Einstein's Beach House is a collection of quirky short stories concerning a variety of ethical issues, Some have left their impressions on me others I can't even remember anymore, The title story was one of the memorable ones a transposition of numbers in the address where Albert Einstein spent his summer vacations leads one homeowner to profit off the error, and then, well, I won't say what happens next but it leaves you wondering.
La Tristesse des Hèrissons, Translated: The Sadness of Hedgehogs: In the Steven King book I am currently reading, a high school English teacher offered up that teenagers, after slogging through the required course readings, use three words to describe them: "This is stupid.
"
Well, sometimes that critique just fits, Here, a young couple adopt a hedgehog for a pet, It seems depressed it goes on Prozac prescribed by a psychiatrist, Enough said. I know other reviewers loved this one, so maybe I wasn't in the mood,
Also under that category might go the last story, Paracosmos, a Twilight Zone ish tale of an imaginary friend whose father shows up at the door.
Original, yes!
The Rod of Asclepius would make for an interesting novel, I thought, Limerence was pretty good, as was Sharing the Hostage, about a divorcee with visitation rights to her pet tortoise much funnier than the hedgehog story.
I didn't understand many of the story titles and had to look up their meanings, So my vocabulary has been expanded with these words I'll probably never see again in my lifetime, unless I forget those too, Which is likely.
So some good ones here and at least one stupid one, Better than average overall. I know how much I love a book when I can't stop myself from devouring it in practically one sitting, although I want to savor it at the same time.
And boy, did I love this one,
The eight stories in Einstein's Beach House are slightly quirky but not distractingly so, somewhat moving and each at least a little bit humorous, and extremely memorable.
Jacob Appel does such a great job developing his characters and the plot of each story, I honestly could see many of them developed into a fulllength novel, and I'd definitely want to read those books, since I wanted more of the characters.
It honestly is hard to pick favorites, since each story was just so good, but the few that I can't stop thinking about right now are: "Paracosmos," in which a married couple is worried that their daughter is obsessed with her imaginary friendand then the girl's father shows up "La Tristesse Des Herissons," which tells the story of a couple whose relationship hits a bit of a snag when they adopt a depressed hedgehog "Limerence," in which a man looks back on his crush on his much more worldly nextdoor neighbor "The Rod of Asclepius," which tells the story of a young girl caught up in her father's acts of revenge and the title story, in which a family tries to make hay of a typo in a travel guide, only to have the tables turned on them.
I had never heard of Jacob Appel until two friends on Goodreads raved about his writing, and this story collection in particular.
They couldn't have been more on target, He is such an engaging writer, and even though the subject matter of these stories isn't quite your everyday stuff, the stories are tremendously human and often humane, and really pack both a literary and an emotional punch.
I'll definitely be picking up some of Appel's other books, but in the meantime, I highly recommend you pick this collection up, You won't regret it.
See all of my reviews at sitelink blo . This collection of short stories was so enjoyable to read , they were funny, quirky and some a little sad, Some of the stories I loved the characters so much I wished the stories were full books, I felt like some of the characters could be people I know, I recommend this book to anyone who wants a fun read that's hard to put down, It's defiantly an anytime read, Einsteins Beach House by Jacob M Appel is a collection ofshort stories, The author has a unique voice which clearly echoes in his stories, Each story has its own unique flavor and taste but has one common thread among them that they are both funny and tragic tragic, to some extent.
Each story keeps you hooked, and the author has written such that you get so engrossed in it that it feels the story is happening around you, and you are there and watching it.
He takes from everyday life situations something unusual and makes a story out of it from nowhere, and leave you spellbound,
HUE AND CRY: It is the first story in the book, and was quite moving, It did not made an impact when I finished reading it, But it was after a day or two that I realized it had many levels to it, and that it evoked nostalgia with a flavor.
It was the father of the narrator that seemed to be a great character, and actually he was, but every human being is vulnerable and has his shortcomings.
And it was the climax of the story that shows this flaw in human nature,
LA TRISTESSE DES HÉRISSONS: The translation of the title is THE SADNESS OF HEDGEHOGS, A couple adopts a hedgehog, instead of having a baby, This hedgehog turns out to be a nightmare for the husband, who unwillingly submits to the whims of his wife, And it turns out that hedgehog is depressed actually its his wife that finds that out and that triggers a chain reaction, which acts as adding fuel to the fire, and sours the already soured relationship, further.
But it was funny in a way from the point of view of the boy and it turns out the girl was actually depressed.
STRINGS: The story starts with when an exlover of a lady, who is married now, ask for her help and she unwillingly helps him, and this created an inner turmoil in her and she gets irritated and furious over it, unconsciously.
This story was very beautiful, and had an emotional depth to it, and shows the strange yet soothing warmth of a loving relationship between a wife and her husband.
I was hooked on this story, and really liked it,
LIMERENCE: It was just perfect, a perfect short story that reminded me of Chekhov and Tagore, I was hooked from the first line, and finished it in one sitting, It's a bittersweet story like all the others so far, It's a story told in reminiscence by a boy about a girl, how he fell for her despite knowing that she is not virgin and changes her boy friends as regularly as one would change clothes.
Einsteins Beach House: There is a deep connection with Einsteins Beach House in the story, which is the ultimate cause of their fortune, and above all for their misery.
Fulfilling mychallenge to reread one book a month that I either read so long ago that I forgot it, or that I read and never reviewed.
I first read this one back in the summer ofand I never got around to reviewing it, I received a copy from the author in exchange for an honest review, and I felt that I couldn't review it honestly until I had reread it.
So here we are.
The first thing that strikes me is the absolute and utter humanness about these stories, and also the complexity of these stories.
Complexity of characters, situations, emotions, Each one has a depth to it that I have found lacking in a lot of short stories I read, This collection truly is excellent, There arestories here that are all what I like to call "quirky realism, " Except for one or possibly two if you stretch of them, they do not really fit the category of magical realism as there really isn't any magic or transcendance.
But I can't say that these stories really represent true realism either as they are mostly about the weird circumstances we encounter nominally throughout our lives, rather than the every day or the mundane.
The characters in a lot of them are quirky and they are flawed, but I wouldn't necessarily describe all of them as "rea'" either.
Appel really describes peoples' idiosyncracies well wtihin these stories and I could relate to a lot of what is going on here,
Hue and Cry:stars
Could be conceived as a coming of age tale in many many ways, Told in first person past tense by a woman named Lizzie looking back on memories of her childhood when a registered sex offender moves into a house on her quiet suburban street.
At the same time, she is dealing with having feelings for her best and possibly only friend Julia who is loud, and brazen, and strong, an interesting counterpart of Lizzie's meek and mild temperament.
Lizzie's father had just been diagnosed with a rare genetic neurogenerative disease and has about six months to live and in his last days has been gripped the need to forgive rather than to judge and has declared that he and his daughters will meet and greet their pedophile neighbor rather than throw stones.
Julia, on the other hand, is hell bent on breaking into the perp's house just to show how badass she is, This story in its twentysomeodd pages is emotionally raw and really stirred a lot of things up inside me as I read, which is quite rare for a short story.
I really enjoyed the first person past tense as a lot of things about several characters were given brief closures that really added to the story, but took away all the info dumps that could have bogged it down.
It is immaculately written and is worth of every star I can throw at it,
La Tristesse des Herissons:stars
French for "Sadness of the Hedgehogs," this is one of the quirkier stories in here.
A troubled couple adopt a hedgehog named Orion which makes the cracks in their already tenuous relationship more palpable, The hedgehog represents a lot of things here, and in both cases is the replacement for what each individual really desires, a dog for the boyfriend and a baby for the girlfriend.
When Adeline, the girlfriend begins to suspect that the hedgehog is suffering from depression, those cracks become full out trenches between the two, This one is a little strange, but deep down says a lot about mental illness, transference, displacement, loneliness, and the desire for love and acceptance.
I suppose the blood reminded me of how close we all are to the abyss, how easily a guy can step over the edge.
It was the blood that kept me from letting go, that kept me clinging to that hedgehog for dear life,
Strings:stars
A recently married rabbi is approached by her former lover with an odd request, a request that puts into contention her duty and her desire.
This is another strange story that was teetering on,but the ending really pushed into toward astar rating, It really does a nice job of describing the nostalgia that one feels for their past, even when that person has clearly moved on.
It also puts the idea of "success" into perspective and how relative a term it is, This is also the story that I remembered the most from my first reading, so that says something, It is a nice "stickto yourribs" story, And I also love the double entendre of the title,
It's much better to not be okay when you ought to be fine, then to be perfectly content when you really should be falling to pieces.
The people that nothing ever fazes
are the ones who truly frighten me,
Limerance:stars
This one is I think my favorite story of the bunch, Told in first person present and past tense about a man reminiscing on "the one who got away" with such a raw candor and nostalgia that I could palpably feel his conflict.
Just as in "Strings," deals a little with nostalgia and that complex feeling that erupts when you encounter someone in the future who meant so much to you in the past.
Also a little "hindsight is always/" theme as well, Just a perfect story, one that resonated with me so much and that I could definitely relate to,
Einstein's Beach House:stars
A family's bungalow gets confused with the beach house owned by Albert Einstein and a "get rich quick" scheme by the father backfires when the real relatives of Albert Einstein come knocking.
Both the father and the mother in this one reminded me of Rex and Rosemary Walls from sitelinkThe Glass Castle, Told again from first person past tense by Natalie, the eleven year old daughter of the schemers, I enjoyed the eleven year old insight into both her parents as well as their marriage, The house here represents so much more than just the house, as it also represents a marriage, It is the one story that with an immense stretch, could possibly kind fit into the magical realism box, or at least the suburbs of the magical realism box, as there are things that happen without logical explanation and is the first story to really encounter this phenomenon.
The story isn't my favorite of the bunch but the complexity of the story makes up for it, There is a lot of tension here and that tension is what keeps this story afloat,
And this was the moment when an elevenyearold schoolgirl named Natalie Scrugg first recognized the painful difference that would forever separate her from her mother: given a choice, Natalie preferred having a house, while her mother preferred having a fight.
The Rod of Asclepius:,stars
This one is the one that seemed to be the favorite among my friends who read this, but I found that there was just a little something lacking for me, preventing this from becoming a perfectstars.
It is very very very good and tells a dynamic story about loss and love and vengeance and vigilante justice, Told from the perspective of Lauren, a doctor, ruminating on a memory of her at five years old, shortly after the death of her mother.
year old Lauren worships her father whose loss at losing his wife has carved a hole in him that he tries to fill with both alcohol and an inflated sense of right and wrong that gets more and more twisted as the story goes along.
As we share the headspace with a five year old girl who is most definitely traumatized, the unreliability of this narrator and story add a remarkable tension.
I took off half a star for the ending, which was a little abrupt, and did not seem to jive with the rest of the story, but overall a tremendous effort here.
Sharing the Hostage:,stars
By a mile my least favorite of the bunch, We have another super quirky animal story, A man and his new girlfriend get into a sticky situation when she has the idea to kidnap her pet tortoise from her soontobe ex husband with whom she shares joint custody of the animal.
Like the hedgehog story, this one really draws from the well of emotion that springs up when pets replace children in couples who have not reproduced for whatever reason.
It was just a little out there for me, though still well written and enjoyable, and had the least staying power,
Paracosmos:stars
This one is also such a wonderful wonderful story that is the only one that really glides into "magical realism" territory.
A couple whose nine year old daughter's social isolation has led to the creation of an imaginary friend Lauren, must figure out how to navigate these new waters.
When Evie's father, an epidemiologist, forbids her to talk about the imaginary friend anymore, Lauren's father promptly shows up the next day to ask Evie's mother why Evie won't play with Lauren anymore.
This short is probably the most complex of all of them, and really explores what would happen if our subconscious desires could manifest physically.
Kudos for the little Easter eggs that kinda put me in mind of an alternate reality/dimension that links this story to "The Rod of Asclepius.
"
She dared not refer to the girl as either real or imaginary, Instead, Steve Dowdy's daughter occupied a narrow passage between truth a fiction,
All in all, a wonderful collection, I will certainly be putting this author's other works on my radar, .