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A Circle is a Balloon and Compass Both
From the author of Superbad and Superworse, a new collection of stories about giving, wanting, and the wonders of love.A Circle Is a Balloon and Compass Both is a collection of stories about love, the most elusive and problematic of all phenomena. With a mix of traditional, literary prose and bold - some might even say irresponsible - experimentation, Ben Greenman explores the ins and outs of modern romance. Expect tears, nudity, and recrimination.Both familiar in their humanness and wholly original, these imaginative stories take us all over the map in time, place, and circumstance. From the halfhearted summer affair between a part-time bartender and a married doctor in a Miami hotel to the cryptic pseudo-erotic love letters to a friend who is "more than a friend," we experience the love of pop songs, the love of cohabitation in Chicago, and love that is so transporting it takes us to the moon-literally.About the AuthorBen Greenman is an editor at The New Yorker. His short fiction has appeared in the Paris Review, Zoetrope: All Story, McSweeney's, Opium Magazine, the Mississippi Review, and elsewhere. He lives in Brooklyn."
- GenresFictionShort Stories
164 pages, Kindle Edition
First published April 6, 2007
2 people are currently reading
64 people want to read
About the author
Ben Greenman
51 books72 followersBen Greenman is an editor at The New Yorker whose short fiction, journalism, and essays have appeared there, The New York Times, McSweeneys, The Paris Review, and Zoetrope: All Story. He is the author of several acclaimed books of fiction, including Superbad, Superworse, A Circle is a Balloon and Compass Both, Correspondences, and the novel Please Step Back. HIs new book of stories What He's Poised To Do: Stories was published in June of 2010.
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Displaying 1 - 22 of 22 reviews
August 2, 2007
Ben Greenman's writing is often strange in a way that's very satisfying to me; like it's scratching an otherwise unstoppable itch in the back of my brain. He's always seemed comfortable thumbing his nose at form like he does in "Blurbs," the story in Superbad consisting entirely of made-up dust jacket quotes or here in pieces like "A Field Guide The North American Bigfoot," but that willful kookiness only serves to make the more standard shorts in A Circle is a Balloon and Compass Both seem weird by comparison. Still, even when he's at his most mainstream, he exhibits a gift for language and insight that make this collection more gratifying than I would have expected.
March 13, 2007
Ben likes women even more than you! This book is a very strange and smart diversion--like halloumi cheese.
March 20, 2013
“Substitutes are the strangest kind of monarch, complicit in their own overthrow…” (x).
“He took a swing at men, and landed a punch on my shoulder, but it barely hurt. Low gravity has its advantages” (7).
“This is the advice I give to all young people, including my own son: listen to others. Sometimes you are blinded by the need to advance yourself, whereas they are not” (17).
“That is not exactly true. The truth is that she was entirely not pleased” (22).
“Because the universe is only benign if you refuse to see it for what it is…” (31).
“…and that would have looked pretty spectacular, the firework of blood all over the front of his bright yellow shirt” (33).
“The song was a waltz, and Arthur Manley and his wife moved together perfectly, like two notes on a staff” (56).
“Coffee was in my stomach and the memory of the morning newspaper’s headlines was in my mind” (84).
“The word ‘enough’ wobbled in my mind until it began to look funny, like an overly formal portrait of someone you see every day” (108).
“The telephone line filled with an embolism of silence” (110).
“…and a tiny fraction of me wished that I could control myself. But then there was the vast majority, and I am a democrat of me” (110).
“Then there have been times when I was nothing and life was stale and unprofitable. ‘Like a poorly run bakery,’ my father said, stepping on the joke. My father stepped on jokes all the time. If jokes were grapes, he would have been in the wine business” (115-116).
“The children that we never had still somehow do not respect me…” (117).
“I was placed in a position of producing consolation” (135).
“…but taking events that are, in some sense, documentary, and then shifting them a few inches to the right lets me see my own life at a slight remove, where it is more easily endured” (142).
“Paula is either smarter than I or dumber, because she often asks these kinds of questions, which I can’t answer except by stammering” (144).
“He could do the voice perfectly; it was light and too sweet, like a bad dinner wine” (152).
“From his vantage—he was standing inconspicuously in the shadow of a sheet-metal elephant…” (167).
“ ‘It’s as bright as an evangelist’s teeth out here today’” (183).
“A magnanimous man would have understood that her frustration came from losing a day of work and simply let the matter drop. A less magnanimous man, a species of which he was proving himself a textbook example, understood this but pressed on nonetheless” (190).
“He typed the sentence ‘A book fell out of a passing car’ and then tried to stare it into ignition” (192).
“It is, as it claims to be, a ‘floating hotel,’ although only the most pernicious abbreviators among us will go so far as to call it a ‘floatel’” (197).
“It was only at the conclusion of a rather passionate six-minute monologue that I noticed that the phone was upside down, that I had in effect been talking into my own ear” (199).
“He’s not an actual duck. That would be something, wouldn’t it? A duck can’t sing, let alone make the most of things” (203).
“It gives a clang that is similar to the sound of a belt buckle striking a jungle gym bar that is damped by the soft hand of a naked woman who is hanging there while she is being worked over consensually by a man of her acquaintance. The Duck’s memory is very precise” (270).
“ ‘That way I don’t have to see you, which means that I don’t have to be disappointed in you’” (211).
“Boden grew up speaking an English that was not broken but rather overbuilt, with words piled on top of one another and protruding from the smooth plane of American phrases” (219-220).
“When her son came to see her, she could be useful again, and so she spent much of her time trying to convince him to come” (220).
“…and made account of the exchange through brief but robust eye contact, so that Boden felt that these were the finest men he had ever met, and he was fine among them” (220-221).
“He read not to understand, or not only, but to be understood; he hoped that a fragment of the work would, shaken out, illuminate him” (225).
“ ‘Don’t you think of love that way when it goes wrong? It’s a vase on a shelf that has, after a tremor, fallen and shattered. Would you take all the vases down or would you leave them on the shelf and bet against a major earthquake?’
“ ‘But you assume it’s the vases that are shattered,’ she said, veering a little in tone. ‘It’s not: it’s the collector’” (235).
"He could not fix on whether her tone was setting the table of the conversation or clearing it" (259-260).
*I love A Note on the Type.
“He took a swing at men, and landed a punch on my shoulder, but it barely hurt. Low gravity has its advantages” (7).
“This is the advice I give to all young people, including my own son: listen to others. Sometimes you are blinded by the need to advance yourself, whereas they are not” (17).
“That is not exactly true. The truth is that she was entirely not pleased” (22).
“Because the universe is only benign if you refuse to see it for what it is…” (31).
“…and that would have looked pretty spectacular, the firework of blood all over the front of his bright yellow shirt” (33).
“The song was a waltz, and Arthur Manley and his wife moved together perfectly, like two notes on a staff” (56).
“Coffee was in my stomach and the memory of the morning newspaper’s headlines was in my mind” (84).
“The word ‘enough’ wobbled in my mind until it began to look funny, like an overly formal portrait of someone you see every day” (108).
“The telephone line filled with an embolism of silence” (110).
“…and a tiny fraction of me wished that I could control myself. But then there was the vast majority, and I am a democrat of me” (110).
“Then there have been times when I was nothing and life was stale and unprofitable. ‘Like a poorly run bakery,’ my father said, stepping on the joke. My father stepped on jokes all the time. If jokes were grapes, he would have been in the wine business” (115-116).
“The children that we never had still somehow do not respect me…” (117).
“I was placed in a position of producing consolation” (135).
“…but taking events that are, in some sense, documentary, and then shifting them a few inches to the right lets me see my own life at a slight remove, where it is more easily endured” (142).
“Paula is either smarter than I or dumber, because she often asks these kinds of questions, which I can’t answer except by stammering” (144).
“He could do the voice perfectly; it was light and too sweet, like a bad dinner wine” (152).
“From his vantage—he was standing inconspicuously in the shadow of a sheet-metal elephant…” (167).
“ ‘It’s as bright as an evangelist’s teeth out here today’” (183).
“A magnanimous man would have understood that her frustration came from losing a day of work and simply let the matter drop. A less magnanimous man, a species of which he was proving himself a textbook example, understood this but pressed on nonetheless” (190).
“He typed the sentence ‘A book fell out of a passing car’ and then tried to stare it into ignition” (192).
“It is, as it claims to be, a ‘floating hotel,’ although only the most pernicious abbreviators among us will go so far as to call it a ‘floatel’” (197).
“It was only at the conclusion of a rather passionate six-minute monologue that I noticed that the phone was upside down, that I had in effect been talking into my own ear” (199).
“He’s not an actual duck. That would be something, wouldn’t it? A duck can’t sing, let alone make the most of things” (203).
“It gives a clang that is similar to the sound of a belt buckle striking a jungle gym bar that is damped by the soft hand of a naked woman who is hanging there while she is being worked over consensually by a man of her acquaintance. The Duck’s memory is very precise” (270).
“ ‘That way I don’t have to see you, which means that I don’t have to be disappointed in you’” (211).
“Boden grew up speaking an English that was not broken but rather overbuilt, with words piled on top of one another and protruding from the smooth plane of American phrases” (219-220).
“When her son came to see her, she could be useful again, and so she spent much of her time trying to convince him to come” (220).
“…and made account of the exchange through brief but robust eye contact, so that Boden felt that these were the finest men he had ever met, and he was fine among them” (220-221).
“He read not to understand, or not only, but to be understood; he hoped that a fragment of the work would, shaken out, illuminate him” (225).
“ ‘Don’t you think of love that way when it goes wrong? It’s a vase on a shelf that has, after a tremor, fallen and shattered. Would you take all the vases down or would you leave them on the shelf and bet against a major earthquake?’
“ ‘But you assume it’s the vases that are shattered,’ she said, veering a little in tone. ‘It’s not: it’s the collector’” (235).
"He could not fix on whether her tone was setting the table of the conversation or clearing it" (259-260).
*I love A Note on the Type.
January 5, 2013
A story collection of hilarious dry comedy, a tightly-wound wit, very interesting and articulate. Greenman, an editor at The New Yorker and a prolific writer of short fiction, delivers stories that are both classical and experimental, all centered on the human pursuit of a certain four-letter word. Often derided as a McSweeney's-esque poseur of above-it-all Brooklyn-SF literary humor, Greenman does fall into some smirking blather (the bigfoot story especially), but his skill with a whole range of tones -- funny to serious, shallow to deep, long to short -- allows his writing enough space for a really great universal neurotic drollness.
There are seven categories with two stories nested in each: Love as Art (the first story, "Black Gray Green Red Blue", and the last, "In the Air Room"), Love as Music (the second, "Oh Lord! Why Not?", and the 13th, “The Duck Knows How to Make the Most of Things"), Love as Place (the third, "Clutching and Glancing", and the 12th, "Dear X"), Love as Sport (the fourth, "Signs", and the eleventh, "Battling Cleanup"), Love as Animal (the fifth, "Contemplating a Thing About a Person", and the tenth, "A Field Guide to the North American Bigfoot"), Love as Power (the sixth, "How Little We Know About Cast Polymers, and About Life", and the ninth, "My Decorous Pornography"), and Love as Joke (the seventh, "Keep Your Eye on the Bishop", and the eighth, "The Re-Education of M. Grooms"). It's a simple and complex system at the same time.
1. "Black Gray Green Red Blue" (on the moon)
2. "Oh Lord! Why Not?" (when everyone's a songwriter, but so much more)
3. "Clutching and Glancing" (in a long languorous Miami hotel)
4. "Signs"
5. "Contemplating a Thing About a Person" (when it's all dog poo)
6. "How Little We Know About Cast Polymers, and About Life" (a thoughtful spy assassination)
7. "Keep Your Eye on the Bishop"
8. "The Re-Education of M. Grooms" (spastic Hollywood)
9. "My Decorous Pornography"
10. "A Field Guide to the North American Bigfoot" (a twee little jot, a definite misfire)
11. "Batting Cleanup" (clever but long-winded meta-writing)
12. "Dear X"
13. “The Duck Knows How to Make the Most of Things” (funny, a little bit heartbreaking, but too short and minor)
14. "In the Air Room" (paradoxes and flight)
There are seven categories with two stories nested in each: Love as Art (the first story, "Black Gray Green Red Blue", and the last, "In the Air Room"), Love as Music (the second, "Oh Lord! Why Not?", and the 13th, “The Duck Knows How to Make the Most of Things"), Love as Place (the third, "Clutching and Glancing", and the 12th, "Dear X"), Love as Sport (the fourth, "Signs", and the eleventh, "Battling Cleanup"), Love as Animal (the fifth, "Contemplating a Thing About a Person", and the tenth, "A Field Guide to the North American Bigfoot"), Love as Power (the sixth, "How Little We Know About Cast Polymers, and About Life", and the ninth, "My Decorous Pornography"), and Love as Joke (the seventh, "Keep Your Eye on the Bishop", and the eighth, "The Re-Education of M. Grooms"). It's a simple and complex system at the same time.
1. "Black Gray Green Red Blue" (on the moon)
2. "Oh Lord! Why Not?" (when everyone's a songwriter, but so much more)
3. "Clutching and Glancing" (in a long languorous Miami hotel)
4. "Signs"
5. "Contemplating a Thing About a Person" (when it's all dog poo)
6. "How Little We Know About Cast Polymers, and About Life" (a thoughtful spy assassination)
7. "Keep Your Eye on the Bishop"
8. "The Re-Education of M. Grooms" (spastic Hollywood)
9. "My Decorous Pornography"
10. "A Field Guide to the North American Bigfoot" (a twee little jot, a definite misfire)
11. "Batting Cleanup" (clever but long-winded meta-writing)
12. "Dear X"
13. “The Duck Knows How to Make the Most of Things” (funny, a little bit heartbreaking, but too short and minor)
14. "In the Air Room" (paradoxes and flight)
April 19, 2022
The first book I read from the author was "What He's Poised to Do", which astonished me. I read this book with the same expectation, and I was somehow disappointed.
Still, I liked the storytelling narration and the subtle humor. Below I am bringing three quotes that I found funny.
Still, I liked the storytelling narration and the subtle humor. Below I am bringing three quotes that I found funny.
This is why we create: to keep our demons down without banishing them entirely.
A wise man once said that a duck is a chicken that speaks Chinese. I can’t speak to that but I can say that a large head isn’t much of a drawback for a woman because it can contain, in addition to a large smile, large expressive eyes.
He had asked her once how she arranged her tapes. “The ones on the top are the ones I like; the ones I don’t like are on the bottom.” He didn’t have the heart to tell her that even her explanation was disorganized, that the two halves of the sentence weren’t parallel.
February 3, 2008
This book is not as dry nor as funny as his Superbad, but then nothing short of David Sedaris is. It is a suite of stories about love in its neatly compartmentalized forms (both love and the stories themselves, actually) and while some are touching and others a little alienating, they all resonate in a peculiar way, like an alien observer trying to explain love as it observes it. The characters in these stories don;t even quite understand their own loves, nor those of the people with which they are engaging in it. Tenderness but with nearly all the sweetness titrated out of it. Here he finds strains of love left in the loveless and in that way is a very contemporary type of romance, but don't go expecting chocolates or anything.
September 29, 2007
This is a book of short stories about love...love as power, sport, music, art, etc. There are two stories each on each topic. Seems like a good concept, right? Well, I stopped reading this book halfway through because the stories kept getting more and more abstract and frankly a little to disjointed for my tastes. Perhaps I would have found a story in the second half of the book that was absolutely outstanding and wonderful, but I had other books on my nightstand that looked a lot more appealing, so I cut my losses and gave it back to the library.
July 18, 2008
I loved about half of the stories in this collection, and was indifferent about the other half. And I feel like that's a pretty good ratio, as far as single-author short story collections go.
Greenman mixes thing up a bit tossing together traditional stories with the more playful and experimental ones. The collection was put together well, but a couple of the stories felt a little bit forced to me, as if he should have spent a little bit more time with them.
I'm going to make it a point to read his other books.
Greenman mixes thing up a bit tossing together traditional stories with the more playful and experimental ones. The collection was put together well, but a couple of the stories felt a little bit forced to me, as if he should have spent a little bit more time with them.
I'm going to make it a point to read his other books.
May 15, 2009
It's an oddball of a book, but that's what makes it so fun to read. I picked this up while waiting in line at Barnes and Nobles, and bought it just to pass the weekend. But it turned out to be something much more then I imagined it would. The short stories are all written in creative styles that I would have thought could never be pulled off, or rather never thought could be a writing style.
If you ever want something to read that is quick, witty and amazing writing (what reader doesn't?); then pick this up.
If you ever want something to read that is quick, witty and amazing writing (what reader doesn't?); then pick this up.
November 29, 2008
A collection of the type of smarmy, vaguely experimental stories that the writers from the generation slightly older than mine seem to love. While this wasn't nearly as obnoxious as everything in Daniel Handler's "Adverbs", I nonetheless experienced the same sort of eye-rolling intellectual detachment with both books. Lay off the smirky obtuseness, mid-30 somethings.
August 8, 2007
This definitely has the flavor of McSweeney's. Sometimes it's like really good McSweeney's and sometimes less good McSweeney's. I liked the first half better than the second half, but that might be due to circumstances extraneous to the book itself (like today while finishing it I slammed my thumb in a drawer and then I got a stomach ache).
May 27, 2011
An excellent collection of unusual stories, most of them simultaneously quite funny and very sad. Some are a touch too glib (there's one that appears to be mostly about dog feces, for instance), but even the gimmicky ones (notably "Field Guide to the North American Bigfoot") tend to be slightly more profound than they seem at first blush.
July 3, 2007
i had high expectations for this after reading his previous collection, and it didn't quite live up to those expectations. still, it's a decent book with some great moments and more mainstream than SUPERWORSE.
October 27, 2007
I enjoyed this book. Lots of entertaining/interesting short stories. Well written and unique. It didn't get more stars because I can't remember very much of the content... I can remember enjoying it though.
December 24, 2007
I should never have believed the bookstore staffer who recommended this book. Then I saw others recommended it..and others... Maybe I'm the odd one here. The thread between these stories and "love," as it's subtitled, is tenuous at best. I didn't get it. And I didn't like the stories either. Hmph.
August 27, 2008
some of the stories in this collection are gems, like the first one about a man who moves to the moon to get away from his lost love. but others are just kind of boring or trite. the title is what first attracted my attention.
February 4, 2008
Meh.
There were a couple stories in here that I really wanted to like...never quite worked out that way, though. Too precious.
There were a couple stories in here that I really wanted to like...never quite worked out that way, though. Too precious.
May 2, 2008
The longer, more straightforward stories, especially "Clutching and Glancing and "The Re-Education of M. Grooms", I liked a lot. The McSweeney's drollery of most of the others not so much.
May 29, 2009
a must read. a book that made me laugh and ponder life at the same time.
June 18, 2010
imaginative, playful, but with depth and acuteness of feeling - i stumbled on this book by accident and am so glad that i did.
June 29, 2012
my favorite
June 26, 2007
I enjoyed these stories very much.
Displaying 1 - 22 of 22 reviews