Principles of Uncertainty and Other Constants: Stories by Mitch Levenberg

By Mitch Levenberg

Levenberg.has a sharp merciless eye for the hazards that can intervene in the seemingly most innocuous situation. He is utterly fearless in describing the human situation as it is. At the same time humor shines through everything he writes. Alfred Kazin/Literary Critic Mitch Levenberg is a masterful storyteller. His characters walk a very fine line between the humorous and the pathetic, the farcical and the heroic as their everyday lives turn into an eerie high wire act. The results are unforgettable. Paul Violi/Poet and Critic Mitch Levenberg beautifully and poetically captures the sense of dislocation, both literal and figurative a person can feel. He writes of things seen but not quite believed, of moments where the narrator doubts his own perceptions.of the way things are. His grasp of sometimes unseen connections between people and events make his stories more than just travelogues or observations; they help cut deeper, in some cases painfully so, linking events to emotions the characters do not wish to recognize or reckon with. Glenn Raucher/Writer's Voice

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 059537834X
• ISBN13: 9780595378340
• Release Date: March 2006
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Length: 148 Pages
• Weight: 0.50 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.3" x 6.0" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

Introducing Mitch Levenberg

The Hall of Fame pitcher Tom Seaver once said that whenever he took the mound, his success depended on three factors: location (his ability to throw the ball precisely where he wanted it to go), velocity (his ability to throw the ball exceptionally hard), and movement (his ability to make the ball rise, sink or curve on its way towards the batter). On any given day, Seaver said, he could win with two out of the three going for him. But if only one was working, he knew he was going to get hammered. Likewise, I've often thought that a writer's literary success depends on three factors: talent, persistence and luck. He can find critical acclaim and a wide audience, or at minimum a mainstream publisher, with two out of the three going for him. But if only one is working . . . well, he's pretty much up the creek. Which brings us to the curious case of Mitchell Levenberg. Highlight of a dozen sparsely-read literary journals. Legend of a hundred sparsely-attended public readings. Il miglior shlimazl. No luck whatsoever. Not enough persistence. Just talent. Scary talent, the kind of talent that warps the life into which it's woven, that simultaneously excites and unnerves friends and acquaintances, that makes fellow writers shake their heads with jealousy but feel relieved not to bear the weight. Think Kafka, with doses of Flannery O'Connor and Woody Allen. If you're reading these words in 2106, you're already aware that Mitchell Levenberg was one of the most inventive, most disturbing, most engaging short story writers of his generation. So I'll address myself to the 2006 readers, the ones who are skimming this web page, thinking to themselves, "Mitchell Who-en-berg?" The typical Levenberg tale begins with an ontological quirk, a sudden rift in the relationship of cause and effect into which the hapless but hopeful protagonist feels himself drawn. Jogging around a stagnant lake, a lonely man encounters a beautiful young woman peering into the souls of dead fish. Killing time at an inexplicably menacing greasy spoon, a jittery diner gets caught up in the sexually-charged psychodrama between a wise-cracking waitress and the foul-mouthed brute working the register. Hearing two men arguing violently in the street below, a bookish tenant reflexively buzzes them into his apartment. That's when things get really weird. What holds these stories together, what makes them performance pieces beyond their literary value, is the language. "The Cat," for example, contains this passage: "Then he took out his knife, brandished it round the apartment for a while and said, `Now what do you got around here that I can cut up?' I thought about the cat my neighbor left here for the weekend so he could go upstate and visit his girlfriend. I thought about all those girlfriends who for some reason or other live upstate and how now a cat was going to die for it." The nightmarish slapstick is conveyed through a perfect inversion of form and content, deadpan prose and deadly

Woody Allen meets Franz Kafka

If you are from New York, you will laugh out loud as you read these stories. If you are not from New York, you will laugh anyway. Levenberg's universe is his own, his style, his voice, but to give readers of this review some insight, Levenberg's characters inhabit a world that blends Woody Allen, Kafka, and a bit of Seinfeld. Wonderful humor abounds, but there is an uncertain darkness, tinged with the constant of absurdity. This collection of stories truly is a collection: there is a coordination, a culmination, a synthesis of the parts into a whole. Certainly there are stand-outs, such as 'The Cat' and 'The Package.' I have had the privilege of hearing Mitch Levenberg read one of these stories, 'Journey of the Fish,' and the audience loved it. Levenberg is an astute psychologist, reading into the conflicts of family, understanding the agony of growing up and dealing with the demands of a world often at odds with us. Enjoyable, entertaining, and literary.