The Collected Stories of Katherine Anne Porter

by Katherine Anne Porter

Paperback, 1979

Status

Available

Publication

Harcourt Brace, (1979)

Description

Set in Porter's native Texas and her beloved Mexico, prewar Nazi Germany and the gothic Old South, these are stories of love, outrage, betrayal, and spiritual reckoning that are severe but never cruel, and always exquisitely precise.

Media reviews

There are writers I might call greater or more brilliant. But it is in this ordinary, modest gaze brought to bear on the extraordinary that Porter was able to glimpse and very nearly to describe the unknowable in herself and her world. In doing so she achieved a poignancy and power that is its own
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rare form of greatness.
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User reviews

LibraryThing member kraaivrouw
I'm not generally a big reader of short stories. I want to like them, but mostly end up feeling sort of dissatisfied & not quite filled up. It's like eating a really nice appetizer & nothing else for dinner - two hours later you're scrounging in the fridge for the peanut butter. I guess I just like
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a longer read.

There are some writers who work within this genre who stand out for me - James Joyce, Raymond Carver, Ernest Hemingway, Ellen Gilchrist, & Alice Adams. All of these writers have the ability to encapsulate a moment in time that makes reading them a pleasure. I'm going to add Katherine Anne Porter to my list.

Porter's writing is a bit formal, but that works within the context of what she is doing with it. Her stories capture their characters within the frame of the story, but effortlessly acknowledge that there is a life that happens outside of that frame. I loved that I got a true sense of the before & after lives of these characters & that I cared.

This collection is also wonderful for the reason all collections like that are wonderful - you really get to see the maturation of the writer through their writing. In this regard short story writers probably have the advantage. It took me a bit over a year to read all of Iris Murdoch, this was substantially quicker.

I don't know that I'll go on to become an enormous reader of short stories, but I'm glad I read these. They were beautiful & satisfying in their own way & that's what good reading is all about, right?
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LibraryThing member agnesmack
This was one of the best collections of short stories I've ever read.

I am not generally a fan of short stories. I like to commit to my literature and short stories tend to feel like a summer fling that was over before I was able to analyze it to death and suck all of the fun out it.

I especially
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dislike collections of short stories because even the best authors' voices come through in them. While I typically like to feel as though I can hear an author's voice, when it happens during a book of 30 of their short stories and it's the same author with different stories, I get confused, partially due to the fact that I'm extremely dumb and partially due to the fact that they almost always center around the same themes or characters who hail from similar backgrounds and locations.

This was not the case with Katherine Anne Porter. Every one of these stories was completely different in style, voice, content and characterization and every one of the stories was brilliant. It helped that many of them were over 50 pages long (one was over 100). The length allowed me to get to know the characters as intimately as I wanted.

All in all, this was a fantastic book from a writer who is not only talented but extremely versatile as well.
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LibraryThing member lisapeet
June 2009

Whenever my sweetheart says "Carveresque," I think of the author standing at the head of a fully-laden Thanksgiving table, long fork and knife in hand, cutting up a manuscript. Talking about short stories the other evening and he suggested Porter's "Rope" as a portrait of a relationship
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pared down with a super sharp scalpel, and he wasn't kidding -- it's down to the bone. I've got this on my desk now, and will be dipping in. These don't seem like the kind of stories to sit down and read straight through.

***

Huh... can't put up multiple reviews, but I can edit this one indefinitely, is that it? OK - next story, then.

"Flowering Judas" is disconcerting from the first sentence. She drops right you into the middle of it running, and once you've figured out what's going on you see what strangers all the characters are to themselves and each other, everyone wanting the wrong things. Which makes it about guilt and displaced desire, I guess. It's a house of mirrors of a story, weird surfaces to everything. Really good.

***

Jeez, I didn't even get around to writing about "Pale Horse, Pale Rider." Another review for another time, then.
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LibraryThing member BookConcierge
One of our book club members is a fan of the short-story format and she recommended this book. She selected three stories that we were all to read, and suggested that we each read one or two others as well. I understand the superb craft of her writing, but it's not my taste in reading. I certainly
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noted some wonderful imagery and felt her stream-of-consciousness style is very accessible, still I don't think I'll read more. I wouldn't recommend it to anyone.
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LibraryThing member Cecrow
Katherine Anne Porter remembers what happens in the adolescent brain, she knows how husbands and wives argue and what about, she knows how poorly drawn is the line between aspiration and realism. Her stories are high on intimacy rather than drama, internal rather than external. There are themes she
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circles back to in subsequent stories like echoes, revisiting and reconsidering. Sometimes she holds the mirror a little too close for comfort, but that's a problem that lies with me, not with her. There are too many stories here to rate all of them, but some of the highlights:

Virgin Violeta - the bitter clash of fantasy and reality in coming-of-age.

The Martyr - contrasts in perception/reputation before and after death.

Rope - a perfect capturing of petty marital bickering.

He - the convenience of adopting others' biases.

The Jilting of Granny Weatherall - death bed regrets.

The Cracked Looking Glass - a kinder, gentler Madame Bovary story.

Old Mortality - the past as family legend, gossip, or the tiresome memories of a prior generation.

Noon Wine - consequences for caring "how things look"; study Mr Thompson.

Pale Horse, Pale Rider - journalist vs metaphorical horsemen of the apocalypse.

The Old Order - Tennyson, "The old order changes, yielding place to new." Contrasts generations; comprised of several shorter stories.

The Downward Path to Wisdom - the mis-rearing of a young child.

A Day's Work - balanced view of a dysfunctional marriage.

Holiday - an unexpected personal connection.

The Leaning Tower - an American finds 1931 Berlin to be fragile and vulnerable.
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LibraryThing member DanielSTJ
Nothing too out of the ordinary.

Awards

National Book Award (Finalist — Fiction — 1966)
Pulitzer Prize (Winner — Fiction — 1966)

Language

Original language

English

Barcode

10310
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