Posiblemente la mejor primera mitad del año.

The early collection of stories, of a very controversial NY writer -- is brilliant. A depth of character that shows clear signs of genius.

Reading books from our (voluminous) shelves, discovered Harold Brodkey. I knew his name but had never read anything by him. As you can see from the 5 stars, I thought this book of short stories was wonderful. He writes about growing up in the late '40's, early '50's, post-war in St Louis. The stories are full of memories of childhood, not fitting in, minor family and friend conflicts that are so painful in childhood and adolescence. Brilliantly written.
Returning to this book after 8 years - and giving it 3 1/2 stars! Some stories really "hit the mark," others not so much. Despite grief and tension, what a very privileged world he portrays. And that get somewhat tiresome after awhile. (7/4/23.)

About thirty years ago, a coworker whose taste I often shared told me that Brodkey was one of her favorite authors. So I was happy that I finally got around to reading this collection. However, I find myself at more of a loss for a star rating than usual. I can see that a great deal of craft went into writing these stories. And I found the last three almost, but not quite, compelling, about a young woman and her husband and toddler, with each one giving more depth to her character and her unhappiness whose source she couldn't quite identify. But I never could seem to care much about any of the characters in any of the stories, perhaps in part because the mores of the times they were written in seem so quaint and distant now. Occasionally it seemed that Brodkey found them quaint as well, but I couldn't quite tell. I'm eager to see what others thought of this book.

I started out loving this collection of mid 1950s short stories.

They are written from the point-of-view of a young Jewish middle western American who ends up at Harvard and experiences WASPy life.

There is an undertone of homosexuality present in the first couple of short stories, disguised as hero worship, or admiration of a better looking, more athletic friend who "gets all the girls."

The writing is crisp, rhythmic, descriptive, terse, lovely.

But then the author writes about women, and these stories in the latter half of the book are awful, a compendium of cliches about what women were in the eyes of men, written with the sexist pen of the times. They are hard to read because they are not only so dated but so very wrong, ignorant of feminism, blind to any aspect of women which is not dependent on the male gaze.

I understand that Mr. Brodkey lived in a time when it was not "normal" to be gay, and he seems to have married a woman, and gave up publishing books and stories for many years until he died of AIDS sometime in the early 1990s.

This collection shows him at his peak, and it is definitely a Time Machine into a place where girls where cashmere sweaters and drink cocktails with tweed jacketed young men from Connecticut and the Upper East Side and fear losing their virtue because they have sexual appetites.

First Love & Others Sorrows (e un grammofono che suonava La vie en rose...)

Questa raccolta è palpitante , nel senso che ti fa (ri)sentire forti e chiari
i palpiti , la vulnerabilità , lo stupore e le trepidazioni dell'adolescenza
i sentimenti assoluti ,le delicatezze
i primi affanni dell'amore
e l'amore mozzafiato...
Lo stile è morbido e avvolgente, luminoso e insieme malinconico , si avvertono già dall'incipit (bellissimo)i tocchi da maestro di Brodkey

Esiste una particolare gradazione di mattoni rossi - un rosso cupo, quasi melodioso, profondo e venato di blu - che è la mia infanzia a St. Louis. Non l'infanzia vera: ma quella finta, che si estende dal primo albeggiare della consapevolezza fino al giorno in cui si lascia la casa per entrare all'università.

5 stelle a "La lite" (il migliore dei racconti, secondo me , insieme a "Lo stato di grazia" e "Primo amore ed altri affanni")

Mi appoggiai sul gomito e lo guardai. Sorridevo,un po' incerto , è vero; come si sorride ad un fratello maggiore o a qualcuno di indicibilmente caro, di cui si desidera ardentemente l'approvazione. Duncan mi guardò di sbieco.
Poi ,qualche secondo dopo,scoppiammo a ridere,come se fossi stato molto spiritoso.
Le ombre ,azzurre, liquide,si andavano addensando sulla spiaggia.
E noi eravamo lì, noi due ,con tutte le nostre paure e i nostri difetti,con tutte le speranze alle quali non credevamo realmente,e i nostri insuccessi; eccoci lì, diciannove e venti anni .
Da una delle case lungo la spiaggia arrivò la voce di un grammofono che suonava "La Vie en Rose".*
Duncan cominciò a canticchiare la canzone. La gentilezza della Francia si diffondeva intorno a noi come la notte che stava scendendo. Ascoltavo Duncan e il lontano grammofono e come in sogno lo scrosciare delle onde e sapevo che avrei superato la prova della mia giovinezza e sarei stato perdonato.

Se H.Brodkey è stato definito il Proust americano , ci sarà pure una qualche ragione ,no?

* Quand il me prends dans ses bras
il me parle tout bas
je vois la vie en rose
Il me dit des mots d'amour
des mots de tous les jours,
et ça me fait quelque chose

The title story in this collection is exquisite (and I feel lame using that word, but it really is exquisite, ok?). Many of the others are also wonderful; however the stories towards the back, the Laura stories if I remember correctly, didn't quite measure up to the ones in the beginning. Well worth reading, though, if only for that first one. Wow!

He firmly believed, he said, that most unhappiness was a pose. “It’s a way of getting out of being interesting.”

This is a quote from one of the lead characters in a story included in this collection.
Since Brodkey is an author that mines heavily from autobiographical elements in his fiction, this quote is also useful to express my arrested enthusiasm for his prose: it’s not all that interesting.
I liked the stories well enough when I read them, but the long summer travels through Europe kept me away from my computer for a couple of months, and I find out now that I cannot really tell you what these stories are all about? I have simply forgotten them, they became irrelevant compared to other books I read at the same time that were instant charmers [A.S. Byatt, Rose Macaulay], books that I am sure I will remember years from now.
The slow burner that is Brodkey I am afraid is destined to be abandoned in the future. Even three stars seem generous, considering I had to spend about half an hour re-reading through the book to refresh my memory.

Unhappiness was real. It was even likely ...

This unhappiness is the ingredient that glues the collection together.
It is, as I already mentioned, heavily autobiographical, and rather gloomy: not from outside elements but from an inner disposition that seems to be expecting the worst from the world, and from the people surrounding the narrator.
When most of these stories finish on a positive, hopeful for the future note, I am starting to wonder what was the point of the exercise exactly?

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The State of Grace

A thirteen years old boy who feels a stranger in his own family gets attached to the seven years old boy he babysits for. Together they create a fragile, intimate, imaginary world for themselves through stories and games.

First Love and Other Sorrows

The boy is now sixteen years old, living with his mother and with his older sister in St Louis, going for the track team at his school, where he befriends another boy. A lot of attention is given to the dynamic between mother and sister in the context of dating and of ‘catching’ an eligible [read rich] man for a husband.
I thought the story was heading towards a romance between the two boys, but there appears a ‘girl next door’ who becomes the love interest for the protagonist.
I think this is one of the better novellas included here, and the budding love was treated tenderly and realistically.

The Quarrel
The gay vibes are even stronger in this story, but the author continues to steer clear of declaring his position. Before college, the narrator inherits some money and takes a sabbatical, working as a newspaper editor, setting the world to rights with one of his colleagues in lengthy bar discussions.
The two young men decide to take a trip to Europe together, first visiting museums in London then crossing the sea to France, which they traverse on bicycle.
Their unresolved sexual tensions explode in the quarrel from the title, one that is resolved somehow without a true resolution in the sands of Arcachon [a location I truly loved and that I hope to come back to one day]

Sentimental Education

This is probably my favorite story included here. It takes place in college, where two inexperienced young people discover physical love together. They are both exhilarated and scared of what is happening to them, and I think Brodkey is at his best in his restrained, subdued prose here.

When you consider the combustibility of the emotions of these two young people, it is hardly surprising that within two weeks of their first long conversation together they were trembling when they talked, and found themselves oppressed whenever silences fell.

In the first pages of the story, the young man that is probably modelled on the author is described as ... so cracked by longing that it seemed only gravity held him together. , a phrase that does evoke memories of that awkward age in myself, and one that I am glad I’ve bookmarked, because it sort of justifies the extra star I gave to this otherwise forgettable collection.

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The last set of five shorter stories are related and linked by the main character, Laura or Laurie, a young woman that we also follow chronologically through her twenties, from dressing up for a date, to the struggles of early motherhood and later through sketches of her married life.
I suppose the autobiographical element must refer here to the author’s wife, because all the preceding stories had a male protagonist.
I don’t have much to comment on these, they are rather common and uneventful. Well written, but nothing really special for me. So I will just put the titles down:

Laurie Dressing

Laura

Trio for Three Gentle Voices

Piping Down the Valleys Wild

The Dark Woman of the Sonnets

Harold Brodkey is a talented writer, with a beautiful turn of phrase, but if I want Jewish anxiety and autobiographical elements I believe I will prefer to stick to Phillip Roth.

2.5

This is another Vintage Contemporary that I loved. These stories, first published in 1958, take place in the late forties post-war economic boom and the stories are just about everyday life but the writing is so beautiful! Good writing needs to have a good feel for the characters and true observations of life and this has it. After the second story and the last story I had to pause because I was overwhelmed by the simple beauty. The last few stories (actually most of the stories) seem aimed toward women, but the first three stories are from a young man's point of view.

I can't believe I've never heard of Harold Brodkey before. Some of his stories are so fantastic. They all have a strange disjointed feeling though, a looseness of plot, but mostly it works. However, sometimes it doesn't seem to. I adored "The Quarrel" and "Sentimental Education" but felt the last bunch about the same woman, Laura, were a bit strange. Each was clearly intended to be self-contained, as characters were introduced each time, and yet each lone story seemed rather weak. And then finally, I just didn't like Laura much. The last story left on what seemed to me a sad note, which I found unfortunate as well.

But back to the stories that I enjoyed, I really, really enjoyed. Wonderful pieces of art, really.

4.5