- Hardcover: 232 pages
- Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers Ltd (Oct 7 2004)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0002005859
- ISBN-13: 978-0002005852
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #1,378,003 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
|
||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||||||||
Product Details |
Product Description
From Publishers Weekly
The loss of innocence, the urgency of sexual need and the persistence of inner demons unite these three fine novellas, further evidence of the wide-ranging imagination, ironic humor and incisive characterization Faber displayed in The Crimson Petal and the White. Siân, in "The 199 Steps," is working on an archeological dig in England when she encounters Mack, a gorgeous fitness buff. As Siân and Mack try to decipher the clues to a 1788 murder, Siân's dreams of a handsome man slitting her throat grow in intensity, paralleling the grisly facts she brings to light. The denouement is surprising—and satisfying—for what does not happen. In "The Fahrenheit Twins," Tainto'lilith and Marko'cain are pre-adolescent twin brother and sister living in the Arctic tundra with their eccentric parents, both anthropological researchers. When their mother dies, their father encourages them to voyage alone into the wilderness with her body tied to a sled. Catherine Courage, of the title story, is the soprano member of an avant-garde musical ensemble that has gathered in a Belgian chateau to rehearse a fiendishly difficult piece. Suffering through a July heat wave, Catherine is driven to desperation by an eerie cry she hears in the night. A tragedy, however, provides the reality shock she needs. While this is a slighter effort than Faber's previous work, readers will again be immersed in the intense worlds he creates.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From Booklist
Faber's knack for disquieting atmospherics, a la his brilliant first novel, Under the Skin (2000), distinguishes these three novellas but doesn't prevent them from ending rather happily. They are stories of healing in the au courant sense of regaining emotional equilibrium. In "The Courage Consort," the soprano of a vocal quintet her husband directs progresses from suicidal anxiety to relative equanimity as the group rehearses a difficult new piece that sudden death prevents them from premiering. In "The Hundred Ninety-Nine Steps," a woman resolves her trauma over losing a leg and her lover because of a senseless accident; by means romantic and eerie, a handsome young doctor, his late father's dog, and a manuscript in a bottle are the catalysts of her transformation. In the entrancing "The Fahrenheit Twins"--perhaps a coming-of-age parable--brother and sister Marko'cain and Tainto'lilith, born and reared in arctic isolation, quest far from home for a signal from the universe telling them what to do with their mother's corpse. Faber's literary artistry in all three pieces is consummate. Ray Olson
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Tag this product(What's this?)Think of a tag as a keyword or label you consider is strongly related to this product.
Tags will help all customers organize and find favorite items. |
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Customer Reviews
|
There are no customer reviews yet on Amazon.ca
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
3.6 out of 5 stars (16 customer reviews)
16 of 17 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars
Strange Arresting Realities, Nov 1 2004
By Owen Keehnen - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: The Courage Consort: Three Novellas (Hardcover)
In this collection of three wildly divergent novellas Faber creates varied and vividly imagined worlds where the central/core theme is one of survival and renewal. Each masterfully written segment is amazing in its own way - multi-layered, absorbing, rich with an air of menace (unsettling), and a recurring habit of smashing all notions of predictability. The surprises blindsided me every time. My favorite novella was 'The Hundred and Ninety-Nine Steps' about a strange isolated woman on an archaeological dig. However, all three stories left a strong impression. It must have been nice for Mr. Faber to work on some shorter pieces after his mammoth novel 'The Crimson Petal and the White'.
13 of 14 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
Faber Has A Divine Gift, Jun 30 2005
By D. Mikels "It's always Happy Hour here" - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: The Courage Consort: Three Novellas (Hardcover)
Not one of these three earnest novellas really appealed to me--yet I cherished and treasured all of them. The various characters were flawed (as are all characters), and their subsequent interactions and conflict mundane, yet I still remained transfixed as I turned each page. Let's see: a singing ensemble, an insecure anthropologist, and two tiny twins above the Artic Circle. . .none of the above really interests me. Yet Michel Faber's amazing gift with the written word made his three-novella collection, named THE COURAGE CONSORT, an absolutely spellbinding, mystical, existential, and satisfying reading experience.The "Guardian" of London says of Faber: "This is a man who could give Conrad a run at writing the perfect sentence." Darn right. Faber's writing is clean, concise, compelling--a fluid nirvana of perfectly-matched nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, prepositions. The prose is nothing short of brilliant: the author manipulates the English language like a sorcerer waving an hpynotic wand. The result: reading that rolls off the tip of the tongue, like sampling a wine of inestimable value.
Faber is good, very good; this novella collection is positively as riveting as his post-Victorian masterpiece, "The Crimson Petal And The White." As a matter of fact, Faber has demonstrated, via his surreal prose, that he has grown even more as a writer--which makes reading him the epitome of literary pleasure.
--D. Mikels, Author, WALK-ON
8 of 8 people found the following review helpful
3.0 out of 5 stars
Not up to Faber's standard, Dec 24 2004
By Sebastien Pharand - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: The Courage Consort: Three Novellas (Hardcover)
There is no doubt that Faber is a great modern novelist. The Crimson Petal and the White is an amazing book, and Under the Skin is a great original tale. Faber writes original plots that take you to a place and time you've never been before. But with the Courage Consort, Faber offers us three short tales that, while usually entertaining, are not as fascinating as his novels.The title story, The Courage Consort, is also the collection's weakest. A group of opera singers go to a mansion in the middle of the woods to practice their latest show in solitude. The story's heroine, Catherine, is a troubled and depressed woman who doesn't know what she wants out of life anymore. Or, for that matter, if she even has the will to live another day. Although the tale offers many touching moments, in the end, it ends up nowhere. This allegory of life and death isn't all that it's cracked up to be.
The Hundred and Ninety-nine Steps is a very good mystery about an archeologist's obssession with an old document that has just been recovered. She also uses this document as a pretense to let herself fall in love with a mysterious young doctor. Although the story is very entertaining, it is rather long-winded and, at times, repetitive. I wanted to know more about that mysterious document than about the characters.
The real reason to read this collection is for the last, and shortest story of the lot : The Farenheit Twins. When Tainto and Marko lose their mother, they leave on a trek into the wild winter woods to bury her body. But their father has really sent them on a suicide mission from which they are not supposed to return. This modern Hansel and Gretel tale is touching, moving and very effective. This is what a Faber story is all about.
I have to admit that I was disappointed by The Courage Consort. Yes, thewriting is beautiful, as always, and yes his characters are usually very interesting. But these qualities were not enough to save the collection. Although none of the stories are bad or not enjoyable, I've come to expect more and better from Faber. Please oh please give us another Crimson Petal or Under the Skin!
Listmania!
Look for similar items by category
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
|
