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Title: Fast Lanes by Jayne Anne Phillips ISBN: 0-375-70284-9 Publisher: Vintage Pub. Date: 09 May, 2000 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $11.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 4 (3 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Height of her powers
Comment: I have absolutely NO idea what book duneguy thought he was reviewing, but Amazon.com might want to think about removing his review. No incest or botulism in any of the stories in FAST LANES, and none of the story titles he mentions appear in the book. Hmmmm. This, for me, still stands as the author's finest and most accomplished achievement. Ravishing use of language which never loses sight of the essential humanity of her characters. Not to play favorites, but the two that speak most eloquently to me are the two chapters that were excised from her novel MACHINE DREAMS and reworked -- BLUE MOON and BESS. Exquisite.
Rating: 5
Summary: Phillips is Amazing!
Comment: As I was checking to see if Fast Lanes was still in print (I've had scored of copies over the years since it's release in hard cover and I've passed them along to friends) I was jolted (by the one HORRIBLE and misinformed Amazon reader comment) that I couldn't let that stand by itself. One, it is almost criminal that this book is out of print. WHY?? And two, from this collection of short stories, to her other works (Shelter, Black Tickets) Phillips is a master poet who ties together magical language, a connection to her West Virginia roots and a her unique skill to write from a woman's viewpoint. This collection is filled with a voice like no other and I'm off to the British version of Amazon.com to see if the Brits are a little hipper than American pubishers. A wonderful collection!!
Rating: 2
Summary: "Fast Lanes" equals fast asleep
Comment: As a tightly woven collection of thought provoking short stories, this book is a miserable failure. However, as a showcase for flaccid verbiage, trite characterization, and themes so worn as to be almost pitiably jejune, it is a success on a scale unparallelled since the publication of C. S. Lewis's "Boxen," which the author wrote between the ages of 7 to 12. Since Jayne Ann Phillips is well in her forties, she cannot be granted the benefit of the doubt granted to Lewis. Phillips's characters were so undeveloped as to resemble pencil sketches rather than portraits; her sex scenes were almost comical, seeming to lack any real feeling or even anatomical knowledge; and her plots seem to alternate between contrived and derivative. One of the characters in "No Left Turn" seems to be the prototype for "Friends'" Chandler, and her story "Daddy's Farm" bears a plot so reminiscent of "Starship Troopers" that it borders on plagiarism. There are redeeming qualities Ms. Phillip's magnum opus. It deals with themes such as incest and botulism which are inherently fascinating. One only wishes that a more masterful hand had taken up these most serious of themes. It has one final redeeming quality, one shared with all other books, it ends... eventually...
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Title: Black Tickets : Stories by Jayne Anne Phillips ISBN: 0375727353 Publisher: Vintage Pub. Date: 11 September, 2001 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
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Title: The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown ISBN: 0385504209 Publisher: Doubleday Pub. Date: 18 March, 2003 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
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