At the Gates of the Animal Kingdom: Stories

by Amy Hempel

Book Overview

No Synopsis Available.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0060976713
• ISBN13: 9780060976712
• Release Date: January 1995
• Publisher: Harper Perennial
• Length: 160 Pages
• Weight: 0.35 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.4" x 5.3" x 8.0"

Customer Reviews

Minimalism at its best

This book is one of my favorite collections of short stories. They say that Raymond Carver is the master of minimalism in the short story genre but Hempel's work is definitely on par. Each story is a look at life from a different angle. She takes the moments and events that we simply experience without a second thought or glance and turns them so that they reveal something extraordinary. She is not verbose - so if you feel you can't enjoy a story without heavy description and don't have the desire/patience to think about the weight of small events or it overwhelms you to realize that even the subtleties of life have a momentum of their own - you won't appreciate this. There is also a lot that is inferred but not said. She chooses her words very carefully - just as a poet one line can resonate. In the Animal Shelter is only 4 short paragraphs but one of the most powerful in this collection. I discovered her writing as an undergraduate in the early 90's and I still reach for her books and find something new to enjoy.

she's beyond words really.

Never reading Hempel is like dying a virgin. The expectations cast by the stories in "Reasons to Live" would be impossible for most writers to overcome, but somehow she does it, without missing a beat. If i could give more stars i would. My favourite stories from this book being, "The Harvest" "At the Gates of the Animal Kingdom" "Murder" and "Rapture of the Deep". The effort she must've put forth in writing in such a minimalist style illustrates how much Hempel cares about each sentence. The stories are elegant and to the point, not a second is wasted, not a word is misplaced. If you're ever lucky enough to find this book, consider yourself blessed (for whatever reason its out of print). She is the needle in a haystack. Her stories pierce straight to the heart, and will stick with you for the rest of your life.

Snappy and Fast Acting

Hempel's prose style snaps hard and fast to the point of the story, without filling us up on meat. It's like eating only the best parts of the meal and throwing green beans and potatoes onto the floor for the dogs. I read through three or four books of Hempels in about the same number of days. They were all just delicious. Of them, this one stuck out as the best.

A wonderful book.

Amy Hempel's collection of short stories in this book is marvelous. At first glance I was afraid that the animal theme would become old I soon realized that as with all of her writings I should not have given in to such assumptions. The stories in this collection are mostly quite short, some only a page, but they are not vingettes or prose poems-- each page is as full as any longer story. The stories range from disturbing and sad to winsome and heart warming, but as with Amy Hempel's other works she always touches both your mind and your heart.

ROUNDABOUT

One night I convinced myself that I had once attempted to crack my teeth by drinking coffee immediately after ice water. Later I realized that Jack "Big Guy" Fitch from Amy Hempel's "The Most Girl Part of You," had been the tooth-cracker, not me. When first reading At The Gates of the Animal Kingdom the stories swam swiftly by like the fish in the Roundabout at the Aquarium in the story of the same name; they were a quick read. Immediately afterward I thought little about them. After distancing myself from them with hours and days they eerily began to creep back into my life--sentence by sentence, one by one. I started to read them again. What makes Hempel's stories so unearthing is their lack of gravity. I don't mean this in a flippant sense. Some of the stories are quite unsettling, but they float into your consciousness rather than tearing into it with a hoe and shovel. Initially I attributed their affect to the events and subjects of the stories; almost all of them deal with subjects common to contemporary young women; however, Hempel's prose seduced me for a different reason. These stories lack perfection, but not in a derogatory sense. Hempel's stories do not take on the air of being this brick wall of material. The stories wander and spin; they were personal. For example in "The Center" Hempel spends the first page and a half writing about "my friend Deborah" who "for the price of a cup of coffee a day" had "adopted a child." Then unexpectedly she begins to talk about a dog named Pal: "I was thinking about Pal." The fact that there is no mentioning of Pal, dogs, or pets in this first half of the story breaks the writing convention that says key elements of the story should be introduced early on, preferably in the first paragraph. Clearly Pal has something to do with the story. Whether or not the story of how Pal has been reincarnated into Original Pal and Pal Junior similarly to how Deborah's adopted child changed or whether the section on Pal supposedly shows the narrators lack of interest in Deborah's ranting, I'm not sure. And Hempel made me not care. I took her words as a nice vacation package, where someone else did all the worrying. Another positive element of Hempel's work is her sense of freedom. There are quirky details that seemingly have no purpose but to colour the story with authenticity and make the story a genuine experience. In "Rapture of the Deep" a trick-or-treater "dressed up in pyjamas and carried a bottle of Diet Pepsi," and " was supposed to be Brian Wilson, but everybody guessed Hugh Hefner." By Halloween I believe I shall be convinced that this trick-or-treater came to my house. I didn't read this book; I felt like I lived it. Hempel's lack of didactics and gentle way of eliciting emotion worked well. Unlike some contemporary writers, who sets up definitive events that typically produced emotional reactions,the death of a dog, a relationship break-up, etc.Hempel does not bait her reader