Intimations audiobook

1. Fairy Tale 2/52. Lobster Dinner 5/53. The Dancing-Master 3/54 A Brief History of Weather 2/55. I May Not Be the One You Want, But I Am The One For You 5/56. Choking Victim 5/57. Jellyfish 5/58. Intimation 5/59. Fake Blood 4/510. Hylomorphosis 3/511. Rabbit Starvation 4/512. You, Disappearing 3/5In this modest first collection, the author is often incredibly specific in her descriptions, stretching them to absurd lengths, and melding the boundaries of literary and speculative fiction. Not all of the stories are brilliant in my opinion, but they are all different and eerie.More than once, a sudden confusion of the semi-consistent protagonist persona sparks an epiphany about the absurdity of her situation and the threatening aspects of the man or woman in her vicinity. This pattern emerges in several analogs leading to a startling dramatic tension throughout. A menacing cognitive dissonance hovers over the entire collection.As she does within her novel, Something New Under the Sun, Kleeman defamiliarizes the familiar and familiarizes the weird, here verging into the somewhat bizarro at times, but glossing it all with the texture of literary fiction. Wisdom lurks under quirks, and her meditations on modern life through an oblique lens are always fascinating, whether she's pondering lobsters, history, feminism, or beachgoers.I preferred the more traditional stories in this book, more than the experimental departures and abstract collages. The former had arcs perfectly channeling the slowly dawning dread of displacement, danger, or humiliation. There is a palpable nostalgia for youth, a recurring reliance on college drinking, the wild freedoms subsumed by responsibilities, work, family obligations, her characters feeling inhuman in their roles, underappreciated, but mostly misunderstood. Within them all is a search for meaning, a quality of longing, and a subtle regret.The surprises start with a Ben Marcus-esque collage, then moving to a detailed slow-paced romantic episode about dairy farming, where loneliness and fear prevents a relationship from blossoming. In one tale, speech is portrayed as a dislodging of internal blockages. Motherhood is cast as a horrifying dilemma of sacrificial disruption. There is also a peculiar allegory on domestic life, motherhood, and wifedom, which manages to be abstract, compelling, disturbing, telling of a hostage of the home, like an amnesiac homemaker, trapped in a sick game.We are treated to a couple ambiguous endings. The resort tourist story was elegant, entertaining, and robust, showcasing the alienness of jellyfish, contrasted with the inscrutable and self-destructive desires of human beings. We are given a sense of poseurship, an interpretation of authenticity, in the context of relationships, amid the consciousness of the male in gaze in the form of staring men. A fabulous collection of bizarre social situations and interpersonal awkwardness, which constantly subverts your expectations.

A consciousness sampler

*3.5

These stories are so strange, so beautiful. Nothing makes sense and yet it's completely obvious how much it all does. You, Disappearing made me feel that weird tense feeling in your face, when you want to or need to cry but nothing's coming out and so the tears just sort of sit there, inside your head. It's been a while since a story has made me feel that feeling.

Di cosa ricordi, e come ricordi, il reale. Ovvero di filtrare tutto nei gesti, negli oggetti e nella comunicazione. Troppe cose devono passare in una persona, per questo alla fine il reale è impossibile da definire. (Prima e seconda parte molto belle, terza un po' "troppo". Sarebbe bene, forse, allontanarsi un po'.)

A unique reading experience that leaves you wanting more!I'm slowly starting to find Alexandra Kleeman as a new favorite author of mine the more she releases wonderful works. Her writing style is eerie yet beautiful and haunted me in a way that I never want to forget. Her stories are fantastical yet the themes seem so real. Kleeman provides intimations into life, death, and living. Although this is a short story collection, her stories read like poetry. They are so cryptic, I found myself wanting to read them over again to peel back the many layers within. Her imagery paints a vivid picture that is chilling yet gorgeous. Some stories were definitely more impacting than others. surprisingly the shorter ones had the most punch. Some of the longer ones were a little too simple or just plain strange. Fairy Tale, Intimations, and Rabbit Starvation were the most interesting to me. I have pages upon pages of notes about each one and I still feel like I haven't yet breached the surface of the meaning behind them. My only complaint is the inconsistency, especially when it pertains to quotations. Some stories have them and some don't. I understand that many of these were written at different times and omitting quotations may have been intentional for that particular story. But looking at the collection as a whole, it really bugged me.. Just choose one or the other, please. This collection is definitely not for everyone. Mainly because it's weird. There are somewhat graphic moments of violence, strange nightmares, and animal cruelty. If that's not what you enjoy reading then maybe perhaps find a different collection to read. If you enjoyed You Too Can Have A Body Like Mine, then you will most likely love this collection as I have come to love it. It's intricate and thought-provoking. I'll definitely be chewing on this one for a while.

Bought this one because I like "You, Disappearing" a lot. The image sticks in my mind for quite some time after reading it. I enjoy other stories as well though nothing tops that, not even a bit. "You, Disappearing" can be read online as well at Guernica Mag.

Let me first say, I think Alexandra Kleeman is a wonderfully talented writer and an a genuinely sweet human being (I met her at the Boston Book Festival). That being said, I have mixed feelings about this short story collection. I was completely engrossed and in love with some stories, but others were definitely not for me. There is an almost uncanny, dream-like quality to all of the stories in this collection. At times you wonder is this a dream or someone’s psychotic break? Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed that about this collection. It’s very experimental which works for me about 60% of the time, but the other 40% leaves me vexed and bored. (Don’t hate me Kleeman fans.) I had similar feelings about her debut novel, You Too Can Have a Body Like Mine, but I’ve come to realize that that story has stayed with me, despite my original review. There is something about Kleeman’s writing that haunts you in a good way. If you were a fan of her debut work or you love experimental fiction/short-stories, I cannot recommend this enough. If you are like me and are wishy-washy about it, maybe you should skip this collection or wait until you are in a headspace that is conducive to this writing style.

Intimations is a wacky, awkward, romantic, inspiring, thrilling, and apocalyptic short story collection. Alexandra Kleeman weaves threads around the fragility and anxiety of the human condition and draws lines between the feral to the obedient. The first section of the collection is filled with tonally ambitious stories—a fairytale setting where the protagonist must choose a suitor she doesn't recognize (which was originally published by the Paris Review —Kleeman's breakout story in 2010), a world covered in Lobsters, a dancing master who trains a wild boy, and a family living in a glass house with no doors. The voices of these stories range in voice and perspective, more so than the rest of the collection.The second section centers four stories around a couple—Karen and Dan, at various stages of their relationship. We see them at a rough patch, where they have a baby and Karen is bored by the facelessness and didactic treatment she receives from everyone in motherhood, their flat engagement, and a woman (presumably Karen) spirling as she makes a cake where a baby she doesn't remember is presented to her. The title track, "Intimation," is the only Karen story from this section told in the first perspective, which seems like it might be relevant. In the third section, my favorites were "Fake Blood" (published by Zoetrope: All-Story in 2011) and "You, Disappearing." They connected for me with how they both end in a sort of dark blankness. . I also think it makes sense to end the collection with "You, Disappearing" because it takes place in an apocalyptic landscape where things and people and pets disappear at random. It seems to lay out the foundation for Kleeman's new novel Something New Under The Sun in an interesting way. I will say "Hylomorhosis" seemed to go over my head with its the fractal perspective of an angel, who is almost like the wild-child in "The Dancing Master." "Rabbit Starvation" seems to be in conversation with You Too Can Have A Body Like Mine (which I loved, tremendously) in terms of examining or relationship with food and reality and the end of days. Alexandra Kleeman is a writer like no other with how she bends languages and incorporates her own evolving philosophy; we are lucky to have her vocalizing the existential despair and anxieties of our oh, so precarious times. I'm excited to read her new book!

I agree with several of the other reviews here--the other stories in the collection don't quite live up to the first two, "Fairy Tale" and "Lobster Dinner," although I did like the profoundly sad final story, "You, Disappearing." Overall, I love Kleeman. She's one of my favorite authors for the dreamlike quality of her writing. She's masterful at capturing the sense unreality one often has in dreams (and sometimes, terrifyingly, in real life). I was thinking today about that sense of unreality. It's the same feeling I get reading Murakami. Like being on a different plane of existence. Not numb, exactly. Larger? Containing multitudes? Completely present? Partially oneself and partially not-oneself--I merged with THOU? I've been calling it "going into the well" after Murakami's The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle. I don't like to think about the well very much, but my dreams take me there sometimes, my dreams and kissing and drunkenness. The older I get, the more I gravitate toward that liminality in what I read. Although that kind of literature tends toward the fanciful and or even the absurd, I'm convinced that it isn't an entertaining, dispensable other; rather, it's the root, the deepest part from which everything else springs, without which there would be no meaning.I think what I'm saying is that irrationality and absurdism are actually vehicles TOWARD meaning, and that is why I feel like time with Kleeman's work is never wasted.

This is very inventive story collection by a writer who is now very much on the rise and at the time of their writing must have fairly young. This is not for everyone, I can guarantee you, but I can tell you that you won't easily forget it. Kleeman is hard to typify. There is a very strong sense of irreality in every one of these stories, many of which feature protagonists the sanity of which the reader is forced to question. There's a blurb from Robert Coover on the inside, and that is very fitting; although Kleeman is not Coover exactly. There's a bit of Emilia Gray here, and some Aimee Bender. But she's far darker than Bender, and even violent in spots. I feel Beckett really strongly, but without Beckett's sense of humor. If there is any way of describing Kleeman's style in this collection I would have to say that it is thoroughly absurdist, even in the stories, like "I May Not Be the One You Want," "Choking Victim," and "Jellyfish," that seem on the surface to be more realistic. But they are anything but. Absurdist and yet contemporary; absurdist and yet very feminine, with narrators who are extremely self-contained if also fascinating.

always have a weird relationship with reading short stories. I get into this very particular headspace in which I’m reading for language and composition and all of that more than I’m actually immersing myself in the stories. like I get weirdly academic when it comes to short stories because if a story isn't working, I want to know why it doesn't. and if it is, I want to know why it is and spend time thinking about how I can do that.these stories were very influential. I love that kleeman doesn't give a fuck about reality it's genuinely so refreshing. reading these stories made me feel more confident about writing weird shit which has been so good for me. so this book was a giant win in that regard.and some of the stories completely gutted me. a brief history of weather absolutely destroyed me. you, disappearing was wonderful as well. kleeman is very good at setting up these interesting situations and creating an accompanying set of rules but never feeling beholden to those rules, never being scared to cross line that they themself set up. because of that, the stories are super entertaining.that being said, some of them just didn't click for me. I feel like that is to be expected with this type of writing. if a writer is consistently leaving this world, and by this world I mean our understandings of time and reality and humanity, not just earth, it makes sense to me that those departures are only going to resonate sometimes, not every time.

it creeps up on you. short story collections have to prove consecutive successes to earn admiration. i didn't notice how much i loved intimations until i realized it would be over soon, and there would be no more stories, no calm voice slowly pulling back the curtain on one of those AI generated images, you know the ones, that sort of look like many things but you cannot name a single one of them. alexandra kleeman writes like she's on a reconnaissance mission to the hypnogogic state between sleep and awake. reminded me of julio cortazar's bestiario. surreal, sleepy, painful and human-warm like a beating disembodied heart.

This is a fun short story collection with a lot of range, and a tendency toward dreamlike/surreal sequences and experimental forms. It reminded me a bit of Karen Russell’s VAMPIRES IN THE LEMON GROVE, so if you liked that, check this out. I think my favorites from the collection are “Choking Victim,” “You, Disappearing,” and “A Brief History of Weather.” I haven't yet read Alexandra Kleeman's novel so I can't comment on the comparisons that a lot of these other reviews are drawing, but overall it's a really strong collection!!

I discovered this author when I read "You Too Can Have a Body Like Mine", which was really remarkable to me. An imaginative and truly eerie trip into the narrator's inner world, which gradually fragments in all kinds of surprising ways.

Modern and intimately warm