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Amateurs
A collection of stories by a master of deadpan wit and magical mockery.
207 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published January 1, 1976
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About the author
Donald Barthelme
156 books754 followers
Unspeakable Practices, Unnatural Acts
(1968) apparently collects sometimes surrealistic stories of modern life of American writer Donald Barthelme.
A student at the University of Pennsylvania bore Donald Barthelme. Two years later, in 1933, the family moved to Texas, where father of Barthelme served as a professor of architecture at the University of Houston, where Barthelme later majored in journalism.
In 1951, this still student composed his first articles for the Houston Post. The Army drafted Barthelme, who arrived in Korea on 27 July 1953, the very day, when parties signed the ceasefire, ending the war. He served briefly as the editor of a newspaper of Army before returning to the United States and his job at the Houston Post. Once back, he continued his studies of philosophy at the University of Houston. He continued to take classes until 1957 but never received a degree. He spent much of his free time in “black” jazz clubs of Houston and listened to musical innovators, such as Lionel Hampton and Peck Kelly; this experience influenced him later.
Barthelme, a rebellious son, struggled in his relationship with his demanding father. In later years, they tremendously argued about the kinds of literature that interested Barthelme. His avant-garde father in art and aesthetics in many ways approved not the postmodern and deconstruction schools. The Dead Father and The King , the novels, delineate attitude of Barthelme toward his father as King Arthur and Lancelot, the characters, picture him. From the Roman Catholicism of his especially devout mother, Barthelme independently moved away, but this separation as the distance with his father troubled Barthelme. He ably agreed to strictures of his seemingly much closer mother.
Barthelme went to teach for brief periods at Boston University and at University at Buffalo, and he at the college of the City of New York served as distinguished visiting professor from 1974-1975. He married four times. Helen Barthelme, his second wife, later entitled a biography Donald Barthelme: The Genesis of a Cool Sound , published in 2001. With Birgit Barthelme, his third wife and a Dane, he fathered Anne Barthelme, his first child, a daughter. He married Marion Barthelme near the end and fathered Kate Barthelme, his second daughter. Marion and Donald wed until his death from throat cancer. People respect fiction of Frederick Barthelme and Steven Barthelme, brothers of Donald Barthelme and also teachers at The University of Southern Mississippi.
A student at the University of Pennsylvania bore Donald Barthelme. Two years later, in 1933, the family moved to Texas, where father of Barthelme served as a professor of architecture at the University of Houston, where Barthelme later majored in journalism.
In 1951, this still student composed his first articles for the Houston Post. The Army drafted Barthelme, who arrived in Korea on 27 July 1953, the very day, when parties signed the ceasefire, ending the war. He served briefly as the editor of a newspaper of Army before returning to the United States and his job at the Houston Post. Once back, he continued his studies of philosophy at the University of Houston. He continued to take classes until 1957 but never received a degree. He spent much of his free time in “black” jazz clubs of Houston and listened to musical innovators, such as Lionel Hampton and Peck Kelly; this experience influenced him later.
Barthelme, a rebellious son, struggled in his relationship with his demanding father. In later years, they tremendously argued about the kinds of literature that interested Barthelme. His avant-garde father in art and aesthetics in many ways approved not the postmodern and deconstruction schools. The Dead Father and The King , the novels, delineate attitude of Barthelme toward his father as King Arthur and Lancelot, the characters, picture him. From the Roman Catholicism of his especially devout mother, Barthelme independently moved away, but this separation as the distance with his father troubled Barthelme. He ably agreed to strictures of his seemingly much closer mother.
Barthelme went to teach for brief periods at Boston University and at University at Buffalo, and he at the college of the City of New York served as distinguished visiting professor from 1974-1975. He married four times. Helen Barthelme, his second wife, later entitled a biography Donald Barthelme: The Genesis of a Cool Sound , published in 2001. With Birgit Barthelme, his third wife and a Dane, he fathered Anne Barthelme, his first child, a daughter. He married Marion Barthelme near the end and fathered Kate Barthelme, his second daughter. Marion and Donald wed until his death from throat cancer. People respect fiction of Frederick Barthelme and Steven Barthelme, brothers of Donald Barthelme and also teachers at The University of Southern Mississippi.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 41 reviews
August 12, 2023
Once again Donald Barthelme proved that he is an inveterate connoisseur of the subtleties of day-to-day intellectual existence…
Business as usual in Our Work and Why We Do It, advanced urban planning and development in I Bought a Little City, mysterious army life in The Sergeant and romantic abduction of females in The Captured Woman…
A friendly outdoor hanging party in Some of Us Had Been Threatening Our Friend Colby, enigmatic family affairs in 110 West Sixty-First Street and gorgeous love life At the End of the Mechanical Age…
And, of course, in order to do all these wonderful things one must be well educated…
Even if the great part of our intellectual activity is fruitless and often absurd and we are just Amateurs our intelligent hustle will never stop.
We all stand around a small table watching the matchbook press at work. It is exactly like a toy steam engine. Everyone is very fond of it, although we also have a press big as a destroyer escort – that one has a crew of thirty-five, its own galley, its own sick bay, its own band. We print the currency of Colombia, and the Acts of the Apostles, and the laws of the land, and the fingerprints of criminals…
Business as usual in Our Work and Why We Do It, advanced urban planning and development in I Bought a Little City, mysterious army life in The Sergeant and romantic abduction of females in The Captured Woman…
The captured woman is smoking her pipe. It has a long graceful curving stem and a white porcelain bowl decorated with little red flowers. For dinner we had shad roe and buttered yellow beans.
“He looks like he has five umbrellas stuck up his ass,” she says
suddenly.
“Who?”
“My husband. But he’s a very decent man. But of course that’s not uncommon. A great many people are very decent. Most people, I think. Even you.”
The fragrance of her special (ladies’ mixture) tobacco hangs about us.
A friendly outdoor hanging party in Some of Us Had Been Threatening Our Friend Colby, enigmatic family affairs in 110 West Sixty-First Street and gorgeous love life At the End of the Mechanical Age…
And, of course, in order to do all these wonderful things one must be well educated…
Here is a diode, learn what to do with it. Here is Du Guesclin, constable of France 1370-80 – learn what to do with him. A divan is either a long cushioned seat or a council of state – figure out at which times it is what. Certainly you can have your dangerous drugs, but only for dessert – first you must chew your cauliflower, finish your fronds.
Even if the great part of our intellectual activity is fruitless and often absurd and we are just Amateurs our intelligent hustle will never stop.
August 16, 2016
Amateurs is for professionals, those readers of fiction short that are okay to lose a filling or two biting into a pomo offering that titillates irritates while you masticate.
February 3, 2021
I cannot really say which of the two Barthelme short story collections I have so far read is superior, but I can really say that both collections are legitimate masterpieces of fiction. Amateurs is somewhat more tonally consistent than the other Barthelme collection I have read, City Life, as it is often rather dark but at the same time extremely comical and witty. Of course, along w/the comedy comes much sadness as well. One story details a man's father and ex-fiancee admitting to him they find him to be awfully dull. The story is humorous in its dialogue and the character's casual approach to such an absurd situation, and yet this absurd situation is also a heartbreakingly sad one, and Barthelme really realizes this, and shows it. Of course, I also cannot refrain from mentioning the short story "The School", which is a hilarious and pitch-black postmodernist short story that is a must-read if there ever was one.
February 3, 2009
It was a Green Eggs and Ham scenario that brought me to Barthelme. My man discovered him and brought him home, laughing out loud while reading his words, taunting me with his cackling. When I didn't respond, he began pestering me about trying it. He read me snippets of Barthelme in a car, lines in a bed, phrases on a chair...finally, I gave in, tried it and found that I liked it.
Barthelme's stories are a blend of the bizarre and absurd, but in some strange way he often manages to make them just relevant enough to be a biting social commentary on the ordinary. Amateurs is no different.
Try this bit of genius from the story The Educational Experience:
"Music from somewhere. It is Vivaldi's great work The Semesters. The students wandered among the exhibits...We walked among the industrial achievements....We moved on. The two major theories of origin, evolution and creation, were argued by bands of believers who gave away buttons, balloons, bumper stickers, pieces of the True Cross...The visible universe was doing very well, we decided, a great deal of movement, flux-unimpaired vitality. We made the students add odd figures, things like 453498*23:J and 8977?22MARY. This was part of the educational experience, we told them, and not even the hard part- just one side of a many-sided effort. But what a wonderful time you'll have, we told them, when the experience is over, done, completed. You will all, we told them, be more beautiful than you are now, and more employable too. You will have a grasp of the total situation; the total situation will have a grasp of you."
Although each story in this collection has its own brilliance, I personally think The School is flawless. My sons, eight and nine, enjoyed a bit of Some of Us Had Been Threatening Our Friend Colby. Much of what is considered humor is dependent on some form of what we understand as wrongness, and my young sons got this and so couldn't stop laughing over the following: "Some of us had been threatening our friend Colby for a long time, because of the way he had been behaving. And now he'd gone too far, so we decided to hang him. Colby argued that just because he had gone too far (he did not deny that he had gone too far) did not mean that he should be subjected to hanging. Going too far, he said, was something everybody did sometimes. We didn't pay much attention to this argument. We asked him what sort of music he would like played at the hanging."
Barthelme's stories are a blend of the bizarre and absurd, but in some strange way he often manages to make them just relevant enough to be a biting social commentary on the ordinary. Amateurs is no different.
Try this bit of genius from the story The Educational Experience:
"Music from somewhere. It is Vivaldi's great work The Semesters. The students wandered among the exhibits...We walked among the industrial achievements....We moved on. The two major theories of origin, evolution and creation, were argued by bands of believers who gave away buttons, balloons, bumper stickers, pieces of the True Cross...The visible universe was doing very well, we decided, a great deal of movement, flux-unimpaired vitality. We made the students add odd figures, things like 453498*23:J and 8977?22MARY. This was part of the educational experience, we told them, and not even the hard part- just one side of a many-sided effort. But what a wonderful time you'll have, we told them, when the experience is over, done, completed. You will all, we told them, be more beautiful than you are now, and more employable too. You will have a grasp of the total situation; the total situation will have a grasp of you."
Although each story in this collection has its own brilliance, I personally think The School is flawless. My sons, eight and nine, enjoyed a bit of Some of Us Had Been Threatening Our Friend Colby. Much of what is considered humor is dependent on some form of what we understand as wrongness, and my young sons got this and so couldn't stop laughing over the following: "Some of us had been threatening our friend Colby for a long time, because of the way he had been behaving. And now he'd gone too far, so we decided to hang him. Colby argued that just because he had gone too far (he did not deny that he had gone too far) did not mean that he should be subjected to hanging. Going too far, he said, was something everybody did sometimes. We didn't pay much attention to this argument. We asked him what sort of music he would like played at the hanging."
April 21, 2015
خیلی کوتاه در مورد این کتاب می نویسم.کتاب مجموعه ایی از داستان های کوتاه ست،سبک کتاب پست مدرنه و اینکه بابت هر داستان کلی باید فکر کرد.نویسنده از نمادها برای نوشتن داستان هاش استفاده کرده،وقتی کتاب رو میخونی حس می کنی که تک تک کلمات رمزگذاری شده و باید تمام کدها و رمزها گشوده بشن تا داستان مفهومش رو پیدا کنه.
من کتاب رو دوست داشتم چون باعث میشد فکر بکنم. البته شاید نیاز باشه چند بار خونده بشه...
من کتاب رو دوست داشتم چون باعث میشد فکر بکنم. البته شاید نیاز باشه چند بار خونده بشه...
January 26, 2019
ترجمه به قدری بد بود که خیلی اذیت شدم تا کامل خوندمش. خیلی از کلماتی که نیاز به توضیح در آخر داستانها یا پاورقی داشتند هیچ توضیحی براشون داده نشده و حتی کلمه انگلیسیش گذاشته شده. البته من اصل متنها رو به انگلیسی نخونده ام.
از چند تا از داستانها خوشم اومد خیلی.فکر کنم باید متن اصلی رو پیدا کنم و بخونم البته.
از چند تا از داستانها خوشم اومد خیلی.فکر کنم باید متن اصلی رو پیدا کنم و بخونم البته.
May 23, 2018
I first heard of Donald Barthelme because his brother was the drummer in the Red Krayola, a psychedelic Texas rock band in the 60s. DB is known for his minimalism and dry humor. I got about halfway thru this before giving up. Whatever this is supposed to be, I can't grasp it. His 'minimalism' seems to be in the area of 'making sense' and his 'dry humor' reaches the point of 'evaporation'.
It is a shame there aren't places where a reader can sample the work of an author before purchasing their books. You know, a place where you'd gather a bunch of books and let people check them out. I've heard they do this in 'public libraries' only the one we have here in Fort Bend County doesn't do that. Half of the building is given to kids books where people drop their brats off and let the librarian assistants chaperone them. Another section is given to computers where juvenile delinquents hang out all day playing video games and there's a magazine section in the back where homeless people and winos sit around waiting for the shelters to reopen. What little space is given to actual books is filled with arts and crafts, cookbooks, and Stephen King. You'd be hard pressed to find anything older than 10 years.
If such places existed I could have saved money by not buying this book.
It is a shame there aren't places where a reader can sample the work of an author before purchasing their books. You know, a place where you'd gather a bunch of books and let people check them out. I've heard they do this in 'public libraries' only the one we have here in Fort Bend County doesn't do that. Half of the building is given to kids books where people drop their brats off and let the librarian assistants chaperone them. Another section is given to computers where juvenile delinquents hang out all day playing video games and there's a magazine section in the back where homeless people and winos sit around waiting for the shelters to reopen. What little space is given to actual books is filled with arts and crafts, cookbooks, and Stephen King. You'd be hard pressed to find anything older than 10 years.
If such places existed I could have saved money by not buying this book.
June 27, 2023
3.5 stars. A collection of 20 very short, original, unique, mostly unreal, easy to read, (not always easy to fully comprehend!), stories covering a wide range of snippets of human behaviour. Many of the stories are odd / weird. In ‘I bought a little City’, the narrator writes about what he did to significantly change the city of Galveston, Texas. He states that ”I asked some folks to move out of a whole city block on I street and then I tore down their houses. I put the people into the Galvez Hotel….” In ‘Porcupines at the University’, thousands of porcupines are coming down the road to invade a university.
My favourite is ‘The Reference’, where a Mr Cockburn is being interviewed. He is providing a reference for the applicant, Mr Shel McPartland. Here are some quotes from this story:
‘You said earlier that you wouldn’t trust him to salt a mine shaft with silver dollars.’
‘McPartland is sublime with the mundanities.’
‘Reliability sir is much overstated. He is inspired.’
This book was first published in 1974.
My favourite is ‘The Reference’, where a Mr Cockburn is being interviewed. He is providing a reference for the applicant, Mr Shel McPartland. Here are some quotes from this story:
‘You said earlier that you wouldn’t trust him to salt a mine shaft with silver dollars.’
‘McPartland is sublime with the mundanities.’
‘Reliability sir is much overstated. He is inspired.’
This book was first published in 1974.
June 30, 2022
Oh my, just not for me. Just amazing to me a person can think like this. I did feel he had good writing skills.
March 14, 2013
A collection of very short stories, some are very good, intelligent and witty. Some stories aren't as good but these are few.
A strange choice for the 1001 list have to admit, and did wonder why it was included.
A strange choice for the 1001 list have to admit, and did wonder why it was included.
December 22, 2022
Oh Don, tu, re delle chiusure pazzerelle, padre spirituale di Saunders George, sei il più beatnik tra i postmoderni.
Sai origliare in tre lingue.
Mi telefoni per dirmi che mi ami prima di uscire a fare qualcosa che non voglio che tu faccia e a volte vorrei mettermi a urlare ma, Tranquillo, la paura della noia non ha ancora vinto.
Andiamo a vedere un film con dei fuochi d' artificio? Non serve a nulla pensare al povero Q. La tua vita è salva. Congratulazioni. Scusami.
Dio era in cantina a controllare i contatori per vedere quanta grazia era stata consumata nel mese di giugno.
"È una citazione potentissima"
"Ci proverò. Imbeve, imprigiona, imparadisa."
Improvvisamente la parte successiva del racconto non si trovava più, non mi veniva in mente, così andai di là a bere un bicchier d'acqua ma se cercano di mettermi fretta tirerò fuori l'armonica. E canterò di pianure e virilità.
Tutto questo mi affatica il cuore. Sappiamo cosa stiamo facendo, fino a quando la nostra arte sarà distrutta da chissà quale altra arte che non è ancora stata inventata.
Cosa è meraviglioso? Questi porcospini sono meravigliosi? Sono significativi? Sono ciò di cui hai bisogno?
Dissi: Andromaca!
Gli studenti si scambiarono dei sorrisi segreti.
Sai origliare in tre lingue.
Mi telefoni per dirmi che mi ami prima di uscire a fare qualcosa che non voglio che tu faccia e a volte vorrei mettermi a urlare ma, Tranquillo, la paura della noia non ha ancora vinto.
Andiamo a vedere un film con dei fuochi d' artificio? Non serve a nulla pensare al povero Q. La tua vita è salva. Congratulazioni. Scusami.
Dio era in cantina a controllare i contatori per vedere quanta grazia era stata consumata nel mese di giugno.
"È una citazione potentissima"
"Ci proverò. Imbeve, imprigiona, imparadisa."
Improvvisamente la parte successiva del racconto non si trovava più, non mi veniva in mente, così andai di là a bere un bicchier d'acqua ma se cercano di mettermi fretta tirerò fuori l'armonica. E canterò di pianure e virilità.
Tutto questo mi affatica il cuore. Sappiamo cosa stiamo facendo, fino a quando la nostra arte sarà distrutta da chissà quale altra arte che non è ancora stata inventata.
Cosa è meraviglioso? Questi porcospini sono meravigliosi? Sono significativi? Sono ciò di cui hai bisogno?
Dissi: Andromaca!
Gli studenti si scambiarono dei sorrisi segreti.
July 1, 2012
عشق واقعی تو یه جای دیگهست، و همیشه هم یه جای دیگه خواهد بود. میدونم دلگیرکنندهست، این مانور (اون ��یرهنشو تو کمد تو آویزون کرده و حالا باید پسش بدی) ولی زندگی تو مهمتر از هرکدوم از این ائتلافهای گذرایییه که کسی در اختیارت میذاره تا باهاش بخوابی، آره، اما از اون طرف هم کلی لبخند زدن از تو طلب میکنه –لبخندهایی که نمیتونی همینجوری هدرشون بدی اگه بخوای مطیعانه و با لبخند به استقبال خواستههای بهحق دستورالعمل بری. بفرما! مشکل حلّه. دستش رو بگیر، در حال گریه، از دمکمد، لباس سبزی که اصلا دوستش نداشتی از یه دستش آویزونه و بذارش تو اتوبوس.
خداحافظ، السی.
خداحافظ، السی.
January 3, 2008
surreal short stories. i like them when i don't get lost.
July 3, 2015
داستان بعضی از ما دوستمان کلبی را تهدید می کردیم عالی بود
August 6, 2012
another from barthelme...i dunno what # this one is...3? 4? 5?...looks to be 21 stories...possibly from 1970 through 1976...some appeared in the atlantic monthly...is there still an atlantic monthly?...some in harper's magazine...is there still a harper's magazine?....and some in the new yorker...is there?...i think could be...
dedicated to grace paley
i think she played center for the harlem globetrotters...her and meadowlark
1st story: our work and why we do it
as admirable volume after admirable volume tumbled from the sweating presses...
dates itself? ...nessy pass?...this musta been before the one saved us all from sweating presses...all hail the one!
onward and upward
so...yeah...the one...our work and why we do it...hi ho, hi ho...off to work we go.
2nd story: the wound
so yeah, this bull fighter gets a wound in his foot and the queen wants it...the wound...the bull shows ringing a bell...(after 4 stories read, our hero would mark this as his 2nd favorite.)
3rd story: 110 west sixty-first street
i take it this means new york? paul gave eugenie a very large swordfish steak for her birthday. it was wrapped in red-and-white paper. the paper was soaked in swordfish juices in places but eugenie was grateful nevertheless.
onward christian soldiers!
paul & eugenie lost a child....claude..two-year-old...died...they struggle.
4th story: some of us had been threatening our friend colby
ha! or ho! this is hilarious...printing invitations to a hanging...and the fertilizer for growth comes from the most wayward of places, hey? like that other'n i read, oops...forgot the title...bout foundations, big $-men making big-$ decisions...or...could combine that idea, the foundation thingy, and print invitations to a big-$ decision?
...in invisible ink...
yeah, and then they get into the cost of the gibbet, four-hundred smackers...a deal, i think...but those are 70s dollars, before the big oil embargo but after mcdonald's...b.b.o.e....a.m.....
okay, sure, they hang colby....heh! best story so far.
this is how it starts: some of us had been threatening our friend colby for a long time, because of the way he had been behaving. and now he'd gone too far, so we decided to hang him.
5th story:the school
heh heh heh!...everything is dying...trees...the korean orphan...the herb garden...
6th story: the great hug
something about the balloon man...and the pin lady...
7th story: about george soros...i bought a little city
some dude with big-$ got the invitation and bought a city, galveston...
8th story: the agreement
begins thus: where is my daughter?
why is she there? what crucial error did i make? was there more than one?
it continues in this vein, interrogatory...and...that tool does not function..."add book" as i'd like to add the interrogative mood from padgett powell, who was one of barthelme's many students, one of his more successful ones...course, that depends on how success is measured...but padgett has a story that is all questions and if this story didn't influence the making of that one, then that wasn't a deer, a hoodlum deer, that raided my garden last night. that...or some kid on a pogo stick...w/deer-track rubber attached to the bottom....
ends thus: the villagers are hostile.
9th story: the sergeant
as in military...fill out a chit, send it up the chain-of-command, and that involves a clerk...and so forth.
10th story: what to do next
so.
the situation is, i agree, desperate. but fortunately i know the proper way to proceed. that is why i am giving you these instructions. they will save your life. first, persuade yourself that the situation if not desperate)...
by story end, it sounds like instructions for an instructor....or something
11th story: the captured woman
the captured woman asks if i will take her picture.
heh!
12th story: and then
the part of the story that came next was suddenly missing, i couldn't think of it, so i went into the next room and drank a glass of water (my "and then" still hanging in the frangible air) as if that were the most...
13th: porcupines at the university
our hero marked this one as a favorite...git along theah li'l porcupines.
14th: the educational experience
this one brings to mind some of the black & white illustrations that come packaged in some of his stories...and...there are none in this collection...no drawings...we walked among the industrial achievements. a good-looking gas turbine, behind a velvet rope. and some place on the page, this would be drawn...my father, concerned about his liver. a face looking inside a box...but that is in one of his stories...perhaps one i've not marked as "read"...
the app that allows the gumment to see all i have read is not available to moi...so...
15th story: the discovery
bout kate and boots...
16th: rebecca
rebecca lizard was trying to change her ugly, reptilian, thoroughly unacceptable last name.
heh! she's a homosexual lesbian...here, barthelme was way ahead of his time...writing this story before the call went out in the 2nd year of barry so-so...rebecca and hilda...they have cabbage when it is all said and done.
17th: the reference
heh! warp.
character reference...frank? oh, frank, well yeah, he used to play that song on that banjo he got from sgt. barry sadler or was it bob dylan? we ain't marching anymore...and then, years later, our hero saw him on sixty minutes, frank, a lawyer in miami, using that student-ghetto voice he made famous singing about the roaches and the giant palmettos...and mrs. webb...ha ha ha that is not in this story...this story is bout shel mcpartland, who has warp...sign him up...
18th story: the new member
this story is a hoot...see, this committee is meeting and barthelme uses all that committee-language, it is so ordered, seconded, moved to so this that the other...like minutes, right? and then there's this man outside the window...eventually, they call him in, move that he be a member...he wants to "be with somebody"...heh!
he gets the floor..."all right...the first thing we'll do is, we'll make everybody wear overalls. gray overalls..."
our hero marked this one as a favorite.
19th: you are as brave as vincent van gogh
you eavesdrop in three languages. has no one every told you not to pet a leashed dog. we wash your bloody hand with scotch from the restaurant.
to the end...the baby has dime-size bruises from being left on the lawn during a hailstorm...
20th: at the end of the mechanical age
i went to the grocery store to buy some soap. meets mrs. davis...tub was best for important cleaning experiences, in her opinion....god is down in the basement reading electrical meters...grace is electricity...ralph is coming...heh! isn't that a song? ralph is coming! ralph is coming! to your home! jefferson starship, i think.
missed one...there's 21 stories...did i get "our friend colby" i think i did...sho-nough...well, i wrote about it...colby gets hanged...or wait now...there's only 20 stories...that one, the title is so long, at first glance t'would appear to be 2 stories in the line-up...there's 20...mulcha culpa
overall...i enjoyed these more than the previous collection..."city life"....with most if not all of these you arrive at the destination, whereas in some of his stories...you're left standing by the side of the road wondering what it was that just zoomed past...you feel the wind but have no clue from what direction it is coming or going.
onward and upward
dedicated to grace paley
i think she played center for the harlem globetrotters...her and meadowlark
1st story: our work and why we do it
as admirable volume after admirable volume tumbled from the sweating presses...
dates itself? ...nessy pass?...this musta been before the one saved us all from sweating presses...all hail the one!
onward and upward
so...yeah...the one...our work and why we do it...hi ho, hi ho...off to work we go.
2nd story: the wound
so yeah, this bull fighter gets a wound in his foot and the queen wants it...the wound...the bull shows ringing a bell...(after 4 stories read, our hero would mark this as his 2nd favorite.)
3rd story: 110 west sixty-first street
i take it this means new york? paul gave eugenie a very large swordfish steak for her birthday. it was wrapped in red-and-white paper. the paper was soaked in swordfish juices in places but eugenie was grateful nevertheless.
onward christian soldiers!
paul & eugenie lost a child....claude..two-year-old...died...they struggle.
4th story: some of us had been threatening our friend colby
ha! or ho! this is hilarious...printing invitations to a hanging...and the fertilizer for growth comes from the most wayward of places, hey? like that other'n i read, oops...forgot the title...bout foundations, big $-men making big-$ decisions...or...could combine that idea, the foundation thingy, and print invitations to a big-$ decision?
...in invisible ink...
yeah, and then they get into the cost of the gibbet, four-hundred smackers...a deal, i think...but those are 70s dollars, before the big oil embargo but after mcdonald's...b.b.o.e....a.m.....
okay, sure, they hang colby....heh! best story so far.
this is how it starts: some of us had been threatening our friend colby for a long time, because of the way he had been behaving. and now he'd gone too far, so we decided to hang him.
5th story:
heh heh heh!...everything is dying...trees...the korean orphan...the herb garden...
6th story: the great hug
something about the balloon man...and the pin lady...
7th story: about george soros...i bought a little city
some dude with big-$ got the invitation and bought a city, galveston...
8th story: the agreement
begins thus: where is my daughter?
why is she there? what crucial error did i make? was there more than one?
it continues in this vein, interrogatory...and...that tool does not function..."add book" as i'd like to add the interrogative mood from padgett powell, who was one of barthelme's many students, one of his more successful ones...course, that depends on how success is measured...but padgett has a story that is all questions and if this story didn't influence the making of that one, then that wasn't a deer, a hoodlum deer, that raided my garden last night. that...or some kid on a pogo stick...w/deer-track rubber attached to the bottom....
ends thus: the villagers are hostile.
9th story: the sergeant
as in military...fill out a chit, send it up the chain-of-command, and that involves a clerk...and so forth.
10th story: what to do next
so.
the situation is, i agree, desperate. but fortunately i know the proper way to proceed. that is why i am giving you these instructions. they will save your life. first, persuade yourself that the situation if not desperate)...
by story end, it sounds like instructions for an instructor....or something
11th story: the captured woman
the captured woman asks if i will take her picture.
heh!
12th story: and then
the part of the story that came next was suddenly missing, i couldn't think of it, so i went into the next room and drank a glass of water (my "and then" still hanging in the frangible air) as if that were the most...
13th: porcupines at the university
our hero marked this one as a favorite...git along theah li'l porcupines.
14th: the educational experience
this one brings to mind some of the black & white illustrations that come packaged in some of his stories...and...there are none in this collection...no drawings...we walked among the industrial achievements. a good-looking gas turbine, behind a velvet rope. and some place on the page, this would be drawn...my father, concerned about his liver. a face looking inside a box...but that is in one of his stories...perhaps one i've not marked as "read"...
the app that allows the gumment to see all i have read is not available to moi...so...
15th story: the discovery
bout kate and boots...
16th: rebecca
rebecca lizard was trying to change her ugly, reptilian, thoroughly unacceptable last name.
heh! she's a homosexual lesbian...here, barthelme was way ahead of his time...writing this story before the call went out in the 2nd year of barry so-so...rebecca and hilda...they have cabbage when it is all said and done.
17th: the reference
heh! warp.
character reference...frank? oh, frank, well yeah, he used to play that song on that banjo he got from sgt. barry sadler or was it bob dylan? we ain't marching anymore...and then, years later, our hero saw him on sixty minutes, frank, a lawyer in miami, using that student-ghetto voice he made famous singing about the roaches and the giant palmettos...and mrs. webb...ha ha ha that is not in this story...this story is bout shel mcpartland, who has warp...sign him up...
18th story: the new member
this story is a hoot...see, this committee is meeting and barthelme uses all that committee-language, it is so ordered, seconded, moved to so this that the other...like minutes, right? and then there's this man outside the window...eventually, they call him in, move that he be a member...he wants to "be with somebody"...heh!
he gets the floor..."all right...the first thing we'll do is, we'll make everybody wear overalls. gray overalls..."
our hero marked this one as a favorite.
19th: you are as brave as vincent van gogh
you eavesdrop in three languages. has no one every told you not to pet a leashed dog. we wash your bloody hand with scotch from the restaurant.
to the end...the baby has dime-size bruises from being left on the lawn during a hailstorm...
20th: at the end of the mechanical age
i went to the grocery store to buy some soap. meets mrs. davis...tub was best for important cleaning experiences, in her opinion....god is down in the basement reading electrical meters...grace is electricity...ralph is coming...heh! isn't that a song? ralph is coming! ralph is coming! to your home! jefferson starship, i think.
missed one...there's 21 stories...did i get "our friend colby" i think i did...sho-nough...well, i wrote about it...colby gets hanged...or wait now...there's only 20 stories...that one, the title is so long, at first glance t'would appear to be 2 stories in the line-up...there's 20...mulcha culpa
overall...i enjoyed these more than the previous collection..."city life"....with most if not all of these you arrive at the destination, whereas in some of his stories...you're left standing by the side of the road wondering what it was that just zoomed past...you feel the wind but have no clue from what direction it is coming or going.
onward and upward
February 10, 2023
The fiction of Donald Barthelme feels like a warm, comfy blanket in a psych ward. It's just absolutely bizarre but enjoyable (well, to me anyway), crazy but not so crazy that I can't relate or find enjoyment. From "Forty Stories" to "The Dead Father," from "Sixty Stories" to this, the latest work I have read by him, I have found so much to give me pleasure in his work ("Snow White" was a bit too much for me at the time I read it, though I'm tempted to revisit it).
"Amateurs" is a collection of stories, some familiar from previous encounters but many not, that continues to help elevate Barthelme in my mind as one of my all-time favorite authors. A man buys a city and shoots sixty thousand dogs; a humdrum committee meets to determine the fates of ordinary citizens with a missionary zeal; a school teacher tries to make sense of the seemingly random nature of his class' experience with death and decay. Never boring, never dull, always challenging and funny, the stories in "Amateurs" deserve to be read by generations to come (as I'm sure they have been already read by multiple generations already). I loved this collection, and I highly recommend it to anyone who is familiar with Barthelme or anyone who wants to know what his writing was like.
"Amateurs" is a collection of stories, some familiar from previous encounters but many not, that continues to help elevate Barthelme in my mind as one of my all-time favorite authors. A man buys a city and shoots sixty thousand dogs; a humdrum committee meets to determine the fates of ordinary citizens with a missionary zeal; a school teacher tries to make sense of the seemingly random nature of his class' experience with death and decay. Never boring, never dull, always challenging and funny, the stories in "Amateurs" deserve to be read by generations to come (as I'm sure they have been already read by multiple generations already). I loved this collection, and I highly recommend it to anyone who is familiar with Barthelme or anyone who wants to know what his writing was like.
August 27, 2024
Amateurs is a collection of 20 short stories by Donald Barthelme. Barthelme is a post-modernist writer who is known for his stories published in the 1970s and 1980s. His stories seem more like “jazz riffs” or imaginative improvisations.
The stories don’t have plots and are not realistic or believable. There are a wide variety of characters and conversations with random events happening. Barthelme is considered as being “restless with a dread of seeming predictable”. Some people just see these stories as gibberish or some kind of hoax or joke that they just don’t get.
The short stories are very readable. I don’t feel like I got a lot of understanding out of them. It felt like going to look at some kind of abstract modern art exhibition. I just tried to keep an open mind while reading them. It’s all about the experience.
This book is on Boxall’s “1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die” list.
The stories don’t have plots and are not realistic or believable. There are a wide variety of characters and conversations with random events happening. Barthelme is considered as being “restless with a dread of seeming predictable”. Some people just see these stories as gibberish or some kind of hoax or joke that they just don’t get.
The short stories are very readable. I don’t feel like I got a lot of understanding out of them. It felt like going to look at some kind of abstract modern art exhibition. I just tried to keep an open mind while reading them. It’s all about the experience.
This book is on Boxall’s “1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die” list.
May 14, 2017
Mi telefoni per dirmi che mi ami prima di uscire a fare qualcosa che non voglio che tu faccia.
Quando non mi chiedi i fuochi d'artificio mi chiedi Miles Davis legato mani e piedi, o l'Islanda
Christian Raimo nella bellissima introduzione scrive che Barthelme non è un autore da leggere, bensì da rileggere, per godere pienamente del genio inventivo e stilistico di questa autorità del postmoderno americano. Questa di Barthelme è una raccolta ovviamente eccentrica, che un lettore poco avvezzo potrebbe gettare dalla finestra; per i fantasiosi, invece, ogni brevissimo racconto è un frutto che tira l'altro, ognuno con la propria consistenza e sapore.
Io l'ho amata profondamente; per quanto stranita alle volte, non ho potuto far a meno di correre dietro alle bizzarrie stilistiche e narrative di Barthelme, che non vedo l'ora di rileggere.
Quando non mi chiedi i fuochi d'artificio mi chiedi Miles Davis legato mani e piedi, o l'Islanda
Christian Raimo nella bellissima introduzione scrive che Barthelme non è un autore da leggere, bensì da rileggere, per godere pienamente del genio inventivo e stilistico di questa autorità del postmoderno americano. Questa di Barthelme è una raccolta ovviamente eccentrica, che un lettore poco avvezzo potrebbe gettare dalla finestra; per i fantasiosi, invece, ogni brevissimo racconto è un frutto che tira l'altro, ognuno con la propria consistenza e sapore.
Io l'ho amata profondamente; per quanto stranita alle volte, non ho potuto far a meno di correre dietro alle bizzarrie stilistiche e narrative di Barthelme, che non vedo l'ora di rileggere.
December 28, 2022
Sheesh, the second collection of Barthelme's stories I have read this year. Either he uses old references that go over my head or he is insane and that goes over my head. I really can't puzzle out most of these stories but I can tell he is very smart.
*Book #131 I have read of the '1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die'
*Book #131 I have read of the '1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die'
Read
April 23, 2020I think I feel the same way about Donald Barthelme short stories as I feel about Farside comics. I really like some of them, and others just go over my head. But "The School" is great, my favorite story in the collection.
April 10, 2019
Vast in its subtleties, tempting explanation.
Read
June 12, 2021I loved these a lot more than 60 Stories.
November 22, 2021
Barthelme inspires me to be reckless as a story teller. Easy to get into. Heaps of surreal entertainment.
June 16, 2022
ت. ش: ۲۱ / ۱۲ / ۱۴۰۰
ت. پ: ۲۶ / ۳ / ۱۴۰۱
ت. پ: ۲۶ / ۳ / ۱۴۰۱
January 15, 2025
A few forgettable entries here that are not up to Barthelme's best, but it's all worth it for "Rebecca" and "At the End of the Mechanical Age"
September 23, 2022
Non tutti i racconti funzionano in modo potente. Ma alcuni sono meravigliosi, di un'importanza letteraria rara.
Come: La ferita, il nostro amico Colby, la prigioniera, porcospini all'università, Rebecca, sei coraggiosa come Vincent Van Gogh.
Non tutto ciò che Barthelme scrive in Dilettanti è narrativamente vivo allo stesso modo. Ma ci sono dei passaggi, degli scambi, delle parole accostate l'una all'altra, che sono magia. Pure genialità.
Come il finale di Rebecca, come l'incipit de Il nostro amico Colby, come frasi tipo questa: non avresti dovuto lasciare il bambino in giardino. Durante la grandinata. Quando l'abbiamo riportato dentro era coperto di lividi azzurri grossi quanto monetine.
4⭐
Check my story graph.
Come: La ferita, il nostro amico Colby, la prigioniera, porcospini all'università, Rebecca, sei coraggiosa come Vincent Van Gogh.
Non tutto ciò che Barthelme scrive in Dilettanti è narrativamente vivo allo stesso modo. Ma ci sono dei passaggi, degli scambi, delle parole accostate l'una all'altra, che sono magia. Pure genialità.
Come il finale di Rebecca, come l'incipit de Il nostro amico Colby, come frasi tipo questa: non avresti dovuto lasciare il bambino in giardino. Durante la grandinata. Quando l'abbiamo riportato dentro era coperto di lividi azzurri grossi quanto monetine.
4⭐
Check my story graph.
October 5, 2010
Borrowing this from the Austin Public Library, I assumed I'd enjoy it and jot down in my journal the passages that struck me. It's a collection I wish I had purchased for my own library, though, because some of Barthelme's short-short stories I've most enjoyed are contained within it. "What To Do Next," "The Educational Experience" and "At the End of the Mechanical Age" are highlights. How cool is it that every one of them appeared in print in popular magazines in the 1970s? I guess it's a testament to the relevant themes of his material - the perverse and the absurd - which are commonplace. Barthelme embraced the role of narrator-as-moralizer, too, which makes his insights sting or spark laughter.
Stray sentences and fragments (which don't really justify my declarations - [See the stories]) I like:
"The culture that we share, such as it is, makes of us all either machines for assimilating and judging that culture, or uncritical sops who simply sop it up, become it."
"Tiger fell away into the bottomless abyss of the formerly known."
"Lose yourself in the song of the instructions, in the precise, detailed balm of having had solved for you that most difficult of problems, what to do next."
"Goals incapable of attainment have driven many a man to despair, but despair is easier to get to than that - one need merely to look out of the window, for example."
"...at the corner of Elsewhere and Not-Here..."
"You telephone me to tell me you love me before going out to do something I don't want you to do."
Stray sentences and fragments (which don't really justify my declarations - [See the stories]) I like:
"The culture that we share, such as it is, makes of us all either machines for assimilating and judging that culture, or uncritical sops who simply sop it up, become it."
"Tiger fell away into the bottomless abyss of the formerly known."
"Lose yourself in the song of the instructions, in the precise, detailed balm of having had solved for you that most difficult of problems, what to do next."
"Goals incapable of attainment have driven many a man to despair, but despair is easier to get to than that - one need merely to look out of the window, for example."
"...at the corner of Elsewhere and Not-Here..."
"You telephone me to tell me you love me before going out to do something I don't want you to do."
January 1, 2017
Amateurs is a collection of short stories written during the seventies. The 1001 Book describes them as “absurdist morality tales” and that fits. Barthelme plays with words and at times I thought “what is this?”, it read like a bunch of ideas dropped in a free association that the author could go back to later and create a story. Others actually had more of a story line. Some were interesting, some were confusing. Here are some titles from some of the more interesting ones;
120 West Sixty-first Street I thought this might represent the isolation and struggle a couple would go through at the death of a young child.
Some of Us Had Been Threatening Our Friend Colby, they decide to hang Colby as he has gone to far and as friends they assume they have this right. Humorous but….
The Great Hug, here I am just going to give you a word from the story, semiantireprophetical.
The Agreement, worry by a father about his daughter in the event of divorce????
Porcupines at the University interesting but ??????
The End of the Mechanical Age Thoughts on God, marriage, divorce, a great list of tools. Might be my favorite.
Overall, this was a quick read, so one you can knock off fast but each of these stories could be contemplated a long time and might make great discussions.
120 West Sixty-first Street I thought this might represent the isolation and struggle a couple would go through at the death of a young child.
Some of Us Had Been Threatening Our Friend Colby, they decide to hang Colby as he has gone to far and as friends they assume they have this right. Humorous but….
The Great Hug, here I am just going to give you a word from the story, semiantireprophetical.
The Agreement, worry by a father about his daughter in the event of divorce????
Porcupines at the University interesting but ??????
The End of the Mechanical Age Thoughts on God, marriage, divorce, a great list of tools. Might be my favorite.
Overall, this was a quick read, so one you can knock off fast but each of these stories could be contemplated a long time and might make great discussions.
March 3, 2016
This book is a collection of stories by a master of deadpan wit and magical mockery. I do believe that Donald Barthelme was an excellent writer according to his qualifications, but I did not like this book at all. It made no sense to me. I kept reading hoping that soon I would understand the meaning of the book. There was no traditional plot structures, relying instead on a steady accumulation of seemingly-unrelated detail. He has been described as "the most influential unread author in United States history". I can believe that as I don't think I'll be reading another of his books. But, if you like strange fragmented ideas that may have some humor, then you should read this book.
March 7, 2016
#1001books #778left
Short stories made this a fast read. Not all of the stories worked, but there were a few that I really liked--"Some of Us Had Been Threatening" and "Porcupines at the University" stand out to me, but I also enjoyed "The Educational Experience," "The Reference," and "The New Member," except the ending, which was too absurd for me. Overall, a little uneven, but that's what happens sometimes with short story collections.
Short stories made this a fast read. Not all of the stories worked, but there were a few that I really liked--"Some of Us Had Been Threatening" and "Porcupines at the University" stand out to me, but I also enjoyed "The Educational Experience," "The Reference," and "The New Member," except the ending, which was too absurd for me. Overall, a little uneven, but that's what happens sometimes with short story collections.
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