Small Liberal Arts College Life is Not a Bore | Shakespeare's Kitchen: Stories

An emotional saga of interpersonal relationships as a barometer of the human condition. | Shakespeare's Kitchen: Stories | Lore Segal

books:


	• Shakespeare's Kitchen: Stories Lore Segal New Press, 2008 - 240 pages average customer review:based on 9 reviews view larger image
	for more information click here

highly recommended

How Do People Meet?

This book is astoundingly well written, but the Introduction is possibly the best of all. Segal's theme being, how do people meet others? Become assimilated into an established community? I particularly loved her illustration of people attaining intimacy, and what happens to that intimacy over time, whether it remains strong or not. There is a kicker at the end that had me going back and re-reading the final pages referenced in other reviews, to see how I had missed a crucial point. And saw it was hidden there all the time. The humor also is especially keen.

for more information click here

Small Liberal Arts College Life is Not a Bore

Often, the impressively depressing characters of this book deliver anything but happiness or humor to the reader. I am not receptive to such continually depressing story telling; but, enjoyed the characters' doldrums as Segal included a looming tale of intricate love between two of the main characters - where neither party seems to know nor acknowledge love of the other.

Although claimed to be a string of short stories, this is a chronological interconnected group of stories focusing mainly on the life of Ilka whose work as a teacher for foreign students at Concordance University leads to many uncommon events.

Small town U.S.A. hosts the campus for Concordance. The faculty, like most people, seem plainly regular. But, like anyone, they become eccentrically weird as the reader begins to learn more about their nuances and idiosyncracies. But, this faculty is no less professorially bizarre than any other faculty.

Having studied in an atmosphere (and time) like that of this book, I endeavored to see if her professor Cohn was like my English humbugging Professor Knight. Yeah, kind of. Same for the other professors and administrators of this novel.

Viennese-born Ilka manages to find lovers and husbands among the town's fray. She raises a daughter whose impressionable youth is molded in the naive town, and ultimately leads a discrete and less-than-honorable lifestyle during the last 70 or more pages of the book. Small town U.S.A. has good people do bad things - this is not something monopolized by the urban dwellers.

Written in 2007, this book has chapters which read like cuttings of e-mails. Plots move at accelerated paces with ADHD-like descriptions. The last 20 pages literally encompass 10-15 years of Ilka's life, if not more. I am getting used to this format of writing, but still need more time to reflect upon whether it is truly great literature. At present, I receive this like my parents accepted rock and roll - maybe a bit better - but still hold onto classic structure and may not be open enough for this conceptual style of writing.

As a story teller, Segal is first class. As a writer, she is well above average. No wonder this finished in the running for the Pulitzer Prize in Fiction

for more information click here

An emotional saga of interpersonal relationships as a barometer of the human condition.

Shakespeare's Kitchen is an anthology of thirteen interconnected short stories, seven of which have previously appeared in "The New Yorker", about the yearning for friendship and the development - and loss - of closeness. Author and award-winner Lore Segal reveals the world of Ilka Weisz, who has accepted a junior position at a Connecticut think tank at the cost of departing her beloved circle of New York friends. As she comes to know her new acquaintances through a series of memorable dinner parties, afternoon picnics, and Sunday brunches, she experiences the outsider's loneliness among people as well the delight of cultivating familiar companionship, the wonderment of love, and the shock or even bizarre behavior in the wake of losing a fellow human being to death. An emotional saga of interpersonal relationships as a barometer of the human condition.

for more information click here

Nominated For the Pulitzer Prize 2007

This is the best book I have read this summer. It is a perfect mix of good writing, wit, and captivating plot. Segal had me laughing out loud quite a few times but also had me contemplating her words long after I finished a chapter. Don't let the "short story" part scare you off. All are interrelated and reads like a complete novel. Highly reccomended.

The highly praised new book that delivers a "hefty emotional wallop" (Chicago Tribune) from the acclaimed author of Other People's Houses and Her First American.

Shakespeare's Kitchen, Lore Segal's first major work of fiction in more than twenty years, was widely celebrated upon its publication in hardcover. Serialized in The New Yorker and excerpted in the 2008 O. Henry Prize Stories collection, it was also a Book Sense Pick, a Pick of the Week in both Entertainment Weekly and People magazine, and a Summer Reading Pick in Oprah's O Magazine.

In these "wry, finely honed, interlocking stories" (Atlantic Monthly), Segal offers a brilliant and nuanced portrayal of the lives of a close-knit group of friends and colleagues in a fictional college town in Connecticut. Told through a series of unforgettable dinner parties, afternoon picnics, and Sunday brunches, "the cumulative power of Shakespeare's Kitchen lies in Segal's dazzling ability to merge the mundane details of life with the arc of human emotion" (Washington Post Book World). It's a deeply moving work that marks the triumphant return of a writer at the height of her powers.

for more information click here

reviews: page 1, 2

hot