Pricksongs & Descants

Nov 17, 2024 12:21 PM

Author:Robert Coover,Kate Atkinson

In his carnivalesque and riotously inventive Pricksongs & Descants Robert Coover remakes old stories: of Red Riding Hood, Hansel and Gretel, and Beauty (who married her Beast and spends a lifetime suffering his doggy stink). And he reshapes his own: a man makes repeating, re-imagined journeys in an office elevator (while his fellow riders taunt and tempt him), and in the seminal, fractal 'The Babysitter' every moment in a single night is played and replayed, every hope and threat of sex and violence done and undone. Coover's dark, wilfil, comic imagination revels brilliantly in contradictions, a master of chaos.

Reviews

A marvellous magician ... a maker of miracles, a comic, a sexual tease

—— The New York Times Book Review

Startling in their simple perfection

—— Sunday Tribune

Provokingly singular and rare, an island of richness

—— Guardian

Beautifully crafted stories: elegiac, honest, proud, and both eloquent and taciturn, like their subjects...a wonderfully talented writer

—— Margaret Atwood

Rarely does a great writer offer himself to us with an oeuvre so complete

—— New York Times Book Review

Etgar Keret is a writer to be taken seriously

—— Yann Martel

Keret's surreal conceits are couched in a wry, downbeat language...The effect is something like a sorrowful hybrid of Kafka and Donald Barthelme: deadpan on the surface, with a bassnote of discomfort and emotional alienation that makes even the briefest tales snag in the mind...Each piece is at once universal and particular...world-class gems. The translation is brilliant, too

—— Tim Martin , Daily Telegraph

Etgar Keret is the voice of young Israel

—— Independent

One of the greatest short story writers alive

—— Ben Rice

One of the most important writers alive... enchantingly witty

—— Clive James

Etgar Keret's extraordinary imagination sets the reader free from slogans and headlines

—— Linda Grant

One of the greatest short story writers alive

—— Ben Rice

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