101 short stories, all 101 words in length. Romance collides head-on with the comic and surreal in Dan Rhodes’s uniquely entertaining first publication.
An ingenious series of perfect miniatures of doomed love.
With incredible economy each story holds up a cracked mirror to the private peculiarities of human relationships. The woman who uses cider for make-up remover; the lover whose field-work with Mongolian gays inspires her to sprout a handlebar moustache; the caring mother who binds her baby’s feet under the misapprehension that he’s a girl. Comic monologue meets the discipline of the sonnet writer, filtered by an imagination to rival Lewis Carroll.
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If the stories are individually quirky, bizarre and amusing, paradoxically the incremental effect is one that is surprisingly revealing of the deep, tectonic instabilities in our relationships with partners and lovers.
If the touchstone of Anthropology is, in the end, a kind of disbelieving laughter, it is emphatically not observational humour, nor the bittersweet angst of wry comedy that dominates much contemporary fiction: Rhodes highlights the essential absurdity of heterosexual relationships, the fundamental incomprehension and misunderstandings that divide men and women. The wayward commandments of desire, the desperate mismatches of affection, the hilarious disjunctions of perception, the disequilibria of power, all are scrutinised in turn by the author's cool, deadpan prose; and the superficial equivalence of form mimics the fact that, while relationships may seem similar on the surface, each is uniquely odd, perverse or disfunctional.
The structure of the book is reminiscent of Raymond Queneau's Exercises in Style, its tone occasionally recalls Donald Barthelme's elegant postmodern short fiction, but Anthropology nevertheless mines a seam distinctly its own: quirky, surreal, often wildly funny and cumulatively profound. --Burhan Tufail
‘The funny ones are all the funnier for being brief; the sad ones, all the sadder for being sparse. Every one a twenty-second gem; just don’t read them all at once.’ Maxim
’Very funny and very sharp.’ The Times
’Misanthropic, macabre and mordant tales of doomed couplings herald the arrival of Dan Rhodes.’ i-D
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Book Description Paperback. Condition: Very Good. The book has been read, but is in excellent condition. Pages are intact and not marred by notes or highlighting. The spine remains undamaged. Seller Inventory # GOR002483603
Book Description Condition: Very Good. 1702995932. 12/19/2023 2:25:32 PM. Seller Inventory # U9781841151946
Book Description Softcover. Condition: Very Good. Dust Jacket Condition: No Dust Jacket. reprint. for the 2nd hand. There is no damage to describe, apart from previous owner's name at the bottom right hand corner of the first page. The cover is presented as if the book was dos-a-dos, that is, 2 books printed back-to-back, and one upside down with respect to the other. In actuality the green side is the upright side. 101 stories dealing exclusively with girlfriends from the male perspective. Size: 12mo (standard paperback). Please refer to accompanying picture (s). Quantity Available: 1. Shipped Weight: Under 500 grams. Category: Literature & Literary; ISBN: 1841151947. ISBN/EAN: 9781841151946. Inventory No: 0246312. Seller Inventory # 0246312