chrobin's review
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
annaotations's review
adventurous
challenging
dark
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? N/A
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
5.0
george_salis's review against another edition
5.0
“Through the pupil’s little peephole, we look for it: the shapeless, the inhuman.”
The astronomy of hearts, the zoology of sperm, the theology of fetuses, the sociology of phlegm, the hydrology of blood, the meteorology of sleep, the omnipresence of hair, and more, all enwrapped in the melancholy of anatomy.
“One reads of a dark, greasy, subterranean sleep, which seeps out of solid rock and hardens into strange fungal forms, and plugs underground rivers with a glassy but flexible mass that can be reliquefied by one blow of a pickax. Miners have staggered out of shafts and told tales of slow-motion tsunamis of sour treacle.”
These are highly imaginative and fairly macabre Calvino-esque tales with at times a veneer of H.P. Lovecraft. Anyone with even a passing interest in the human body (and who wouldn’t be interested?) would be both disgusted and fascinated by these stories. Jackson’s prose is contemplative, sometimes soft-spoken, other times snappy, though always conscious of language’s music and riddled with evocative metaphors. Her lexicon isn’t exactly wild but she’ll occasionally use a word that’s as precise as it is strangely beautiful, such as cicatrix and pinguid and atomy. The stories generally lack a powerful ending, though they make up for that with everything before the end, and although some stories were better than others, this collection is as close to perfection as possible, especially since I prefer novels over stories. This is easily right up there with Ficciones and Patricia Eakins’ The Hungry Girls.
“Sperm are ancient creatures, single-minded as coelacanths. They are drawn to the sun, the moon, and dots and disks of all descriptions, including periods, stop signs, and stars. They worship nail heads, doorknobs and tennis balls. More than one life has been saved by a penny tossed in the air.”
“Fœtus” reminded me a bit of the video game Death Stranding and an unpublished story of mine titled “The Infant King,” and in short it was both disturbing and hilarious, and probably one of the best stories I've read period.
“The fœtus floats outside your window while you are having sex. It wants to know how many beads of sweat collect between your breasts and at what point, exactly, they begin their journey south, it wants to know if your eyes open wide or close at orgasm, if at that time your partner is holding your hand with his hand or your gaze with her gaze. […] …it wants to stay informed, your love is its business.”
I was put off from reading this collection sooner because of a review that suggested a repetitiveness across the stories, which turned out to be far from true for me. In fact, there was enough polyphony to keep me consistently engaged. The Borgesian academia and Rabelaisian humor of “Dildo,” the Saunders (which is to say DFW lite) quirkiness of “Phlegm,” the British folk-speak and slight interview frame of “Blood,” some postmodern tics like the writer’s guide excerpts in “Milk,” etc. There are two types of story collections: those that are wildly eclectic and those that are connected by recurring themes. The Melancholy of Anatomy is the latter yet avoids any damning redundancy, and to complain about thematic repetition is akin to complaining that Calvino’s Invisible Cities has too much architecture in it.
“Be careful when you say the words mildew, Bilbao, bibelot, billet-doux, or even peccadillo, that you do not accidentally summon a dildo, for truly, you do not know what will answer your call.”
Jackson is a kindred spirit and even my wife said that these stories sound like the fiction I would write, which is a great compliment, that’s for sure. Read it and make it a part of your anatomy.
“The hair is a subtle spirit, and noose to our passions.”
The astronomy of hearts, the zoology of sperm, the theology of fetuses, the sociology of phlegm, the hydrology of blood, the meteorology of sleep, the omnipresence of hair, and more, all enwrapped in the melancholy of anatomy.
“One reads of a dark, greasy, subterranean sleep, which seeps out of solid rock and hardens into strange fungal forms, and plugs underground rivers with a glassy but flexible mass that can be reliquefied by one blow of a pickax. Miners have staggered out of shafts and told tales of slow-motion tsunamis of sour treacle.”
These are highly imaginative and fairly macabre Calvino-esque tales with at times a veneer of H.P. Lovecraft. Anyone with even a passing interest in the human body (and who wouldn’t be interested?) would be both disgusted and fascinated by these stories. Jackson’s prose is contemplative, sometimes soft-spoken, other times snappy, though always conscious of language’s music and riddled with evocative metaphors. Her lexicon isn’t exactly wild but she’ll occasionally use a word that’s as precise as it is strangely beautiful, such as cicatrix and pinguid and atomy. The stories generally lack a powerful ending, though they make up for that with everything before the end, and although some stories were better than others, this collection is as close to perfection as possible, especially since I prefer novels over stories. This is easily right up there with Ficciones and Patricia Eakins’ The Hungry Girls.
“Sperm are ancient creatures, single-minded as coelacanths. They are drawn to the sun, the moon, and dots and disks of all descriptions, including periods, stop signs, and stars. They worship nail heads, doorknobs and tennis balls. More than one life has been saved by a penny tossed in the air.”
“Fœtus” reminded me a bit of the video game Death Stranding and an unpublished story of mine titled “The Infant King,” and in short it was both disturbing and hilarious, and probably one of the best stories I've read period.
“The fœtus floats outside your window while you are having sex. It wants to know how many beads of sweat collect between your breasts and at what point, exactly, they begin their journey south, it wants to know if your eyes open wide or close at orgasm, if at that time your partner is holding your hand with his hand or your gaze with her gaze. […] …it wants to stay informed, your love is its business.”
I was put off from reading this collection sooner because of a review that suggested a repetitiveness across the stories, which turned out to be far from true for me. In fact, there was enough polyphony to keep me consistently engaged. The Borgesian academia and Rabelaisian humor of “Dildo,” the Saunders (which is to say DFW lite) quirkiness of “Phlegm,” the British folk-speak and slight interview frame of “Blood,” some postmodern tics like the writer’s guide excerpts in “Milk,” etc. There are two types of story collections: those that are wildly eclectic and those that are connected by recurring themes. The Melancholy of Anatomy is the latter yet avoids any damning redundancy, and to complain about thematic repetition is akin to complaining that Calvino’s Invisible Cities has too much architecture in it.
“Be careful when you say the words mildew, Bilbao, bibelot, billet-doux, or even peccadillo, that you do not accidentally summon a dildo, for truly, you do not know what will answer your call.”
Jackson is a kindred spirit and even my wife said that these stories sound like the fiction I would write, which is a great compliment, that’s for sure. Read it and make it a part of your anatomy.
“The hair is a subtle spirit, and noose to our passions.”
juno's review
3.0
Gave a promise in the first few stories that it unfortunately failed to deliver on. Got a bit too caught up in the concept I think.
bossyfemme's review
4.0
I read this book at 18, when I was deciding whether to participate in Shelley Jackson's Skin project. At the time, it was like nothing I'd ever read.
Rereading a whole decade (!) later, it still is like nothing I've ever read, but reading this as a teen probably dictated my literary tastes more than I knew at the time (thinking mostly about Jeannette Winterson here, of course). I spent a lot of the book just in awe that anyone has the kind of mind that could think this stuff up. My favourite story, then and now, is probably Blood.
Rereading a whole decade (!) later, it still is like nothing I've ever read, but reading this as a teen probably dictated my literary tastes more than I knew at the time (thinking mostly about Jeannette Winterson here, of course). I spent a lot of the book just in awe that anyone has the kind of mind that could think this stuff up. My favourite story, then and now, is probably Blood.
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