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Sind wir nicht Menschen
Böse, komisch, bizarr – die neuesten Stories von T. C. Boyle: Der Meister der American Short Story nimmt uns mit auf eine bewegte Reise in unsere unheimliche Zukunft.
In seinen neuesten Stories nimmt uns T.C. Boyle mit auf eine bewegte Reise in unsere unheimliche Zukunft. Eine Zukunft, in der der kirschrot phosphoreszierende Pitbull das klavierspielende Mikroschwein der Nachbarin zerfleischt. In der durch Genmanipulation perfekte Kinder aus dem Katalog gezeugt werden oder man mit der Relive Box in die eigene Vergangenheit reisen kann. In T.C. Boyles komisch-bizarren Erzählungen wimmelt es von argentinischen Ameisen und ebenso sympathischen wie unheimlichen Wesen, die unser Leben bedrohen. Die beste Sammlung des Meisters der American Short Story – böser und witziger und unterhaltsamer denn je.
In seinen neuesten Stories nimmt uns T.C. Boyle mit auf eine bewegte Reise in unsere unheimliche Zukunft. Eine Zukunft, in der der kirschrot phosphoreszierende Pitbull das klavierspielende Mikroschwein der Nachbarin zerfleischt. In der durch Genmanipulation perfekte Kinder aus dem Katalog gezeugt werden oder man mit der Relive Box in die eigene Vergangenheit reisen kann. In T.C. Boyles komisch-bizarren Erzählungen wimmelt es von argentinischen Ameisen und ebenso sympathischen wie unheimlichen Wesen, die unser Leben bedrohen. Die beste Sammlung des Meisters der American Short Story – böser und witziger und unterhaltsamer denn je.
400 pages, Hardcover
First published March 17, 2014
151 people are currently reading
1144 people want to read
About the author
T. Coraghessan Boyle
161 books3,041 followersT. Coraghessan Boyle (also known as T.C. Boyle, is a U.S. novelist and short story writer. Since the late 1970s, he has published eighteen novels and twleve collections of short stories. He won the PEN/Faulkner award in 1988 for his third novel, World's End, which recounts 300 years in upstate New York. He is married with three children. Boyle has been a
Professor of English at the University of Southern California since 1978, when he founded the school's undergraduate creative writing program.
He grew up in the small town on the Hudson Valley that he regularly fictionalizes as Peterskill (as in widely anthologized short story Greasy Lake). Boyle changed his middle name when he was 17 and exclusively used Coraghessan for much of his career, but now also goes by T.C. Boyle.
Professor of English at the University of Southern California since 1978, when he founded the school's undergraduate creative writing program.
He grew up in the small town on the Hudson Valley that he regularly fictionalizes as Peterskill (as in widely anthologized short story Greasy Lake). Boyle changed his middle name when he was 17 and exclusively used Coraghessan for much of his career, but now also goes by T.C. Boyle.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 191 reviews
October 8, 2017
In a nutshell:
Unpleasant characters in situations of their own making feeling sorry for themselves while screwing others over.
I do not think there was a single main character in these stories that was not seriously unpleasant, self-important, arrogant, and whiny. While this might not be a problem for other readers, I have recently come to accept that I do like my characters to have some redeeming qualities. This is especially true for short stories where you only have a limited amount of time with the characters. For the stories to resonate, I have to have some understanding for the characters. These did not feel real in the sense that I sure hope that people are more well-rounded than this (call me hopelessly optimistic if you will).
I also found the stories' plots left a lot to be desired; the premises felt derivative and not inventive enough to distract from the characters I found unpleasant. This is especially true for the last three stories: these did not work for me and I finally gave up and skim-read the rest. I did however on the whole enjoy the more speculative stories more than the realistic ones.
I have been reading a lot of short fiction this last year; it is a genre I have found a whole new appreciation for. When short stories are done well, they pack an unbelievable punch - but on the other side, when the stories do not work for me, they absolutely do not work for me. This time, I struggled. A whole lot.
_____
I received an arc of this book curtesy of NetGalley and Bloomsbury Publishing in exchange for an honest review. Thanks for that!
Unpleasant characters in situations of their own making feeling sorry for themselves while screwing others over.
I do not think there was a single main character in these stories that was not seriously unpleasant, self-important, arrogant, and whiny. While this might not be a problem for other readers, I have recently come to accept that I do like my characters to have some redeeming qualities. This is especially true for short stories where you only have a limited amount of time with the characters. For the stories to resonate, I have to have some understanding for the characters. These did not feel real in the sense that I sure hope that people are more well-rounded than this (call me hopelessly optimistic if you will).
I also found the stories' plots left a lot to be desired; the premises felt derivative and not inventive enough to distract from the characters I found unpleasant. This is especially true for the last three stories: these did not work for me and I finally gave up and skim-read the rest. I did however on the whole enjoy the more speculative stories more than the realistic ones.
I have been reading a lot of short fiction this last year; it is a genre I have found a whole new appreciation for. When short stories are done well, they pack an unbelievable punch - but on the other side, when the stories do not work for me, they absolutely do not work for me. This time, I struggled. A whole lot.
_____
I received an arc of this book curtesy of NetGalley and Bloomsbury Publishing in exchange for an honest review. Thanks for that!
October 24, 2017
TC Boyle is a fine novelist but, if you want to see this literary eagle soar, you need to read his short stories. Boyle shows why he’s one of the best short story writers in the world with his latest brilliant collection, The Relive Box and Other Stories.
The stories themselves don’t sound like much when describing them to others, particularly if you’ve never read him before, but the writing is masterful with the tone frequently striking an appealing blend of humour and drama. Boyle’s many talents include the ability to effortlessly draw the reader into nearly each tale almost instantly.
Take my favourite story here, The Designee, where an elderly widower falls for a “Nigerian Prince”-type email scam. The setup is almost too straightforward that I kept thinking that Boyle must throw in a curveball at some point to subvert it but the story plays out without any surprises. And I didn’t mind at all because the storytelling, the writing, the dialogue, and the characters are all so magnetic that it was compelling to read every foreseeable step of the way.
Theft and Other Issues was a close second fave. A guy’s car is stolen with his girlfriend’s dog in the back seat leading to tension in their relationship. As always I couldn’t tell where Boyle was going with it but it was surprisingly funny and romantic too.
Other stories that stood out included Are We Not Men?, an amusing look at Crispr’s gene-editing technology, The Argentine Ant, about a maths professor and his family dealing with an ant infestation in a town full of weirdos, and The Five-Pound Burrito which is an unexpectedly magical realist tale of a Mexican food restaurateur who comes up with the gimmick of a five pound burrito which turns his place into the hottest place to eat - only to learn that his success comes with a strange price.
I won’t recount all of the twelve stories here but suffice it to say that I enjoyed nearly all of them. What I like the most about Boyle is that he doesn’t write a certain type of story over and over – certain themes like environmental catastrophe might repeat here and there across his career but he’s got a massive range so his stories are always unpredictable.
Like almost all short story collections, this one’s not flawless and I didn’t like a couple of stories. The Relive Box is an obvious and banal commentary on how the internet has consumed our lives while The Fugitive is a tedious and lifeless tale about a guy with an illness hounded by the authorities for not wearing a mask.
And this is a more general critique of Boyle’s style: he’s never been very good at endings. The stories tend to just stop. And it’s too abrupt, jarring and unsatisfying, particularly as they’re so enthralling. One minute you’re wrapped up in a tale, then suddenly it’s over! And this is a lesser criticism but the titles themselves are a bit unmemorable. When I looked at the contents page I couldn’t connect any of the stories with their titles.
Anyways, I mostly had a blast reading this one. I’ve loved his previous collections After The Plague and Tooth and Claw and The Relive Box didn’t disappoint. I highly recommend any of TC Boyle’s short story collections.
The stories themselves don’t sound like much when describing them to others, particularly if you’ve never read him before, but the writing is masterful with the tone frequently striking an appealing blend of humour and drama. Boyle’s many talents include the ability to effortlessly draw the reader into nearly each tale almost instantly.
Take my favourite story here, The Designee, where an elderly widower falls for a “Nigerian Prince”-type email scam. The setup is almost too straightforward that I kept thinking that Boyle must throw in a curveball at some point to subvert it but the story plays out without any surprises. And I didn’t mind at all because the storytelling, the writing, the dialogue, and the characters are all so magnetic that it was compelling to read every foreseeable step of the way.
Theft and Other Issues was a close second fave. A guy’s car is stolen with his girlfriend’s dog in the back seat leading to tension in their relationship. As always I couldn’t tell where Boyle was going with it but it was surprisingly funny and romantic too.
Other stories that stood out included Are We Not Men?, an amusing look at Crispr’s gene-editing technology, The Argentine Ant, about a maths professor and his family dealing with an ant infestation in a town full of weirdos, and The Five-Pound Burrito which is an unexpectedly magical realist tale of a Mexican food restaurateur who comes up with the gimmick of a five pound burrito which turns his place into the hottest place to eat - only to learn that his success comes with a strange price.
I won’t recount all of the twelve stories here but suffice it to say that I enjoyed nearly all of them. What I like the most about Boyle is that he doesn’t write a certain type of story over and over – certain themes like environmental catastrophe might repeat here and there across his career but he’s got a massive range so his stories are always unpredictable.
Like almost all short story collections, this one’s not flawless and I didn’t like a couple of stories. The Relive Box is an obvious and banal commentary on how the internet has consumed our lives while The Fugitive is a tedious and lifeless tale about a guy with an illness hounded by the authorities for not wearing a mask.
And this is a more general critique of Boyle’s style: he’s never been very good at endings. The stories tend to just stop. And it’s too abrupt, jarring and unsatisfying, particularly as they’re so enthralling. One minute you’re wrapped up in a tale, then suddenly it’s over! And this is a lesser criticism but the titles themselves are a bit unmemorable. When I looked at the contents page I couldn’t connect any of the stories with their titles.
Anyways, I mostly had a blast reading this one. I’ve loved his previous collections After The Plague and Tooth and Claw and The Relive Box didn’t disappoint. I highly recommend any of TC Boyle’s short story collections.
June 10, 2019
This was a wonderful collection--TC Boyle brilliantly works the teeter-totter between comedy and tragedy. I especially enjoyed the futuristic stories like" The Relive Box" and "Are We Not Men?". In the former, a future America has exchanged current video games for a device which enables them to plug into their own memories, replaying and replaying them into zombie-hood, forsaking the actual world. A widowed father and daughter, trying to make their way following the mother's death, console themselves in the past, the daughter replaying her childhood too much, the father kicking her off so he can spend untold hours reliving his own youth. "Are We Not Men?" has a future in which people buy modified pets and order genetically modified children--but you're still bitten by the genetically modified dog... and other complications. Sad and poignant and funny all at once.
Of the realistic stories, "She's the Bomb" was my favorite--reminding me of the Mary Miller short stories I've been reading, a girl who for a variety of reasons has stopped attending classes or doing her work--she can't relate to Hawthorne's Scarlet Letter and there are thematic overtones--and can't reveal to her mother that she's not graduating, even on the very day of the graduation ceremony.
One of our great contemporary writers and this was a terrific example of the temper of his work.
Of the realistic stories, "She's the Bomb" was my favorite--reminding me of the Mary Miller short stories I've been reading, a girl who for a variety of reasons has stopped attending classes or doing her work--she can't relate to Hawthorne's Scarlet Letter and there are thematic overtones--and can't reveal to her mother that she's not graduating, even on the very day of the graduation ceremony.
One of our great contemporary writers and this was a terrific example of the temper of his work.
July 3, 2022
(edited 7/3/22. A focus on "The Argentine Ant," Boyle's homage to the Italo Calvino story, follows my original review of The Relive Box.)
T.C. Boyle is one of a select few writers who manages to be literary and ridiculously entertaining at the same time. He's an exuberant writer, a maximalist you might say, as opposed to a minimalist, which is a style I admire but might not be to everybody's taste. (Fwiw, Boyle was a huge early influence on my own writing.) I've read many, many dozens of his stories, and this collection did not disappoint. Each story hooks and does not let go. Favorites: "The Argentine Ant", "Surtsey", "Subtract One Death", "You Don't Miss Your Water 'Til The Well Runs Dry" (named for an old favorite song of mine), "The Designee", "Are We Not Men?" and the title story, "The Relive Box."
-------
The Argentine Ant. Story by Italo Calvino (1952), and T. C. Boyle.
There is disagreement in the scientific community as to how many ants there are in the word. But I suppose they agree: there are really, really, a lot. Fucktons upon fucktons? You bet.
With this in mind, sort of, I read the 1952 short story, The Argentine Ant, by Italo Calvino, and reread T.C. Boyle’s 2017 homage (same title). Links to the collections they appear in are at the end of this dual review. Both get 4.5 stars. Some impressions, areas of similarity, differences …
In both versions, a couple and their ill baby move elsewhere in Italy and discover that the area is infested, to put it mildly, with aggressive Argentine ants. They seek help from neighbors, from “pros”; no one has a solution. (Trying my best here to sidestep obliquely a spoiler), it turns out the Argentine Ant Control Corporation is not only inept, but has little incentive to be otherwise.
Both stories end with the man observing the sea. The last sentence:
Calvino: “I thought of the expanses of water like this, of the infinite grains of soft sand down there at the bottom of the sea where the currents leave white shells washed clean by the waves.”
Boyle: “Here was a gathering force that predated everything that moved on this earth, the waves beating at the shore until even the solidest stone was reduced to grains, each a fraction of the size of an ant and each lying there inert on the seabed, stretching on, clean and austere, to infinity.”
Calvino’s story is 40 pages, Boyle’s about 25 and his characteristic prose is denser, which you get a taste of in that last sentence. Calvino, with more pages and (comparative) minimalism, has loads more room for details, eg., about the elaborate ant traps, and to show the neighbors laughing about the absurdity of their situation. In short, with their helplessness against nature, against a government body as immovable as any mass of ants, Calvino displays his avowed debt to Kafka.
Boyle’s story has the same “bones,” and almost identical character names, but the tone is different, and he changes some details—the locale is less rural; he subtly moves the story forward in time; the man is a mathematician and his wife gets a name (updating Calvino’s “the wife”, over and over, “the wife”); the neighbors sunbathe nearly nude; the Captain (the guy with all the elaborate ant traps) is interestingly now a retired employee of the Mexican cartel, an “invader” like the ants.
Whereas the original story is more Kafka-ish, Boyle’s focuses a bit more on the horror (he is great at any genre), and on, man against nature, on folks seeking greener pastures, both being common Boyle themes. In C’s story, the baby has an unspecified illness. Boyle, sadistically and brilliantly, gives the child a rare, hyper-sensitivity to … wait for it … touch! Oh my. Poor kid.
But Calvino gets my favorite lines, describing Sr. Baudolino: “I realized why he had made such a strange impression on me at first sight: he looked like an ant … perhaps it was because of the dull black of his clothes and hair, perhaps because of the proportions of that squat body of his, or the trembling at the corners of his mouth corresponding to the continuous quiver of antennae and claws.”
Gr Links to the individual story and the collection it appears in.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6...#
The Watcher and Other Stories, Italo Calvino https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/9...
The Relive Box and Other Stories, T.C. Boyle
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3...
T.C. Boyle is one of a select few writers who manages to be literary and ridiculously entertaining at the same time. He's an exuberant writer, a maximalist you might say, as opposed to a minimalist, which is a style I admire but might not be to everybody's taste. (Fwiw, Boyle was a huge early influence on my own writing.) I've read many, many dozens of his stories, and this collection did not disappoint. Each story hooks and does not let go. Favorites: "The Argentine Ant", "Surtsey", "Subtract One Death", "You Don't Miss Your Water 'Til The Well Runs Dry" (named for an old favorite song of mine), "The Designee", "Are We Not Men?" and the title story, "The Relive Box."
-------
The Argentine Ant. Story by Italo Calvino (1952), and T. C. Boyle.
There is disagreement in the scientific community as to how many ants there are in the word. But I suppose they agree: there are really, really, a lot. Fucktons upon fucktons? You bet.
With this in mind, sort of, I read the 1952 short story, The Argentine Ant, by Italo Calvino, and reread T.C. Boyle’s 2017 homage (same title). Links to the collections they appear in are at the end of this dual review. Both get 4.5 stars. Some impressions, areas of similarity, differences …
In both versions, a couple and their ill baby move elsewhere in Italy and discover that the area is infested, to put it mildly, with aggressive Argentine ants. They seek help from neighbors, from “pros”; no one has a solution. (Trying my best here to sidestep obliquely a spoiler), it turns out the Argentine Ant Control Corporation is not only inept, but has little incentive to be otherwise.
Both stories end with the man observing the sea. The last sentence:
Calvino: “I thought of the expanses of water like this, of the infinite grains of soft sand down there at the bottom of the sea where the currents leave white shells washed clean by the waves.”
Boyle: “Here was a gathering force that predated everything that moved on this earth, the waves beating at the shore until even the solidest stone was reduced to grains, each a fraction of the size of an ant and each lying there inert on the seabed, stretching on, clean and austere, to infinity.”
Calvino’s story is 40 pages, Boyle’s about 25 and his characteristic prose is denser, which you get a taste of in that last sentence. Calvino, with more pages and (comparative) minimalism, has loads more room for details, eg., about the elaborate ant traps, and to show the neighbors laughing about the absurdity of their situation. In short, with their helplessness against nature, against a government body as immovable as any mass of ants, Calvino displays his avowed debt to Kafka.
Boyle’s story has the same “bones,” and almost identical character names, but the tone is different, and he changes some details—the locale is less rural; he subtly moves the story forward in time; the man is a mathematician and his wife gets a name (updating Calvino’s “the wife”, over and over, “the wife”); the neighbors sunbathe nearly nude; the Captain (the guy with all the elaborate ant traps) is interestingly now a retired employee of the Mexican cartel, an “invader” like the ants.
Whereas the original story is more Kafka-ish, Boyle’s focuses a bit more on the horror (he is great at any genre), and on, man against nature, on folks seeking greener pastures, both being common Boyle themes. In C’s story, the baby has an unspecified illness. Boyle, sadistically and brilliantly, gives the child a rare, hyper-sensitivity to … wait for it … touch! Oh my. Poor kid.
But Calvino gets my favorite lines, describing Sr. Baudolino: “I realized why he had made such a strange impression on me at first sight: he looked like an ant … perhaps it was because of the dull black of his clothes and hair, perhaps because of the proportions of that squat body of his, or the trembling at the corners of his mouth corresponding to the continuous quiver of antennae and claws.”
Gr Links to the individual story and the collection it appears in.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6...#
The Watcher and Other Stories, Italo Calvino https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/9...
The Relive Box and Other Stories, T.C. Boyle
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3...
January 15, 2018
Two stars for the occasional interesting take on future technology and events. Every female character was introduced by descriptors of how fuckable or not they work and most stories they only existed for the man to have sex with, cheat with, or withhold sex from. I wanted to feel any kind of emotion for the stories, whether anger at a character, pity, sympathy, anything, positive or negative. I could not engage.
Just not my cup of tea.
Just not my cup of tea.
May 14, 2022
Like Edgar Alan Poe, short stories for Boyle provide the optimal form for the one inch Bruce Lee punch. This collection, read effectively by the author, are knockouts. He delivers creative, fertile plots like Philip K. Dick but adds lol humor like Pynchon.
I’m trying to throw around my favorite names to lure in first time Boyle readers. Along with Jonathan Lethem, Wallace, Dexter Palmer and Sam Lipsyte, he constitutes part of our generation’s many headed Twain.
I’m trying to throw around my favorite names to lure in first time Boyle readers. Along with Jonathan Lethem, Wallace, Dexter Palmer and Sam Lipsyte, he constitutes part of our generation’s many headed Twain.
Read
May 2, 2022The standout stories here are the two straight science-fiction ones, both first published in the New Yorker. Both are still available online:
*"The Relive Box" (2014) is a variant of the old SF time-viewer trope. The twist here is that the only past you can view is your own. The story posits that reliving your own life is addictive. 4 stars.
Online copy: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/20...
*"Are We Not Men?"(2016?) is a gene-mod story set in the suburbs, and opens with a dog "the color of a maraschino cherry" that has just killed a neighbor's pet, a miniature pig. The story moves on to selecting the options for a couple's first child. Very nice slice-of-future-suburban-life story, 4+ stars. Online copy: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/20...
*"The Argentine Ant" is an elaborate, surrealistic story of a vacation rental gone bad. 2.6 stars.
*"She's the Bomb" is a short college-student angst story. The protag calls in a bomb threat to her graduation ceremony. It doesn't turn out well for her. 2 stars.
"The Five Pound Burrito," about what it says. Well-written but pointless. 2 stars.
"The Fugitive," about a gardener, sick with TB, who is resisting treatment. Eh, 2 stars.
I'm not sure I'll continue with the lit-fic stories. But if you haven't seen the two SF stories, you should borrow a library copy and read them. And, who knows, you might like some of the others too.
Returned unfinished, 2/13/18.
*"The Relive Box" (2014) is a variant of the old SF time-viewer trope. The twist here is that the only past you can view is your own. The story posits that reliving your own life is addictive. 4 stars.
Online copy: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/20...
*"Are We Not Men?"(2016?) is a gene-mod story set in the suburbs, and opens with a dog "the color of a maraschino cherry" that has just killed a neighbor's pet, a miniature pig. The story moves on to selecting the options for a couple's first child. Very nice slice-of-future-suburban-life story, 4+ stars. Online copy: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/20...
*"The Argentine Ant" is an elaborate, surrealistic story of a vacation rental gone bad. 2.6 stars.
*"She's the Bomb" is a short college-student angst story. The protag calls in a bomb threat to her graduation ceremony. It doesn't turn out well for her. 2 stars.
"The Five Pound Burrito," about what it says. Well-written but pointless. 2 stars.
"The Fugitive," about a gardener, sick with TB, who is resisting treatment. Eh, 2 stars.
I'm not sure I'll continue with the lit-fic stories. But if you haven't seen the two SF stories, you should borrow a library copy and read them. And, who knows, you might like some of the others too.
Returned unfinished, 2/13/18.
February 27, 2019
T.C. Boyle has better short story collections than this. Most of these found me wanting more from the ending. Best stories to be found here is The Relive Box, which I heard him read aloud at the LA Times festival of books a few years back and is fantastic, The Argentine Ant and The Designee. The others are forgettable.
March 21, 2018
T.C. Boyle is pretty much unparalleled, in my mind, when it comes to drawing readers quickly and deeply into the minds and circumstances of his characters. Almost all of these stories embody what I've come to expect from the author: gritty, character-based tales that deliver an emotional punch without ever being overly obvious. Some were downright haunting, like "The Argentine Ant" and "The Fugitive."
Boyle proves that tension in a story can come from the smallest of details, as in "Theft and Other Issues," in which we watch a widower's concept of himself gradually eroded. The two speculative fiction pieces (one of which I read when it first appeared in The New Yorker) are, to my view, not quite as strong as some of the realistic stories, but are still engaging.
Boyle proves that tension in a story can come from the smallest of details, as in "Theft and Other Issues," in which we watch a widower's concept of himself gradually eroded. The two speculative fiction pieces (one of which I read when it first appeared in The New Yorker) are, to my view, not quite as strong as some of the realistic stories, but are still engaging.
December 12, 2020
As always with collections of short stories, there are better and not so good ones in this volume. I was impressed, for example, by the story in which a man takes a diary in the house of a deceased neighbor and thus gains insight into his tragic past. I was less taken by, for instance, the story of a senile victim of the Nigeria Connection who is deprived of his fortune by means of telephone fraud.
It is indisputable that Boyle is a skilled writer. With mostly simple words and sentences, he manages to put the lives and feelings of the protagonists on paper. Contrary to what the blurb suggests, not all of the stories have a futuristic, dystopian feel with "black-mirror touch". Many are simply set in the here and now. Overall, an interesting, entertaining collection that I would recommend also to non-Boyle fans.
It is indisputable that Boyle is a skilled writer. With mostly simple words and sentences, he manages to put the lives and feelings of the protagonists on paper. Contrary to what the blurb suggests, not all of the stories have a futuristic, dystopian feel with "black-mirror touch". Many are simply set in the here and now. Overall, an interesting, entertaining collection that I would recommend also to non-Boyle fans.
June 29, 2016
I kept thinking how funny it was that the people and the system he so hated were actually trying to help him, though if only to protect themselves. Here is a case where it's vital to care for a fellow human being ... but only because they have to be cured of something bad for you. It's a selfish empathy is the only way I can describe it.
Ultimately we're dealing with a story of being trapped by death which is inevitable for us all. Marciano may be dying quicker than the rest of us, but it's all the same, isn't it? Yet one layer down we're also dealing with a story of an immigrant - and here we get parallels with Kafka's The Metamorphosis - who is seen as a pest in a society that wants to "clean" him. He's not just sick with tuberculous, but with being Mexican (to be absolutely blunt).
I think it's important to also consider that this story is told only from the point of view of Marciano. We never get any hint what other characters are thinking, though we can infer their motives (the bartender probably talked to someone about the guy coughing in his bar), and so we feel trapped along with Marciano, a man who doesn't really speak the language, who lives on the edges of a beautiful and clean California, and so sees most people around him as out to get him. He even thinks about paranoia later in the story, so we feel how alone he is.
Now what's funny is that he isn't alone, there are a whole lot of very professional people who are very interested in him, but only because they want (need) to cure him. Once he's cured they'll be done with him, but for now he's the most popular lonely guy in California.
And there is a slight religious parallel here with the idea of being cured equaling being saved, where he has to do serious penance to be "better" or at least be converted well enough to be tolerated by the conquerors. I even thought of Moses from the line: "It was like climbing a mountain backward - no matter how many steps you took you never got to see the peak." There's sort of a Moses image here, the mountain where he takes his commandments (his medicine from the godlike doctor), but Moses got to see Jerusalem and he doesn't think he will see a promised land.
And considering how terrifying the death image is at the end I think he knew quite well there was no promised land. He was literally a throwaway human drinking not from the fountain of life, but from a busted sprinkler people use to care more for the grass than for the people walking on it.
Something else to consider - and this would address any possible racism (towards either Mexican's or white people) is that Marciano is in the wrong and he's literally and actually doing a bad thing. He really is sick and he needs to be cured. Had Marciano been given some non-specific ailment then we could blame the author for having an agenda and making the Mexicans the "good guys" and the whites the "bad guys". But it's much more complicated here. Marciano rightly feels trapped, but he's wrong. People want to help him, but they're only doing it to save themselves - which they weren't able to do when he spits on them.
And since we don't get any real characterization here, his being so in the wrong makes up for a lack of moral exploration. We can only deal with the situation and read into it what we will. And what we see is complicated: the Mexican laborer is uneducated and paranoid of the white people trying to help him, the white people are not really caring people, they just don't want to die. Yet he is being helped and they are helping him, so is the fact that the health workers are only being selfish a bad thing? Does a good deed done for a selfish reason cease to be a good deed?
What I also feel is important here is that trapped feeling that so many people feel. I currently work with an entire team of Mexican and South American laborers who do housekeeping for the company I work for - I am their in-house supervisor, not their boss (hefe) - and all of them have told me stories of how they are taken advantage of and there is nothing they can do.
For example I have to grade their work everyday on a very strict scale and if that scale falls below a certain threshold for whatever reason they get a bad mark. Now I have to grade their work as it is even if I know full well there were circumstances beyond anyone's control that led to the bad mark. And when I grade them bad they get in trouble. So when they are only given half the amount of people needed to do a job they get marked bad because the work wasn't done and they get blamed and then fired. Meanwhile the hefe (their actual employer) keeps the money that could have been used to pay more workers and he knows his contract with us guarantees his income. These people are being literally used.
And so what am I supposed to do? Grade them good even though it's bad work? Then I lose my job. And am I going to sacrifice my income in a battle I can't win? Yet I know they get mad at me when I grade them bad and they see me as part of the system they know is unfair.
We're not allowed to even be human anymore - we're all treated like animals, and we treat each other like animals, and we just look out for ourselves, and it's what is wrong with the world. It's a terrible, unfair system and I hate it. And it really exists. And it's killing people.
Ultimately we're dealing with a story of being trapped by death which is inevitable for us all. Marciano may be dying quicker than the rest of us, but it's all the same, isn't it? Yet one layer down we're also dealing with a story of an immigrant - and here we get parallels with Kafka's The Metamorphosis - who is seen as a pest in a society that wants to "clean" him. He's not just sick with tuberculous, but with being Mexican (to be absolutely blunt).
I think it's important to also consider that this story is told only from the point of view of Marciano. We never get any hint what other characters are thinking, though we can infer their motives (the bartender probably talked to someone about the guy coughing in his bar), and so we feel trapped along with Marciano, a man who doesn't really speak the language, who lives on the edges of a beautiful and clean California, and so sees most people around him as out to get him. He even thinks about paranoia later in the story, so we feel how alone he is.
Now what's funny is that he isn't alone, there are a whole lot of very professional people who are very interested in him, but only because they want (need) to cure him. Once he's cured they'll be done with him, but for now he's the most popular lonely guy in California.
And there is a slight religious parallel here with the idea of being cured equaling being saved, where he has to do serious penance to be "better" or at least be converted well enough to be tolerated by the conquerors. I even thought of Moses from the line: "It was like climbing a mountain backward - no matter how many steps you took you never got to see the peak." There's sort of a Moses image here, the mountain where he takes his commandments (his medicine from the godlike doctor), but Moses got to see Jerusalem and he doesn't think he will see a promised land.
And considering how terrifying the death image is at the end I think he knew quite well there was no promised land. He was literally a throwaway human drinking not from the fountain of life, but from a busted sprinkler people use to care more for the grass than for the people walking on it.
Something else to consider - and this would address any possible racism (towards either Mexican's or white people) is that Marciano is in the wrong and he's literally and actually doing a bad thing. He really is sick and he needs to be cured. Had Marciano been given some non-specific ailment then we could blame the author for having an agenda and making the Mexicans the "good guys" and the whites the "bad guys". But it's much more complicated here. Marciano rightly feels trapped, but he's wrong. People want to help him, but they're only doing it to save themselves - which they weren't able to do when he spits on them.
And since we don't get any real characterization here, his being so in the wrong makes up for a lack of moral exploration. We can only deal with the situation and read into it what we will. And what we see is complicated: the Mexican laborer is uneducated and paranoid of the white people trying to help him, the white people are not really caring people, they just don't want to die. Yet he is being helped and they are helping him, so is the fact that the health workers are only being selfish a bad thing? Does a good deed done for a selfish reason cease to be a good deed?
What I also feel is important here is that trapped feeling that so many people feel. I currently work with an entire team of Mexican and South American laborers who do housekeeping for the company I work for - I am their in-house supervisor, not their boss (hefe) - and all of them have told me stories of how they are taken advantage of and there is nothing they can do.
For example I have to grade their work everyday on a very strict scale and if that scale falls below a certain threshold for whatever reason they get a bad mark. Now I have to grade their work as it is even if I know full well there were circumstances beyond anyone's control that led to the bad mark. And when I grade them bad they get in trouble. So when they are only given half the amount of people needed to do a job they get marked bad because the work wasn't done and they get blamed and then fired. Meanwhile the hefe (their actual employer) keeps the money that could have been used to pay more workers and he knows his contract with us guarantees his income. These people are being literally used.
And so what am I supposed to do? Grade them good even though it's bad work? Then I lose my job. And am I going to sacrifice my income in a battle I can't win? Yet I know they get mad at me when I grade them bad and they see me as part of the system they know is unfair.
We're not allowed to even be human anymore - we're all treated like animals, and we treat each other like animals, and we just look out for ourselves, and it's what is wrong with the world. It's a terrible, unfair system and I hate it. And it really exists. And it's killing people.
June 2, 2022
Insightful and vivid, as Boyle always is. Some stories in this collection - Are We Not Men, The Five-Pound Burrito, The Argentine Ant - were 5-star stories for me. But even when others didn’t move the meter in the way that those did, they were still packed with Boyle’s unique understanding of humanity and all the foibles that define characters and moments. Boyle is a master storyteller.
March 26, 2020
Great writing. I loved the different voices of all the stories, as if they had been written by different authors. As with all collections, I was more enamored with some stories than others, but overall, a solid anthology.
May 7, 2019
VERY ENTERTAINING.
“The library is one of my favorite buildings in town, a sandstone monument to culture and learning built in a time when people cared about such things.”—from Theft and Other Issues (Kindle Location 2,005)
The Relive Box and Other Stories is a collection of twelve entertaining short stories by master story teller, T. C. Boyle, two of which—The Relive Box and the Five-Pound Burrito I’ve been fortunate to have seen performed by the author, himself, at various book festivals.
Recommendation: It’s always easy to recommend the stories of T. C. Boyle.
Ecco. Kindle Edition, 272 pages, 3,984 Kindle Locations
“The library is one of my favorite buildings in town, a sandstone monument to culture and learning built in a time when people cared about such things.”—from Theft and Other Issues (Kindle Location 2,005)
The Relive Box and Other Stories is a collection of twelve entertaining short stories by master story teller, T. C. Boyle, two of which—The Relive Box and the Five-Pound Burrito I’ve been fortunate to have seen performed by the author, himself, at various book festivals.
Recommendation: It’s always easy to recommend the stories of T. C. Boyle.
Ecco. Kindle Edition, 272 pages, 3,984 Kindle Locations
March 7, 2020
Ich konnte nur wenige der 12 Kurzgeschichten lesen, viele habe ich sofort abgebrochen – sie waren zu grotesk unrealistisch oder komplett sciencefiktional, u.a. Are we not Men, Argentine Ant und Five Pound Burrito. Keine Geschichte erreicht die Qualität Boylescher Romane wie Wassermusik (1981), The Road to Wellville (1993) oder Grün ist die Hoffnung (1984).
Geschichten, die ich gelesen habe:
Schwachsinnige Studentin torpediert Examensfeier mit Bombendrohungen
Einem Mann wird das Auto gestohlen, in dem der Hund seiner Freundin saß – sehr nüchtern, teilweise spannend, kaum exzentrisch, meine Lieblingsgeschichte aus allen drei Boyle-Kurzgeschichten-Bänden, die ich probiert habe, wenn auch mit schwachem Ende
Die Deutsche Ausgabe Sind wir nicht Menschen enthält mehr Geschichten als die englische Version The Relive Box.
Assoziationen:
Boyles frühere Kurzgeschichtensammlung Tod durch Ertrinken/Descent of Man (1979) wirkt ebenfalls im Ton aufgeblasen und absurd unrealistisch.
Geschichten, die ich gelesen habe:
Schwachsinnige Studentin torpediert Examensfeier mit Bombendrohungen
Einem Mann wird das Auto gestohlen, in dem der Hund seiner Freundin saß – sehr nüchtern, teilweise spannend, kaum exzentrisch, meine Lieblingsgeschichte aus allen drei Boyle-Kurzgeschichten-Bänden, die ich probiert habe, wenn auch mit schwachem Ende
Die Deutsche Ausgabe Sind wir nicht Menschen enthält mehr Geschichten als die englische Version The Relive Box.
Assoziationen:
Boyles frühere Kurzgeschichtensammlung Tod durch Ertrinken/Descent of Man (1979) wirkt ebenfalls im Ton aufgeblasen und absurd unrealistisch.
February 12, 2018
This seems like Boyle's throwaway pile of stories that an editor wanted to publish. That being said, TC Boyle is a hell of a writer, so these are not bad reading!
November 29, 2017
T.C. Boyle is the Modern Incarnation of P.G. Wodehouse
This was my introduction to T.C. Boyle - and it was a good one. Although he is apparently known for his novels - this short story collection showed me his brilliance. He is P.G. Wodehouse - to a small fault, which I'll get to later.
First - on how I rated each tale:
* The Relive Box - 4/5 - Sets the tone. Solid, titular beginning tale with a solid premise.
* She's the Bomb - 3/5 - Texting tale
* Are We Note Men? - 6/5 - Might be the best of the collection. Great near-future premise, fills its potential and then some
* The Five-Pound Burrito - 6/5 - Great tale, gave it an extra point because of its banal premise - a man makes a big burrito - it takes a lot to make a tale like this breathtaking.
* The Argentine Ant - 4/5 - Disquieiting, but good.
* Surtsey - 3/5 - Not bad
* Theft and Other Issues - 5/5 - Straightforward premise, great tale
* Subtract one Death - 4/5 - Good tale, hard to like characters
* You Won't Miss Your Water ('Til the Well Runs Dry) - 5/5 Straightforward premise, great tale
* The Designee - 4/5 - Eesh great tale but not a lot of fun
* Warrior Jesus - 4/5 - See Above
* The Fugitive - 3/5 - Double see above
In short - great collection. The only minor - minor minor - fault I can find is that like Wodehouse - Boyle's tales achieve a near constancy of quality. They hit the right notes at the right time, and kind of are what you expect. There is no 1922-type tale in here to stretch his boundaries, at least not in this collection.
But still - great. Boyle is known as the master. Read The Relive Box and you'll see why.
This was my introduction to T.C. Boyle - and it was a good one. Although he is apparently known for his novels - this short story collection showed me his brilliance. He is P.G. Wodehouse - to a small fault, which I'll get to later.
First - on how I rated each tale:
* The Relive Box - 4/5 - Sets the tone. Solid, titular beginning tale with a solid premise.
* She's the Bomb - 3/5 - Texting tale
* Are We Note Men? - 6/5 - Might be the best of the collection. Great near-future premise, fills its potential and then some
* The Five-Pound Burrito - 6/5 - Great tale, gave it an extra point because of its banal premise - a man makes a big burrito - it takes a lot to make a tale like this breathtaking.
* The Argentine Ant - 4/5 - Disquieiting, but good.
* Surtsey - 3/5 - Not bad
* Theft and Other Issues - 5/5 - Straightforward premise, great tale
* Subtract one Death - 4/5 - Good tale, hard to like characters
* You Won't Miss Your Water ('Til the Well Runs Dry) - 5/5 Straightforward premise, great tale
* The Designee - 4/5 - Eesh great tale but not a lot of fun
* Warrior Jesus - 4/5 - See Above
* The Fugitive - 3/5 - Double see above
In short - great collection. The only minor - minor minor - fault I can find is that like Wodehouse - Boyle's tales achieve a near constancy of quality. They hit the right notes at the right time, and kind of are what you expect. There is no 1922-type tale in here to stretch his boundaries, at least not in this collection.
But still - great. Boyle is known as the master. Read The Relive Box and you'll see why.
January 13, 2018
Not my favourite of his, and I am trying to be a completist, but this is a quite enjoyable, zany, and at times quite poignant most recent collection of TC's. Nothing here as tight as his contemporary classics "56-0", "Filthy With Things" or "Balto", but then that would be holding these outings to a VERY high standard indeed. If you don't know his work, start with these (all in that huge brick Collected Stories I I believe [and yes, there is also a brick #2]), or with his novels Drop City or The Tortilla Curtain.
April 9, 2020
Well, Boyle does it again! These are some of his best short stories I have read so far. All of these stories have the same sense of urgency. The Relive Box is quite distressing (game addiction taken to the extreme) but what a great story! Except for The Designee, which has story line I found hard to believe (a retired maths professor victim of a Nigerian advance-fee scam) but then again, truth is stranger than fiction. I think these stories are definitely a must read.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
April 4, 2018
Is 12 apsakymu iveikiau tik 6. Pagrindiniai charakteriai - vyrai, beviltiskai naikinantys visa, kas jiems brangiausia. Tai suvokiantys, bet nieko nekeiciantys...Kai kurie is apsakymu fantastiniai/ distopiniai. Gal butu ir puse velnio...bet taip nudnai skaitesi...pavargau...ir meciau.
November 7, 2018
A decent collection of short stories, varied voices and some unusual narratives. Felt almost as if he were trying different things for fun. My favorites were the title story and "The Five-Pound Burrito." A few of them I started and then didn't finish.
January 5, 2020
A couple of really fun tales. A couple with a whiny wimpy voice that caused me to root for the main character's demise. Many that end without any denouement, a la modern "The New Yorker" magazine stories. Nice use of language. Sometimes quite funny.
October 10, 2017
In reality, this is probably more like 3.5 stars. When this book came through the library, the title definitely caught my attention: the idea of a "relive box" was more than a little intriguing, so I decided to pick it up. Now, I'm not usually a fan of short story collections (I tend to prefer novels), but I actually really enjoyed this book. From the title, I was expecting something a little more sci-fi, but what I got instead was a series of snapshots into human life--what is and what could be. The stories weren't necessarily either dark or hopeful. Most stories tend to fall somewhere on that spectrum, but these stories really didn't stake a certain claim in one camp or the other. These were instead short looks into the lives that T.C. Boyle imagined. Some where lighter, others were so downright psychological they were almost chilling, but all of them were masterfully written. This is the first time I've ever read anything by this author, but I will definitely be looking for more works by him. So many times, while I was reading, I couldn't help but think, "Wow, that's a cool way of looking at that," especially when it came to Boyle's descriptions. I was also amazed with how quickly Boyle made me invest in his characters; there were several stories that left me wanting to know what would happen next in those characters' lives. All in all, this is definitely worth a read if you're looking for stories that find the unusual in the everyday and leave you pondering long after you've closed the book.
Read
November 27, 2025Ich habe diesem Buch keine faire Chance gegeben weil ich erst auf Seite 76 verstanden habe dass es eine Sammlung an short stories ist (lol) und keine zusammenhängende Geschichte. Zu diesem Zeitpunkt war ich dann schon zu verwirrt von dem Buch um nochmal von vorne anzufangen. Vielleicht wann anders ein neuer Versuch...
October 9, 2017
Usually I do not choose to read books made up of short stories. They usually do not catch my attention as novels do. But something about this book made me read it, and I am happy that I did.
The stories was a window into different peoples life. They were exiting and trilling. I wondered what had happened in the persons life before the story started, and I definitely wondered how it continued. That is a treat I feel most short stories I have read lack. I therefore was quite exited to read this book.
Because the stories got me thinking it took some time to get through it. I do not recoment to just jump from one story to another, as the stories got you thinking. The best way I can explain this book is to say that it reminded me of the tv-series Black Mirror, just in writing, and I love how it pulled through.
*Copy provided by NetGalley in exchange for an honest review*
The stories was a window into different peoples life. They were exiting and trilling. I wondered what had happened in the persons life before the story started, and I definitely wondered how it continued. That is a treat I feel most short stories I have read lack. I therefore was quite exited to read this book.
Because the stories got me thinking it took some time to get through it. I do not recoment to just jump from one story to another, as the stories got you thinking. The best way I can explain this book is to say that it reminded me of the tv-series Black Mirror, just in writing, and I love how it pulled through.
*Copy provided by NetGalley in exchange for an honest review*
June 21, 2021
Very enjoyable collection. Glad I read it!
February 11, 2018
For the first time, I am mildly disappointed in a book by T. C. Boyle.
This is his tenth book of short stories and a couple of the twelve stories therein fall a little flat. One I just simply didn't care for ("Are We Not Men?") because I couldn't really figure out what it was *supposed* to be about. The other, I appreciated the general concept, but think the execution fell a little flat ("Warrior Jesus").
With that said, there are some gems here:
--"She's The Bomb" in which a young woman would rather create a campus-wide panic than admit to her mother that she will not be graduating
--"Surtsey" in which an entire town is evacuated into the high school after a freak flood decimates the area
--"Theft and Other Issues" (possibly my favorite in this collection) in which a man's car is stolen. With a dog inside. His girlfriend's dog.
--"You Don't Miss Your Water ('Til The Well Runs Dry)" in which a married couple discovers, during a years-long drought that their neighbor has been stealing their water
And
--"The Fugitive" in which an immigrant is continually arrested for not following a strict regiment of medication and physical activity
The stories here are certainly more whimsical than the collections in the past. Boyle's work is usually darkly funny, but the writer mines a lot of humor this time around in absurdity. The differences are subtle and may only be noticeable to regular readers of his work.
Really, the big issue here for me is that I love Boyle's work and I am continually impressed with both his novels and his short stories. This collection is good, but nothing wowed me the way some of his past story collections have. I think that if I were to compile a Boyle short story "greatest hits" collection, it's possible that only one or two of these stories would make the cut.
If you are interested in Boyle's short stories (and I recommend them very highly) start with "Tooth and Claw" or "After The Plague". Don't start here.
This is his tenth book of short stories and a couple of the twelve stories therein fall a little flat. One I just simply didn't care for ("Are We Not Men?") because I couldn't really figure out what it was *supposed* to be about. The other, I appreciated the general concept, but think the execution fell a little flat ("Warrior Jesus").
With that said, there are some gems here:
--"She's The Bomb" in which a young woman would rather create a campus-wide panic than admit to her mother that she will not be graduating
--"Surtsey" in which an entire town is evacuated into the high school after a freak flood decimates the area
--"Theft and Other Issues" (possibly my favorite in this collection) in which a man's car is stolen. With a dog inside. His girlfriend's dog.
--"You Don't Miss Your Water ('Til The Well Runs Dry)" in which a married couple discovers, during a years-long drought that their neighbor has been stealing their water
And
--"The Fugitive" in which an immigrant is continually arrested for not following a strict regiment of medication and physical activity
The stories here are certainly more whimsical than the collections in the past. Boyle's work is usually darkly funny, but the writer mines a lot of humor this time around in absurdity. The differences are subtle and may only be noticeable to regular readers of his work.
Really, the big issue here for me is that I love Boyle's work and I am continually impressed with both his novels and his short stories. This collection is good, but nothing wowed me the way some of his past story collections have. I think that if I were to compile a Boyle short story "greatest hits" collection, it's possible that only one or two of these stories would make the cut.
If you are interested in Boyle's short stories (and I recommend them very highly) start with "Tooth and Claw" or "After The Plague". Don't start here.
September 2, 2020
UM WAS ES GEHT …
Wie bereits erwähnt, handelt es sich hierbei um eine Sammlung von Kurzgeschichten, dabei drehen sich alle Storys um typische US-Bürger und ihr Leben. Dabei sind es alles sehr unterschiedliche Szenarien und Menschen, denen wir hier begegnen.
Einmal fällt ein alter Witwer auf eine Betrugsmasche rein, dann geht es um eine Ameisenplage mit der sich ein Mathematiker und seine Familie rumärgern und ein Protagonist schafft es fast zu ertrinken, als er versucht Kanu zu fahren.
Insgesamt sind es 19 Geschichten, die hier versammelt sind und als Hörbuch hat es eine länge von knapp 9 Stunden.
WIRKLICH INTERESSANT WAR:
Aber was wirklich interessant war, war der Blick des Autors auf die neue, moderne Welt, bzw. auf eine mögliche Zukunft.
An der Stelle wurde er auch sehr dystopisch und bizarr, als es um Hundkatzen geht (neue Kreation für Haustiere), um Kinder aus Katalogen oder die Klimakrise. Diese Aspekte, bzw. diese Ideen von ihm und ihre Umsetzung fand ich am interessantesten an den Kurzgeschichten, wobei es ein paar Geschichten gab, die ich eher als “nett” beschreiben würde.
Doch bei ganzen 19 Storys, ist es normal, dass einem nicht alles gefallen kann. Besonders dann, wenn sich alle sehr voneinander unterscheiden.
Für mich war es mein erstes Werk von ihm und ich war oft wirklich begeistert von der Vielfalt und dem Ideenreichtum des Autors, auch dass er in eine Kurzgeschichte so viel Atmosphäre und Bild packen konnte. Die Charaktere waren greifbar, ob würde ich sie schon lange kennen und der Stil des Autors hat was an sich, dass man sich schlecht losreisen kann.
DER SPRECHER IM HÖRBUCH
Ich hatte es als Hörbuch zur Hand und der Sprecher ist Florian Lukas, der eine sehr klare Stimme hat. Er ist für mich neu, bis jetzt hatte ich ihn noch nicht gehört und am Anfang war er mir befremdlich.
Irgendwie wünschte ich mir eine Stimme die wärmer klang und besonders bei der ersten Geschichte gefiel er mir nicht sonderlich. Erst mit den nächsten Kurzgeschichten wurde es besser und ich konnte mich letztendlich an ihn gewöhnen, da er auch gut die Gefühle Überraschung, Verwirrung und dergleichen rüberbringen kann.
Aber ich werde nicht nach einem Hörbuch greifen, weil sein Name darauf steht.
FAZIT
Mit dieser Sammlung an Kurzgeschichten hat mir T.C. Boyle gezeigt, dass er ein Autor ist, den man im Regal haben muss. Er ist vielseitig, hat Humor und bewegt einen auf vielen Ebenen mit seinen Geschichten! Auf jeden Fall werde ich ihn in Zukunft öfters lesen!
Wie bereits erwähnt, handelt es sich hierbei um eine Sammlung von Kurzgeschichten, dabei drehen sich alle Storys um typische US-Bürger und ihr Leben. Dabei sind es alles sehr unterschiedliche Szenarien und Menschen, denen wir hier begegnen.
Einmal fällt ein alter Witwer auf eine Betrugsmasche rein, dann geht es um eine Ameisenplage mit der sich ein Mathematiker und seine Familie rumärgern und ein Protagonist schafft es fast zu ertrinken, als er versucht Kanu zu fahren.
Insgesamt sind es 19 Geschichten, die hier versammelt sind und als Hörbuch hat es eine länge von knapp 9 Stunden.
WIRKLICH INTERESSANT WAR:
Aber was wirklich interessant war, war der Blick des Autors auf die neue, moderne Welt, bzw. auf eine mögliche Zukunft.
An der Stelle wurde er auch sehr dystopisch und bizarr, als es um Hundkatzen geht (neue Kreation für Haustiere), um Kinder aus Katalogen oder die Klimakrise. Diese Aspekte, bzw. diese Ideen von ihm und ihre Umsetzung fand ich am interessantesten an den Kurzgeschichten, wobei es ein paar Geschichten gab, die ich eher als “nett” beschreiben würde.
Doch bei ganzen 19 Storys, ist es normal, dass einem nicht alles gefallen kann. Besonders dann, wenn sich alle sehr voneinander unterscheiden.
Für mich war es mein erstes Werk von ihm und ich war oft wirklich begeistert von der Vielfalt und dem Ideenreichtum des Autors, auch dass er in eine Kurzgeschichte so viel Atmosphäre und Bild packen konnte. Die Charaktere waren greifbar, ob würde ich sie schon lange kennen und der Stil des Autors hat was an sich, dass man sich schlecht losreisen kann.
DER SPRECHER IM HÖRBUCH
Ich hatte es als Hörbuch zur Hand und der Sprecher ist Florian Lukas, der eine sehr klare Stimme hat. Er ist für mich neu, bis jetzt hatte ich ihn noch nicht gehört und am Anfang war er mir befremdlich.
Irgendwie wünschte ich mir eine Stimme die wärmer klang und besonders bei der ersten Geschichte gefiel er mir nicht sonderlich. Erst mit den nächsten Kurzgeschichten wurde es besser und ich konnte mich letztendlich an ihn gewöhnen, da er auch gut die Gefühle Überraschung, Verwirrung und dergleichen rüberbringen kann.
Aber ich werde nicht nach einem Hörbuch greifen, weil sein Name darauf steht.
FAZIT
Mit dieser Sammlung an Kurzgeschichten hat mir T.C. Boyle gezeigt, dass er ein Autor ist, den man im Regal haben muss. Er ist vielseitig, hat Humor und bewegt einen auf vielen Ebenen mit seinen Geschichten! Auf jeden Fall werde ich ihn in Zukunft öfters lesen!
October 12, 2017
The Relive Box and Other Stories by T. C. Boyle is a highly recommended collection of twelve short stories.
Contents include:
The Relive Box: A device that allows people to revisit and relive scenes from their past slowly takes over their current lives.
She's the Bomb: A non-graduating college senior goes to desperate measures to stop the ceremony.
Are We Not Men? In a future where people custom-design children and pets through transgenic reproduction.
The Five-Pound Burrito: A magic realism tale of a man who has a vision to offer his customers a five pound burrito.
The Argentine Ant: A plague of ants invades the house a mathematician rented for his family
Surtsey: A storm is flooding the whole island and everyone is sheltered at the school.
Theft and Other Issues: A man's car is stolen with his girlfriend's dog inside it.
Subtract One Death: Death becomes too close and personal for a novelist.
You Don't Miss Your Water ('Til The Well Runs Dry): The California drought worsens and water restrictions increase.
The Designee: An elderly man falls for a scam artist's pitch.
Warrior Jesus: A man channels his anger into making disturbing comic-book superhero episodes.
The Fugitive: A man with an illness is required by authorities to wear a mask at all times.
Boyle's incredible genius is on full display in this varied collection. The topics of his stories span a vast field of topics, from technology to nature, and can be about ordinary circumstances to futuristic developments. He has the ability to capture people amid their struggles with humor, social conscious, and intelligence. This skill, combined with his strength of descriptions and the narrative voice he gives his characters, shines through in these twelve stories. I enjoyed the majority of these stories a great deal. It's always a pleasure to read a well-written short story.
Disclosure: My review copy was courtesy of HarperCollins.
Contents include:
The Relive Box: A device that allows people to revisit and relive scenes from their past slowly takes over their current lives.
She's the Bomb: A non-graduating college senior goes to desperate measures to stop the ceremony.
Are We Not Men? In a future where people custom-design children and pets through transgenic reproduction.
The Five-Pound Burrito: A magic realism tale of a man who has a vision to offer his customers a five pound burrito.
The Argentine Ant: A plague of ants invades the house a mathematician rented for his family
Surtsey: A storm is flooding the whole island and everyone is sheltered at the school.
Theft and Other Issues: A man's car is stolen with his girlfriend's dog inside it.
Subtract One Death: Death becomes too close and personal for a novelist.
You Don't Miss Your Water ('Til The Well Runs Dry): The California drought worsens and water restrictions increase.
The Designee: An elderly man falls for a scam artist's pitch.
Warrior Jesus: A man channels his anger into making disturbing comic-book superhero episodes.
The Fugitive: A man with an illness is required by authorities to wear a mask at all times.
Boyle's incredible genius is on full display in this varied collection. The topics of his stories span a vast field of topics, from technology to nature, and can be about ordinary circumstances to futuristic developments. He has the ability to capture people amid their struggles with humor, social conscious, and intelligence. This skill, combined with his strength of descriptions and the narrative voice he gives his characters, shines through in these twelve stories. I enjoyed the majority of these stories a great deal. It's always a pleasure to read a well-written short story.
Disclosure: My review copy was courtesy of HarperCollins.
October 22, 2022
19 Kurzgeschichten von T C Boyle. Viele davon sehr lesenswert, einige aber auch ziemlich vorhersehbar und eher uninteressant. Meine Top 3 sind diese:
„Wiedererleben“ (engl. „Revive“) ist die Titelgeschichte der englischen Ausgabe und handelt von einem Vater, der einer Home-Entertainment-Konsole erliegt, mit dem der Benutzer Erinnerungen in Echtzeit wiedererleben kann. Beängstigend, die Vorstellung, so süchtig nach vergangenen Episoden seines Lebens zu werden.
Sehr unterhaltsam die Titelgeschichte der deutschen Ausgabe „Sind wir nicht Menschen?“. Sie zeigt eine Zukunft, in der Menschen Kinder und Haustiere durch transgene Reproduktion individuell gestalten. (Hab‘s nachgeschlagen: „als transgen wird ein Organismus bezeichnet, in dessen Genom ein Gen einer anderen Spezies integriert wurde.“) Der Ärger beginnt, als ein kirschroter Pitbull ein Mikroschwein angreift.
Die traurigste Geschichte ist „Der Beauftragte“, in der ein einsamer Witwer von Telefonbetrügern langsam um die Ersparnisse seines Lebens gebracht wird.
T C Boyle ist schon ein saucooler Autor. Weil diese Sammlung auch ein paar wenige Langweiler enthält gibt es einen Punkt Abzug.
„Wiedererleben“ (engl. „Revive“) ist die Titelgeschichte der englischen Ausgabe und handelt von einem Vater, der einer Home-Entertainment-Konsole erliegt, mit dem der Benutzer Erinnerungen in Echtzeit wiedererleben kann. Beängstigend, die Vorstellung, so süchtig nach vergangenen Episoden seines Lebens zu werden.
Sehr unterhaltsam die Titelgeschichte der deutschen Ausgabe „Sind wir nicht Menschen?“. Sie zeigt eine Zukunft, in der Menschen Kinder und Haustiere durch transgene Reproduktion individuell gestalten. (Hab‘s nachgeschlagen: „als transgen wird ein Organismus bezeichnet, in dessen Genom ein Gen einer anderen Spezies integriert wurde.“) Der Ärger beginnt, als ein kirschroter Pitbull ein Mikroschwein angreift.
Die traurigste Geschichte ist „Der Beauftragte“, in der ein einsamer Witwer von Telefonbetrügern langsam um die Ersparnisse seines Lebens gebracht wird.
T C Boyle ist schon ein saucooler Autor. Weil diese Sammlung auch ein paar wenige Langweiler enthält gibt es einen Punkt Abzug.
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