Tu e un quarto

by Jonathan Carroll, Lucia Olivieri (translator)

Un marito si ritrova per casa l'amico immaginario della moglie che le teneva compagnia quando era bambina; uno stimato professore di letteratura americana viene scelto per diventare un trentaseiesimo di Dio; una coppia scopre una maniera fantasiosa e solo apparentemente innocua per ravvivare la sua sessualità un po' spenta; un uomo perde una gamba per salvare la vita al proprio cane che ricambierà il favore a modo suo; una casa piange la scomparsa della felicità dalle proprie stanze; una ragazzina crea una madre bellissima per sedurre gli uomini che le piacciono. Nelle diciannove parabole visionarie di "Tu e un quarto" la normalità quotidiana si trasforma all'improvviso in un incubo: i nostri sogni diventano storie e le ossessioni del mondo in cui viviamo - i soldi, la moda, l'identità, il sesso - vengono stemperate da una buona dose di magia. Jonathan Carroll capovolge la realtà creando racconti paradossali eppure verosimili, dando vita a un mondo abitato da mostri che "bussano con pugni giganteschi alla porta del nostro cuore, chiedendo di essere liberati".

Genres: Short Stories, Fiction, Fantasy, Horror, Collections, Contemporary, Speculative Fiction

281 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1989

About the author

Jonathan Carroll (b. 1949) is an award-winning American author of modern fantasy and slipstream novels. His debut book, The Land of Laughs (1980), tells the story of a children’s author whose imagination has left the printed page and begun to influence reality. The book introduced several hallmarks of Carroll’s writing, including talking animals and worlds that straddle the thin line between reality and the surreal, a technique that has seen him compared to South American magical realists.

Outside the Dog Museum (1991) was named the best novel of the year by the British Fantasy Society, and has proven to be one of Carroll’s most popular works. Since then he has written the Crane’s View trilogy, Glass Soup (2005) and, most recently, The Ghost in Love (2008). His short stories have been collected in The Panic Hand (1995) and The Woman Who Married a Cloud (2012). He continues to live and write in Vienna.

Reviews

[Fee · Rating 4 out of 5]

A collection of 20 short stories. They’re all in ‘normal’ daily life settings with a little bit of magic and weirdness incorporated into them. Loved most of the stories here, especially the one about dating the friend’s imaginary friend, and the one with the dog named Friend, and also the one about the house with emotions. Will be actively searching for more works of this author.

[Bill · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Panic Hand is a collection of short stories by a new author for me, Jonathan Carroll. I selected the book to read because I thought the stories fell under the Horror genre, my October theme. While there were some horror themes that featured in some of the stories, I never found them horrifying, more fantasy in the majority of cases. Tired Angel is the closest to horror, the story of a stalker and the woman he stalks.

There was such a variety and so many themes; what if God starts forgetting what he has created, does a house remember its residents, if your dream of your past life becomes your life again, is too much Jane Fonda actually hell in hell, etc.

I find short story collections hit-or-miss. Can the author get to the crux of the story quickly and come to a satisfying conclusion? Carroll has a nice writing style. He gets you into the story right away, grabbing your attention immediately to draw you in and for the most part, providing satisfying endings. I have to say that not every ending made sense to me, but there were some that I really liked; the last two were favorites. A Flash in the Pants deals with a tired, lonely old man and a house that misses one of its residents. A Wheel in the Desert, The Moon on Some Swings deals with a man who learns he will go blind in a short time and wants to find a way to remember his life. The Jane Fonda Room was witty and enjoyable as the subject gets to choose his eternal punishment in Hell.

An excellent mix of stories, all well-written, with touches of Saki (H.H. Munro) in many of them; his way of twisting the story at the end to make you go... ahhhh. Carroll has an extensive library and I liked this enough to try his novels. (I have two of his books on my book shelf to enjoy) (4 stars)

[Halina]

A fun collection of stories. Some better than others. Also, after finishing this right after 'what we mean when we talk about love,' I now how a better appreciation for the latter in that writing a self-contained short story requires incredible skill. Carroll often comes up with a great subject, but the endings feel a bit... meh.

[Glen Engel-Cox · Rating 4 out of 5]

I hate to harp on it, but Jonathan Carroll has problems ending stories. I would like to say I don't care because even a partial story by Carroll is enough, but the truth is that I'm always left with a craving that you get when you read a story and you're wrapped up into it and you require completion. Supposedly American audiences require a "happy" completion, but I hope I'm beyond that. "Uh-oh City" has all the things that are quintessential Carroll: characters who are intrinsically interesting, a doozy of a "weirdness," and the, unfortunately, open ending. The premise is that there are 36 people who are God, but not individually, but collectively. One-thirty-sixth of God is still pretty much amazing, though, and when God(sub36) tells you that they are dying and you are next in line to become part of the 36thhood, what can you say? Complications ensue, as they usually do, and things are never as they seem in a Carroll story, but after the final twisty turn we reach the last sentence and we are still on the precipice of understanding, and need a final push to put us over...and it never comes.

The other stories here are more of the same wild, wonderful fare. The Panic Hand was originally published in Germany with a slightly different table of contents. I own a copy of that book, but being unable to read German was slightly hampered in trying to understand the stories. Carroll's better at the long form--his favorite literary device is the untrustworthy narrator, and it takes at least 50 pages to set up a story with one of those that won't annoy the reader. Even still, his tendency for the twist and his incredible way of creating characters that you would like to know in a few sentences is enjoyable even in the short form.

[S.M. · Rating 3 out of 5]

Favorite story: Friend's Best Man

[Roberta · Rating 5 out of 5]

In questo post booksblog.it ci rimanda all’articolo di Stephen King pubblicato dal New York Times, What Ails the Short Story. King, curatore della raccolta Best American Short Stories 2007, ci parla dello status del racconto negli Stati Uniti e di cosa lui cerca in un racconto, in qualità di lettore.

King lamenta la situazione in cui versa lo scrittore di short stories: non c’è più un pubblico, non c’è più un mercato, e la conseguenza diretta è che lo scrittore spesso inizia a scrivere per la critica, per gli aspiranti scrittori. Il genere diventa quindi auto-referenziale, e questo genere di lettura – ci dice King – non è vera lettura, non è il tipo di lettura “non posso assolutamente aspettare di sapere che cosa succede dopo”. Si tratta di storie che King non arriverebbe a definire “morte”, ma poco sostanziose, auto-referenziali, questo sì.

Nonostante questo, molti scrittori continuano a scrivere bellissime storie. Questo perché il talento non si può soffocare, esso trova le sue vie anche in situazioni avverse. Queste belle storie condividono un senso di coinvolgimento emotivo, di sorpresa. King dichiara di cercare storie che si prendono cura sia delle sue emozioni che del suo cervello, ma dichiara anche di non aver mai cercato qualcosa che soddisfacesse semplicemente il suo senso critico. Egli vuole quello che definisce il piacere antico che probabilmente risale addirittura alla vita cavernicola: sentire la propria personalità spazzata via per un po’.

Non conosco gli autori della raccolta curata da King, ma in questo post voglio parlare di una raccolta di Jonathan Carroll. Quando ho iniziato a leggere Tu e un quarto ero spinta solo dalla curiosità di scoprire qualcosa di più relativamente a questo autore, di cui avevo sentito nominare alcuni romanzi dai suggestivi titoli Il mare di legno e Zuppa di vetro. Non amo molto i racconti (mi stancherò mai di dirlo?) ma in questo gruppo di Anobii dedicato all’autore mi hanno consigliato questa raccolta come prima lettura. Che dire? E’ stato amore a prima vista!

Jonathan Carroll è un autore visionario. I suoi racconti sono intimisti e delicati ma anche sfrenatamente fantastici e pirotecnici. Difficile conciliare questi aggettivi, eppure Carroll ci riesce. Racconta le piccole storie di persone normali che vivono esistenze quiete e felici oppure un po’ tristi e talvolta persino disperate. E c’è sempre un punto, un giro di vite, in cui tutto viene capovolto e, come uno squarcio nel tessuto della realtà (banalissima espressione, lo so) veniamo catapultati in un mondo incredibile, a volte solo per un attimo, il tempo di intravedere questa realtà. Parafrasando King, i racconti di Carroll sono proprio quel genere di storie che ti tengono inchiodata alla pagina, ansiosa di sapere cosa succederà, e quando il racconto termina è come uno schiaffone in pieno viso! Abilissimo nel tratteggiare con poche parole personaggi e situazioni, Carroll riesca a portarci subito nel vivo del racconto, e lo svolgimento e la chiusura non deludono le aspettative.

[Justin Jaeger · Rating 4 out of 5]

Heartwarmingly Eerie.

I'm trying to figure out what I like so much about Jonathan Carroll. I get such a thought provoking response from everything I read of his. This collection of stories is my second selection and I'm so pleased to have chosen an assortment of his stories now. I described my affection for "the Ghost in Love" as a tryst and really now I'm just going to keeping adding his books to my list.

His stories feel like the Twilight Zone. They creep you out and set you strange, but then inspire you to move ahead into the next episode. He allows his characters to be characters. He fleshes them out quickly and simply. They don't need to be comprehensive because they are particular. He doesn't need you to identify with them because they are deliberately extraordinary.

I like this kind of horror - and that's far too strong a word- because it comes with a measure of detachment, of voyeurism even. It's fantastic and wonderful and scary and good.

Reading these was like taking shots at a really great party that never gets out of control. You're not sure if it's going to be okay and it hurts a bit but it's so much fun that you don't want to stop. At a different party with a different drink, it would be terrifyingly bad, but this book has just the right profound mix of danger and experiential joy.

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

Carroll has a real gift for spinning stories where the strangest, most bizarre things can seem utterly commonplace. The best stories in this collection (of which I count four: Uh-Oh City, The Fall Collection, Friend's Best Man, and The Dead Love You) feature (with the exception of The Dead Love You, come to think of it, which is just spooky weird) introspective but normal characters coming to grips with life altering but normal afflictions when, at some point, some pillar of reality collapses beneath them and they realize that their dog is part of a world domination conspiracy, or they are in the middle of a succession struggle for fractional godhood (yes, it sounds strange in summary form, but they work quite well as stories).

The rest of the stories all have enjoyable elements, but the fusion of endearing characters living normal lives with far-out fantastical plot twists doesn't always gel, and upon finishing some of these stories I was left feeling like "so what?", or, as they say these days, "meh."

[Cedric · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ein-Satz-Review

Jonathan Carroll hat etwas, wofür ich den frühen Murakami einst bewundert habe, einen Ton, der lapidar ist, sich in den Registern klischierter Sprache vergreift, der auf nichts Mystisches verweist, aber auch das Esoterische in der romantischen Welt nicht unterschlägt, der im Grunde nur erzählt und das scheinbar unfreiwillig, ziemlich ohne Erzählgestus, ein Realitätseffekt, der aber nicht authentisch ist, der Gänsehaut verursacht, weil man dem Erzähler zu sehr vertraut, bevor er sich als Betrüger entpuppt, tatsächliche und nicht nur metaphorische Gänsehaut, weil es so gut geschrieben ist, in jenem Ton, in dem man selbst langweilige Grossvatergeschichten erzählen müsste; und Carrol erzählt Gruselgeschichten!

[Chris Browning · Rating 5 out of 5]

Some of these hit harder than others, but that’s usually the case with short stories. What’s more interesting is how much of these feel like Carroll testing ideas for novels and realising they would be far more effective as briefer, almost shockingly taut little vignettes. Sometimes he goes for his whimsical side, at other times he’s in his more brutal, darker frame of mind and at other times he does my favourite thing he does which is lead you into believing that you’re reading a fantastical story but instead you’re reading something almost brutally realist. There are some ideas in this that will haunt me for years, like the best of his work always does. Strange, unsettling, funny, sometimes beautiful and always unpredictable. The man is a genius

[Tanvir Muntasim · Rating 5 out of 5]

I found it impossible to classify Carroll's writing style. At times magic realist, sometimes melancholy, but always enjoyable, and it takes a special kind of writer who can straddle the divide between literary and genre fiction. The stories are like a box of rare delight, made more appealing by their sheer unexpectedness. Definitely one of the best story collections I have read in the last decade or so, and it has honed my appetite for sampling more short stories. Highly recommended.

[Rachel Sandell · Rating 4 out of 5]

I never knew I needed this humor/horror/mind-bending in my life, but boy, do I! Carroll brings a sense of thoughtful oddness that's both scary and awe-inspiring. The ideas of life, God, and religion as it relates to the human soul are riveting. If you're looking for a spooky series of short stories that you'll think about for a long time after you close the book, look no further than The Panic Hand!

[Steve Scanlan · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent collection of short stories that won a Stoker Award. Carroll's stories have a very contemporary feel and setting in most cases, except for subtle twists of fantasy. Some of these stories I wanted to go on longer as I enjoyed them so much. Even though they are short stories, the characters are instantly defined and they remain unique even after the previous story.

[El · Rating 3 out of 5]

The biggest thing I took away from this book is that in the About the Author section we're told that Jonathan Carroll is at work on a book called The Mermaid's Son. The Panic Hand was published in 1995. I have never heard of The Mermaid's Son before. There's no book with that name anywhere that I can find. And yes, I looked. Was it published under a different title? Is he still working on it? Was the story abandoned? What happened??

I still continue to consider Jonathan Carroll one of my favorite authors which I think is sort of funny since a quick review of my ratings of the books I have read shows me that I rated several of them as 3-star reads, a rating that in the normal world means something to me like "mediocre". But since Jonathan Carroll writes about normal worlds with a strong focus on the abnormal, maybe a 3-star read means something like "reserved for something special."

I always wind up walking away from a Carroll novel feeling like I've just been made privy to some sort of secret. Carroll seems to use his writing as a way to present his views on life, and as a Christian Scientist (I just found that out) his views include a lot of feelings about God and angels. (Now it's just funny that I like his stories so much. But he also likes dogs and writes a lot about dogs, which cancels out the other stuff.) It's not all heavy-handed God-stuff; it's subtle sometimes, and very magical every time.

I do not consider these short stories to be the best short stories. I think some of them are downright rotten. I was surprised to see that the publication date for was '95 because I would have thought that some of these were among the first things Carroll might have ever written. The book includes the novella, Black Cocktail, which I read earlier this year. Reading it now didn't make me love it any more than I did before, and I was sort of annoyed that I needed to read it again. But there were other stories (Uh-Oh City, Friend's Best Man, and The Sadness of Detail) that were really quite powerful. It's reasons like those that I keep reading him. No matter how mediocre his writing may seem, he always manages to surprise me with something. And that's exciting and beautiful.

But seriously, what's up with this Mermaid's Son business?

[Francesco Galdieri · Rating 5 out of 5]

Tu e un quarto - Jonathan Carroll Non conoscevo Jonathan Carroll e, leggendo il suo nome, mi veniva solo in mente "Alice nel paese delle meraviglie", anche se con lui non c'entra niente. Ebbene, un giorno entro in libreria e mi trovo davanti questa copertina: http://giotto.ibs.it/cop/copj13.asp?f... Adoro Olbinski (che tra l'altro ho conosciuto qui sul Forum, nel topic del'arte) e non ho potuto fare a meno di sbirciare la quarta di copertina. Ovviamente leggerla non � servito a niente, come al solito. Vorrei proprio conoscerlo, uno "scrittore di quarta di copertina" e vorrei chiedergli: "ma sei felice o il tuo lavoro � frustrante al punto da renderti la vita impossibile?". Vab�, sto divagando, torno al libro. Insomma, come avrete capito il libro l'ho comprato (edito da Lain, Fazi Editore, costo 15,50 Euro). E se sono qui a scriverlo � perch� vorrei che lo leggeste anche voi. E' un libro che racconta storie strane. 'Strane' perch� oniriche, perch� da un momento all'altro pu� sbucare un elemento surreale a ribaltare ogni certezza del lettore. E ad aprirgli la mente, sempre che lui sia particolarmente ricettivo. E' un libro che parla della vita, della morte annunciata e di quella improvvisa, del cancro, dell'amore e di mille altre cose. Insomma, parla di noi. Carroll � un mago, riesce a dire e a dare tanto con poche, pochissime parole che navigano in un contesto (mi ripeto) surreale, ma che diventa totalmente plausibile, poi credibile e addirittura reale. Lo spettatore di queste storie meravigliose rimane prima affascinato, poi incuriosito e quindi sconvolto dal mondo che gli si spalanca davanti (proprio come quando si guarda un'opera di Olbinski). Per poi realizzare che quel mondo � sempre stato davanti a lui, che semplicemente non era stato in grado di vederlo. Non posso dirvi altro, se non di evitare di leggere la quarta di copertina, che contiene qualche 'spoiler' di troppo. Proprio per questo non vi ho parlato di nessuno dei racconti: fare un riassunto di un racconto di Carroll significa rovinarlo, svuotarlo del meglio, del percorso che sposta la prospettiva dal reale al surreale. Leggetelo. E vi innamorerete perdutamente anche voi della ragazzina che balbetta...

[Damian Konopka · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm a big big fan of Glass Soup and The Wooden Sea and was excited to read short stories by Carroll. I enjoyed them very much but consider his novels to be superior.

[Rainb0warri0r · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Tirai un respiro profondo e guardandola negli occhi le chiesi:"Chi sei?".
"Dio".
"Ah".
Lei sorrise e mi prese la mano. "Oh oh lallà!"."


"Tu e un quarto" è una raccolta di racconti. E' il Carroll di sempre. Sveliamo l'arcano già dall'inizio: non delude, ma non aggiunge niente di nuovo.

Si tratta di 19 racconti che un po' incantano, un po' inquietano e un po'... no. Perché ad un certo punto il linguaggio di Carroll, le sue tematiche e il suo impianto narrativo (che alterna punti di vista in prima e in terza persona, ma molto semplici e lineari) risulta già visto, già sentito.

Eppure non stanca mai.

Non stanca questa raccolta di racconti, trionfo dell'onirico e del surreale, in cui brillano anche racconti che di surreale non hanno proprio niente, e che trasudano una spaventosa amarezza. Per il mondo, per la vita. Ce ne sono alcuni che sono proprio tristi, altri cattivi, altri ancora che ti angosciano: e qui, ed è chiaro, il buio non è quello dell'onirico, né dell'inconscio, è il buio che certe volte cala sulle nostre vite.

Carroll ha decisamente scritto di meglio, ma questo è comunque un libro da consigliare.



(P.S. Il mio preferito è "La ruota nel deserto, la Luna sull'altalena". Poetico e dolceamaro.)

[Pam Baddeley · Rating 3 out of 5]

Rather a mixed bag, and featuring a lot of the usual Carroll tropes such as dogs, gods, and story endings that plummet off a cliff or just run out of steam.

Some were stronger than others and had less of a 'oh, is that it?' effect. Some are very short but quite disturbing, such as the title story about the man on a train who meets a woman and her daughter. I'd read it previously, probably in a collection of dark fantasy/horror stories by assorted authors, and also had a deja vu feeling about 'Friend's Best Man', where a man saves his dog.

Two stories are reprints of stories told in the 'A Child Across the Sky' novel, or else Carroll wrote them first and subsequently decided to include them in that novel: 'Mr Fiddlehead' and 'A Quarter Past You'. Some of the stories go nowhere - the longer 'Uh-Oh City' builds up to something then fizzles out - and this is not dissimilar to the endings of some of Carroll's novels.

[Marshall · Rating 4 out of 5]

As much as I love Carroll's work, I think he's a much stronger novelist than short story writer. Carroll has written some of the most amazing prose I've ever read, breathtaking in its clarity and incisiveness. While there's a lot of brilliance here, and while I think that this book would make a good introduction to the challenging ideas that Carroll often takes on in his work, I also think that the writing here often doesn't catch fire as it does in his longer work. Still excellent, still well worth reading, but there weren't as many 'wow' moments as there were in some of his novels.

[Tracey · Rating 4 out of 5]

Carroll is one of those authors were you scratch your head and wonder just why he is not so well known. This collection of stories demonstrates why Carroll should be better known as he creates some really original work.
Each of the stories is beautifully crafted and you get a real sense of place with each of them. They are all uniquely different and cover a vast array of subjects.
My only complaint is that some of these short stories I wish were longer, much longer as I wanted to lose myself in the tale that has been created.

[Alb85 · Rating 2 out of 5]

Il genere di questo libro potrebbe essere "assurdo". Non sono storie di fantasia sono storie assurde.

Di positivo c'è la prosa semplice e l'originalità delle storie.
Di negativo ci sono i preamboli delle storie davvero troppo lunghi, e i finali difficili da interpretare.

Le storie sembrano nascondere una morale nascosta che ti dovrebbe aprire la mente. Il fatto e' che di morali non ne ho proprio trovate.

Libro sconsigliato.

Due storie ho trovato carine:
- La stanza di Jane Fonda
- Angelo stanco

[William · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is more like a collection of first chapters than self contained stories. This could be frustrating for those who have a strong desire for resolution. Nearly every tale ends in a cliffhanger. I thought it was a wonderful effect but it took me a while to adapt and accept. It's like _The Mysteries of Harris Burdick_ that way.

Some of them work a lot better than others. I think it would be fun to read with friends and talk about what would happen next.

[Sir He-Man · Rating 5 out of 5]

Oh Jonathan Carroll, you are so completely fucking disturbing. Someone hold me if I ever think of reading any of these stories again. There's something not so visceral but much more sinister to good psychological horror, and when it's as skillfully done as these, they will stay with you longer than violent gore.

[Clarice]

Still haven't worked my way through this one. My enjoyment of the stories has been varied, and I'm still not quite sure what to make of his writing style. When choosing reading material for the waiting room, I found myself passing this one over again and again for "The Sparrow", or "20th Century Ghosts". It's going back on the shelf for now. Maybe I'll come back to it later.

[George Wines · Rating 2 out of 5]

Cliche-ridden, trite, cutesy, lazy prose. I imagine this is what passes for good writing in a really bad community college creative writing class. As well, most of the stories have no payoff, no resolution, no matter how obscure. They seem cut off, as if each has a certain page limit and the publisher just lopped them off.

[Stuart · Rating 2 out of 5]

Starts out strong with a few good stories, but the magical realism quickly gets cloying. Dude. Try writing a story for once in your life that doesn't feature God, angels, magic tricks, or a talking dog.

[Kati · Rating 4 out of 5]

http://www.jonathancarroll.com/

[Vanlilith]

-

[Serge Pierro · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's nice to see Carroll's writing in the context of short stories - a welcome change from reading his novels.

[Andrew · Rating 4 out of 5]

The great, creepy stories in this make up for the weaker, abruptly short ones.