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Type of bind: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 823.914
EAN num: 9780141002170
ISBN number: 0141002174
Label: Penguin (Non-Classics)
Manufacturer: Penguin (Non-Classics)
Quantity: 1
Page Count: 256
Printing Date: October 01, 2001
Publishing house: Penguin (Non-Classics)
Release Date: October 02, 2001
Sale Popularity Level: 365348
Studio: Penguin (Non-Classics)
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Product Description:
'One of the very best writers of our era.' (The Washington Post Book World)
His very first collection since the bestselling After Rain, William Trevor's The Hill Bachelors is a heartbreaking book about men and women and their missed opportunities: four people live in a suburban house, frozen in a conspiracy of silence that prevents love's consummation; a nine-year-old dreams that a part in a movie will heal her fragmented family life; a brother and sister forge a new life amid the chaos of Ireland after the Rebellion; and in the title story, a young man chooses between his longtime love and a life of solitude on the family farm. These beautifully rendered tales reveal Trevor's compassion for the human condition and confirm once again his position as one of the premier writers of the short story.
Amazon.com Review:
In more than two dozen books, William Trevor has recounted heartbreaking narratives with an extraordinary economy of detail and expression. The stories collected in The Hill Bachelors are cut from this same understated cloth, and reveal a master at the very height of his powers. As usual, only the merest tip of the emotional iceberg breaks the surface of his prose. Yet Trevor invariably points us toward submerged memories, traumas, and desires, ennobling the ordinary with an often tragic grandeur.
Renunciation--be it personal, political, familial, or erotic--is usually at the core of these tales. In the title story, for example, 29-year-old Paulie returns to work the land of his fathers on a desolate hillside in the west of Ireland, fully aware that he will henceforth be unable to marry: 'Enduring, unchanging, the hills had waited for him, claiming one of their own.' 'A Friend in the Trade' revolves around unrequited love, while the hero of 'The Mourning' ultimately rejects the so-called heroism of sectarian violence. Most of The Hill Bachelors is set in Ireland, and boast a richness of imagery and lyrical intensity that verges on prose poetry. 'Low Sunday, 1950' in particular evokes the terrible beauty of Yeats's history-haunted landscapes. And in 'The Virgin's Gift,' a prodigal son makes his long-awaited return, eliciting the closest that William Trevor ever comes to a Joycean epiphany: 'No choirs sang, there was no sudden splendor, only limbs racked by toil in a smoky hovel, a hand that blindly searched the air. Yet angels surely held the cobwebs of this mercy, the gift of a son given again.' --Robert Mighall
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Rated by buyers -
This is the very first time that I have read the work of Mr. William Trevor. If his collection of short stories, "Hill Bachelors", is any indication of the man's talent I will read whatever else has been published. The volume contains 12 stories that all share parallels, however they do not need to be read as a collection, they all can stand-alone.
The stories could be classified as redemptive, however at least one describes a Faustian Bargain. Many of the stories are dark, and others bear results that were never intended. Still others are the results from lack of attention or care, and they are of wreckage both physical and mental. I think it is valid to say they describe the fragility of many relationships, and the ignorance that prevents the forming of contact until a destructive event takes place. It is not a collection of tales that portrays the best in people, but it somehow does not read as oppressively as the storylines would seem to demand.
One story details a horrible crime and uses a snapped rose bush as a metaphor. The same unlikely force cleans up the debris from both, before the mess from either becomes too great. A wedding eve party shows how uncertain the subsequent day's events can be when the smallest of unintended events does or does not take place. My favorite had to do with Priests and Ministers, burned out homes and lost congregations. In this story Mr. Trevor illustrates the senseless behavior of a people, a nation, and the religions they adhere to. He brings together that which should not meet, and the result is what should happen but somehow surprises when it does.
This is a wonderful set of stories that are all complete, however when read together have enough commonality that the Author's message is not so much repeated as it is reinforced as they are read. Marvelous writing, highly recommended.
Rated by buyers -
In several of Trevor's sparsely worded stories we find characters who give too much of themselves. "The Virgin's Gift", "Good News" and "The Mourning" all tell of those who turn their souls over to others, and are unsettled with the outcomes. I was sad when done, particularly when finishing "Good News", because I knew that the characters had been disappointed or were about to be.
I was drawn to the character of Clione in "A Friend in the Trade" - she was decisive enough to know that she was the object of unstated affections, but not strong enough to confront her admirer frankly. She was so powerful in her humour and her work, but she had long accepted her status quo, so she did not know how to be single-minded in adversity. She acted like a shallow school girl in telling her husband of their friend's affections, but she became more complex in that telling. I wonder about her still - I wanted to know more about her after the story was told.
Good stories, these. Minimalist short stories are my preference - they allow me to imagine, to dream, and to pretend.
Rated by buyers -
These twelve new stories from William Trevor are "small gestures," resonating with meaningful nuances, requiring one's full attention. For this reason, it may be worthwhile to read each story twice to fully grasp the meaning from within its depths. Reading these stories will leave you in awe.
This was my very first encounter with Trevor's short stories. Truly, he has mastered the form. Born in Ireland in 1928, Trevor now lives in Devon, England. The stories in this collection are drawn from those two countries. They are filled with barking sheepdogs, laborers, misty hills, tulips and bluebells, and rays of sunlight "like arrows in the sky" (p. 144). They are about everyday turning points in life, and lost opportunities. In the very first story in the collection, "Three People," Trevor reveals a secret that binds three lonely characters together for fourteen years. In "The Mourning," we follow a lonely, 23-year-old Irish laborer as he carries a bomb through the streets of London. In "Good News," we find a nine-year-old actress "wondering in what way her dreams would be different now, reminding herself that she mustn't cry out in case, being sleepy, she ruined everything" (p. 62). A "melancholy" 51-year-old mother misses her children in "A Friend of the Trade." When she and her husband endeavor to drop an "unpresentable" friend, she discovers "empty love is not absurd" (p. 106).
This is a collection of well-crafted short stories that has inspired me to read more William Trevor.
G. Merritt
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