Robert Dunbar (1)

Our character is a young boy who has been placed in a school for mentally troubled boys. He writes in a journal every day and records all that happens around him. We get the sense that he has problems by the writing in this journal.
He moves into the school and has a roommate that never comes at the beginning. Then his roommate becomes Willy. Willy is quite taken with the boy and tends to take care of him. It is obvious that our character has had a bit of a troubled life, although we are never really told what that was.

I read this to hopefully come to a conclusion that I could understand. Unfortunately, I ended the book as confused as I started.… (más)

I finished this novella last night and I am still rolling it over and over again in my mind. It clearly deserves a re-read. Sometimes it makes all the difference to read the first line of a novel when you already know the last. Dunbar is one of the few novelists good enough to deserve a re-read.

All through my reading I got the feeling that Dunbar was laughing a snarky laugh as he teases the reader. I don't want to give away the numerous punchlines because I enjoyed them but just remember your fairy tales and if that isn't enough I really can't help you. And I feel that we must remember that fairy tales were written to teach moral truths to the reader.

We follow several marginal characters who live in or travel through a marginal area on the outskirts of town. Similarly, Rosario and the male protagonist with the porn star name (Dick Wood---yes, I actually heard Dunbar laughing when I read that name the first time) live on the periphery of their own lives.

"Blessed is the creature that knows its purpose." Neither the monster nor the human characters have any sense of purpose. The monster acts not from any evil desire; it merely feeds. And grows. Like an oil spill on the ocean. Yet it also is evolving.

The humans protagonists are not much better off. They seem unsure how to extract themselves from a life-threatening situation, how to escape the monster that pursues them, or even if they have the energy to try. They are like so many of us who watch the encroachment of biological (and human) forces of our own making that are rapidly destroying the world around us while we sit in front of our televisions wondering what show we will watch next, lacking the drive to save ourselves. We grow frustrated at Rosario and Dick's indifference to their own fate but are we any better? What is Dunbar saying here?

Is this what we have become? Uninterested in our own fate? Is this monster a hodgepodge of malevolence created by our own destructive indifference and ennui?

Dunbar's novel doesn't try to make us jump us as much as it tries to make us think. And the thoughts it brought up for me were the stuff of nightmares.



… (más)

Robert Dunbar's book is my 666th rated book..... I am sure that this will make him smile and give off an evil laugh.

I was amazed by this collection. First of all, the stories didn't seem like they were even from the same author. Did the same guy write the pitch black "Gray Soil" and the laugh out loud humorous southern gothic "The Folly?" A complaint I often have when reading a story collection by one author is that the stories start to sound the same.

Not so here; which means a particular reader might not like every story. I don't think you are supposed to. I don't think Dunbar writes stories that he hopes everyone likes. That is always the case with artistic integrity. He writes. We read.

Some stories hit me as deeply as anything I have ever read. My personal favorites were "Like a Story," "High Rise," "Gray Soil," "Mal de Mer," "Red Soil," "The Folly," and "Explanations." I also enjoyed "Getting Wet" and "Are We Dead Yet" as they told a continuous story.

It is tempting to say that "Like a Story" reminds me of Gifune or "Mal de Mer" is sort of Lovecraftian at least in theme (although certainly not in writing style) but I will resist that temptation. Why compare writers? Dunbar is clearly an original with his own voice.

I can say that if you like dark fiction (because most of these stories are dark, even The Folly which is the lightest of the bunch) that is well written and original; if you are not afraid to go to places that may make you uncomfortable; if you are willing to read an author that is different from anyone else you have read----then try this one out.

By the way, in an age of throw away titles or merely using the title of the best known story, the title of this collection is very appropriate and adds to the understanding. The characters here are martyrs and monsters and sometimes they are both.… (más)