42 listy miłosne

by Joshua Knelman (Editor), Rosalinda Porter (Editor), Renata Smolińska (Editor)

Co się stało z listem miłosnym? Czy zdawkowe kartki, e-maile i SMS-y całkowicie zastąpiły tę romantyczną formę okazywania uczuć? Czy słowo pisane straciło swój urok w epoce cyfrowej obsesji i błyskawicznych randek? Jak kuszące mogą być słowa? I jak wygląda miłość w XXI wieku?

Oto jedyny w swoim rodzaju zbiór nigdy wcześniej niepublikowanych listów miłosnych autorstwa najsłynniejszych współczesnych pisarzy. Każdy „list” jest radykalnie różny od pozostałych, każdy jest świadectwem unikalnego stylu autora, i każdy zdoła czytelnika uwieść, wzruszyć, rozbawić…

42 listy miłosne zawierają oryginalne - publikowane po raz pierwszy - utwory tak uznanych autorów jak: Margaret Atwood, Leonard Cohen, Jeanette Winterson, Hari Kunzru, Michel Faber, Etgar Keret, Jonathan Lethem, Juli Zeh, Neil Gaiman, Ursula K. Le Guin, Gautam Malkani, Lionel Shriver i Douglas Coupland. Polskie wydanie wzbogacone zostało także o teksty Rafała Olbińskiego i Łukasza Orbitowskiego.

Genres: Short Stories, Fiction, Romance, Anthologies, Writing, Adult

312 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2007

Reviews

[Kinga · Rating 4 out of 5]

When I saw the list of authors I thought: Surely, I will love this book. Then I read the reviews and remembered I don't particularly like short stories (and imaginary love letters can be treated as such) so I thought the book would leave me indifferent. To my surprise I really enjoyed it and it would get five stars if it wasn't for a few party poopers. Now I am going to do something I never do. I am going to review every single letter in this collection with only one sentence.
Excited?
Yeah, me too.
Jonathan Lethem - A letter from Mars to Earth, I don't know what the hell that was about, I don't think I am sophisticated enough to get this weird complex metaphor.
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie - It had everything I love about Adichie's style: it was simple without being cliche, and sweet but not cheesy.
Adam Thorpe - This was pretty good as well, by that time I had high hope for this book
Lionel Shriver - Probably my favourite one in the collection, gotta love psychotic women, it would be funnier if it wasn't so true.
Dacid Bezmozgis - Meh, felt like something taken out of a novel and couldn't stand on its own without the context.
Chris Bachelder - This was extremely cheesy and trying to be original and ending up being quite the opposite, women writers couldn't get away with stuff like that but it is ok for men apparently
A.L. Kennedy - Don't remember, don't care
Jeff Parker - Really funny and original, I need to check him out, who the hell is this guy?
Francine Prose - Rah, rah, rah, this is what happens when you date an 'artist', the heroine should know that - artists are dicks!
Graham Roumieu - Bigfoot writing a love letter to Santa, WTF in a good way
Gautam Malkani - Amateurish and either I am not very smart or it didn't even make sense.
Miriam Toews - This would have been better if it was a full lenght novel.
James Robertson - OH my god, a love letter to Scottish mountains, what a load of boring, pretentious crap, definitely a partypooper
Etgar Keret - Seems like an exercise in writing, good writing though so gets a pass
Mandy Sayer - Bookclub favourite - you know the type?
Jeanette Winterson - This is exactly what I expected from Winterson, even though I have never actually read anything by her.
Michel Faber - You know when middle aged men write about from a young woman POV (especially young woman from some far away place like Ukraine or Thailand) and you enjoy it a little but the feminist in you wants to slap the author?
Hisham Matar - Nice, however I don't have much to say about it.
Geoff Dyer - An asshole's attempt at a love letter - brilliant.
Matthew Zapruder - What?
Carl-Johan Vallgren - I am gathering this one was actually real, so I can't really judge it.
Joseph Boyden - I was reading this one on the tube on a Saturday night and started fucking crying! Me ! Crying!! Unbelievable
Neil Gaiman - A love letter from a stalking staute, only Gaiman could pull that off
Valerie Martin - Quite enjoyable but unmmemorable
Peter Behres - Unimpressed; I really cannot read about war anymore.
Ursula K. Le Guin - Hey, I didn't know she was so funny, maybe I should read something by her.
Nick Laird - Unlove letter to the father, I think I should write a similar one.
Sam Lipsyte - Letters to a woman primatologist from not one but TWO chimpanzees, it turns out that apes are JUST like men in the end.
Panos Karnezis - Interesting, in dare I say Jonathan Carroll's kind of way.
Jan Morris - A love letter to a house, a lot better than the love letter to the bloody Scottish mountains
Hari Kunzru - Most believable and complex characterization in the whole collection, who is this guy, where can I get more of him?
Anonymous - Wow, I have feeling this one was 100% real and a message to someone!
Margaret Atwood - Not too bad but I expected more from Atwood (Oh, I hated when teachers used to do that to me at school - this is not bad, Kinga, but we really expect more from you).
Damon Galgut - Pretty intense
Audrey Niffenegger - Meh.
Juli Zeh - What if , what if
Leonard Cohen - Seriously, why do people like this dude, this was SO predictable and cliche ridden.
Phil LaMarche - A winner - abusive love at its best.
M.G. Vassnji - Pleasant
Tessa Brown - Hilarious and scary at the same time, who is this woman? (On goodreads she is only listed as an author of Stitch & Stencil Flowers & Fruit and I just don't think that's the one)
Douglas Coupland - Love... well, Coupland is definitely in love with his own writing.

[Emily Pomeroy · Rating 1 out of 5]

DNF. This was a huge disappointment. I can not get over the absurdity of this book.

[Brandy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Despite the contributor list reading like a Who's Who of my bookcase, this just wasn't that good. It wasn't bad--many of the stories were enjoyable--but the bulk ends up being forgettable. Several pieces feel like they were dashed off in a "why not?" response to the project, with minimal planning or editing. The "love letter" is interpreted several ways, but most end up with sarcastic and/or "twists"--love gone wrong, I Never Want To See You Again, letters from chimps to the primatologist who's been studying his clan. Taken as individual microfictions, these might be enjoyable, but when put together into a collection, there's not enough diversity in tone and/or subject matter to hold my interest. Did every author think they were being clever to write breakups and bitter irony as their love letters? The stand-outs were the ones who broke from that mold: a husband placing ad after ad, looking for his wife after Katrina. A performance artist stalking a woman he sees daily. Descriptions of photos that chronicled a relationship. Unfortunately, these pieces were the minority and back-loaded the book (arranged loosely by tone; the organizational plan is somewhat obtuse); many readers will likely never make it all the way to the few gems that are hidden here.

[Dee · Rating 3 out of 5]

"That's what days in the hills always do: release miracles, often small, even insignificant, but always memorable." -p.87

"What does this story mean? It means nothing except what it says: that it happened, that we were there, that it will never happen again in quite the same way, and yet that it happens all the time. The story is my story about a particular mountain, but the mountain does not know it, does not give a damn about it. I love the mountain for what it gave me, but the mountain does not love me. I find myself grappling again for other people's words to explain what I mean. Only this time I am caught between two sets of thoughts: those of the naturalist John Muir, who really loved mountains, really understood them, and those of the poet Hugh MacDiarmid, who knew the futility of such love and understanding. What are we to stones, McDiarmid asked insistently. What are we to stones? We are nothing. We must be humble, because the stones are one with the stars, however stone-like they may appear to us. It makes no difference to them where they are, on top of a mountain or at the bottom of the sea, in a palace or a pigsty. There are plenty of ruined buildings in the world, MacDiarmid reminds us, but no ruined stones.

This is from the long poem of 1933, 'On a Raised Beach,' constructed, as the title suggests, nowhere near mountains but on a stony shoreline in Shetland, but the poem transcends its particular place and time. It is so bleakly beautiful and so true that there seems to be nothing worth saying, although MacDiarmid remorselessly exposes our fragility further: what happens to us, he says, is of no relevance to the world's geology; what happens to the world's geology is of utmost relevance to us. It is not the stones who must be reconciled to us, but we to them." -p. 88-89

"In the bedroom you were asleep. I lay down and broached the boundary. You put out an arm, a peninsula from your island home to mine. I can sometimes believe that you are there, and that I am there with you, in the same place, but that is as tantalising and impossible as this city, which can be visited but not known, which is inhabited, but by others." -p.99-100

[Discoverylover · Rating 3 out of 5]

I don't usually go in for short stories, mostly because they take so long to read. I like to stop after each story and think about it which limits the amount of reading I can do in say a lunch break! I thought this one was remarkably well done though. I picked it up mostly for the Neil Gaiman story, but enjoyed so many of the others that I'm glad I did read it!

My favourite stories were by these authors:

Lionel Shriver
Chris Bachelder
Jeff Parker
Graham Roumieu (an absolutely heartbreaking letter from Bigfoot to Santa trying to rekindle their friendship)
Gautam Malkami
Miriam Toews
James Robertson (a beautiful love letter to Scotland)
Etgar Keret
Mandy Sayar (this was the most haunting one from a student to their teacher)
Michael Faber (I couldn't decide if it was heartbreaking or hopeful)
Hisham Matar
Joseph Boyden (I almost cried reading this story of a man searching for his wife after the New Orleans flood)
Neil Gaiman (I'd heard it before, but it was nice to see it in written form!)
Peter Behrens
Sam Lipsyte (a letter from an ape to a primatologist)
Panos Karnezis (another heartbreaking one about a man who is only able to see his love in mirrors)
Jan Morris
Anonymous
Margaret Atwood
Audrey Niffenegger
Tessa Randolph (hilarious analysis of phone calls between two people)

[Ianolia · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ce s-a întâmplat cu scrisorile de dragoste? Şi-a pierdut oare cuvântul scris farmecul în era noastră digitală? În această foarte inspirată şi unică colecţie de scrisori de dragoste, editorii Joshua Knelman şi Rosalind Porter le-au cerut celor mai faimoşi scriitori din lume, patruzeci dintre ei, să exploreze potenţialul şi puterea acestui gen clasic, scrisorile de dragoste. Fiecare scrisoare vă va seduce şi vă va pune în temă cu modul în care arată dragostea în secolul nostru. Ca orice scriitor publicat, autorul scrisorii de dragoste nu poate să mai retragă nimic. Fiecare scrisoare este unică, şi stă mărturie nu doar pentru incredibila diversitate creativă a scriitorilor noştri de vârf din ziua de azi, ci şi pentru cât de sofisticată şi minuţioasă este iubirea, şi fiecare dintre ele – bănuiesc eu – va avea puterea de a vă mişca.
https://funions.ro/recenzii/scrisori-...

[Leighanne · Rating 4 out of 5]

The love letter is not dead. It is not sleeping dormant through the winter. It is alive, vibrant and pulsing with possibilities. In this collection of invented love stories from a varied assortment of authors, we have a letter written from Mars to Earth, a letter which takes no prisoners; one from an internet stalker to her beloved; another from Kafka's girlfriend...
Such fun to read. And as Jeffrey Eugenides said,(I paraphrase) it's best to experience the joys and miseries of love from a safe and literary distance, tucked snugly in your single bed.

[Jean · Rating 3 out of 5]

A group of contemporary writers, Audrey Niffenegger among them, were asked to write a love letter however they wanted: fictional or not, current day or not. I enjoyed about half of them, the ones set in current day and to a person (as opposed to nature, to the planet Earth, or someone in Lenin's Russia, and so on). Surprisingly, Audrey Niffenegger's was among the ones I didn't particularly like, but I did like finding other writers to look up later on: Geoff Dyer, Jeannette Winterson, Etgar Keret, Juli Zeh, Neil Gaiman, Mandy Sayer, Tessa Brown, Francine Prose.

[Emily · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book contains exactly what you would expect from your basic "anthology around a theme." Some regular letters, some from or to psychoes, some to non-humans, some not actually letters, blah blah blah. Problem is none were that interesting. I score three stars in honor of the letter by Chris Bachelder, an author I hadn't heard of before, whose letter, describing a student who did very well in the Intermediate Love course, was the only one that was in any way interesting, clever, or moving. EDIT: I do read a lot of "Anthologies around a theme" though. Maybe I am just jaded.

[Andy · Rating 3 out of 5]

A collection of modern day love letters from a wide range of great writers. Ranging from the comic, whimsical and outright hilarious to the serious, devoted and tragic they cover a wide variety of loves, relationships and encounters. I particularly liked Geoff Dyer's letter to 'several possible recipients from the mid-1980s' and James Robertson's ode to the Scottish highlands and the pleasures of solitary hill walking. Neil Gaiman's letter seems to be a working of his subsequent short film Statuesque.

A great bedside collection.

[Circe · Rating 4 out of 5]

I don't normally read short story books. I find them hard to get into and sit and read for a long time since each story typically doesn't flow into the next story. I certainly found that true with this book but that said, I enjoyed the many different approaches to love each author took. Some stories were funny, others heartbreaking and some were just really confusing. What was especially surprising to me is the assumption I made about the gender of the narrator for each story was usually wrong.

[S J · Rating 2 out of 5]

Love stories bore me for the most part, especially the more conventional they are, something strange has to be going on to compel me... and this collection is mostly of that kind. Skip to the Coupland and Kennedy stories, they were the most abstract but also the most poetic and interesting. There's also an interesting plot line by one of the British authors, Hari Kunzru, in this collection about scary sex in Jordan. And Gautam Malkani's heartbreaking letter written by a an adult child to a mother he never knew because she died in childbirth solidly shows a love letter of a different kind.

[Suzanne · Rating 4 out of 5]

Overall an enjoyable read, although some letters were more than a little forgettable. The letters I still remember, however -- I really remember them. Several of the letters left me wishing for the story to continue, wishing that I could read the addressee's response. The mix of serious and light-hearted, romantic and stalker-esque, also seemed effortless, and kept the collection from seeming too long oerdrawn out.

[Mac n Chow · Rating 3 out of 5]

The beauty and problem of a collection of different stories/letters is that you will like styles of writing/like some stories and not like others.
I enjoyed reading the collection as a whole, but there were some that lost me in plot or narrative.
The idea for this collection is great: the value and power of the old fashioned written letter to a loved one. Including letters to mothers, partners, friends, lost friends and more, it is still worth a shot :)

[Hex75 · Rating 2 out of 5]

un gigantesco esercizio di stile: 40 autori e autrici (con molti nomi grossi e un anonimo: la curatrice rosalind porter?) si dedicano all'antica arte della lettera d'amore.
il problema è che non tutti sembrano adatti al genere: qualche racconto è davvero efficace, altri si lasciano comunque leggere ma scorrono via senza lasciar nulla e altri ancora sono proprio bruttini.
come lettura da treno è efficace, ma finito non viene davvero voglia di consigliarlo...

[Jess · Rating 3 out of 5]

I think I like the idea of this book more than the reality - a collection of fictional love letters. There was quite a range, both in terms of subject matter (I particularly liked the love letter to a house) and style, and some of them hooked me and some left me cold. Good for dipping in for a quick read.

[Sydney · Rating 4 out of 5]

Cute, fun read. Some letters more memorable than others, but all in all a very good reminder of what it's like to spill your heart out with paper and pen. My only criticism would be that there wasn't a lot of, well...love. But still I think I might start writing more letters.

Favorite letters: Jonathan Lethem, Nick Laird, Anonymous, and Juli Zeh.

[Traci · Rating 3 out of 5]

I finished this a while ago...been slacking on my reviews. This was an interesting departure from my normal reads. The authors' notions of love letters are humorous, touching, and strange. The love letters range from traditional hand-written correspondence to email and text messages. This is definitely one to read in between trips to the library/book store.

[Emily · Rating 4 out of 5]

Amazing book! It makes you laugh, it makes you cry, it creeps you right out. There are certain letters which certainly aren't as well-written or imaginative as others but when you get to those "others" you feel as though you are those characters. Definitely worth the read. It's romance with a twist.

[Nicholas Gourlay]

This collection is actually very good. I love the diversity of the stories although many are 'darker' images of love, or broken and lost love. Many are about the concept of how 'frightening' love is. Only about 1/3 through. - 12.3.09

1-13-09 - Haven't read anything for awhile, think I need to put a hold on this one.

[Leah · Rating 3 out of 5]

A very sweet, quirky, and charming collection of imaginary love letters dreamed up different authors. This is the book to be reading around Valentine's Day if you're the kind of person who thinks Valentine's Day is lame.

[Katey · Rating 2 out of 5]

I thought this anthology held great promise and interest to me. But the very nature of the project lent such a contrived taint to almost every story/letter, and the most I got from it was a few silent giggles and brief pauses of wistful recognition.

[Megan · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was pretty good. A nice quick glimpse at a whole lot of different authors' work. Definetly gave me a few author's names to look into and it was neat to see the letters written by author's whose books I have read and enjoyed.

[svm · Rating 4 out of 5]

Picked this one up on the used shelf at a small bookshop in Rockport, MA. Perfect summertime travel reading. Mostly 3 page letters so could read in bits. Nothing so engrossing that I was ignoring the rest of the world around me but still some wonderful, little gems of stories from great writers.

[Molly Willis · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've not quite read every collection of letters in this book, but the ones I have, I have loved. Some are just declarations, some develop as stories, but each one proves that there are still ways for beautiful love letters to be communicate.

[Titus Hjelm · Rating 3 out of 5]

I've been intrigued by the letter as a genre lately. Hence it was disappointing to realise that many of the chapters here were short stories rather than letters in any sense of the word. But of course with such a collection of authors, there was some really good writing in here.

[Tere · Rating 5 out of 5]

so far so good.

[Jody · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book wasn't what I wanted it to be. I suppose it was ok for what it was.

[Erica · Rating 2 out of 5]

How cheesy to read this around Valentine's Day.... but the list of authors is incredible and so far the stories are wonderfully diverse and entertaining!

[Kim Petersen · Rating 3 out of 5]

lots of small gems here