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Pond / Claire-Louise Bennett.

By: Material type: TextTextPublisher: New York : Riverhead Books, 2016Copyright date: ©2015Edition: First American editionDescription: 195 pages ; 22 cmContent type:
  • text
Media type:
  • unmediated
Carrier type:
  • volume
ISBN:
  • 9780399575891
  • 0399575898
Uniform titles:
  • Short stories. Selections
Subject(s): Genre/Form:
Contents:
Voyage in the dark -- Morning, noon & night -- First thing -- The big day -- Wishful thinking -- A little before seven -- To a god unknown -- Two weeks since -- Stir-fry -- Finishing touch -- Control knobs -- Postcard -- The deepest sea -- Oh, tomato puree! -- Morning, 1908 -- The gloves are off -- Over & done with -- Words escape me -- Lady of the house -- Old ground.
Summary: "Longlisted for the 2016 International Dylan Thomas Prize "What Bennett aims at is nothing short of a re-enchantment of the world... This is a truly stunning debut, beautifully written and profoundly witty." -The Guardian Immediately upon its publication in Ireland, Claire-Louise Bennett's debut began to attract attention well beyond the expectations of the tiny Irish press that published it. A deceptively slender volume, it captures with utterly mesmerizing virtuosity the interior reality of its unnamed protagonist, a young woman living a singular and mostly solitary existence on the outskirts of a small coastal village. Sidestepping the usual conventions of narrative, it focuses on the details of her daily experience--from the best way to eat porridge or bananas to an encounter with cows--rendered sometimes in story-length, story-like stretches of narrative, sometimes in fragments no longer than a page, but always suffused with the hypersaturated, almost synesthetic intensity of the physical world that we remember from childhood. The effect is of character refracted and ventriloquized by environment, catching as it bounces her longings, frustrations, and disappointments--the ending of an affair, or the ambivalent beginning with a new lover. As the narrator's persona emerges in all its eccentricity, sometimes painfully and often hilariously, we cannot help but see mirrored there our own fraught desires and limitations, and our own fugitive desire, despite everything, to be known. Shimmering and unusual, Pond demands to be devoured in a single sitting that will linger long after the last page"-- Provided by publisher.Summary: "A tour de force fiction debut, darkly humorous and utterly original, in which the habits and observations of a solitary young woman illuminate her inner life with uncanny, irresistible intimacy"-- Provided by publisher.
Fiction notes: Click to open in new window
Holdings
Item type Home library Collection Call number Materials specified Status Date due Barcode Item holds
Adult Book Adult Book Main Library Fiction Bennett, Claire-L Available 33111008453181
Total holds: 0

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

"A sharp, funny, and eccentric debut ... Pond makes the case for Bennett as an innovative writer of real talent. ... [It]reminds us that small things have great depths." - New York Times Book Review

"Dazzling...exquisitely written and daring ." - O, the Oprah Magazine

Immediately upon its publication in Ireland, Claire-Louise Bennett's debut began to attract attention well beyond the expectations of the tiny Irish press that published it. A deceptively slender volume, it captures with utterly mesmerizing virtuosity the interior reality of its unnamed protagonist, a young woman living a singular and mostly solitary existence on the outskirts of a small coastal village. Sidestepping the usual conventions of narrative, it focuses on the details of her daily experience--from the best way to eat porridge or bananas to an encounter with cows--rendered sometimes in story-length, story-like stretches of narrative, sometimes in fragments no longer than a page, but always suffused with the hypersaturated, almost synesthetic intensity of the physical world that we remember from childhood. The effect is of character refracted and ventriloquized by environment, catching as it bounces her longings, frustrations, and disappointments--the ending of an affair, or the ambivalent beginning with a new lover. As the narrator's persona emerges in all its eccentricity, sometimes painfully and often hilariously, we cannot help but see mirrored there our own fraught desires and limitations, and our own fugitive desire, despite everything, to be known.

Shimmering and unusual, Pond demands to be devoured in a single sitting that will linger long after the last page.

Voyage in the dark -- Morning, noon & night -- First thing -- The big day -- Wishful thinking -- A little before seven -- To a god unknown -- Two weeks since -- Stir-fry -- Finishing touch -- Control knobs -- Postcard -- The deepest sea -- Oh, tomato puree! -- Morning, 1908 -- The gloves are off -- Over & done with -- Words escape me -- Lady of the house -- Old ground.

"First published in Ireland by Stinging Fly Press, 2015." -- Title page verso.

"Longlisted for the 2016 International Dylan Thomas Prize "What Bennett aims at is nothing short of a re-enchantment of the world... This is a truly stunning debut, beautifully written and profoundly witty." -The Guardian Immediately upon its publication in Ireland, Claire-Louise Bennett's debut began to attract attention well beyond the expectations of the tiny Irish press that published it. A deceptively slender volume, it captures with utterly mesmerizing virtuosity the interior reality of its unnamed protagonist, a young woman living a singular and mostly solitary existence on the outskirts of a small coastal village. Sidestepping the usual conventions of narrative, it focuses on the details of her daily experience--from the best way to eat porridge or bananas to an encounter with cows--rendered sometimes in story-length, story-like stretches of narrative, sometimes in fragments no longer than a page, but always suffused with the hypersaturated, almost synesthetic intensity of the physical world that we remember from childhood. The effect is of character refracted and ventriloquized by environment, catching as it bounces her longings, frustrations, and disappointments--the ending of an affair, or the ambivalent beginning with a new lover. As the narrator's persona emerges in all its eccentricity, sometimes painfully and often hilariously, we cannot help but see mirrored there our own fraught desires and limitations, and our own fugitive desire, despite everything, to be known. Shimmering and unusual, Pond demands to be devoured in a single sitting that will linger long after the last page"-- Provided by publisher.

"A tour de force fiction debut, darkly humorous and utterly original, in which the habits and observations of a solitary young woman illuminate her inner life with uncanny, irresistible intimacy"-- Provided by publisher.

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