The Country Ahead of Us, the Country Behind: Stories

The short story much more demanding of an author than a novel is, yet David Guterson's writing is much better here than in Snow Falling on Cedars. Fantastic.

I'm aghast when I read the reviews of my fellow readers but then I take in account the common misperception that a short story is somehow easier to write or a lesser achievement than a novel. The truth is that short stories are more difficult to write, every sentence must punctuate, there is no breathing room. In the two novels I have read of Guterson, the endless pages of description are wonderful but can be top-heavy at times, whereas these stories are lean creations, leaving me wanting more. While it's no Pigeon Feathers, Guterson has been handed the wordsmithing baton from Updike, and the rich prose reminds me of Updike, satiating a yearn I have for quality short stories. I thoroughly enjoyed these, I liked them better than either of his novels, I hope he writes more.

A beautifully written collections of short stories that explores the many facets of the human life. Guterson has managed to evoke the emotions through the use of situations that draws us deeper into the human mind and soul. Beautiful and captivating.

I liked the stories, but I preferred Snow Falling on Cedars to this one. Mostly because I'm not a huge short story fan.

My daughter said Guterson is a good writer. She is right. This collection of his short stories is interesting, thought-provoking, sometimes upsetting. Guterson's stories are set, loosely, in the Northwest; Washington, I take it. They are the narratives of men who remember events or chains of events that had meaning to them, but who offer no interpretations. That is left to us. Though the specific events weren't all familiar to me, the situations and feelings were. All of the stories in the collection deal with boys growing into men, of poor starts and poor transitions into manhood, of friends who drifted away, of love that was thrown away. Some of the pictures Guterson draws are sorrowful, as when he remembers the hunt on which his father began to show the first unmistakable signs of old age, and the romance that the author left behind to become a baseball star. This road that we travel with Guterson, the one stretching behind and ahead, is a hard one. It's full of pain. But the journey's to a better place, and we have to make it. The stories affected me powerfully, especially as I read them in middle age. Guterson is not shallow, and his prose is often difficult. In a few stories the syntax was so involved that I had to read passages several times. Sometimes I understood them. Other stories were written simply; they communicated easily to me. The fault is largely mine; I had been reading so many escape novels that I wasn't in shape to contend with stories full of real thought written in challenging style. But Guterson's writing isn't easy. When he wrote these stories he was younger. Was he under the close guidance of a mentor he wanted to impress, and so felt encouraged to exercise his prose? I'll try the other Guterson book my daughter recommended when I can find it. This young Guterson is a good writer with a good early insight into something worth examining. He's older now. With a little age undoubtedly will have come more stability of expression.