4thace reviewed An Oral History of Atlantis by Ed Park
An interesting collection of peculiar stories
3 stars
This is a book of stories by an author of short fiction whose work has been featured in such places as McSweeney's Internet Tendency and The New Yorker. I consider its style to be in the genre of surrealistic tales that say something about the modern condition. If it's stories about recognizable characters that you might recognize from everyday life, this might not be the book for you. If you like reading unusual and off-kilter stories, then you might like this. These characters tend to give off pathetic vibes, though I don't remember any actual monsters or signs of cruelty or violence. I think he doesn't really aspire to have stories with clear-cut heroes and villains in them. Some of the stories commit to a certain kind of structure where they repeat a form over and over again. Others follow more of a straightforward narrative, though they may have bizarre …
This is a book of stories by an author of short fiction whose work has been featured in such places as McSweeney's Internet Tendency and The New Yorker. I consider its style to be in the genre of surrealistic tales that say something about the modern condition. If it's stories about recognizable characters that you might recognize from everyday life, this might not be the book for you. If you like reading unusual and off-kilter stories, then you might like this. These characters tend to give off pathetic vibes, though I don't remember any actual monsters or signs of cruelty or violence. I think he doesn't really aspire to have stories with clear-cut heroes and villains in them. Some of the stories commit to a certain kind of structure where they repeat a form over and over again. Others follow more of a straightforward narrative, though they may have bizarre situations and characters who interact with one another seemingly upon whims. Some of the characters repeat in other stories, though I wouldn't say that the whole collection constitutes a distinct universe of its own with laws that you can figure out. These stories, a few thousand words each, generally give the reader some light emotional payoff at the end, though a few of them suddenly come to a stop in the midst of action.
The title story at the end of the collection stands out as one in the fantasy or magical realism genre more than most of the others. For me, this was also one of the more demanding stories in this collection requiring me to read it through a couple of times to make sure that I understood what was happening. Some of the stories do play with genre techniques such as the one which adopts the form of a spy or heist story. You can tell while you're reading it that it doesn't really take it all seriously. There's another story which takes the point of view character from a member of a cult and you're not sure by reading it how much you're supposed to buy into the odd beliefs that that person has, or whether to hope that they are cured of their strange notions. I like the parts in this story where he is having to deal with parents who were operating under different assumptions about life.
I read this book as an advance reader's copy from Netgalley in exchange for my honest review. This is the first time I've read this author's work, but I might be inclined to take a look at some of the others, such as the one that was nominated for a Pulitzer prize recently.