Lorin Stein

I truly enjoyed the format of this anthology and it exposed me to some writers I had never encountered before such as Jane Bowles and Mary-Beth Hughes, who I believe have some of the strongest stories in this anthology. The introductions are at times helpful to an interpretation or at least expectation of the stories to follow but they are wildly variant. Dave Eggers outlines a couple key points about the strengths of James Salter's story "Bangkok" that serves as a benchmark, at least to me, show more at what the other authors should have contributed in order to present the "object lesson" of each story clearly for the reader. Overall if you're looking for an anthology to dip into this is a good one, or you know just read The Paris Review. show less

I'm not much of a short story fan, but I wanted to force myself. I am glad I did. There is a wide range of excellent, compelling stories here from the realistic to the fantastic to the absurd. The introductions are of some value, causing the reader to focus on certain elements of each story, but the stories themselves make this a great, almost indispensable, anthology of contemporary short fiction. Of course, if you have already read these stories, then you probably don't need this anthology.

Over sixty years, one might guess that a journal as prestigious as The Paris Review will have published one or two or twenty truly outstanding short stories. The twenty stories presented in Object Lessons were selected from The Paris Review’s back catalogue by twenty current practitioners of the short story form, each of whom introduces their selection with some reflections, or analysis, or generalized enthusing.

The stories selected display significant range and variation, and most would show more easily be acknowledged as exemplars of what is possible with this form. Some will be well known already, such as Raymond Carver’s “Why Don’t You Dance”, or Jorge Luis Borges’ “Funes, the Memorious”. Others deserve to be better known, perhaps, than they are, such as Norman Rush’s “Lying Presences” or Mary Robison’s “Likely Lake” or Mary-Beth Hughes’ “Pelican Song”. And others will simply fascinate you, such as Denis Johnson’s “Car Crash While Hitchhiking” or Guy Davenport’s “Dinner at the Bank of England” or Dallas Wiebe’s “Night Flight to Stockholm”.

So, you can rest assured that the story content of this collection will be well worth the price of admission. Less satisfactory are the short introductory essays by the nominal selectors of the stories. I get the impression that either the brief for these essays was not particularly clear, or that getting twenty young(ish) authors to follow a brief is rather like herding cats. Some treated the exercise like an exercise in a textbook on aspects of the short story. Others took their task to be championing an author they felt to be sorely neglected. Others just blurbed, as though they were composing an extended blurb for the back cover of a book that contained one and only one short story. So, the usefulness of these introductions is somewhat tempered.

Least satisfying, even to the point of being annoying, is the patronising editors’ note at the outset, which is reproduced in part on the back cover. Apparently this collection is intended “for readers who are not (or are no longer) in the habit of reading short stories”. I’m not entirely certain how such a statement of intent is meant to motivate these non-readers of short stories to pick up this volume, or even purchase it. It certainly would not have motivated me. Rather, let’s just say that Object Lessons is a treat for those who love short stories, or for those who may come to love the form through encountering the stories herein. Recommended on that basis. show less

I've always loved the Paris Review interviews with authors, and have a couple of volumes of those in my library, but this was the first issue of my recent subscription, and the first issue I've actually read cover to cover. I loved the Erdrich interview, though Franzen came off as a bit of a pompous ass in his. The poetry was outstanding, especially that of Maureen McLane. Tom McGrath's landscapes through the windshield of a car were brilliant and so appropriate to our time and culture, Amy show more Sillman's work wasn't quite my cup of tea. The short stories were hit and miss, but Peter Nadas' "Le nu feminin en mouvement" is something I still think about even months later. Looking forward to the next issue! show less