Eleven Kinds of Loneliness

Critics

• A pattern of islands

  Richard Yates’s 1961 novel Revolutionary Road fell out of fashion — and out of print — until two or three years ago. Since it reappeared, readers who have happed upon it have become zealots in the Yates cause, making favourable comparisons with John ... (read full critics)

  spectator published on Fri, 17 Sep 2010

• A pattern of islands

  Richard Yates’s 1961 novel Revolutionary Road fell out of fashion — and out of print — until two or three years ago. Since it reappeared, readers who have happed upon it have become zealots in the Yates cause, making favourable comparisons with John ... (read full critics)

  spectator published on Mon, 13 Sep 2010

1 Review

• 1 person find this helpful

  

  A Great Short Story Writer!

  If you are not familiar with the name Richard Yates, I am sure you know of his first novel Revolutionary Road which was adapted into a popular movie in 2008. The movie was nominated for 3 Oscar awards.

  This book contains 11 short stories in which Richard Yates explored various forms of "loneliness" ... (continue)

  If you are not familiar with the name Richard Yates, I am sure you know of his first novel Revolutionary Road which was adapted into a popular movie in 2008. The movie was nominated for 3 Oscar awards.

  This book contains 11 short stories in which Richard Yates explored various forms of "loneliness" that can be found in marriage, friendship or workplace. I have to say that Yates has an ingenious crafting skill. His stories are extremely well-written and leave no room for even the tiny bit of disappointment.

  More often than not, the success of a story is not dependent on the story itself but on the characters in the story. Characters are hard to develop, and sometimes they take pages and pages of building before the readers fall in love with them. To a short story writer, this task is even more challenging. How do you make your readers like your characters in just a few pages? I am not exaggerating when I say Yates is the master of short stories because, to my surprise, he wasted no words at defining and building his characters who, in most cases, are outcasts, loners or people who are simply unable to connect with another person. With precise and powerful depiction, Yates skillfully showcased their innermost raw emotions which readers can easily relate to, thus making these characters less pathetic but more lovable.

  Yates reminds me a lot of Fitzgerald in the way where Yates' stories are also quite grim and often filled with a sense of lost identity and an inner-struggle to connect with the outside world. However, Yates' writing is much more emotional and sarcastic, which adds a bit of an edge to his style.

  I always feel that short stories is where writers reveal the most about themselves. After 11 stories, it is not hard to see that Yates is not a believer in marriage. He is rather a pessimist when it comes to love, frequently alluding to the fact that marriage is what kills passion in his stories. He even wrote a rather melancholy story about love starts to change in the most subtle ways just two days before a young couple's wedding day. It is not a surprise when I flipped to the first page and read in his biography that he was divorced twice in his lifetime.

  My personal favorite is the 4th story No Pain Whatsoever, in which Yates described a young woman riding a friend's car to visit her husband who was in the TB ward of a hospital. The story was quite flat and uneventful until we almost approached the end when the woman finished the visit which was rather dull because she had nothing to say to her husband due to the long separation. She came out and stood in front of the hospital, in the freezing cold weather of Christmastime, and cried quietly. Yates never mentioned what she was crying for, but it was exactly this kind of crafting that subtly touched the hearts of many.

  I am definitely putting Revolutionary Road back on the reading list, and I'm definitely a fan of Richard Yates now.

  Have you read any short story collection lately? What are your thoughts?

  Is this helpful?

  Sandy said on Jan 25, 2010 | Add your feedback

Book Details

• Rating:
  (12)
  • 5 stars
  • 4 stars
  • 3 stars
  • 2 stars
  • 1 star
• English Books
• Paperback 266 Pages
• ISBN-10: 0413775577
• ISBN-13: 9780413775573
• Publisher: Methuen Publishing Ltd
• Pub date: Jan 12, 2006
• Dimensions: 1290 mm x 839 mm Just how big is that?
• Also available as: Hardcover and eBook
• In other languages: other languages 简体书, Livres Français, Deutsche Bücher, Libros en Español, Libri Italiani

Prices Change currency & sellers