northamerica's review
dark
emotional
funny
mysterious
sad
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? N/A
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
samiac's review against another edition
funny
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? N/A
- Strong character development? N/A
- Loveable characters? N/A
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A
4.25
perturbedperse's review
challenging
dark
emotional
funny
lighthearted
mysterious
reflective
sad
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? N/A
- Strong character development? N/A
- Loveable characters? N/A
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A
3.0
A great collection of absurd and insane short stories.
aurrai's review
The satire was so on point. A sample of the text:
A third article gracing the front page features a shot of the recently elected Australian Prime Minister. He is lying naked with a come-hither smile, a national flag artfully covering his private parts. He is on a bed of flags, on a floor of flags. The caption says he is ready to confide in his beloved compatriots the economic benefits of climate catastrophe. The headline of the article is 'I Love a Sunburnt Country'.
The final lines are from a well-known Australian poem. It's been used in tv advertising from the 70s to now.
the poem: https://www.sl.nsw.gov.au/stories/dorothea-mackellars-my-country
ad from the 1970s: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hSJq9-KhNDY
ad from the 2020s: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Rgr6r-62Ts
A third article gracing the front page features a shot of the recently elected Australian Prime Minister. He is lying naked with a come-hither smile, a national flag artfully covering his private parts. He is on a bed of flags, on a floor of flags. The caption says he is ready to confide in his beloved compatriots the economic benefits of climate catastrophe. The headline of the article is 'I Love a Sunburnt Country'.
The final lines are from a well-known Australian poem. It's been used in tv advertising from the 70s to now.
the poem: https://www.sl.nsw.gov.au/stories/dorothea-mackellars-my-country
ad from the 1970s: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hSJq9-KhNDY
ad from the 2020s: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Rgr6r-62Ts
ashyoung555's review
5.0
I think this is my favourite book I've read in 2017 so far. Julie Koh is whipsmart, clever, funny, and the perfect amount of weird. These stories are strange AF. They hit on so many real world issues, like patriarchy (The Fantastic Breasts), consumerism (Cream Reaper) and racism (The Three-Dimensional Yellow Man). She reimagines Australia and the world in darkly funny and exceptionally strange ways, but the connection to our reality is concrete and, as a reader, you are able to pin it down.
The last story in the collection, The Fat Girl in History, is especially good. It is a work of autofiction, a term I had not heard of before, which seems ridiculous seeing as I've spent the last four years of my life in a Creative & Professional Writing degree. I have been learning about all of the wrong things, because I now want to write a piece of autofiction. (Okay, we may have touched on writing where the fictional bleeds into the autobiographical and vice versa, but it was always referred to as creative non-fiction. Autofiction is a much better term and I am adopting it.)
Koh's prose is sparse, somewhat detached, and effortlessly readable. Nearly every story starts with one sentence in its own paragraph, which sets the tone perfectly for the story to come. There are nods to it having been called "bland", which baffles me because it is quite the opposite. It is evocative without being over-the-top, and the mild detachment works well to engage the reader with stories that could be too strange to relate to.
My bitter feminist heart appreciated her comments on "The Difficulties of an Objectified Existence in a Patriarchal World" in The Fantastic Breasts. I loved the absurdity of a cat cafe seceding from the Australian nation in Slow Death in Cat Cafe, and the mind-numbing, crazy scary future world of Civility Place. I enjoyed the unique ways Inquiry Regarding the Recent Goings-On in the Woods and Cream Reaper were delivered - by an inquiry report and journalistic feature respectively. Satirist Rising, the story from which the title is drawn, is an intersting look into the "dying arts" of the future.
I loved every story in the book, even the ones I haven't mentioned in this brief review (forgive me), but my two favourite would have to be the opening story, Sight, and The Three-Dimensional Yellow Man. I love Sight for its strangeness and its heart, for the little lizard boy and the Tattoo Man, for the ghosts and the third eye. It's an exceptional story. I love The Three-Dimensional Yellow Man for its portrayal of racism in Australia. The entire story is so clever and nuanced.
This has to be the best short story collection I've read. Often, I'll pick up a collection and love a few stories, but find the rest fall kind of flat. I loved every story in this book. There was not one that I wanted to skip over. There was not one that I didn't enjoy. Some were quite short, like The Procession, while others were quite long, like Two. This variation worked well for continued reading. I read this book in two sittings - Sight on its own, and then the entire rest of the book the next time I picked it up. There are little things that turn up more than once - references of "glass towers" and "neorealism", and others I didn't jot down when I noticed them pop up.
Overall, I adored this book. These stories are the kinds of stories you could read over and over and find something new in each time. Beyond the absurdity and strangeness are a lot of themes and questions to think on and unpack. This is an intelligent, beautifully-written, weird AF collection of stories, and I love every word of it.
The last story in the collection, The Fat Girl in History, is especially good. It is a work of autofiction, a term I had not heard of before, which seems ridiculous seeing as I've spent the last four years of my life in a Creative & Professional Writing degree. I have been learning about all of the wrong things, because I now want to write a piece of autofiction. (Okay, we may have touched on writing where the fictional bleeds into the autobiographical and vice versa, but it was always referred to as creative non-fiction. Autofiction is a much better term and I am adopting it.)
Koh's prose is sparse, somewhat detached, and effortlessly readable. Nearly every story starts with one sentence in its own paragraph, which sets the tone perfectly for the story to come. There are nods to it having been called "bland", which baffles me because it is quite the opposite. It is evocative without being over-the-top, and the mild detachment works well to engage the reader with stories that could be too strange to relate to.
My bitter feminist heart appreciated her comments on "The Difficulties of an Objectified Existence in a Patriarchal World" in The Fantastic Breasts. I loved the absurdity of a cat cafe seceding from the Australian nation in Slow Death in Cat Cafe, and the mind-numbing, crazy scary future world of Civility Place. I enjoyed the unique ways Inquiry Regarding the Recent Goings-On in the Woods and Cream Reaper were delivered - by an inquiry report and journalistic feature respectively. Satirist Rising, the story from which the title is drawn, is an intersting look into the "dying arts" of the future.
I loved every story in the book, even the ones I haven't mentioned in this brief review (forgive me), but my two favourite would have to be the opening story, Sight, and The Three-Dimensional Yellow Man. I love Sight for its strangeness and its heart, for the little lizard boy and the Tattoo Man, for the ghosts and the third eye. It's an exceptional story. I love The Three-Dimensional Yellow Man for its portrayal of racism in Australia. The entire story is so clever and nuanced.
This has to be the best short story collection I've read. Often, I'll pick up a collection and love a few stories, but find the rest fall kind of flat. I loved every story in this book. There was not one that I wanted to skip over. There was not one that I didn't enjoy. Some were quite short, like The Procession, while others were quite long, like Two. This variation worked well for continued reading. I read this book in two sittings - Sight on its own, and then the entire rest of the book the next time I picked it up. There are little things that turn up more than once - references of "glass towers" and "neorealism", and others I didn't jot down when I noticed them pop up.
Overall, I adored this book. These stories are the kinds of stories you could read over and over and find something new in each time. Beyond the absurdity and strangeness are a lot of themes and questions to think on and unpack. This is an intelligent, beautifully-written, weird AF collection of stories, and I love every word of it.
danial_yazdaniii's review
5.0
Not a single flaw. Not one! As a diehard short story fanatic, Julie Koh’s captivating collection of satirical nuggets impressed me beyond belief. I genuinely cannot think of one issue with the work! Snappy, digestible writing, witty and equally hilarious subject matters, a mastermind of the Surrealist and Magical Realist form and a woman of colour who is also Australian and can actually balance both- I truly couldn’t ask for more. Koh, this one’s made it to my “top-must-read” list. Thank you for getting me out of my reading slump. Now where can I buy your first published work?
bibeanenergy's review
challenging
dark
funny
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
This is my favourite book of all time
black_cat_iiix's review
dark
funny
mysterious
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? N/A
- Strong character development? N/A
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.75
Content Warnings
Moderate: Body shaming
Minor: Body horror, Gore, and Child abuse
asfortheeggs's review
dark
funny
fast-paced
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.0
These stories are playful, funny, dark, and absurd. They hum along, the writing flows easily and assuredly. My favourites of the collection were: The Three-Dimensional Yellow Man, The Sister Company, and The Fat Girl in History. If you get a moment, I recommend watching Julie's talk for the 2017 Emerging Writers Festival. It's too funny. https://youtu.be/_9SGug7UnYg?t=4087
jem_of_the_brew's review
5.0
You can also read this review at: http://oddfeather.co/2017/08/09/review-portable-curiosities-by-julie-koh/
Julie Koh’s first full-length collection of short stories, Portable Curiosities, is a strange journey through an unsettling landscape of curious characters in familiar but altered settings. A young girl’s third eye, located in her navel, sees the undetectable and impolite spirit world. A cooler than cool Sydney entrepreneur fashionista media darling chef explores the limits of art, privilege, entitlement, and ice cream, with deadly results. And a young woman steps out of her boyfriend’s BMW into a parade of the gods, ignoring the all-powerful Economist god in favour of a drunken deity with a small dog under one arm.
Koh takes the world as she sees it and makes the reader see it that way too. She touches on themes of isolation, exclusion, racism, sexism, childhood neglect, the disease of over-achieving, and the sterility of living and working in the city. Several of her stories depict the burden of not living up to a particular image or identity and, most of all, not wanting to live up to it because it was flawed to begin with.
Several of her stories embody biting satire, such as The Three-Dimensional Yellow Man, in which Stand-offish Ninja #13 steps out of a cinema screen and embarks on a life of his own. He resolves to spend time on intellectual pursuits and studies the representation of woman in Italian neorealist cinema. When the man is invited to panels and festivals to discuss his work all he is asked about is his yellowness. Before long more ‘yellow cinema refugees’ emerge from the screen and this leads to the following:
Out of a fish and chip shop appeared a tight-lipped, flame-haired woman.
I don’t like it, she said. We’re in danger of being swamped by yellows. They stick to themselves and form ghettos. They’re stealing our jobs. Political correctness is ruining our island. Please explain, she said, because she really didn’t understand.
Her stories have an interesting variety of endings and lessons, each one full of so many layers that I know I’ll re-read this collection and find entirely new meanings and enjoyment from it. Some of the more memorable characters include: the man who lives by a list thinking it will help him beat death by being too quick for it, over-achieving and completely missing the point of life altogether; the woman in the cat café that becomes its own micro-nation, who grows to embrace anarchy, encouraged by a taxidermied tabby that tells her to ‘Annex some shit’; the local council that documents the complaints of a village against Russian musicians in the woods, culminating in the mass slaughter of the musicians and subsequent complaints from the local villagers that the escalated violence was unnecessary and a bit much all round really.
Koh’s stories are like waking from reality into a dream that is similar to your life; when strange and impossible things happen they somehow make perfect sense because that person, that animal, that inanimate object has a life of its own and is simply going about its existence with no regard for what you expect. The prose is sparse and just descriptive enough, giving the reader a sense of the scene, the mood, and the characters without overbearing it in descriptive language or explaining every strange thing that happens; it is refreshing and complements the content of each story perfectly.
Julie Koh’s Portable Curiosities is exactly what it says on the tin; a collection of curiosities that can easily fit on a purse or pocket. Her writing is modern magic realism, updated myth-making, and caustic satire wrapped in imagination and introspection. Expect to be changed at least a little from reading these stories, and try not to read them before bed; your dreams will never be the same.
Julie Koh’s first full-length collection of short stories, Portable Curiosities, is a strange journey through an unsettling landscape of curious characters in familiar but altered settings. A young girl’s third eye, located in her navel, sees the undetectable and impolite spirit world. A cooler than cool Sydney entrepreneur fashionista media darling chef explores the limits of art, privilege, entitlement, and ice cream, with deadly results. And a young woman steps out of her boyfriend’s BMW into a parade of the gods, ignoring the all-powerful Economist god in favour of a drunken deity with a small dog under one arm.
Koh takes the world as she sees it and makes the reader see it that way too. She touches on themes of isolation, exclusion, racism, sexism, childhood neglect, the disease of over-achieving, and the sterility of living and working in the city. Several of her stories depict the burden of not living up to a particular image or identity and, most of all, not wanting to live up to it because it was flawed to begin with.
Several of her stories embody biting satire, such as The Three-Dimensional Yellow Man, in which Stand-offish Ninja #13 steps out of a cinema screen and embarks on a life of his own. He resolves to spend time on intellectual pursuits and studies the representation of woman in Italian neorealist cinema. When the man is invited to panels and festivals to discuss his work all he is asked about is his yellowness. Before long more ‘yellow cinema refugees’ emerge from the screen and this leads to the following:
Out of a fish and chip shop appeared a tight-lipped, flame-haired woman.
I don’t like it, she said. We’re in danger of being swamped by yellows. They stick to themselves and form ghettos. They’re stealing our jobs. Political correctness is ruining our island. Please explain, she said, because she really didn’t understand.
Her stories have an interesting variety of endings and lessons, each one full of so many layers that I know I’ll re-read this collection and find entirely new meanings and enjoyment from it. Some of the more memorable characters include: the man who lives by a list thinking it will help him beat death by being too quick for it, over-achieving and completely missing the point of life altogether; the woman in the cat café that becomes its own micro-nation, who grows to embrace anarchy, encouraged by a taxidermied tabby that tells her to ‘Annex some shit’; the local council that documents the complaints of a village against Russian musicians in the woods, culminating in the mass slaughter of the musicians and subsequent complaints from the local villagers that the escalated violence was unnecessary and a bit much all round really.
Koh’s stories are like waking from reality into a dream that is similar to your life; when strange and impossible things happen they somehow make perfect sense because that person, that animal, that inanimate object has a life of its own and is simply going about its existence with no regard for what you expect. The prose is sparse and just descriptive enough, giving the reader a sense of the scene, the mood, and the characters without overbearing it in descriptive language or explaining every strange thing that happens; it is refreshing and complements the content of each story perfectly.
Julie Koh’s Portable Curiosities is exactly what it says on the tin; a collection of curiosities that can easily fit on a purse or pocket. Her writing is modern magic realism, updated myth-making, and caustic satire wrapped in imagination and introspection. Expect to be changed at least a little from reading these stories, and try not to read them before bed; your dreams will never be the same.