What do you think?
Rate this book
Beethoven Was One-Sixteenth Black and Other Stories
"You're not responsible for your ancestry, are you . . . But if that's so, why have marched under banned slogans, got yourself beaten up by the police, arrested a couple of times; plastered walls with subversive posters . . . The past is valid only in relation to whether the present recognizes it."
In this collection of new stories, Beethoven Was One-Sixteenth Black , Nadine Gordimer crosses the frontiers of politics, memory, sexuality, and love with the fearless insight that is the hallmark of her writing.
In the title story a middle-aged academic who had been an anti-apartheid activist embarks on an unadmitted pursuit of the possibilities for his own racial identity in his great-grandfather's fortune-hunting interlude of living rough on diamond diggings in South Africa, his young wife far away in London. "Dreaming of the Dead" conjures up a lunch in a New York Chinese restaurant where Susan Sontag and Edward Said return in surprising new avatars as guests in the dream of a loving friend. The historian in "History" is a parrot who confronts people with the scandalizing voice reproduction of quarrels and clandestine love-talk on which it has eavesdropped. "Alternative Endings" considers the way writers make arbitrary choices in how to end stories—and offers three, each relating the same situation, but with a different resolution, arrived at by the three sight, sound, and smell.
In this collection of new stories, Beethoven Was One-Sixteenth Black , Nadine Gordimer crosses the frontiers of politics, memory, sexuality, and love with the fearless insight that is the hallmark of her writing.
In the title story a middle-aged academic who had been an anti-apartheid activist embarks on an unadmitted pursuit of the possibilities for his own racial identity in his great-grandfather's fortune-hunting interlude of living rough on diamond diggings in South Africa, his young wife far away in London. "Dreaming of the Dead" conjures up a lunch in a New York Chinese restaurant where Susan Sontag and Edward Said return in surprising new avatars as guests in the dream of a loving friend. The historian in "History" is a parrot who confronts people with the scandalizing voice reproduction of quarrels and clandestine love-talk on which it has eavesdropped. "Alternative Endings" considers the way writers make arbitrary choices in how to end stories—and offers three, each relating the same situation, but with a different resolution, arrived at by the three sight, sound, and smell.
183 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 2007
35 people are currently reading
619 people want to read
About the author
Nadine Gordimer
326 books952 followersNadine Gordimer was a South African writer, political activist, and recipient of the 1991 Nobel Prize in Literature. She was recognized as a woman "who through her magnificent epic writing has – in the words of Alfred Nobel – been of very great benefit to humanity".
Gordimer's writing dealt with moral and racial issues, particularly apartheid in South Africa. Under that regime, works such as Burger's Daughter and July's People were banned. She was active in the anti-apartheid movement, joining the African National Congress during the days when the organization was banned. She was also active in HIV/AIDS causes.
Gordimer's writing dealt with moral and racial issues, particularly apartheid in South Africa. Under that regime, works such as Burger's Daughter and July's People were banned. She was active in the anti-apartheid movement, joining the African National Congress during the days when the organization was banned. She was also active in HIV/AIDS causes.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 117 reviews
September 28, 2017
An interesting, small collection of short stories assembled around the general themes of loss, mortality and acceptance.
The stories include: a South African university professor contemplating his roots; the “autobiographical” reflections of a tape worm; an imagined lunch the author has at a Chinese restaurant with three intellectual friends who have passed away: Edward Said, Anthony Sampson and Susan Sontag; a grandson’s recollection of his recently departed grandmother who came to South Africa from privileged circumstances in Weimar Germany; the woman's contemplation of a small roach—named after Kafka’s Gregor—that is stuck in her laptop computer screen; a business traveler on a flight both like and unlike most of his trips; a young German woman who marries a South African, moves to his country and realizes that she doesn’t understand the nuances of the mother tongue; a happily married widow who travels to meet the one person with whom her husband had a brief affair—a homosexual; an old parrot at a restaurant; a daughter who finds out through a letter contained in her recently-deceased mother’s effects that her father may not be her biological father; and a concluding trilogy of spousal relationships that reach various levels of alienation using the senses of sight, hearing and smelling as central themes.
In other words, this is a nice book for rainy Sunday afternoon read.
The stories include: a South African university professor contemplating his roots; the “autobiographical” reflections of a tape worm; an imagined lunch the author has at a Chinese restaurant with three intellectual friends who have passed away: Edward Said, Anthony Sampson and Susan Sontag; a grandson’s recollection of his recently departed grandmother who came to South Africa from privileged circumstances in Weimar Germany; the woman's contemplation of a small roach—named after Kafka’s Gregor—that is stuck in her laptop computer screen; a business traveler on a flight both like and unlike most of his trips; a young German woman who marries a South African, moves to his country and realizes that she doesn’t understand the nuances of the mother tongue; a happily married widow who travels to meet the one person with whom her husband had a brief affair—a homosexual; an old parrot at a restaurant; a daughter who finds out through a letter contained in her recently-deceased mother’s effects that her father may not be her biological father; and a concluding trilogy of spousal relationships that reach various levels of alienation using the senses of sight, hearing and smelling as central themes.
In other words, this is a nice book for rainy Sunday afternoon read.
February 6, 2020
The second story is called "Tape Measure" and is a story told in the first person (!) by a tape worm. Needless to say (but I will anyway), I wondered what I had gotten myself into. I had only read Gordimer's July's People. I didn't think there was any weirdness in that and I definitely wasn't expecting any in this. There is one other rather strange story, "Gregor", which a writer has given to a cockroach encased behind the glass on a mid-technology typewriter. But this collection was part of a 10-book challenge, so I persevered.
I was amply rewarded. The final 4 stories are strong 5-star material. "Beneficiary" is the story of a young woman whose mother has been the fatal victim of a car accident. She was an only child of divorced parents and is left with going through her mother's things. Does what she finds change her relationship with her beloved father?
And then there are three stories that follow a preface called Alternative Endings. When I saw this heading, I wondered if Gordimer was going to give us different endings for three of the earlier stories. But such was not the case as these were three new stories, or more correctly, three inter-connected chapters of the story Alternative Endings. The chapters are titled "the first sense", "the second sense" and "the third sense". Gordimer reminds us of the Oxford English dictionary definitition of sense: The senses usually defined as five - sight, hearing, smell, taste, touch. It wasn't until well into the first sense, that I understood her giving us that definition. Each chapter deals with the subject of infidelity. Not every marriage treats this circumstance the same and these stories show us three of the many possible ways.
The stories on the senses, and the one called Beneficiary are masterful, in my opinion. Gordimer's listing on Bloom's Western Canon is "Collected Stories" and is her only listing. I must look for other collections. The first half of this collection is a bit weak, while the last half is very strong. If I were rating based on the second half only, it would be a strong 5-stars. Instead, I'll have to be content with a high 4-stars.
I was amply rewarded. The final 4 stories are strong 5-star material. "Beneficiary" is the story of a young woman whose mother has been the fatal victim of a car accident. She was an only child of divorced parents and is left with going through her mother's things. Does what she finds change her relationship with her beloved father?
And then there are three stories that follow a preface called Alternative Endings. When I saw this heading, I wondered if Gordimer was going to give us different endings for three of the earlier stories. But such was not the case as these were three new stories, or more correctly, three inter-connected chapters of the story Alternative Endings. The chapters are titled "the first sense", "the second sense" and "the third sense". Gordimer reminds us of the Oxford English dictionary definitition of sense: The senses usually defined as five - sight, hearing, smell, taste, touch. It wasn't until well into the first sense, that I understood her giving us that definition. Each chapter deals with the subject of infidelity. Not every marriage treats this circumstance the same and these stories show us three of the many possible ways.
The stories on the senses, and the one called Beneficiary are masterful, in my opinion. Gordimer's listing on Bloom's Western Canon is "Collected Stories" and is her only listing. I must look for other collections. The first half of this collection is a bit weak, while the last half is very strong. If I were rating based on the second half only, it would be a strong 5-stars. Instead, I'll have to be content with a high 4-stars.
March 30, 2013
This is the problem with short story collection. Some stories are amazing while others are so terrible you can’t even finish it. In this novel too, “A Beneficiary “and “History” were two interesting stories. Others were just meh.
August 28, 2008
First off, Nadine Gordimer is an incredible writer. One of the most amazing linguistic architects I have read in some time. Her sentences, if you can call them that, traipse, meander, drive, flit, curve, circle, dead-end and serpentine in so many different directions in only a line or two. An amazing talent.
However, this read was in some ways not an easy one for me. I found myself struggling to keep up with her and her style of prose in some places. I know I am reading greatness, I just may not understand it all of the time. A read through her work was like a stroll through the Met, I appreciated and enjoyed each and every story, but I am not sure I got everything out of them that I was supposed to, or rather what the author intended.
I enjoy being challenged, my intellect, my views, my feelings, my apathy, but I am not sure I did Gordimer justice. I am not sure I was worthy of her words. An odd feeling at the end of a book of short stories, no doubt, but one I imagine will be replicated as I move on to tackle her other works, which i will certainly do.
However, this read was in some ways not an easy one for me. I found myself struggling to keep up with her and her style of prose in some places. I know I am reading greatness, I just may not understand it all of the time. A read through her work was like a stroll through the Met, I appreciated and enjoyed each and every story, but I am not sure I got everything out of them that I was supposed to, or rather what the author intended.
I enjoy being challenged, my intellect, my views, my feelings, my apathy, but I am not sure I did Gordimer justice. I am not sure I was worthy of her words. An odd feeling at the end of a book of short stories, no doubt, but one I imagine will be replicated as I move on to tackle her other works, which i will certainly do.
June 21, 2019
As Nadine Gordimer aged, she seemed to chart her own form of literature. This collection of short stories uses an array of complex sentences built with an unusual syntax that doesn’t flow (well, at least for this reader), has sparse dialogue (some stories have none) and has the point of view of a scientist observing her lab rats under a microscope.
The collection is a grab bag of subjects, with no unifying theme, probably written over a long period of time and for different audiences, given that they were all previously published in magazines from as diverse as the New Yorker to Harper’s Quarterly to Playboy. Let me try to summarize the stories:
1) In the title story, in post-Apartheid South Africa, whites go to great lengths to establish even one-sixteenth black blood in their lineage, because that is the colour in vogue now. The white protagonist goes into the diamond fields of Kimberley to find his ounce, given that his great grandfather spent five years prospecting there without having sex - hard to believe! There had to be some black girls somewhere who made up for great-grandpa’s libidinal drought.
2) The life-cycle of a tapeworm living on the body of a human, narrated by the worm. The symbiosis and co-dependence between the two is palpable.
3) The author has a dinner date with the ghosts of Anthony Sampson, Edward Said, and Susan Sontag, and various intellectual discourse take place, Sontag even defends men against the women’s movement.
4) A middle-aged Jewish flapper is transplanted into South Africa due to the Nazis in Germany. Her shallowness shields her from the tragedies befalling the Jews at the time.
5) A writer’s pre-occupation with Kafka causes a mysterious roach to appear inside her typewriter.
6) A business executive survives an aircraft’s emergency landing. The mysterious woman sitting next to him provides the answer.
7) A young German wife goes to live with her new husband in South Africa. Exposed to African culture she realizes that not having had a past with him in this country is a serious deficiency.
8) A grieving South African widow travels to London to meet her dead husband’s male lover. They spar over trying to claim his memory. She wants facts, he offers feelings.
9) An ancient talking parrot observes life in a family owned French restaurant that has recently been sold to a German. The former owners are taking the parrot to live with them in retirement by the seaside. The parrot is not happy, and voices it.
10) A child actress has to choose between her spellbindingly attractive birth father who is also an actor, and her rather dour but steadfast adoptive father who is a neurologist. Will nature win over nurture?
12 The last story breaks out into three parts titled The First Sense, The Second Sense and The Third Sense. Each story has a husband and wife in its centre, but they all have different endings. As these three pieces were each originally published in different magazines, I suspect they were grouped together in this collection because they had a similar theme:
(a) The First Sense features a PhD husband who emigrates from Eastern Europe and winds up as a dead-ending storeroom manager in South Africa, while his dressmaker wife goes onto become a wealthy jetsetter selling real estate in their new homeland.
(b) The Second Sense features a talented cello player and his government employee wife. She pays the bills and keeps the home fires burning. His cello’s tunes signal what is right and wrong in their love life; it even tells of mistresses gained and lost.
(c) The Third Sense teams up a domestic airline-owner husband and a university professor wife. The airline is heading for bankruptcy while the husband is having an affair.
It is only in The First Sense that the actions of the couple lead to something concrete, while in the other two stories the conflicts remain as pre-occupations of the mind.
So there you have it - a smorgasbord. Read it if you are willing to work at wrestling with the unusual form. There will be moments however, when Gordimer’s uncanny insights into life and human nature will catch you with an “ah-ha!”
The collection is a grab bag of subjects, with no unifying theme, probably written over a long period of time and for different audiences, given that they were all previously published in magazines from as diverse as the New Yorker to Harper’s Quarterly to Playboy. Let me try to summarize the stories:
1) In the title story, in post-Apartheid South Africa, whites go to great lengths to establish even one-sixteenth black blood in their lineage, because that is the colour in vogue now. The white protagonist goes into the diamond fields of Kimberley to find his ounce, given that his great grandfather spent five years prospecting there without having sex - hard to believe! There had to be some black girls somewhere who made up for great-grandpa’s libidinal drought.
2) The life-cycle of a tapeworm living on the body of a human, narrated by the worm. The symbiosis and co-dependence between the two is palpable.
3) The author has a dinner date with the ghosts of Anthony Sampson, Edward Said, and Susan Sontag, and various intellectual discourse take place, Sontag even defends men against the women’s movement.
4) A middle-aged Jewish flapper is transplanted into South Africa due to the Nazis in Germany. Her shallowness shields her from the tragedies befalling the Jews at the time.
5) A writer’s pre-occupation with Kafka causes a mysterious roach to appear inside her typewriter.
6) A business executive survives an aircraft’s emergency landing. The mysterious woman sitting next to him provides the answer.
7) A young German wife goes to live with her new husband in South Africa. Exposed to African culture she realizes that not having had a past with him in this country is a serious deficiency.
8) A grieving South African widow travels to London to meet her dead husband’s male lover. They spar over trying to claim his memory. She wants facts, he offers feelings.
9) An ancient talking parrot observes life in a family owned French restaurant that has recently been sold to a German. The former owners are taking the parrot to live with them in retirement by the seaside. The parrot is not happy, and voices it.
10) A child actress has to choose between her spellbindingly attractive birth father who is also an actor, and her rather dour but steadfast adoptive father who is a neurologist. Will nature win over nurture?
12 The last story breaks out into three parts titled The First Sense, The Second Sense and The Third Sense. Each story has a husband and wife in its centre, but they all have different endings. As these three pieces were each originally published in different magazines, I suspect they were grouped together in this collection because they had a similar theme:
(a) The First Sense features a PhD husband who emigrates from Eastern Europe and winds up as a dead-ending storeroom manager in South Africa, while his dressmaker wife goes onto become a wealthy jetsetter selling real estate in their new homeland.
(b) The Second Sense features a talented cello player and his government employee wife. She pays the bills and keeps the home fires burning. His cello’s tunes signal what is right and wrong in their love life; it even tells of mistresses gained and lost.
(c) The Third Sense teams up a domestic airline-owner husband and a university professor wife. The airline is heading for bankruptcy while the husband is having an affair.
It is only in The First Sense that the actions of the couple lead to something concrete, while in the other two stories the conflicts remain as pre-occupations of the mind.
So there you have it - a smorgasbord. Read it if you are willing to work at wrestling with the unusual form. There will be moments however, when Gordimer’s uncanny insights into life and human nature will catch you with an “ah-ha!”
April 19, 2016
Non facile questo mio primo approccio con la Godimer, premio Nobel per la letteratura nel 1991. Soprattutto la prima parte l'ho trovata più ostica e ho fatto decisamente fatica a raccapezzarmi a causa dello stile della scrittrice, molto evocativo, con frasi corti, quasi a suggerire, in questo caso, un monologo interiore.
Sono 13 racconti che hanno tanti interessanti spunti di riflessione sul Sudafrica e sul rovesciamento di ruoli e discriminazioni post-apartheid nella parte iniziale. Il secondo racconto è una vera chicca. Si intitola "La lunghezza della solitudine", ed è un magnifico esempio di scrittura creativa: tutto il racconto è scritto dal punto di vista di un verme solitario, costretto ad abbandonare le sicure profondità intestinali dopo essere stato defecato ed abbandonato ad un'esistenza senza un domani sicuro nelle fogne. Una grande metafora della nascita e della vita.
Nella seconda parte del libro, a sorpresa, i racconti si fanno notevolmente più piacevoli e interessanti- storie di uomini e sentimenti descritti con stile scorrevole e sobrio.
Sono 13 racconti che hanno tanti interessanti spunti di riflessione sul Sudafrica e sul rovesciamento di ruoli e discriminazioni post-apartheid nella parte iniziale. Il secondo racconto è una vera chicca. Si intitola "La lunghezza della solitudine", ed è un magnifico esempio di scrittura creativa: tutto il racconto è scritto dal punto di vista di un verme solitario, costretto ad abbandonare le sicure profondità intestinali dopo essere stato defecato ed abbandonato ad un'esistenza senza un domani sicuro nelle fogne. Una grande metafora della nascita e della vita.
Nella seconda parte del libro, a sorpresa, i racconti si fanno notevolmente più piacevoli e interessanti- storie di uomini e sentimenti descritti con stile scorrevole e sobrio.
December 11, 2025
To enjoy "Beethoven was One-Sixteenth Black" you have to be one of those persons who believe that monogamy is a bad idea that is appropriate only for Catholics and pigeons. The book is dominated by chronicles of middle-class marriages that fail as the career trajectories of partners pull them apart. If you happen however to be one of those readers who admires Nadine Gordimer for her literay talent, you will be delighted to see that she was still at the top of her game in this her last anthology of short stories.
Readers will also be pleased to see that Gordimer still had much to say about the world the successful conclusion to the struggle for Black Majority Rule. The first story in the book "Beethoven was One-Sixteenth Black" and the one which is used as the title of anthology is the weakest. Fortunately it is not typical of the overall collection. It deals with the anxiety of a white man in the new South Africa who searches for black ancestry in his past in the belief that such ancestry would be beneficial to his career. The concept is trite and the execution is weak. The rest of the stories are much better.
Like most readers I was charmed by "Dreaming of the Dead" in which Gordimer is visited by the ghosts of three prominent left-wing intellectuals from her era who also happened to be personal friends: Anthony Sampson, Edward Said and Susan Sontag. In this piece, Gordimer eloquently expresses admiration for these individuals as writers and love for them as friends.
"Allesverloren" is one of the best tales n the collection. It tells the story of the widow who wishes to understand her late-husband's homosexuality and visits his lover in the hopes of elucidation. "A Frivolous Woman" is another excellent piece. It recounts the life of a Jewess who to the horror of her family remains joyous despite the personal catastrophes that occur in her life after the Nazis come to power in her native Germany. "Gregor" is well done tale about the career of a parrot that entertains guests in a restaurant.
The anthology unfortunately ends on a sour note with a subset of stories entitled "Alternative Endings" which tell how three different marriages lose their magic because one partner is more successful professionally than the other. Gordimer may have believed passionately in the cause of Black Majority Rule but in "Beethoven was One-Sixteenth Black" she reveals that she has absolutely no faith in marriage.
Readers will also be pleased to see that Gordimer still had much to say about the world the successful conclusion to the struggle for Black Majority Rule. The first story in the book "Beethoven was One-Sixteenth Black" and the one which is used as the title of anthology is the weakest. Fortunately it is not typical of the overall collection. It deals with the anxiety of a white man in the new South Africa who searches for black ancestry in his past in the belief that such ancestry would be beneficial to his career. The concept is trite and the execution is weak. The rest of the stories are much better.
Like most readers I was charmed by "Dreaming of the Dead" in which Gordimer is visited by the ghosts of three prominent left-wing intellectuals from her era who also happened to be personal friends: Anthony Sampson, Edward Said and Susan Sontag. In this piece, Gordimer eloquently expresses admiration for these individuals as writers and love for them as friends.
"Allesverloren" is one of the best tales n the collection. It tells the story of the widow who wishes to understand her late-husband's homosexuality and visits his lover in the hopes of elucidation. "A Frivolous Woman" is another excellent piece. It recounts the life of a Jewess who to the horror of her family remains joyous despite the personal catastrophes that occur in her life after the Nazis come to power in her native Germany. "Gregor" is well done tale about the career of a parrot that entertains guests in a restaurant.
The anthology unfortunately ends on a sour note with a subset of stories entitled "Alternative Endings" which tell how three different marriages lose their magic because one partner is more successful professionally than the other. Gordimer may have believed passionately in the cause of Black Majority Rule but in "Beethoven was One-Sixteenth Black" she reveals that she has absolutely no faith in marriage.
August 9, 2018
When in South Africa, one has to read some of her most formidable authors, no? Well, I thought so. After reading (and liking) her "July's People," I picked this up. Gordimer has a way with words. She puts things succinctly, viscerally. She captures the fraught nature of race in South Africa--not a simple concept--in remarkably economical terms, particularly the nature, no doubt familiar to her, of white liberals in an apartheid and post-apartheid racially terroristic state.
While some of these were good--the language in the first story is haunting, mantra-like, and the stories of the Holocaust Jews and the benighted flight will stick with me--some of them felt silly (e.g. the first-person narrative of the tape worm being flushed from its host's body). Some felt way too short, others just didn't pack much of a punch.
While some of these were good--the language in the first story is haunting, mantra-like, and the stories of the Holocaust Jews and the benighted flight will stick with me--some of them felt silly (e.g. the first-person narrative of the tape worm being flushed from its host's body). Some felt way too short, others just didn't pack much of a punch.
January 15, 2013
En esta colección de cuentos la sudafricana, ganadora del Premio Nobel 1991, Nadine Gordimer, nos regala un conjunto de historias con un espectro amplísimo que abarcan temas tan diversos como la política, la memoria, la sexualidad, el amor, la existencia y la finalidad de la vida, con esa tremenda capacidad que tiene esta escritora de percibir lo más profundo del yo.
Los cuentos que, en mi opinión, más destacan son:
- Beethoven tenía algo de negro: El nieto de un colonizador inglés se lanza a un pueblo de Sudáfrica a buscar a algún descendiente de aquel abuelo que seguramente dejó hijos regados por donde pasó. La historia se presta a una profunda reflexión acerca del racismo y de la difícil posición de un blanco pro-integración racial, que no es aceptado ni por los negros ni por los blancos.
- Una beneficiaria: Una muchacha, hija de una fallecida actriz de teatro, descubre que es producto de un amorío de su mamá con un actor y no de quien pensaba que era su padre. La chica se lanza a buscar a su verdadero papá, lo que se presta a una profunda disertación sobre los orígenes y las herencias.
-Gregor: Una eterna cucaracha ha invadido la ventana de la máquina de escribir de una autora y, a pesar de todos sus esfuerzos por sacarla de ahí, la cucaracha solamente desaparece cuando, después de mucho tiempo, se consume a sí misma. Mientras tanto, la escritora reflexiona sobre la vida, la muerte y la creación artística.
- Gemini: El gemelo no logrado de un par del cual sólo se salva uno piensa lo que habría sido si él se hubiera salvado en lugar de su hermana. Una extraordinaria reflexión sobre la existencia y los azares del destino.
-Finales alternativos: Esta parte reúne tres finales de una historia, basados en tres sentidos (oído, vista y olfato), con los cuales Gordimer explora las decisiones arbitrarias de los escritores y cómo éstas pueden cambiar completamente la resolución de una historia.
Los otros cuentos también son extraordinarios e intensos, sin embargo, narrarlos todos está fuera del alcance de esta publicación.
Beethoven tenía algo de negro es el último libro publicado por la nonagenaria Nóbel y es una excelente muestra de la capacidad de Gordimer de narrar, con simpleza, y desde situaciones cotidianas, pensamientos y reflexiones muy profundas. Si te gustan los cuentos que se pueden leer a varios niveles de profundidad, sin duda es un libro que vale muchísimo la pena para ti; a mí me encantó.
Los cuentos que, en mi opinión, más destacan son:
- Beethoven tenía algo de negro: El nieto de un colonizador inglés se lanza a un pueblo de Sudáfrica a buscar a algún descendiente de aquel abuelo que seguramente dejó hijos regados por donde pasó. La historia se presta a una profunda reflexión acerca del racismo y de la difícil posición de un blanco pro-integración racial, que no es aceptado ni por los negros ni por los blancos.
- Una beneficiaria: Una muchacha, hija de una fallecida actriz de teatro, descubre que es producto de un amorío de su mamá con un actor y no de quien pensaba que era su padre. La chica se lanza a buscar a su verdadero papá, lo que se presta a una profunda disertación sobre los orígenes y las herencias.
-Gregor: Una eterna cucaracha ha invadido la ventana de la máquina de escribir de una autora y, a pesar de todos sus esfuerzos por sacarla de ahí, la cucaracha solamente desaparece cuando, después de mucho tiempo, se consume a sí misma. Mientras tanto, la escritora reflexiona sobre la vida, la muerte y la creación artística.
- Gemini: El gemelo no logrado de un par del cual sólo se salva uno piensa lo que habría sido si él se hubiera salvado en lugar de su hermana. Una extraordinaria reflexión sobre la existencia y los azares del destino.
-Finales alternativos: Esta parte reúne tres finales de una historia, basados en tres sentidos (oído, vista y olfato), con los cuales Gordimer explora las decisiones arbitrarias de los escritores y cómo éstas pueden cambiar completamente la resolución de una historia.
Los otros cuentos también son extraordinarios e intensos, sin embargo, narrarlos todos está fuera del alcance de esta publicación.
Beethoven tenía algo de negro es el último libro publicado por la nonagenaria Nóbel y es una excelente muestra de la capacidad de Gordimer de narrar, con simpleza, y desde situaciones cotidianas, pensamientos y reflexiones muy profundas. Si te gustan los cuentos que se pueden leer a varios niveles de profundidad, sin duda es un libro que vale muchísimo la pena para ti; a mí me encantó.
July 29, 2025
Πρόκειται για μια συλλογή διηγημάτων, των οποίων ο τίτλος με τα βίας αποτελεί συνδετικό νήμα για τα περιεχόμενα τους. Η αφηγηματική φωνή σε ελάχιστες ιστορίες αποδεικνύεται εξαιρετικά δύσκολη να την ακολουθήσει κανείς. Κάποιες ιστορίες είναι καλύτερες από άλλες, αλλά με μεγάλη δυσκολία μπόρεσα να συνδεθώ. Δυστυχώς ήταν μια πολύ κακή αναγνωστική εμπειρία. Η συλλογή μοιάζει περισσότερο με ασκήσεις ύφους και περιεχομένου, πρόχειρες και αυτοαναφορικές.
February 4, 2014
2007. Slim volume of mostly quite short pieces.
Challenging for me. 'Experimental', I would call many of them.
Gordimer makes some punctuation choices that require getting used to -- mostly, doing away with question marks, esp. for rhetorical sentences.
"Allesverloren" is interesting - a woman [from E Europe] who married a South African [white] man, and now he has died and she wants to find out more about his life before she met him. Subtle.
"Dreaming of the dead" relates a dream about recently deceased Susan Sontag and Edward Said, quite interestingly done. A sort of memorial.
The 'trilogy' called "Alternative endings" -- each of which was originally published in a DIFFERENT magazine!! -- confused me. One would have thought the beginning/setting and characters would be the same and only the endings different, but in fact I see no common story though the three all relate to a married couple and infidelity. Now I have read the blurb [on goodreads] that explains the three each concentrate on one of the five senses -- sight, sound, smell -- and now it begins to make some sense! But this note is not included in the volume itself...
"...how we hide from one another's hurts" p 111
I cannot remember having read any of her novels, I should try one.
Challenging for me. 'Experimental', I would call many of them.
Gordimer makes some punctuation choices that require getting used to -- mostly, doing away with question marks, esp. for rhetorical sentences.
"Allesverloren" is interesting - a woman [from E Europe] who married a South African [white] man, and now he has died and she wants to find out more about his life before she met him. Subtle.
"Dreaming of the dead" relates a dream about recently deceased Susan Sontag and Edward Said, quite interestingly done. A sort of memorial.
The 'trilogy' called "Alternative endings" -- each of which was originally published in a DIFFERENT magazine!! -- confused me. One would have thought the beginning/setting and characters would be the same and only the endings different, but in fact I see no common story though the three all relate to a married couple and infidelity. Now I have read the blurb [on goodreads] that explains the three each concentrate on one of the five senses -- sight, sound, smell -- and now it begins to make some sense! But this note is not included in the volume itself...
"...how we hide from one another's hurts" p 111
I cannot remember having read any of her novels, I should try one.
November 4, 2009
Surprisingly, I had difficulty connecting with the stories in this collection. Except for a couple of the stories I was unmoved, unable to warm to the characters or their situations. In fact, for the most part they seemed to inhabit no fixed physical place--though I know they were primarily in South Africa--and I think the lack of character roots in the soil of the story resulted in my caring less. This was unexpected, too, because I'm normally reader enough to not need such a firm foundation. Part of it may have been sentences seeming disorganized. Some came across as if words or phrases had been scrambled, thus scrambling my comprehension. Sometimes even a 2d reading didn't help. Unable to say why, somehow I couldn't infiltrate these stories. My fault--this is Gordimer, after all. My favorites, "History" and "A Beneficiary," I'd read before. I don't remember when. "History" was in Harper's. Though I don't remember it there, I must have read it there. "A Beneficiary" was in The New Yorker.
April 20, 2016
Come sempre quando si tratta di racconti, il livello qualitativo non è omogeneo, anche se qui siamo al livello di un premio Nobel.
Diversi, e a volte strani, gli argomenti trattati (che dire di La lunghezza della solitudine, scritto dal punto di vista i una tenia?), i migliori della raccolta sono sicuramente quello che da il titolo al libro, e gli ultmi, la miniraccolta nella raccolta che va sotto il nome di Finali alternativi.
Diversi, e a volte strani, gli argomenti trattati (che dire di La lunghezza della solitudine, scritto dal punto di vista i una tenia?), i migliori della raccolta sono sicuramente quello che da il titolo al libro, e gli ultmi, la miniraccolta nella raccolta che va sotto il nome di Finali alternativi.
May 24, 2013
Una prosa semplice senza fronzoli, anche se a tratti non facile, ma con una grande potenza evocatrice di atmosfere, momenti di vita quotidiana e, soprattutto, di stati d’animo in cui la Gordimer entra come un bisturi nel narrare tredici storie di vita semplici, eppure mai banali.
May 15, 2008
I came in expecting to like this set of short stories much more easily. I grew impatient with her wavering voice, but the stories stuck with me, whether I liked the way they were told or not.
May 19, 2011
Loved the eponymous first story. The rest are not as good except the one about a cockroach trapped in the narrator's computer.
January 25, 2013
Non sono riuscita ad apprezzare appieno tutti i racconti, alcuni li sentivo un po' freddi e distanti. Molto belli, però, gli ultimi tre: sensuali, profondi e incisivi.
Read
July 14, 2019Δεν είναι όλα τα διηγήματα εξίσου δυνατά. (Υπουλη φόρμα). Αυτά που είναι όμως αρκούν για να θυμίσουν ποσο σπουδαία συγγραφέας είναι η Γκάρντιμερ.
February 8, 2015
I really loved the story called Allesverloren.
February 10, 2015
Superb writing.
Scratch a white man, Frederick Morris, and find trace of the serum of induced superiority; history never over.
He’s his own usher, shining a torch of distinctive intellectual light and sensibility to guide him.
Edward. He stands a moment, before the embrace of greeting. His familiar way of marking the event of a meeting brought about by the coordination of friends’ commitments and luck happenstance.
We don’t bother with how-are-yous, there’s no point in that sort of banality, here.
Touch isn’t always felt, in dream.
Carlos Fuentes: Music is ‘free of visible ties, the purification and illusions of our bodily misery.”
I know, darling son, you are doing everything what’s for sure to get me out of here. There are big rats! It is terribly hot but they say that in a few weeks will be cooler.
She opened her arms to her son just the way she had always done when he was a boy and she returned from Deauville or a spa in Switzerland. And as herself a child who charms with the assumption that all is forgiven she showed no contrition for the anxiety and dread she had caused by her naughty escapade.
She had her way with her usual style of retort, staying on in the boardinghouse: Where else can I live where I’m the youngest?
Ach Kwatsch (oh, rubbish - quatsch)
For old Grete everything was a party.
Life: a stack of fancy dress costumes in a pirate chest. No number tattooed on an arm; no. No last journey in a cattle truck.
Who had put up an umbrella against the Camp de Concentration de Sébikotane as if to shelter from a passing shower.
So what’s significant about that?
The past is a foreign country.
No entry.
The past is a foreign country… - LP Hartley, The Go-Between
My apprenticeship to sexual love changed; for life. Like it or not, this is what love is. Terrible. Glorious.
Every year I re-read some of the books I don’t want to die without having read again. This year one fo these is Kafka’s Diaries, and I am about half-way through. It’s night-time reading of a wonderfully harrowing sort.
Night after night I had been reading Franz Kafka’s diaries, the subconscious of his fictions, that Max Brod wouldn’t destroy. So there it all is, the secret genesis of creation. Kafka’s subconscious was nightly conducting me from consciousness to the subconsciousness of sleep.
Lorris didn’t want me to go and was embarrassed to come out with it. My work means that we have lived in different parts of the world and in each there has always been something to be afraid of. We have long had a compact, with ourselves, with life; life is dangerous. We live with that; in the one certainty that fear is the real killer.
But everything’s by chance -- how else would she ever have met him?
But it was her tenderness to him, the lovingness in the sexuality that made this foreign affair somewhat different from the others...
She laughed when everyone else did. And then sat quiet and nobody noticed her. She understood that she didn’t know the language.
The only mother tongue she had was his in her mouth, at night.
Whom to talk to.
Grief is boring after a while, burdensome even to close confidants. After a very short while, for them.
The long while continues. A cord that won’t come full circle, doesn’t know how to tie a knot in resolution. So whom to talk to. Speak.
There’s no-one.
To supply answers to questions that were never asked, never necessary to be asked in an intimacy of flesh and mind that reassured, encompassed and transfigured everything, all pasts, into the living present? Answers. Is that what such understanding, coming to terms with loss, will prove to be? For so far understanding has turned out to have no means… Grief is speaking a language that reaches no-one’s ears, drawing hieroglyphs for which there is no cracked code. Everyone fears death but no-one admits to the fear of grief; the revulsion at that presence, there in us all.
You know the one you knew. Cannot know the other, any other. Allesverloren.
allesverloren = everything lost
Ça va?
Ça ne va pas du tout, it's not going at all
...shame on herself, Charlie for thinking so spitefully, cheaply about him.
Like every sexually attractive young woman she was experienced in the mostly pathetic drive ageing men have towards them. Some of the men are themselves attractive either because they have somehow kept the promise of vigour, mouths with their own teeth, tight muscular buttocks in their jeans, no jowls, fine eyes that have seen much to impart, or because they’re well-known, distinguish, well yes, even rich.
There is choice in the unpredictability of humans; the forms of storytelling are arbitrary. There are alternative endings. I’ve tried them out, here, for myself.
You don’t have to be a philosopher to know immigration means accepting the conditions declared if you want to survive.
She viewed -- that’s the word, clients are taken to view what’s on offer -- walked through room after room, so many prospective places for herself, the ballroom-size bedroom with its vast draped bed, faintly giving the scent of perfume and semen from an image of how it will be to make love there. The bathroom’s sauna and electric massage chair, ready to shudder. Zsusana has found home.
He is in exile.
--
What do you do?
Can’t you see? She makes fulfilment possible, for both of them.
She was smiling in recognition that here was the voice she would have recognised anywhere among other cellists bowing other instruments.
It is in his voice, that glorious voice of his cello; saying something different, not speaking to her but some other.
There’s a deliberation in the caresses. She’s almost moved to say stupidly what they’d never thought to say between them, do you still love me?
The voice of the cello doesn’t lie.
How to apply to the life of this man the shabby ordinary circumstance, what’s the phrase? He’s having an affair.
She woke to the voice, saying something passionately angry in its deepest bass. Then there came the time when -- was it possible for this to be, in his magnificent, exquisite playing -- there was a disharmony, the low notes dragging as if the cello refused him. Nights, weeks, the same.
So. She knew the affair was over. She felt a pull of sadness -- for him. For herself, nothing. By never confronting him she had stunned herself.
Soon he came to her again. The three of them, he she and the cello against the wall, were together.
He makes love better than ever before remembered, caresses not known, more subtle more anticipatory of what can be roused in her, what she’s capable of feeling, needing. As if he’s had the experience of a different instrument to learn from.
--
Flight Hadeda (her choice of the name of ibis that flew over the house calling out commandingly).
None of his business, secret even from herself that she enters him there as, female, she can’t the way he enters her.
they knew Tuesdays were for keeping fit rather than sport; avoiding the onset of that male pregnancy, a middle-age belly.
As Michael turned out their light he spoke aloud but not to her. ‘Hadeda’s down. Scrap.’
Eva never confronted Michael with the smell of the woman scented on him. She did not know whether he saw the woman some other time, now that he had give up the Tuesday night squash club; when or whether he had given up the affair. She did not know, nor return by the means she and the dog possessed, for evidence.
Scratch a white man, Frederick Morris, and find trace of the serum of induced superiority; history never over.
He’s his own usher, shining a torch of distinctive intellectual light and sensibility to guide him.
Edward. He stands a moment, before the embrace of greeting. His familiar way of marking the event of a meeting brought about by the coordination of friends’ commitments and luck happenstance.
We don’t bother with how-are-yous, there’s no point in that sort of banality, here.
Touch isn’t always felt, in dream.
Carlos Fuentes: Music is ‘free of visible ties, the purification and illusions of our bodily misery.”
I know, darling son, you are doing everything what’s for sure to get me out of here. There are big rats! It is terribly hot but they say that in a few weeks will be cooler.
She opened her arms to her son just the way she had always done when he was a boy and she returned from Deauville or a spa in Switzerland. And as herself a child who charms with the assumption that all is forgiven she showed no contrition for the anxiety and dread she had caused by her naughty escapade.
She had her way with her usual style of retort, staying on in the boardinghouse: Where else can I live where I’m the youngest?
Ach Kwatsch (oh, rubbish - quatsch)
For old Grete everything was a party.
Life: a stack of fancy dress costumes in a pirate chest. No number tattooed on an arm; no. No last journey in a cattle truck.
Who had put up an umbrella against the Camp de Concentration de Sébikotane as if to shelter from a passing shower.
So what’s significant about that?
The past is a foreign country.
No entry.
The past is a foreign country… - LP Hartley, The Go-Between
My apprenticeship to sexual love changed; for life. Like it or not, this is what love is. Terrible. Glorious.
Every year I re-read some of the books I don’t want to die without having read again. This year one fo these is Kafka’s Diaries, and I am about half-way through. It’s night-time reading of a wonderfully harrowing sort.
Night after night I had been reading Franz Kafka’s diaries, the subconscious of his fictions, that Max Brod wouldn’t destroy. So there it all is, the secret genesis of creation. Kafka’s subconscious was nightly conducting me from consciousness to the subconsciousness of sleep.
Lorris didn’t want me to go and was embarrassed to come out with it. My work means that we have lived in different parts of the world and in each there has always been something to be afraid of. We have long had a compact, with ourselves, with life; life is dangerous. We live with that; in the one certainty that fear is the real killer.
But everything’s by chance -- how else would she ever have met him?
But it was her tenderness to him, the lovingness in the sexuality that made this foreign affair somewhat different from the others...
She laughed when everyone else did. And then sat quiet and nobody noticed her. She understood that she didn’t know the language.
The only mother tongue she had was his in her mouth, at night.
Whom to talk to.
Grief is boring after a while, burdensome even to close confidants. After a very short while, for them.
The long while continues. A cord that won’t come full circle, doesn’t know how to tie a knot in resolution. So whom to talk to. Speak.
There’s no-one.
To supply answers to questions that were never asked, never necessary to be asked in an intimacy of flesh and mind that reassured, encompassed and transfigured everything, all pasts, into the living present? Answers. Is that what such understanding, coming to terms with loss, will prove to be? For so far understanding has turned out to have no means… Grief is speaking a language that reaches no-one’s ears, drawing hieroglyphs for which there is no cracked code. Everyone fears death but no-one admits to the fear of grief; the revulsion at that presence, there in us all.
You know the one you knew. Cannot know the other, any other. Allesverloren.
allesverloren = everything lost
Ça va?
Ça ne va pas du tout, it's not going at all
...shame on herself, Charlie for thinking so spitefully, cheaply about him.
Like every sexually attractive young woman she was experienced in the mostly pathetic drive ageing men have towards them. Some of the men are themselves attractive either because they have somehow kept the promise of vigour, mouths with their own teeth, tight muscular buttocks in their jeans, no jowls, fine eyes that have seen much to impart, or because they’re well-known, distinguish, well yes, even rich.
There is choice in the unpredictability of humans; the forms of storytelling are arbitrary. There are alternative endings. I’ve tried them out, here, for myself.
You don’t have to be a philosopher to know immigration means accepting the conditions declared if you want to survive.
She viewed -- that’s the word, clients are taken to view what’s on offer -- walked through room after room, so many prospective places for herself, the ballroom-size bedroom with its vast draped bed, faintly giving the scent of perfume and semen from an image of how it will be to make love there. The bathroom’s sauna and electric massage chair, ready to shudder. Zsusana has found home.
He is in exile.
--
What do you do?
Can’t you see? She makes fulfilment possible, for both of them.
She was smiling in recognition that here was the voice she would have recognised anywhere among other cellists bowing other instruments.
It is in his voice, that glorious voice of his cello; saying something different, not speaking to her but some other.
There’s a deliberation in the caresses. She’s almost moved to say stupidly what they’d never thought to say between them, do you still love me?
The voice of the cello doesn’t lie.
How to apply to the life of this man the shabby ordinary circumstance, what’s the phrase? He’s having an affair.
She woke to the voice, saying something passionately angry in its deepest bass. Then there came the time when -- was it possible for this to be, in his magnificent, exquisite playing -- there was a disharmony, the low notes dragging as if the cello refused him. Nights, weeks, the same.
So. She knew the affair was over. She felt a pull of sadness -- for him. For herself, nothing. By never confronting him she had stunned herself.
Soon he came to her again. The three of them, he she and the cello against the wall, were together.
He makes love better than ever before remembered, caresses not known, more subtle more anticipatory of what can be roused in her, what she’s capable of feeling, needing. As if he’s had the experience of a different instrument to learn from.
--
Flight Hadeda (her choice of the name of ibis that flew over the house calling out commandingly).
None of his business, secret even from herself that she enters him there as, female, she can’t the way he enters her.
they knew Tuesdays were for keeping fit rather than sport; avoiding the onset of that male pregnancy, a middle-age belly.
As Michael turned out their light he spoke aloud but not to her. ‘Hadeda’s down. Scrap.’
Eva never confronted Michael with the smell of the woman scented on him. She did not know whether he saw the woman some other time, now that he had give up the Tuesday night squash club; when or whether he had given up the affair. She did not know, nor return by the means she and the dog possessed, for evidence.
December 19, 2025
“Beethoven era per un sedicesimo nero” , così dice la voce di un annunciatore alla radio e Frederick Morris non rimane indifferente a quella frase buttata lì chissà con quale intento:
È una rivendicazione che il presentatore fa come gesto riparatore nei confronti di Beethoven? La sua voce e la sua cadenza lo rivelano irrimediabilmente bianco. Un sedicesimo è forse il tacito desiderio che nutre per sé? Un tempo c’erano neri che volevano essere bianchi. Ora ci sono bianchi che vogliono essere neri. Il segreto è lo stesso.”
È da lì, da una frase ascoltata alla radio che nel protagonista si mette in moto qualcosa, si risveglia in lui il ricordo del bisnonno Benjamin che andò in Africa in cerca di fortuna nel campo dei diamanti, ma senza successi degni di nota. In poche pagine la Gordimer racconta in modo vivido il passato (remoto ma che riecheggia poderoso) del protagonista e il suo presente da docente in una facoltà in subbuglio per le proteste studentesche e il libero accesso all’istruzione.
Ci sono una serie di riflessioni politiche e culturali e c’è Frederick che decide di passare le vacanze di Pasqua proprio nella città dove è vissuto il bisnonno, a Kimberley, nel tentativo di trovare qualche suo parente perché, anche se l’avo aveva moglie sul continente, di sicuro non ha passato tutti quegli anni in santità e castità. Sarebbe poco verosimile. È una missione con scarsissima percentuale di successo, eppure lui parte, spinto dall’interrogativo filosofico, ancestrale e anche biologico che si riduce a : “ dunque io da dove vengo?”. Ai colleghi racconta che la scelta dell’Africa è dovuta al “Big Hole”, la bocca scavata dal camino diamantifero. In realtà è la spinta a trovare il suo “sedicesimo”, la frazione che fa parte del tutto.
Un racconto interessante, che fa riflettere su chi siamo, sulle spinte culturali, psicologiche e biologiche che ci portano a cercare le nostre radici e a capire che, alla fine, siamo tutti “sedicesimi”, anche se la storia ci ha mostrato che, purtroppo, a volte qualcuno si è sentito superiore a qualcun altro per colore della pelle o per idee, generando odio, divisione e ferite difficili da rimarginare.
Due stelle e mezzo il mio voto. Buone letture e alla prossima!
È una rivendicazione che il presentatore fa come gesto riparatore nei confronti di Beethoven? La sua voce e la sua cadenza lo rivelano irrimediabilmente bianco. Un sedicesimo è forse il tacito desiderio che nutre per sé? Un tempo c’erano neri che volevano essere bianchi. Ora ci sono bianchi che vogliono essere neri. Il segreto è lo stesso.”
È da lì, da una frase ascoltata alla radio che nel protagonista si mette in moto qualcosa, si risveglia in lui il ricordo del bisnonno Benjamin che andò in Africa in cerca di fortuna nel campo dei diamanti, ma senza successi degni di nota. In poche pagine la Gordimer racconta in modo vivido il passato (remoto ma che riecheggia poderoso) del protagonista e il suo presente da docente in una facoltà in subbuglio per le proteste studentesche e il libero accesso all’istruzione.
Ci sono una serie di riflessioni politiche e culturali e c’è Frederick che decide di passare le vacanze di Pasqua proprio nella città dove è vissuto il bisnonno, a Kimberley, nel tentativo di trovare qualche suo parente perché, anche se l’avo aveva moglie sul continente, di sicuro non ha passato tutti quegli anni in santità e castità. Sarebbe poco verosimile. È una missione con scarsissima percentuale di successo, eppure lui parte, spinto dall’interrogativo filosofico, ancestrale e anche biologico che si riduce a : “ dunque io da dove vengo?”. Ai colleghi racconta che la scelta dell’Africa è dovuta al “Big Hole”, la bocca scavata dal camino diamantifero. In realtà è la spinta a trovare il suo “sedicesimo”, la frazione che fa parte del tutto.
Un racconto interessante, che fa riflettere su chi siamo, sulle spinte culturali, psicologiche e biologiche che ci portano a cercare le nostre radici e a capire che, alla fine, siamo tutti “sedicesimi”, anche se la storia ci ha mostrato che, purtroppo, a volte qualcuno si è sentito superiore a qualcun altro per colore della pelle o per idee, generando odio, divisione e ferite difficili da rimarginare.
Due stelle e mezzo il mio voto. Buone letture e alla prossima!
January 27, 2025
Tredici brevi racconti pubblicati su diverse riviste e giornali e poi riuniti successivamente in volume con un titolo curioso; il sospetto di una operazione più commerciale che editoriale è in questi casi naturale. L’origine sparsa di questi scritti non consente di individuare una tematica comune ma solo alcuni argomenti ricorrenti. Il Sudafrica, ambientazione di molti romanzi della Gordimer, rimane sullo sfondo anche quando è richiamato esplicitamente: sono gli anni di Mandela, della fine dell’apartheid, di sviluppo economico, di tentativi di integrazione ma nessun racconto può definirsi politico. Diversi racconti affrontano ed esplorano la vita di coppia nelle sue dinamiche: aspettative deluse, incomprensioni ed incompatibilità che emergono col tempo, uno dei due che fa carriera trascurando l’altro, il tradimento, il coraggio di affrontarlo o la scelta sofferta di ignorarlo. In altri il tema è invece il ricordo della persona scomparsa, la necessità di scavare nel passato, il viaggiare alla ricerca di parenti sconosciuti o per approfondire una vecchia relazione del compagno prima di conoscersi o più semplicemente frugare in armadi pieni di vestiti, in uno scatolone con vecchie lettere da cui emergono verità nascoste (chi è il mio vero padre?) che sarebbe meglio restassero tali. Altri racconti sono più stravaganti: lo scarafaggio infilatosi nella macchina da scrivere che non riesce più a uscirne, il sogno di una riunione con alcuni intellettuali Newyorkesi, amici recentemente scomparsi, in un ristorante a discutere dei problemi del mondo come erano soliti fare, la tenia accomodatasi nell’intestino che si nutre paciosa fino a che viene espulsa e si ritrova… in un nuovo ambiente!Non si tratta di racconti memorabili, anzi a parte qualche pagina qua e là, lasciano abbastanza indifferenti, Lo stile è quello solito della Gordimer, preciso e distaccato, ma anche piuttosto freddo (come nei suoi romanzi più famosi) ma l’impressione è che siano stati scritti con più mestiere che ispirazione. Tre stelle
June 2, 2017
The short stories exercised my brain. I had to read, re-read before I came to an understanding of most of the stories. Particularly true for the lead story "Beethoven was One-Sixteenth Black". At first I was mystified, so I read from other websites where people discussed the story. They were clueless as I was. Then on the 3rd read, I got it. I"m not spoiling it for anyone, just leaving a hint.
only one story I did not get at all: "A Beneficiary". If anyone can give me a clue, I would appreciate it.
Some good quotes describing our human experience. In Allesverloren", a widow finds out her dead husband had a gay lover some time in the past.
she says and keeps her work that they will only talk about impersonal things, such as where lived, where worked, things like that. As the conversation winds down, narrator says, There was a hiatus that could not be called silence because while they did not speak there was passing between them a vivid dialogue of the unexpressed. In such a situation, it is easy to understand that such a pause in conversation would happen. And like all the polite people I know, the visit ends here.
Great stories. Hope to read more of Gordimer's books.
I read this book because my GR friend Brina spoke so highly of the writer, another book not available at my library. Thanks Brina.
only one story I did not get at all: "A Beneficiary". If anyone can give me a clue, I would appreciate it.
Some good quotes describing our human experience. In Allesverloren", a widow finds out her dead husband had a gay lover some time in the past.
she says and keeps her work that they will only talk about impersonal things, such as where lived, where worked, things like that. As the conversation winds down, narrator says, There was a hiatus that could not be called silence because while they did not speak there was passing between them a vivid dialogue of the unexpressed. In such a situation, it is easy to understand that such a pause in conversation would happen. And like all the polite people I know, the visit ends here.
Great stories. Hope to read more of Gordimer's books.
I read this book because my GR friend Brina spoke so highly of the writer, another book not available at my library. Thanks Brina.
July 22, 2017
No se puede negar la calidad de la escritura de Gordimer. Curiosamente llegué a este libro por casualidad y lo compré porque estaba super económico, y vaya que ha sido una grata sorpresa. Pero es que la autora ha sido ganadora del Nobel y todo.
Sin embargo la puntuación de 3/5 en realidad es dada porque es una antología de cuentos, unos mas largos, otros increíblemente cortos. Unos buenísimos, otros no tanto. Y la verdad es super difícil encontrar una forma coherente de calificarlo, así que me quedo en el safe space del punto medio.
Aun así recomiendo darse una vuelta por "Beethoven tenía algo de negro", yo seguro buscaré reencontrarme con la pluma de esta autora con alguna de sus novelas.
Sin embargo la puntuación de 3/5 en realidad es dada porque es una antología de cuentos, unos mas largos, otros increíblemente cortos. Unos buenísimos, otros no tanto. Y la verdad es super difícil encontrar una forma coherente de calificarlo, así que me quedo en el safe space del punto medio.
Aun así recomiendo darse una vuelta por "Beethoven tenía algo de negro", yo seguro buscaré reencontrarme con la pluma de esta autora con alguna de sus novelas.
November 28, 2025
Putting “Beethoven” in the title was essentially the literary equivalent of click-bait for me. I opened the book fully expecting that thread to run through the collection, or at least anchor it in a meaningful way. Instead, the title concept appears more as a spark than a subject: interesting, provocative, but never expanded on in the stories themselves.
That said, the collection is coherent, thoughtful. Sharp prose, subtle tensions, and characters caught between histories, identities, and choices. Even if the title never quite pays off, the stories still hold together with that quiet gravitational pull she’s known for.
And Susan Sontag’s surprise appearance? A pleasant enough curveball that I’m willing to forgive the misdirection.
That said, the collection is coherent, thoughtful. Sharp prose, subtle tensions, and characters caught between histories, identities, and choices. Even if the title never quite pays off, the stories still hold together with that quiet gravitational pull she’s known for.
And Susan Sontag’s surprise appearance? A pleasant enough curveball that I’m willing to forgive the misdirection.
October 12, 2018
This book was the first I've read of Gordimers. I'd been interested in reading some of her work since I saw an interview with her broadcast shortly after her death some years ago.
This collection of short stories reads as a sort of literary muscle flexing, or a curriculum vitae; it shows the skills with which Gordimer can write about any situation. The book contains stories centres around grief and marital relationships, but also an intriguing autobiography from the point of view of a tape worm.
At times the prose is confusing or written in a way that I found unclear, but this is likely a tool used by the author to convey a certain feeling or ambiguity.
This collection of short stories reads as a sort of literary muscle flexing, or a curriculum vitae; it shows the skills with which Gordimer can write about any situation. The book contains stories centres around grief and marital relationships, but also an intriguing autobiography from the point of view of a tape worm.
At times the prose is confusing or written in a way that I found unclear, but this is likely a tool used by the author to convey a certain feeling or ambiguity.
Read
August 24, 2021very uneven collection, my favourite was definitely the 2nd last one about the cellist, or the one about the "frivolous" mother. or maybe the one about the actress mother and adoptive father. there was one written from the perspective of a tapeworm that was simply too weird for my taste, and most of the ones written from the perspective of men were just slightly off. overall, a mature collection with themes of identity, falling out of love and complicated relationships with the past. curious to read the books that won her the nobel prize.
November 1, 2017
A mixed bag, but the good ones are really really good. And there is a thematic continuity to the collection that works for stories that aren't up there by lifting them up a bit. My first Gordimer book, and something tells me, it won't be the last. Love the way she lays down the context, no detail seems superfluous, no commentary seems out of place, no observation seems forced. Well worth my time.
July 1, 2018
The collection was uneven, but I ended up disliking most of the stories. Gordimer's unnecessarily-convoluted syntax, her habit of too often hitting the emotional nail on the head, and her pat endings (not all, but most, and several needlessly) did not appeal to me in the least. Some of the stories had a few bright spots, and I did appreciate her plumbing depths not usually plumbed by 'literary' authors (Hungarian expats, business travel, and tapeworms), but overall I was deeply underwhelmed.
May 2, 2023
Una bella collezione di racconti che, secondo me, prendono spessore mano a mano che avanzano. La seconda parte decisamente migliore della prima. Ma, comunque, in tutto il libro si nota la capacità d'analisi e narrativa dell'autrice. L'Africa la si percepisce in modo non preponderante; direi quasi solo sullo sfondo. Ma i racconti sono molto gradevoli, riflessivi, che parlando direttamente all'animo umano e alle sue difficoltà, speranze, dubbi.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 117 reviews