Collected Stories

by Peter Carey

For the first time, Booker Prize-winner Peter Carey's dazzling stories are gathered in one volume. Bound together with his critically acclaimed collection, The Fat Man in History, are seventeen fantastic and disturbing tales previously unpublished in Canada. In each one Carey reveals the surreal within the ordinary. A man begins peeling off his girlfriend's clothes and then layers of her skin to discover another person underneath. A lone soldier who...

Customer Reviews

More Hot than Cold in this Collection

Careys style is a sort of cross between Hemingways short, clipped descriptive prose and Flann O'Briens surreal story telling and this collection illustrates this to the full. As in all collections you get a mixed bag, but this volume contains far more 'hot' than 'cold'-Kristu Du, A Million dollars worth of Amphetamines,Puzzling nature of Blue,Exotic Pleasures and Fragrance of Roses sticking out particularily for me; all telling of how reality never quite lives up to the myth. A good collection.

Short stories from Peter Carey

Here are the complete (26) short stories of Peter Carey in a single volume, including those collected in the books "The Fat Man in History" (Crabs, Peeling, Life & Death in the South Side Pavilion, Room No. 5 (Escribo), Happy Story, A Windmill in the West, Withdrawal, Report on the Shadow Industry, Conversations with Unicorns, American Dreams, and The Fat Man in History), "War Crimes" (The Journey of a Lifetime, Do You Love Me?, The Uses of Williamson Wood, The Last days of a Famous Mime, A Schoolboy Prank, The Chance, Fragrance of Roses, The Puzzling Nature of Blue, Kristu Du, He Found Her in Late Summer, Exotic Pleasures, and War Crimes), along with 3 previously unpublished works (Joe, Concerning the Greek Tyrant, and A Million Dollars Worth of Amphetamines). Peter Carey has risen to fame as a novelist, having gained notoriety from such works as Oscar and Lucinda (which garnered him the Booker Prize), Jack Maggs, The True History of the Kelly Gang, and My Life as a Fake. However, like most writers, his debut publications were short story collections and "Collected Stories" finds his mini-masterpieces all in one place. I started reading Carey during a brief residence in Melbourne (I'm a short story fan and was looking for an Australian writer to compliment my travels -- I think it was a travel guide that pointed me to Peter Carey). I bought "The Fat Man in History," but after being blown away by the first few stories, I returned it for the complete "Collected Stories" and never looked back. Many of the stories have a surrealistic plot, such as "Do You Love Me?" in which the work of cartographers plays a role in the dematerialization of places and people, "Life and Death in the South Side Pavilion" in which a man attempts to shepherd a group of horses that keep dying by falling into a pool of water, "Peeling" in which a man's lover unravels into nothingness, or "Exotic Pleasures" in which captivatingly beautiful birds murderously overwhelm the world. Others center on human relationships, such as "Room No. 5 (Escribo)" in which a couple traveling in a foreign land fall in love in the midst of a military coup, "Happy Story" in which a man balances his love for his girlfriend with his passion for flying, "The Uses of Williamson Wood" in which a woman confronts her abuser, and "He Found Her in Late Summer" in which a man sacrifices himself for his lover. The stories are difficult to describe further because they're not really "like" many other authors I can think of. The language and character interaction are spare but powerful (reminiscent of Joe Frank -- see [...], the stories are brief, often divided into terse sections/chapters and focusing on the bizarre or fantastic (like Vonnegut), and there is a recurring theme of futility in impossible situations and suggesting a larger metaphorical meaning (evoking Kafka). Each tale leaves a strong emotional impression -- I found myself eager to read the next, but not wanting to finish too soon a

Collected Stories

This collection of stories brings forth a surge of emotions that range from satirical humor to suspense, and they do this from page to page. Peter Carey's collection of short stories flows with all these emotions, keeping the reader in suspense through the surrealistic tales he creates. Events and locations seem so normal that one almost forgets that these are fictional tales, taking place in a world where things, places and events seem perfectly conventional until it break the laws of what is feasible and what is pure fantasy. A native Australian, Carey's stories take place in a would be Australia. Here we look into the thoughts of people in completely different situations. There is a tale of a soldier who has to guard a fence in the desert, keeping people "out". Soon he forgets which side he is supposed to be guarding, doubting his competence and his sanity. Some other stories deal with lost dreams, people who have sunk so far into despair that they emerge victoriously on the other side. This is a very good read, especially if you like to read a satisfying tale, and only have short periods of time to accomplish it.