiority to ourselves rather than good fortune, while at the same time blaming victims for their own predicaments.
And the illustrations are gorgeous, too. Bravo.
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