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After Rain
After Rain - Twelve remarkable stories by the master storyteller William Trevor
In this collection of twelve dazzling, acutely rendered tales, William Trevor plumbs the depths of the human heart. Here we encounter a blind piano tuner whose wonderful memories of his first wife are cruelly distorted by his second; a woman in a difficult marriage who must choose between her indignant husband and her closest friend; two children, survivors of divorce, who mimic their parents' melodramas; and a heartbroken woman traveling alone in Italy who experiences an epiphany while studying a forgotten artist's Annunciation.
Trevor is, in his own words, 'a storyteller. My fiction may, now and again, illuminate aspects of the human condition, but I do not consciously set out to do so.' Conscious or not, he touches us in ways that few writers even dare to try.
In this collection of twelve dazzling, acutely rendered tales, William Trevor plumbs the depths of the human heart. Here we encounter a blind piano tuner whose wonderful memories of his first wife are cruelly distorted by his second; a woman in a difficult marriage who must choose between her indignant husband and her closest friend; two children, survivors of divorce, who mimic their parents' melodramas; and a heartbroken woman traveling alone in Italy who experiences an epiphany while studying a forgotten artist's Annunciation.
Trevor is, in his own words, 'a storyteller. My fiction may, now and again, illuminate aspects of the human condition, but I do not consciously set out to do so.' Conscious or not, he touches us in ways that few writers even dare to try.
213 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1996
245 people are currently reading
3425 people want to read
About the author
William Trevor
177 books761 followersWilliam Trevor, KBE grew up in various provincial towns and attended a number of schools, graduating from Trinity College, in Dublin, with a degree in history. He first exercised his artistry as a sculptor, working as a teacher in Northern Ireland and then emigrated to England in search of work when the school went bankrupt. He could have returned to Ireland once he became a successful writer, he said, "but by then I had become a wanderer, and one way and another, I just stayed in England ... I hated leaving Ireland. I was very bitter at the time. But, had it not happened, I think I might never have written at all."
In 1958 Trevor published his first novel, A Standard of Behaviour, to little critical success. Two years later, he abandoned sculpting completely, feeling his work had become too abstract, and found a job writing copy for a London advertising agency. 'This was absurd,' he said. 'They would give me four lines or so to write and four or five days to write it in. It was so boring. But they had given me this typewriter to work on, so I just started writing stories. I sometimes think all the people who were missing in my sculpture gushed out into the stories.' He published several short stories, then his second and third novels, which both won the Hawthornden Prize (established in 1919 by Alice Warrender and named after William Drummond of Hawthornden, the Hawthornden Prize is one of the UK's oldest literary awards). A number of other prizes followed, and Trevor began working full-time as a writer in 1965.
Since then, Trevor has published nearly 40 novels, short story collections, plays, and collections of nonfiction. He has won three Whitbread Awards, a PEN/Macmillan Silver Pen Award, and was shortlisted for the Booker Prize. In 1977 Trevor was appointed an honorary (he holds Irish, not British, citizenship) Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (CBE) for his services to literature and in 2002 he was elevated to honorary Knight Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (KBE). Since he began writing, William Trevor regularly spends half the year in Italy or Switzerland, often visiting Ireland in the other half. He lived in Devon, in South West England, on an old mill surrounded by 40 acres of land.
In 1958 Trevor published his first novel, A Standard of Behaviour, to little critical success. Two years later, he abandoned sculpting completely, feeling his work had become too abstract, and found a job writing copy for a London advertising agency. 'This was absurd,' he said. 'They would give me four lines or so to write and four or five days to write it in. It was so boring. But they had given me this typewriter to work on, so I just started writing stories. I sometimes think all the people who were missing in my sculpture gushed out into the stories.' He published several short stories, then his second and third novels, which both won the Hawthornden Prize (established in 1919 by Alice Warrender and named after William Drummond of Hawthornden, the Hawthornden Prize is one of the UK's oldest literary awards). A number of other prizes followed, and Trevor began working full-time as a writer in 1965.
Since then, Trevor has published nearly 40 novels, short story collections, plays, and collections of nonfiction. He has won three Whitbread Awards, a PEN/Macmillan Silver Pen Award, and was shortlisted for the Booker Prize. In 1977 Trevor was appointed an honorary (he holds Irish, not British, citizenship) Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (CBE) for his services to literature and in 2002 he was elevated to honorary Knight Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (KBE). Since he began writing, William Trevor regularly spends half the year in Italy or Switzerland, often visiting Ireland in the other half. He lived in Devon, in South West England, on an old mill surrounded by 40 acres of land.
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November 20, 2025
I’ve read many excellent novels by Trevor but it may be that he is an even better short story writer than novelist. In the blurbs, one from the New Yorker, in which Trevor published many stories over the years, one critic said “Trevor is probably the greatest living writer of short stories in the English language.” Well, Trevor is gone now (1928-2016), but he’s certainly excellent as a short story writer and as a novelist. I was very impressed with two other collections of shorts I read and reviewed, Hill Bachelors and A Bit on the Side. This collection, After Rain, was listed as one of the eight best books of 1996 by the editors of the New York Times Book Review.
As with his novels, many of the subjects are lonely people and almost all are leading somewhat drab, confined, constrained lives. One of the things I appreciate most about Trevor is his originality or inventiveness in the short plots. Imagine being a short story writer yourself trying to come up with a story line for a short story that no one has used before! Trevor’s a master.
Here are five brief descriptions of the stories I liked best.
In The Piano Tuner’s Wives, an elderly blind piano tuner takes a second wife after the death of his first wife. His first wife was a plain woman who was “his eyes.” All her life she gave him vivid descriptions of the hills, the trees, the houses they visited to tune pianos, the people they met. The second wife was and still is a beautiful woman who had hoped the man would have married her when they courted when they were younger. She resents the first wife and despairs that he cannot appreciate her past and present beauty. She sets about to change all his “visual” perceptions that he learned from his first wife. How’s that for a unique plot!
In A Friendship, two women have been lifelong friends. One of them has an affair and the husband (rightfully it turns out), feels that his wife’s friend encouraged it. He will forgive his wife if she ends the friendship. What will she choose?
Gilbert’s Mother focuses on a troubled mother-son relationship. The son, mid-twenties, may be mentally challenged or he may just be a jerk; the guy of kind that people avoid and at best, tolerate, but say “he has a screw loose.” Can this all be an act that he uses to control his mother?
The style and mood of After Rain, the title story, reminds me of books by Anita Brookner. A young woman is visiting Italy, staying at a pensione she visited with her parents as a child. She is alone, trying to get over a recent romantic breakup; the latest in a series of such events. She knows the trip is a mistake as soon as she arrives. While admiring a local painting of The Annunciation she has a striking moment of inspiration when she figures out what’s wrong in the relationship department.
Much of Trevor’s work, certainly all his novels that I’ve read, have characters who have had some connection to “The Troubles” – the history of violence between Catholics and Protestants in Ireland and Northern Ireland. Lost Ground, the longest story in the book, features a Protestant boy in Northern Ireland, a teenager, who experiences visitations by a Catholic saint while he’s in the apple orchard. He takes up preaching about his experiences in local towns and is killed. That’s shocking, but even more shocking is how he was killed and who killed him.
Great reading!
William Trevor is one of my favorite authors and I have read about 15 of his novels and collections of short stories. Below are links to reviews of some others of my favorite novels of his:
Mrs Eckdorf in O'Neill's Hotel
The Hill Bachelors
Fools of Fortune
Nights at the Alexandra
The Children of Dynmouth
Seascape Cottage, oil painting by Norma Wilson from i.pinimg.com
The Annunciation, painting by Fra Bartolomeo and Mariotto Albertinelli from Wikimedia Commons
The author from ichef.bbci.co.uk
As with his novels, many of the subjects are lonely people and almost all are leading somewhat drab, confined, constrained lives. One of the things I appreciate most about Trevor is his originality or inventiveness in the short plots. Imagine being a short story writer yourself trying to come up with a story line for a short story that no one has used before! Trevor’s a master.
Here are five brief descriptions of the stories I liked best.
In The Piano Tuner’s Wives, an elderly blind piano tuner takes a second wife after the death of his first wife. His first wife was a plain woman who was “his eyes.” All her life she gave him vivid descriptions of the hills, the trees, the houses they visited to tune pianos, the people they met. The second wife was and still is a beautiful woman who had hoped the man would have married her when they courted when they were younger. She resents the first wife and despairs that he cannot appreciate her past and present beauty. She sets about to change all his “visual” perceptions that he learned from his first wife. How’s that for a unique plot!
In A Friendship, two women have been lifelong friends. One of them has an affair and the husband (rightfully it turns out), feels that his wife’s friend encouraged it. He will forgive his wife if she ends the friendship. What will she choose?
Gilbert’s Mother focuses on a troubled mother-son relationship. The son, mid-twenties, may be mentally challenged or he may just be a jerk; the guy of kind that people avoid and at best, tolerate, but say “he has a screw loose.” Can this all be an act that he uses to control his mother?
The style and mood of After Rain, the title story, reminds me of books by Anita Brookner. A young woman is visiting Italy, staying at a pensione she visited with her parents as a child. She is alone, trying to get over a recent romantic breakup; the latest in a series of such events. She knows the trip is a mistake as soon as she arrives. While admiring a local painting of The Annunciation she has a striking moment of inspiration when she figures out what’s wrong in the relationship department.
Much of Trevor’s work, certainly all his novels that I’ve read, have characters who have had some connection to “The Troubles” – the history of violence between Catholics and Protestants in Ireland and Northern Ireland. Lost Ground, the longest story in the book, features a Protestant boy in Northern Ireland, a teenager, who experiences visitations by a Catholic saint while he’s in the apple orchard. He takes up preaching about his experiences in local towns and is killed. That’s shocking, but even more shocking is how he was killed and who killed him.
Great reading!
William Trevor is one of my favorite authors and I have read about 15 of his novels and collections of short stories. Below are links to reviews of some others of my favorite novels of his:
Mrs Eckdorf in O'Neill's Hotel
The Hill Bachelors
Fools of Fortune
Nights at the Alexandra
The Children of Dynmouth
Seascape Cottage, oil painting by Norma Wilson from i.pinimg.com
The Annunciation, painting by Fra Bartolomeo and Mariotto Albertinelli from Wikimedia Commons
The author from ichef.bbci.co.uk
Read
November 13, 2020When you reach the end of a collection of short stories, you expect to remember one or two, the more outstanding ones. You don’t expect them all to be outstanding. You don’t expect each and every one to remain perfectly vivid in your memory. So, it is with some surprise that I realise that weeks after finishing this book, I can remember details from each of the twelve stories that make up After Rain, and I suspect that this collection will haunt my memory for a very long time to come.
It is worth while looking at how Trevor manages this feat. The first thing that strikes me is that he always writes about what he knows; the world of his stories, with one or two exceptions, revolves around a homogenous group of people: Irish Protestants living in rural settings. A few stories are set in or around London and one in Italy, and we suspect that Trevor has also lived in such places for lengthy periods. The second thing I noticed about his story telling strategy is that he selects very carefully the details that he chooses to reveal. I imagine him writing a much broader scenario for each tale and then, like a skilled tailor, cutting out the neat shape of the story from the larger cloth, discarding much on the way. The result is that we are beguiled by what he includes but nevertheless reminded of what he has omitted; we feel its absence.
Perhaps what I’m trying to explain is best summed up by the following paragraph from the title story: The Annunciation in the church of Santa Fabiola is by an unknown artist, perhaps of the school of Filippo Lippi, no one is certain. The angel kneels, grey wings protruding, his lily half hidden by the pillar. The floor is marble, white and green and ochre. The virgin looks alarmed, right hand arresting her visitor’s advance. Beyond—background to the encounter—there are gracious arches, a balustrade and then the sky and hills. There is a soundlessness about the picture, the silence of a mystery: no words are spoken in this captured moment, what’s said between the two has been said already.
Yes, he celebrates mystery perfectly, not only in that annunciation scene but also in the mysteries within the every day relationships of husbands and wives, fathers and sons, mothers and their children, all the unspoken things that can bind people together but may also drive them apart.
It is worth while looking at how Trevor manages this feat. The first thing that strikes me is that he always writes about what he knows; the world of his stories, with one or two exceptions, revolves around a homogenous group of people: Irish Protestants living in rural settings. A few stories are set in or around London and one in Italy, and we suspect that Trevor has also lived in such places for lengthy periods. The second thing I noticed about his story telling strategy is that he selects very carefully the details that he chooses to reveal. I imagine him writing a much broader scenario for each tale and then, like a skilled tailor, cutting out the neat shape of the story from the larger cloth, discarding much on the way. The result is that we are beguiled by what he includes but nevertheless reminded of what he has omitted; we feel its absence.
Perhaps what I’m trying to explain is best summed up by the following paragraph from the title story: The Annunciation in the church of Santa Fabiola is by an unknown artist, perhaps of the school of Filippo Lippi, no one is certain. The angel kneels, grey wings protruding, his lily half hidden by the pillar. The floor is marble, white and green and ochre. The virgin looks alarmed, right hand arresting her visitor’s advance. Beyond—background to the encounter—there are gracious arches, a balustrade and then the sky and hills. There is a soundlessness about the picture, the silence of a mystery: no words are spoken in this captured moment, what’s said between the two has been said already.
Yes, he celebrates mystery perfectly, not only in that annunciation scene but also in the mysteries within the every day relationships of husbands and wives, fathers and sons, mothers and their children, all the unspoken things that can bind people together but may also drive them apart.
November 15, 2020
I've read some brilliant short story collections already this year, and that trend continued with After Rain, my first William Trevor book. Going by a couple of critics who stated that Trevor is Ireland's very own Chekhov, I thought this sounded like a pretty decent place to start. After four or five pages of the first story, The Piano Tuner's Wives, I could clearly see those critics weren't exaggerating. While I can pick out the first story, along with Widows, Lost Ground, and A Friendship, as favourites, there simply wasn't a weak point in the entire book. There is no dip. Off the top of my head I can't think of a single thing to nag about. Trevor absolutely gets into the hearts and minds and souls of these characters, covering a full spectrum of emotions, and dealing with issues like adultery, jealousy, death, divorces, sectarian violence, and even murder. Cruelty; whether minor or major, seems to be the strongest theme here.
What I found distinctive with Trevor's writing; and a little uneasy too, was this sense of double perception by writing both externally and internally of the character at the same time. Are we dealing with truths or are we dealing with lies? Apart from the last couple of stories which I read about an hour apart, I was reading one story per day or every other day, and each piece does warrant the reader to really sit back and think about it deeply rather than just skip on to the next one. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised If I was to read some of them again, and change my mind over what I felt and perceived them to be the first time around. They are clever, living and breathing, beautifully orchestrated tales, with a bit of a sinister twist to them. No doubts that there are characters throughout that suffer unjustly, but we don't always see things from their angle, and though the stories on the whole evoke a feeling of sadness, the lack of closure, and sometimes that final line, brings something bordering on hope. Will definitely read him again now.
November 27, 2020
There's a moment in one of these stories when Bono is mentioned and it was as shockingly disorientating as if a Jane Austen character suddenly said the word fuck. Because although written in the 1990s most of the time I felt like I was reading an author who was writing at the mid-point of the 20th century. Often his stories are set in an isolated rural world which allows him to turn the clock back a couple of decades. An advantage of this perspective is social rules once upon a time were much more rigid; any transgression created more violence to the status quo than is the case now. And this is the theme of all of the stories in this collection - the violent upsetting of the apple cart.
In her story The Daughters of the Late Colonel Katherine Mansfield ingeniously makes us feel we are reading about two little girls at the beginning of their lives the start of the story. Only gradually do we realise they are elderly spinsters nearing the end of their lives. In his story After Rain Trevor inverts this process. The woman in the story is thirty but we soon begin to see her as an elderly spinster. It's kind of clever until you realise the perspective is essentially forced and bogus. In the 20s and the 30s a dumped thirty-year woman would probably become a spinster; since the 1960s that scenario is much less likely. We learn very little about this woman. The story is padded with lots of pretty passages about Italy. I found this a problem with lots of the stories - the padding. I'm not sure I agree that he knows much more about his characters than he puts into the stories - it's a stock and not always convincing claim of all writers that they know every facet of their characters' idiosyncrasies before putting pen to paper. I think there are three stories here in which he uses the delivery of the newspaper as a kind of pivot in the day's domestic arrangement. And a man reading a newspaper at the breakfast table is after all a worn out cliché. If he knows so much about his people surely he could have come up with a more enlightening and original detail. Often, I felt he was hiding his characters from me, as if the more he told me about them the less credible they'd become. Every story is motored by an idea - but often this idea didn't for me give birth to other ideas.
Two stories have as their pivot the entrance of criminals into the benign banality of domestic habit. The theme of domestic arrangement being disrupted by an intruder is constant in almost all the stories. This reminded me of Elizabeth Bowen's Death of the Heart except in Bowen's book the domestic arrangement is corrupt and the destructive intruder innocent, a much more intriguing premise than the rather clichéd dynamic of criminality disrupting innocence. He does actually use this dynamic in one of the stories about the Catholic/Protestant divides in Ireland but a promising beginning ends in not very convincing melodrama. At times you sense Trevor doesn't much care for the modern world and has a tendency to sentimentalise rural domesticity. Not a stance I have much time for. Tourists often buy houses in Italy with the same ambition and are generally a corrupting presence. Trevor's characters are often blandly benign. Too ripe for the violence of social change. You could make the argument that these stories are timeless; but you could equally make the argument that the world Trevor creates has been done to death in literature. It's astonishing to realise Don DeLillo wrote Underworld the same year these stories were composed. If I were given the two books without any biographical detail of the authors I would guess Trevor was writing at least fifty years before DeLillo.
Probably I'm giving the impression I gleaned little enjoyment from these stories which isn't true. But I had high expectations and they weren't met and I'm still of the opinion Trevor is a good second tier writer rather than any kind of rare marvel. I've got one more of his books. Fingers crossed.
In her story The Daughters of the Late Colonel Katherine Mansfield ingeniously makes us feel we are reading about two little girls at the beginning of their lives the start of the story. Only gradually do we realise they are elderly spinsters nearing the end of their lives. In his story After Rain Trevor inverts this process. The woman in the story is thirty but we soon begin to see her as an elderly spinster. It's kind of clever until you realise the perspective is essentially forced and bogus. In the 20s and the 30s a dumped thirty-year woman would probably become a spinster; since the 1960s that scenario is much less likely. We learn very little about this woman. The story is padded with lots of pretty passages about Italy. I found this a problem with lots of the stories - the padding. I'm not sure I agree that he knows much more about his characters than he puts into the stories - it's a stock and not always convincing claim of all writers that they know every facet of their characters' idiosyncrasies before putting pen to paper. I think there are three stories here in which he uses the delivery of the newspaper as a kind of pivot in the day's domestic arrangement. And a man reading a newspaper at the breakfast table is after all a worn out cliché. If he knows so much about his people surely he could have come up with a more enlightening and original detail. Often, I felt he was hiding his characters from me, as if the more he told me about them the less credible they'd become. Every story is motored by an idea - but often this idea didn't for me give birth to other ideas.
Two stories have as their pivot the entrance of criminals into the benign banality of domestic habit. The theme of domestic arrangement being disrupted by an intruder is constant in almost all the stories. This reminded me of Elizabeth Bowen's Death of the Heart except in Bowen's book the domestic arrangement is corrupt and the destructive intruder innocent, a much more intriguing premise than the rather clichéd dynamic of criminality disrupting innocence. He does actually use this dynamic in one of the stories about the Catholic/Protestant divides in Ireland but a promising beginning ends in not very convincing melodrama. At times you sense Trevor doesn't much care for the modern world and has a tendency to sentimentalise rural domesticity. Not a stance I have much time for. Tourists often buy houses in Italy with the same ambition and are generally a corrupting presence. Trevor's characters are often blandly benign. Too ripe for the violence of social change. You could make the argument that these stories are timeless; but you could equally make the argument that the world Trevor creates has been done to death in literature. It's astonishing to realise Don DeLillo wrote Underworld the same year these stories were composed. If I were given the two books without any biographical detail of the authors I would guess Trevor was writing at least fifty years before DeLillo.
Probably I'm giving the impression I gleaned little enjoyment from these stories which isn't true. But I had high expectations and they weren't met and I'm still of the opinion Trevor is a good second tier writer rather than any kind of rare marvel. I've got one more of his books. Fingers crossed.
March 7, 2019
I'm afraid I don't have enough time to craft a "tutti frutti, oh Rudy" review (too much on my plate), so I'll offer up a cursory one instead.
After reading @Laysee's wonderful "wham-bam-boo" review, I eagerly added this selection of twelve short stories to my creaking list.
William Trevor is an author with his finger on the pulse and here exhibits a penetrating comprehension of human nature at its most vulnerable. He heedfully chisels into the seven deadly sins with a succession of cardinal themes and applies them to the mundanity of people's run-of-the-mill lives.
I really enjoyed his writing; he has a masterly technique and I quickly became absorbed in each tale.
There was (for me), however, a sense of unfinished business. The author understandably wants the characters to live on in the readers' minds but, in doing so, sometimes left me wishing for closure, a grand finalé, so to speak.
Nevertheless, an extremely accomplished medley of stories.
read Laysee's wonderful review
After reading @Laysee's wonderful "wham-bam-boo" review, I eagerly added this selection of twelve short stories to my creaking list.
William Trevor is an author with his finger on the pulse and here exhibits a penetrating comprehension of human nature at its most vulnerable. He heedfully chisels into the seven deadly sins with a succession of cardinal themes and applies them to the mundanity of people's run-of-the-mill lives.
I really enjoyed his writing; he has a masterly technique and I quickly became absorbed in each tale.
There was (for me), however, a sense of unfinished business. The author understandably wants the characters to live on in the readers' minds but, in doing so, sometimes left me wishing for closure, a grand finalé, so to speak.
Nevertheless, an extremely accomplished medley of stories.
read Laysee's wonderful review
July 25, 2024
Trevor's works have a tremendous emotional charge, mainly exploring the sadness of individual tragedies. However, they also provide a backdrop of an Ireland troubled by wars and conflicts, which influence the lives of several characters. This masterful work is an excellent example of this.
June 8, 2024
A collection of short stories. A testament to Trevor's ability to capture the complexities of human relationships with such raw honesty and emotional depth.
12. Marrying Damian
4 stars
William Trevor, the master of the bittersweet, weaves another spellbinding tale. This seemingly simple story about Joanna, a young girl fixated on marrying her parents' friend, Damian, explodes into a poignant meditation on parental worry and the unsettling power of the unknown.
Damian, with his charm and charisma, casts a long shadow over Joanna's childhood. We learn, in hushed tones, of his string of failed marriages and a reputation for emotional unavailability. Joanna, however, remains undeterred, clinging to the dream of a future with him.
Trevor's genius lies in his masterful use of implication. We never truly understand Damian. This ambiguity creates a constant undercurrent of disquiet, leaving us to grapple with the anxieties of Joanna's parents. Are they overreacting, or is there a deeper truth about Damian they desperately want to shield their daughter from?
The story ends, as many of Trevor's do, with a sense of lingering incompleteness. We don't know if Joanna ever fulfills her childhood vow. Yet, this very absence of resolution is what makes the story so impactful. It mirrors the helplessness parents often feel in the face of their children's choices, leaving us with a profound sense of unease and a lingering fear for Joanna's future.
It is a disturbingly beautiful portrait of parental love and the anxieties that come with watching your child navigate a world filled with uncertainty.
11. A Day
5 stars
Heartbreaking. Brilliant. I can’t even pen a review for this one. I love William Trevor.
10. Lost Ground
5 stars
This story is a visceral experience that burrows into your soul and leaves you grappling with profound questions. Set against the volatile backdrop of the Protestant-Catholic divide in Irish history, Trevor paints a poignant portrait of loss of innocence and the unsettling fragility of faith.
Our protagonist, Martin Leeson, is a young Protestant boy teetering on the edge of childhood. His world is upended by the arrival of a mysterious woman who claims to be a Catholic saint. The woman's kiss, a "holy kiss," leaves Martin both bewildered and strangely touched. Her cryptic pronouncements about fear plant a seed of doubt in his innocent mind, forcing him to confront the fault lines of his own faith.
Is the woman a figment of Martin's imagination, a product of the simmering sectarian tensions that color his world? Trevor masterfully keeps this question unanswered, leaving the reader in a state of perpetual ambiguity. This ambiguity is precisely what makes the story so powerful. It reflects the very nature of faith, a belief system that often thrives in the absence of concrete answers.
The story is undeniably troubling. The unsettling encounter with the woman, the unsettling questions about faith, all culminate in a heart-wrenching conclusion that lodges itself in your chest like a bullet. You're left with unresolved questions, a gnawing emptiness that lingers long after the story ends. Yet, there's a strange beauty in this very incompleteness. Trevor, with his masterful use of prose, crafts a narrative that is both unbelievably memorable and achingly human. This story compels you to confront the complexities of faith, the scars of historical conflict, and the enduring power of unresolved questions. It's a story that will stay with you.
9. The Potato Dealer
4.5 stars
A profound excavation of duty, sacrifice, and the quiet ache of unmet desires. Ellie, a young woman burdened by a love affair's consequence, is forced into a transactional and loveless marriage with Mulreavy, a potato dealer. Mulreavy, though a beneficiary of the situation, is not without his own complexities. His "kindness in practical ways" underscores a tenderness beneath the gruff exterior. He fulfills the role of a father figure, yet the reader can't help but sense a yearning for a deeper connection, a yearning mirrored in Ellie's melancholic acceptance.
I am so in love with the Trevor’s writing. A master class in emotional minimalism. As always, characters' unspoken desires and unspoken grief leaves a lingering disquiet invoking contemplation on the sacrifices made on the altar of duty and the enduring power of love, even in its most unconventional forms.
8. Gilbert's Mother
5 stars
In a labyrinth of the psyche, the narrative, delivered in chillingly detached tones, weaves a psychological thriller where the true danger is veiled in ambiguity.
Rosalie becomes consumed by a news report of a brutal rape and murder. A seed of suspicion takes root, its tendrils tightening around the possibility that her son, Gilbert, is the perpetrator. We see a woman clinging to the fading vestiges of her son's innocence, yet haunted by subtle behavioural shifts. The story's brilliance lies in its ambiguity. Is Gilbert, the enigmatic son, truly a perpetrator of heinous crimes, or is it Rosalie's anxieties that paint him in such a sinister light?
Every detail, every quirk of his behaviour, becomes a piece of damning evidence in her mind's warped courtroom. We witness the slow erosion of her trust, the agonising dance between maternal love and a chilling suspicion.
The lack of easy answers is what makes the story so profoundly unsettling. Trevor refuses to offer a comforting hand, instead plunging us into the depths of Rosalie's fractured perception. We are left questioning: is this a story of a son gone astray, or a mother teetering on the edge of madness?
It's a profound exploration of the complexities of love, the burdens of expectation, and the terrifying power of the human mind to twist reality. It's a story that burrows into your soul, leaving you questioning the very fabric of perception.
7. Widows
4 stars
A story where weight of loss isn't a heavy stone but a suffocating fog. We witness a narrative drenched in quiet despair. It's a story steeped in quiet contemplation, exploring the complexities of grief and the unexpected ways life reshapes itself in its wake.
We encounter two widowed sisters, Alicia and Catherine. Alicia, the once vibrant one, finds a strange liberation in her husband's death. Catherine, ever the devoted wife, grapples with the gaping hole left behind. Yet, a seemingly trivial matter – an unpaid bill – becomes the catalyst for a deeper exploration of their bond.
We see the simmering resentment, the yearning for connection, and the unacknowledged jealousy that threatens to fracture their relationship.
Trevor masterfully avoids sentimentality.
6. After Rain
4.5 stars
A poignant tapestry woven with threads of introspection. It's not a story that bombards you with grand events, but rather one that invites you into the quietude of human contemplation. The prose itself is like a gentle drizzle, washing over the reader with a clarity that allows the emotional landscape to take center stage.
5. A Bit of Business
3 stars
Not too keen on this one!
4. Child’s Play
5 stars
I’m short of words. This story was too painful.
Helplessness was their natural state
3. Timothy’s birthday
5 stars
I will reiterate that William Trevor is a master when it comes to building quiet tension and making silences speak. A story rich in unspoken longing, disappointment and complexities of familial love. Trevor paints a portrait of a fractured family reunion, where the son's absence speaks volumes. The anticipation of the parents, Odo and Charlotte, for their adult son Timothy's birthday dinner is palpable, contrasted with the unsettling arrival of his friend Eddie, a stand-in reeking of unspoken truths.
2. A Friendship
4 stars
A brilliant story. With subtle prose, Trevor explores the complexities of loyalty in a marriage and the bittersweet cost of long-held friendships. The story lingers, leaving you pondering the choices characters make and the unspoken truths that shape lives.
1. The Piano Tuner's Wives
5 stars
It is a poignant story of love, loss, and the bittersweet weight of time.
Two marriages, a lifetime apart, echo in the halls of a single life – Owen, the blind piano tuner, the constant presence, and the two wives, Violet and Belle, forever intertwined. Belle, once a rival for Owen's affection, becomes his second wife, haunted by the ghost of a love that could have been hers.
Trevor paints a world of unspoken emotions. Belle grapples with a haunting happiness, her joy laced with the melancholic undercurrent of Violet's memory. Memories of a younger, more vibrant Violet surface through Owen's words, each echo a fresh pang in Belle's heart. Theirs is a love story born from practicality, a comfort in Owen's twilight years, yet forever marked by the absence of a love that burned brighter. Owen, a man navigating a world of sound, seems strangely out of touch with the emotional dissonance. He speaks of Violet in the present tense, unintentionally keeping her ghost alive in their new life.
Trevor's prose is understated, yet achingly beautiful. He paints a picture of lives defined by missed chances and the enduring presence of absence. He allows the silences to speak volumes, the unspoken longing and unspoken grief that simmer beneath the surface. There are no grand pronouncements, no tearful outbursts. The characters' pain is conveyed through quiet actions and unspoken thoughts. With a touch as light as a feather, Trevor lays bare the complexities of the human heart, the yearning for connection, and the bittersweet beauty of acceptance.
It's a story that resonates with a quiet power, leaving you with a lingering echo of unspoken emotions. It leaves you pondering the choices we make, the paths not taken, and the enduring echoes of the past that forever colour our present.
12. Marrying Damian
4 stars
William Trevor, the master of the bittersweet, weaves another spellbinding tale. This seemingly simple story about Joanna, a young girl fixated on marrying her parents' friend, Damian, explodes into a poignant meditation on parental worry and the unsettling power of the unknown.
Damian, with his charm and charisma, casts a long shadow over Joanna's childhood. We learn, in hushed tones, of his string of failed marriages and a reputation for emotional unavailability. Joanna, however, remains undeterred, clinging to the dream of a future with him.
Trevor's genius lies in his masterful use of implication. We never truly understand Damian. This ambiguity creates a constant undercurrent of disquiet, leaving us to grapple with the anxieties of Joanna's parents. Are they overreacting, or is there a deeper truth about Damian they desperately want to shield their daughter from?
The story ends, as many of Trevor's do, with a sense of lingering incompleteness. We don't know if Joanna ever fulfills her childhood vow. Yet, this very absence of resolution is what makes the story so impactful. It mirrors the helplessness parents often feel in the face of their children's choices, leaving us with a profound sense of unease and a lingering fear for Joanna's future.
It is a disturbingly beautiful portrait of parental love and the anxieties that come with watching your child navigate a world filled with uncertainty.
11. A Day
5 stars
Heartbreaking. Brilliant. I can’t even pen a review for this one. I love William Trevor.
10. Lost Ground
5 stars
This story is a visceral experience that burrows into your soul and leaves you grappling with profound questions. Set against the volatile backdrop of the Protestant-Catholic divide in Irish history, Trevor paints a poignant portrait of loss of innocence and the unsettling fragility of faith.
Our protagonist, Martin Leeson, is a young Protestant boy teetering on the edge of childhood. His world is upended by the arrival of a mysterious woman who claims to be a Catholic saint. The woman's kiss, a "holy kiss," leaves Martin both bewildered and strangely touched. Her cryptic pronouncements about fear plant a seed of doubt in his innocent mind, forcing him to confront the fault lines of his own faith.
Is the woman a figment of Martin's imagination, a product of the simmering sectarian tensions that color his world? Trevor masterfully keeps this question unanswered, leaving the reader in a state of perpetual ambiguity. This ambiguity is precisely what makes the story so powerful. It reflects the very nature of faith, a belief system that often thrives in the absence of concrete answers.
The story is undeniably troubling. The unsettling encounter with the woman, the unsettling questions about faith, all culminate in a heart-wrenching conclusion that lodges itself in your chest like a bullet. You're left with unresolved questions, a gnawing emptiness that lingers long after the story ends. Yet, there's a strange beauty in this very incompleteness. Trevor, with his masterful use of prose, crafts a narrative that is both unbelievably memorable and achingly human. This story compels you to confront the complexities of faith, the scars of historical conflict, and the enduring power of unresolved questions. It's a story that will stay with you.
9. The Potato Dealer
4.5 stars
A profound excavation of duty, sacrifice, and the quiet ache of unmet desires. Ellie, a young woman burdened by a love affair's consequence, is forced into a transactional and loveless marriage with Mulreavy, a potato dealer. Mulreavy, though a beneficiary of the situation, is not without his own complexities. His "kindness in practical ways" underscores a tenderness beneath the gruff exterior. He fulfills the role of a father figure, yet the reader can't help but sense a yearning for a deeper connection, a yearning mirrored in Ellie's melancholic acceptance.
I am so in love with the Trevor’s writing. A master class in emotional minimalism. As always, characters' unspoken desires and unspoken grief leaves a lingering disquiet invoking contemplation on the sacrifices made on the altar of duty and the enduring power of love, even in its most unconventional forms.
8. Gilbert's Mother
5 stars
In a labyrinth of the psyche, the narrative, delivered in chillingly detached tones, weaves a psychological thriller where the true danger is veiled in ambiguity.
Rosalie becomes consumed by a news report of a brutal rape and murder. A seed of suspicion takes root, its tendrils tightening around the possibility that her son, Gilbert, is the perpetrator. We see a woman clinging to the fading vestiges of her son's innocence, yet haunted by subtle behavioural shifts. The story's brilliance lies in its ambiguity. Is Gilbert, the enigmatic son, truly a perpetrator of heinous crimes, or is it Rosalie's anxieties that paint him in such a sinister light?
Every detail, every quirk of his behaviour, becomes a piece of damning evidence in her mind's warped courtroom. We witness the slow erosion of her trust, the agonising dance between maternal love and a chilling suspicion.
The lack of easy answers is what makes the story so profoundly unsettling. Trevor refuses to offer a comforting hand, instead plunging us into the depths of Rosalie's fractured perception. We are left questioning: is this a story of a son gone astray, or a mother teetering on the edge of madness?
It's a profound exploration of the complexities of love, the burdens of expectation, and the terrifying power of the human mind to twist reality. It's a story that burrows into your soul, leaving you questioning the very fabric of perception.
7. Widows
4 stars
A story where weight of loss isn't a heavy stone but a suffocating fog. We witness a narrative drenched in quiet despair. It's a story steeped in quiet contemplation, exploring the complexities of grief and the unexpected ways life reshapes itself in its wake.
We encounter two widowed sisters, Alicia and Catherine. Alicia, the once vibrant one, finds a strange liberation in her husband's death. Catherine, ever the devoted wife, grapples with the gaping hole left behind. Yet, a seemingly trivial matter – an unpaid bill – becomes the catalyst for a deeper exploration of their bond.
We see the simmering resentment, the yearning for connection, and the unacknowledged jealousy that threatens to fracture their relationship.
Trevor masterfully avoids sentimentality.
6. After Rain
4.5 stars
A poignant tapestry woven with threads of introspection. It's not a story that bombards you with grand events, but rather one that invites you into the quietude of human contemplation. The prose itself is like a gentle drizzle, washing over the reader with a clarity that allows the emotional landscape to take center stage.
5. A Bit of Business
3 stars
Not too keen on this one!
4. Child’s Play
5 stars
I’m short of words. This story was too painful.
Helplessness was their natural state
3. Timothy’s birthday
5 stars
I will reiterate that William Trevor is a master when it comes to building quiet tension and making silences speak. A story rich in unspoken longing, disappointment and complexities of familial love. Trevor paints a portrait of a fractured family reunion, where the son's absence speaks volumes. The anticipation of the parents, Odo and Charlotte, for their adult son Timothy's birthday dinner is palpable, contrasted with the unsettling arrival of his friend Eddie, a stand-in reeking of unspoken truths.
2. A Friendship
4 stars
A brilliant story. With subtle prose, Trevor explores the complexities of loyalty in a marriage and the bittersweet cost of long-held friendships. The story lingers, leaving you pondering the choices characters make and the unspoken truths that shape lives.
1. The Piano Tuner's Wives
5 stars
It is a poignant story of love, loss, and the bittersweet weight of time.
Two marriages, a lifetime apart, echo in the halls of a single life – Owen, the blind piano tuner, the constant presence, and the two wives, Violet and Belle, forever intertwined. Belle, once a rival for Owen's affection, becomes his second wife, haunted by the ghost of a love that could have been hers.
Trevor paints a world of unspoken emotions. Belle grapples with a haunting happiness, her joy laced with the melancholic undercurrent of Violet's memory. Memories of a younger, more vibrant Violet surface through Owen's words, each echo a fresh pang in Belle's heart. Theirs is a love story born from practicality, a comfort in Owen's twilight years, yet forever marked by the absence of a love that burned brighter. Owen, a man navigating a world of sound, seems strangely out of touch with the emotional dissonance. He speaks of Violet in the present tense, unintentionally keeping her ghost alive in their new life.
Trevor's prose is understated, yet achingly beautiful. He paints a picture of lives defined by missed chances and the enduring presence of absence. He allows the silences to speak volumes, the unspoken longing and unspoken grief that simmer beneath the surface. There are no grand pronouncements, no tearful outbursts. The characters' pain is conveyed through quiet actions and unspoken thoughts. With a touch as light as a feather, Trevor lays bare the complexities of the human heart, the yearning for connection, and the bittersweet beauty of acceptance.
It's a story that resonates with a quiet power, leaving you with a lingering echo of unspoken emotions. It leaves you pondering the choices we make, the paths not taken, and the enduring echoes of the past that forever colour our present.
November 24, 2019
I was lucky enough to hear the wonderful Elizabeth Strout speak in Dublin a couple of weeks ago. When asked about the writers who inspired her, she mentioned William Trevor, saying that she loved him with her whole heart and that she would read his laundry list. Well that's about as good a recommendation as you can get, so I thought that I should finally give him a try.
Where to begin was the question - he has a considerable bibliography to his name. I decided to go with After Rain, a short story collection published in 1996 and named as one of the finest publications of that year by the New York Times Book Review.
Some of the stories are set in Ireland, some are set in the UK. They follow a similar structure: something unusual happens in the lives of the characters that upsets the status quo, forcing them to reevaluate their existence. I must admit that it took me a while to warm to this collection. The title story describes a woman who goes on holiday alone after being dumped by her partner. I've heard it hailed as a masterpiece yet it did nothing for me. Others like A Friendship and A Bit of Business were obviously well written, but didn't excite or move me in any way.
However, that feeling soon changed, and I began to see why Ms Strout is such a fan. Gilbert's Mother is a disturbing tale of a woman who suspects her son of sexual assault but decides to keep it to herself. The Potato Dealer tells of a pregnant girl in rural Ireland who agrees to marry a neighbouring bachelor, saving her from disgrace and providing him with extra land to farm. And in Lost Ground, the longest story of the collection, a Protestant boy in Northern Ireland claims to have been visited by a female saint, much to the dismay of his conservative family. It comes to a heartbreaking and shocking conclusion.
So it was quite an assortment, all in all. I didn't love each and every story but the ones I did enjoy left me hungry for more. I admired the poise and precision of Trevor's writing, the way he could capture the dreams and disappointments of an ordinary life within a few paragraphs. I look forward to reading more of him.
Where to begin was the question - he has a considerable bibliography to his name. I decided to go with After Rain, a short story collection published in 1996 and named as one of the finest publications of that year by the New York Times Book Review.
Some of the stories are set in Ireland, some are set in the UK. They follow a similar structure: something unusual happens in the lives of the characters that upsets the status quo, forcing them to reevaluate their existence. I must admit that it took me a while to warm to this collection. The title story describes a woman who goes on holiday alone after being dumped by her partner. I've heard it hailed as a masterpiece yet it did nothing for me. Others like A Friendship and A Bit of Business were obviously well written, but didn't excite or move me in any way.
However, that feeling soon changed, and I began to see why Ms Strout is such a fan. Gilbert's Mother is a disturbing tale of a woman who suspects her son of sexual assault but decides to keep it to herself. The Potato Dealer tells of a pregnant girl in rural Ireland who agrees to marry a neighbouring bachelor, saving her from disgrace and providing him with extra land to farm. And in Lost Ground, the longest story of the collection, a Protestant boy in Northern Ireland claims to have been visited by a female saint, much to the dismay of his conservative family. It comes to a heartbreaking and shocking conclusion.
So it was quite an assortment, all in all. I didn't love each and every story but the ones I did enjoy left me hungry for more. I admired the poise and precision of Trevor's writing, the way he could capture the dreams and disappointments of an ordinary life within a few paragraphs. I look forward to reading more of him.
October 23, 2016
William Trevor once said, “An ordinary house, the domestic side of life at home, is what interests me. The small things.” This is most evident in “After Rain: Stories”, a collection of twelve short stories, each parsimoniously crafted to reveal the undercurrents that churn beneath the small things in quotidian life. Trevor wrote about ordinary people living ordinary lives mostly in the small towns of Ireland or England and about relationships, especially, the fragility of marriage. In almost all the stories, marriages were worn thin by jealousy, betrayal, deception, denial, or indifference.
The power of Trevor’s stories, I feel, rests in their ability to linger in the reader’s mind after the last line was read. You cannot help wondering what would happen next to the characters and the true ending is left to your own interpretation. In Trevor’s own words, “It’s not that the story marks the end of the road for the characters. They have got to go on living in the mind of the reader.” Trevor is indisputably a master of his art.
The power of Trevor’s stories, I feel, rests in their ability to linger in the reader’s mind after the last line was read. You cannot help wondering what would happen next to the characters and the true ending is left to your own interpretation. In Trevor’s own words, “It’s not that the story marks the end of the road for the characters. They have got to go on living in the mind of the reader.” Trevor is indisputably a master of his art.
December 10, 2024
An exquisite collection of (12) stories, notable both for its range in subject matter and the breadth in its covering of specifics of the human condition. There is mastery in the amount of detail - often small details; the kind that could easily go unnoticed.
Though psychologically rich, the stories reflect Trevor's presentational flair in offering up human behavior as objectively as snapshots. There is a kind of 'just the facts' simplicity that sidesteps judgment or conclusions. These are the kinds of stories that invite readers to search their own levels of compassion and understanding.
Sometimes a story is left 'unfinished' - yet it isn't; not when its point has already been made.
It's not surprising to learn that Trevor had sculpting in his history. That explains the occasional sense that the lives of his characters have been carved with a chisel, esp. (as happens) when the author suddenly incorporates and intertwines past events that have helped shaped present realities.
There's not a weak story in the bunch; collectively they share a memorable power. Some might find the overall mood depressing (along the lines of what can be uniquely Irish) but I didn't, particularly. I did find the observations refreshingly sharp and the warts-and-all frailties recognizable.
Five of the stories had particular resonance:
'Timothy's Birthday', obliquely, is about a gay man who can no longer tolerate his parents' split indifference about his homosexuality. Is it their refusal to face his reality?, the unsettled quality in his own nature?, or both? The son makes the awkward choice of sending a strangely malleable, would-be lover to his parents to make his excuses about a birthday celebration.
'Child's Play' telescopes into the complicated inner lives of two young children, each the subsequent product of divorce. Brought together by new marriages, it goes unnoticed when the children have absorbed the messier aspects of each divorce.
'A Bit of Business' examines a botched home invasion-robbery and its aftermath. A study in the mental wranglings of disaffected youth.
In 'Widows', the pain of a husband's death is almost instantly compounded by what seems an insidious insistence on the part of a neighbor that the dead man left a large debt unpaid. There's no real proof of that.
In 'Lost Ground'- the longest tale - a young boy is visited a series of times by an apparition; the specter of a woman who tells him:
Though psychologically rich, the stories reflect Trevor's presentational flair in offering up human behavior as objectively as snapshots. There is a kind of 'just the facts' simplicity that sidesteps judgment or conclusions. These are the kinds of stories that invite readers to search their own levels of compassion and understanding.
Sometimes a story is left 'unfinished' - yet it isn't; not when its point has already been made.
It's not surprising to learn that Trevor had sculpting in his history. That explains the occasional sense that the lives of his characters have been carved with a chisel, esp. (as happens) when the author suddenly incorporates and intertwines past events that have helped shaped present realities.
There's not a weak story in the bunch; collectively they share a memorable power. Some might find the overall mood depressing (along the lines of what can be uniquely Irish) but I didn't, particularly. I did find the observations refreshingly sharp and the warts-and-all frailties recognizable.
Five of the stories had particular resonance:
'Timothy's Birthday', obliquely, is about a gay man who can no longer tolerate his parents' split indifference about his homosexuality. Is it their refusal to face his reality?, the unsettled quality in his own nature?, or both? The son makes the awkward choice of sending a strangely malleable, would-be lover to his parents to make his excuses about a birthday celebration.
'Child's Play' telescopes into the complicated inner lives of two young children, each the subsequent product of divorce. Brought together by new marriages, it goes unnoticed when the children have absorbed the messier aspects of each divorce.
'A Bit of Business' examines a botched home invasion-robbery and its aftermath. A study in the mental wranglings of disaffected youth.
In 'Widows', the pain of a husband's death is almost instantly compounded by what seems an insidious insistence on the part of a neighbor that the dead man left a large debt unpaid. There's no real proof of that.
In 'Lost Ground'- the longest tale - a young boy is visited a series of times by an apparition; the specter of a woman who tells him:
"Don't be afraid when the moment comes. There is too much fear."The experience changes him, as it changes all of those (to a person) around him. This story had the largest impact on me - since it goes in a direction that is ultimately as unexpected as it is shadowy.
January 18, 2023
প্রায় নিরুত্তেজ সব গল্প শেষেও কীভাবে যেন -অপরিমেয়, অব্যাখ্যানীয় দুঃখ ঘিরে ধরে পাঠককে। গল্প শেষে পাঠকের মন বিষণ্ণ হয়, সাথে সাথে গোপন কোন উৎস থেকে এমন অদ্ভুত মেলানকোলির বুদবুদ বের করলেন ট্রেভর- সেটা বুঝতে না পারায় বিষণ্ণতাটা হয়ে ওঠে তীব্র রহস্যময়।
wish-list
March 6, 2014William Trevor is an author who has quietly crept up on me over the years and it appears I am softly comfortable under the spell of his nib.
3* Love and Summer
3* The Collected Stories
WL After Rain
3* Cheating at Canasta
3* A Bit on the Side
4* Death in Summer
3* My House in Umbria
3* Reading Turgenev
3* Angels at the Ritz
3* Love and Summer
3* The Collected Stories
WL After Rain
3* Cheating at Canasta
3* A Bit on the Side
4* Death in Summer
3* My House in Umbria
3* Reading Turgenev
3* Angels at the Ritz
July 9, 2019
yüz kitap yine bizi muhteşem bir yazarla tanıştırıyor. william trevor ince duyarlılığıyla kasabada büyüyen kadınları, aldatılan kadınları, boşanmış ana babanın çocuklarını anlatıyor. özellikle ilk öykü muhteşem. en irlandalı öykü ise yitirilen toprak. irlanda’daki katolik protestan çekişmesi bu kadar güzel anlatılabilir. aile, o gizli işbirliğinin kurduğu kötü yapı hemen her öyküde var.
ama kadınları bu kadar güzel anlatması... inanılmaz.
ama kadınları bu kadar güzel anlatması... inanılmaz.
April 9, 2021
Absolutely loved it.!!
Read
September 16, 20208/10
March 17, 2018
Before starting to read these stories you should do some yoga or breathing exercises to slow down and relax, to arrive at the right pace for reading them. Otherwise you run the risk of going over them too fast. Trevor presents his material slowly and details matter here. There is not much going on in these tales, they are very precise psychological portraits in defining situations. Sometimes I was hoping for a bit of excitement but even without it, the stories did not bore me.
November 16, 2019
I started to read William Trevor’s books in the late 1990s and consider him as one of my favorite authors. His fiction and short stories are equally good. I joined GoodReads about 2 months ago and wanted to start to build up my library/books read here, since I do enjoy reading.
I gave this collection of short stories the highest rating I used to give books I read; an A++.
I liked Trevor's quote on inside of front dust wrapper: My fiction may, now and again, illuminate aspects of the human condition, but I do not consciously set out to do so: I am a storyteller.
I read this collection over 20 years ago. Yikes!
I gave this collection of short stories the highest rating I used to give books I read; an A++.
I liked Trevor's quote on inside of front dust wrapper: My fiction may, now and again, illuminate aspects of the human condition, but I do not consciously set out to do so: I am a storyteller.
I read this collection over 20 years ago. Yikes!
October 25, 2021
ისეთი მოთხრობებია, ნებისმიერ ამინდში და ნებისმიერ ადგილას ისეთ შეგრძნებას რომ გიტოვებს, თითქოს წვიმიან საღამოს ბუხართან ზიხარ და ისმენ ჩვეულებრივ ამბებს - სავსეს სევდით, ადამიანური ტკივილებითა და იუმორით...
June 30, 2019
Read: June 2019
The piano tuner’s wives - 4/5 stars
A friendship- 3/5 stars
Timothy’s birthday - 2/5 stars
Child’s play - 3/5 stars
A bit of business - 1/5 stars
After rain - 3/5 stars
Widows - 1/5 stars
Gilbert’s mother - 3/5 stars
The potato dealer - 2/5 stars
Lost ground - 2/5 stars
A day - 4/5 stars
Marrying Damian - 4/5 stars
The piano tuner’s wives - 4/5 stars
A friendship- 3/5 stars
Timothy’s birthday - 2/5 stars
Child’s play - 3/5 stars
A bit of business - 1/5 stars
After rain - 3/5 stars
Widows - 1/5 stars
Gilbert’s mother - 3/5 stars
The potato dealer - 2/5 stars
Lost ground - 2/5 stars
A day - 4/5 stars
Marrying Damian - 4/5 stars
August 9, 2024
Yine bir çok sevdiğim kitap karşısında daha “çok sevdim, çok sevdim” deyip kem küm ağzım açık kalakalma sendromu yaşıyorum.
On iki şahane öyküden oluşuyor Yağmurdan Sonra. Genel olarak William Trevor’un öykücülüğüne dair söyleyebileceğim en bariz şey konuyu kısa kesememesi:) Kimileri için rahatsızlık verebilecek bu durum benim bu sefer hoşuma gitti. Öyküye hizmet etmeyen detaylar var belki bazen ama öykünün gerçekliğini daha artırıyor benim gözümde bu gereksiz detaylar. Hele bir de öyküye değilse de kendi nezdinde bir hoşluğa hizmet ediyorsa. Ne bileyim örneğin bir öyküde bambaşka bir yerden açıyor öyküyü, sonra öykünün üçte ikisinde asıl mevzuya geliyor. Başta anlattığı detayı ayrı, asıl mevzuyu ayrı sevmek kalıyor okura da.
Öykülerde zamanı kullanma biçimi, flashback ve flashforwardlar kullanması nefis. Her bir öykü katman katman açılıyor. Her öyküsü adeta bir festival filmi izlemiş gibi bir tat bırakıyor. Dediğim gibi şöyle sevdim böyle sevdim diye hebeleden öteye geçemiyorum. İlla olacaksa getirebileceğim tek eleştiri anlatacaklarını sözü bir parçacık uzatarak anlatması çünkü genel olarak uzun öyküler yazmış fakat günün sonunda her detaya değiyor. Favori öykü seçemiyorum çünkü heeeepsi çok çok iyiydi.
Detayları anlatmasındaki hüneri, insan ruhunu tüm çıplaklığıyla fakat en sade haliyle yansıtması ve bunu dünyanın en kolay şeyiymiş gibi yapmasına öldüm bittim. Fakat arada derin nefesler alıp artık sadede gelsen mi Trevorcım dedim yalan yok :)) Yine de her öykünün sonunda istinasız her bir satırına değdiğini düşündüm. Çok leziz öyküler. Öykü sevmeyenler için çok keyifli olmayabilir bu öyküler ama öykü sevenlerin ıskalamaması öneririm.
“Benden nefret ediyor, diye düşündü Francesca, ama aynı zamanda bu nefretin kalıcı olmadığını da seziyordu; zamanın silip süpüreceği bir şeydi. Bunu Philip’in de hissettiğini tahmin etti; bir de zamanın geçişi kadar basit, sıradan bir şeyin şu an hissettiği yoğun duyguları yok edebilmesine sinir olduğunu da. Öte yandan, gerçek buydu işte.”
On iki şahane öyküden oluşuyor Yağmurdan Sonra. Genel olarak William Trevor’un öykücülüğüne dair söyleyebileceğim en bariz şey konuyu kısa kesememesi:) Kimileri için rahatsızlık verebilecek bu durum benim bu sefer hoşuma gitti. Öyküye hizmet etmeyen detaylar var belki bazen ama öykünün gerçekliğini daha artırıyor benim gözümde bu gereksiz detaylar. Hele bir de öyküye değilse de kendi nezdinde bir hoşluğa hizmet ediyorsa. Ne bileyim örneğin bir öyküde bambaşka bir yerden açıyor öyküyü, sonra öykünün üçte ikisinde asıl mevzuya geliyor. Başta anlattığı detayı ayrı, asıl mevzuyu ayrı sevmek kalıyor okura da.
Öykülerde zamanı kullanma biçimi, flashback ve flashforwardlar kullanması nefis. Her bir öykü katman katman açılıyor. Her öyküsü adeta bir festival filmi izlemiş gibi bir tat bırakıyor. Dediğim gibi şöyle sevdim böyle sevdim diye hebeleden öteye geçemiyorum. İlla olacaksa getirebileceğim tek eleştiri anlatacaklarını sözü bir parçacık uzatarak anlatması çünkü genel olarak uzun öyküler yazmış fakat günün sonunda her detaya değiyor. Favori öykü seçemiyorum çünkü heeeepsi çok çok iyiydi.
Detayları anlatmasındaki hüneri, insan ruhunu tüm çıplaklığıyla fakat en sade haliyle yansıtması ve bunu dünyanın en kolay şeyiymiş gibi yapmasına öldüm bittim. Fakat arada derin nefesler alıp artık sadede gelsen mi Trevorcım dedim yalan yok :)) Yine de her öykünün sonunda istinasız her bir satırına değdiğini düşündüm. Çok leziz öyküler. Öykü sevmeyenler için çok keyifli olmayabilir bu öyküler ama öykü sevenlerin ıskalamaması öneririm.
“Benden nefret ediyor, diye düşündü Francesca, ama aynı zamanda bu nefretin kalıcı olmadığını da seziyordu; zamanın silip süpüreceği bir şeydi. Bunu Philip’in de hissettiğini tahmin etti; bir de zamanın geçişi kadar basit, sıradan bir şeyin şu an hissettiği yoğun duyguları yok edebilmesine sinir olduğunu da. Öte yandan, gerçek buydu işte.”
July 12, 2019
Demlenmiş bir kitap “yağmurdan sonra”
Nasıl desem.. Olgun bir meyve gibi.Güneşe,suya doymuş; toprağıyla barışık. Her hikayenin ayrı bir ruhu var.
Yazar hakkında yapılan ‘..moleküler biyolog gibidir; çok ekonomik yazar ve yazarken çıplak gözle görülmeyen küçücük manevralarla ilerler.’ yorumu öyle doğru ki..İrlandalı yazar bir haneye girip dip köşe temizliğini yapıyor sanki..Sadece halının altına süpürülenleri değil~ Karakterler hatalar yapıyor,pişman olanlar da var, bunu olağan bulup hatalarına devam edenler de..
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On iki öykü içeriyor Yağmurdan Sonra ve on iki kısa roman diyebileceğimiz kadar doyurucu bunlar..
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Kitaptaki üç öykü ise kolay kolay zihnimden çıkmayacak.
İçlendiğim,içerlediğim ama insan doğasını sansürsüz yansıtmasıyla etkisi altına girdiğim “piyano akortçusunun karıları”, empati kurmayı kendiliğinden başaran “Bir dostluk”, dümdüz bir çizgide ilerleyip,sorular sorduran bir de üstüne şüphe tohumu eken “Dullar”..
.
Sadece William Trevor değil bu kitabı bu kadar lezzetli kılan.
İlki çevirisi.Benim için yeri çok ayrı olan Püren Özgören çalışması.(Bereket Denizi serisini unutmak ne mümkün!) Bir diğeri,kapak tasarımı~Melis Rozental karakterlerin hafifliğini,uçuculuğunu aynadan bakıyormuşçasına yansıtıyor..
Ve son olarak arka kapak yazısı..Yazarı merak ettiğimden almasaydım kitabı,arka kapağı almamı sağlardı..Duru ama merak uyandırıcı..(Kimin yazdığı hakkında bir bilgi yok ne yazık ki) .
Demem o ki ilk kez Türkçe ile buluşan William Trevor öykülerine açın kitaplığınızı~
Nasıl desem.. Olgun bir meyve gibi.Güneşe,suya doymuş; toprağıyla barışık. Her hikayenin ayrı bir ruhu var.
Yazar hakkında yapılan ‘..moleküler biyolog gibidir; çok ekonomik yazar ve yazarken çıplak gözle görülmeyen küçücük manevralarla ilerler.’ yorumu öyle doğru ki..İrlandalı yazar bir haneye girip dip köşe temizliğini yapıyor sanki..Sadece halının altına süpürülenleri değil~ Karakterler hatalar yapıyor,pişman olanlar da var, bunu olağan bulup hatalarına devam edenler de..
.
On iki öykü içeriyor Yağmurdan Sonra ve on iki kısa roman diyebileceğimiz kadar doyurucu bunlar..
.
Kitaptaki üç öykü ise kolay kolay zihnimden çıkmayacak.
İçlendiğim,içerlediğim ama insan doğasını sansürsüz yansıtmasıyla etkisi altına girdiğim “piyano akortçusunun karıları”, empati kurmayı kendiliğinden başaran “Bir dostluk”, dümdüz bir çizgide ilerleyip,sorular sorduran bir de üstüne şüphe tohumu eken “Dullar”..
.
Sadece William Trevor değil bu kitabı bu kadar lezzetli kılan.
İlki çevirisi.Benim için yeri çok ayrı olan Püren Özgören çalışması.(Bereket Denizi serisini unutmak ne mümkün!) Bir diğeri,kapak tasarımı~Melis Rozental karakterlerin hafifliğini,uçuculuğunu aynadan bakıyormuşçasına yansıtıyor..
Ve son olarak arka kapak yazısı..Yazarı merak ettiğimden almasaydım kitabı,arka kapağı almamı sağlardı..Duru ama merak uyandırıcı..(Kimin yazdığı hakkında bir bilgi yok ne yazık ki) .
Demem o ki ilk kez Türkçe ile buluşan William Trevor öykülerine açın kitaplığınızı~
October 28, 2014
My great and well-known short story, "The Rouge," was written in eighth grade (before I learned how to spell "rogue"). At that time, I was under the literary influence of Jim Corbett (Man-Eaters of Kumaon, about crazed tigers killing villagers). Therefore I chose to write my greatest story about a wild elephant (since Corbett had written about tigers, and I did not want to appear to be too derivative), who of course went mad with elephant madness and stamped on villagers. Because the story was so clearly perfect, I never felt the need to write another. My fellow short story writers probably understand this: Why improve on self-evident perfection?
This brings me to William Trevor. How do writers continue to write in the presence of such mastery? As with the work of his peer, Alice Munro, these stories are evidence of a version of second sight, a penetrating gaze that peels away shallow convention to describe our common depths. It is as though by describing lives and houses and laundry and memories, he makes them transparent to us, however opaque they remain in the lived experiences of those who occupy them. I would read Trevor every day and feel it was the equivalent of medicine chosen to induce humility and gratitude. I find this as well in Raymond Carver's work, there is no great or grave secret that is not lived or living in the people on the street or in the subway.
We who would write yet fail will know it: in these short spaces, rough stones are shaped to human forms and delicate truths.
This brings me to William Trevor. How do writers continue to write in the presence of such mastery? As with the work of his peer, Alice Munro, these stories are evidence of a version of second sight, a penetrating gaze that peels away shallow convention to describe our common depths. It is as though by describing lives and houses and laundry and memories, he makes them transparent to us, however opaque they remain in the lived experiences of those who occupy them. I would read Trevor every day and feel it was the equivalent of medicine chosen to induce humility and gratitude. I find this as well in Raymond Carver's work, there is no great or grave secret that is not lived or living in the people on the street or in the subway.
We who would write yet fail will know it: in these short spaces, rough stones are shaped to human forms and delicate truths.
May 18, 2024
William Trevor is a gem. I was glad of the opportunity to read these stories for the current season's challenge. But he is so sad, I was also glad I could intersperse these stories among some other reading.
The opening story, The Piano Tuner's Wives is about a happy marriage and one filled with jealousy. Timothy's Birthday is set in the home of aging parents who look forward to the annual visit of their son on his birthday. The title story begins in the aftermath of a lost love. This story ends on a more optimistic note than any of the others. Widows was my favorite. It opens with Catherine awakening to find her husband Matthew had died peacefully during the night. Quiet, gently spoken, given to thought before offering an opinion, her husband had been regarded by Catherine as cleverer and wiser than she was herself, and more charitable in his view of other people. I had to pause for more than a moment as I recognized my own husband in this description.
There are others I also liked, and only one I could just as well have skipped. It is a fine collection. I'm sure it is worth 5-stars and yet for some reason I can't quite have it climbing over the 4-star line.
The opening story, The Piano Tuner's Wives is about a happy marriage and one filled with jealousy. Timothy's Birthday is set in the home of aging parents who look forward to the annual visit of their son on his birthday. The title story begins in the aftermath of a lost love. This story ends on a more optimistic note than any of the others. Widows was my favorite. It opens with Catherine awakening to find her husband Matthew had died peacefully during the night. Quiet, gently spoken, given to thought before offering an opinion, her husband had been regarded by Catherine as cleverer and wiser than she was herself, and more charitable in his view of other people. I had to pause for more than a moment as I recognized my own husband in this description.
There are others I also liked, and only one I could just as well have skipped. It is a fine collection. I'm sure it is worth 5-stars and yet for some reason I can't quite have it climbing over the 4-star line.
November 12, 2016
Mr Trevor, if you wanted to get me to keep thinking about your characters, long after the story, well, you’ve mostly succeeded. You are rather skillful in fleshing out characters despite your parsimonious writing. Your neat collection of perfectly sized short stories is easily digestible although not always easy to follow. You present ordinary people in a not so ordinary fashion through ordinary events. I do have a complaint though. You sacrifice some of the plot to maintain the mystery and intrigue revolving around some of your characters. It feels like some pages have been ripped out of the book.
Some thoughts.
Thanks Laysee. Interesting read.
Some thoughts.
Thanks Laysee. Interesting read.
December 21, 2020
I always thought I didn't like short stories, but it turned out I had just been reading the wrong ones, you know the ones that are deliberately obscure so that you feel stupid for not really understanding what happened (naming no names but graduates of creative writing degrees notice where my eyes rest).
Trevor has recently supplanted Salman Rushdie in my long held number one spot of favourite writers and his stories are just perfect. They are understated, never over written, giving the reader just enough to empathise with his creations who suffer the torments, disappointments and decisions that affect everyone at some point.
Stand outs for me were 'A Friendship' where a woman is torn between her husband and her best friend, 'Child's Play' a painful read which should make all parents consider the effect their behaviour has on their offspring and 'Lost Ground' that had me in tears and the only story by the Irish writer that references the troubles.
Go out, buy a book of his short stories, enjoy and join my Trevor fan club!
Trevor has recently supplanted Salman Rushdie in my long held number one spot of favourite writers and his stories are just perfect. They are understated, never over written, giving the reader just enough to empathise with his creations who suffer the torments, disappointments and decisions that affect everyone at some point.
Stand outs for me were 'A Friendship' where a woman is torn between her husband and her best friend, 'Child's Play' a painful read which should make all parents consider the effect their behaviour has on their offspring and 'Lost Ground' that had me in tears and the only story by the Irish writer that references the troubles.
Go out, buy a book of his short stories, enjoy and join my Trevor fan club!
May 16, 2018
4 sao.
Hồi trước đọc truyện của Raymond Carver đã thấy buồn rồi, giờ đọc William Trevor còn buồn hơn nữa. Các câu chuyện của ông đều có cốt truyện rõ ràng, sáng sủa, không thách đố người đọc, giọng kể từ tốn chậm rãi, cùng bối cảnh miền quê thanh bình yên ả tạo cảm giác thân thuộc khi đọc. Nhưng những cảnh đời trong đó lại quá bế tắc, khổ sở, và cách ông kết thúc truyện lửng lơ có thể là một sự tàn nhẫn khi ông không tìm ra lối thoát cho nhân vật của mình, hay cũng có thể là lòng nhân đạo khi không cho hiển hiện rõ ra những câu trả lời, những kết cục mà rốt cuộc câu chuyện cũng đưa đến.
Hồi trước đọc truyện của Raymond Carver đã thấy buồn rồi, giờ đọc William Trevor còn buồn hơn nữa. Các câu chuyện của ông đều có cốt truyện rõ ràng, sáng sủa, không thách đố người đọc, giọng kể từ tốn chậm rãi, cùng bối cảnh miền quê thanh bình yên ả tạo cảm giác thân thuộc khi đọc. Nhưng những cảnh đời trong đó lại quá bế tắc, khổ sở, và cách ông kết thúc truyện lửng lơ có thể là một sự tàn nhẫn khi ông không tìm ra lối thoát cho nhân vật của mình, hay cũng có thể là lòng nhân đạo khi không cho hiển hiện rõ ra những câu trả lời, những kết cục mà rốt cuộc câu chuyện cũng đưa đến.
June 28, 2024
William Trevor İrlanda edebiyatının en iyi yazarlarından kabul ediliyor. Söyleşilerde edebiyatçılar ismini sıkça anıyor ve anlatım diliyle kendilerine ilham verdiğini söylüyorlar. Yağmurdan Sonra isimli kitapta yer alan on iki hikayesini okuduktan sonra Trevor'ın neden sevildiğini anladım. Öyküleriyle roman etkisi yaratan yazarlardan bence. Karakterleri ve kurguyu o kadar güzel işlemiş ki okuduğum insanlar ve olaylar sanki haklarında yüzlerce sayfa yazılmış gibi yer etti aklımda. Ülkesiyle ilgili sosyal, siyasal ayrıntıları ve sorunları incelikle yerleştirmiş metinlere.
Yorumlarda Yitirilen Toprak öyküsü öne çıkıyor. Gerçekten etkileyici bir hikaye. İrlanda'da bir dönem büyük kayıplara yol açan (şimdi durum nedir bilmiyorum) Katolik - Protestan çatışmasını Protestan bir ailenin ortanca oğlu üzerinden anlatan metin, kanlı sahneler betimlemeden şiddetin etkisinin nasıl verilebileceğini gösteriyor bizlere.
İyi öykü yazarlığı benim gözümde ustalık belirtisi. Bu açıdan William Trevor tüm kitaplarını okumak istediğim yazarlar arasında yerini aldı. Dilimizde ayrıca Ask ve Yaz, Son Öyküler ve Felicia'nın Yolculuğu isimli kitapları yayımlanmış. Keşke Penguin Books tarafından yayımlanan The Collected Stories çevrilse.
Mükemmel öyküleri usta işi çevirisiyle dilimize kazandıran Püren Özgüren'in, editör Serra Çifkurt'un, düzeltiyi yapan Dilman Muradoğlu'nun, kapak tasarımı ve illüstrasyon için Melis Rozental'ın, kitap tasarımı için Mehmet Ulusel'in emeklerine sağlık.
Yorumlarda Yitirilen Toprak öyküsü öne çıkıyor. Gerçekten etkileyici bir hikaye. İrlanda'da bir dönem büyük kayıplara yol açan (şimdi durum nedir bilmiyorum) Katolik - Protestan çatışmasını Protestan bir ailenin ortanca oğlu üzerinden anlatan metin, kanlı sahneler betimlemeden şiddetin etkisinin nasıl verilebileceğini gösteriyor bizlere.
İyi öykü yazarlığı benim gözümde ustalık belirtisi. Bu açıdan William Trevor tüm kitaplarını okumak istediğim yazarlar arasında yerini aldı. Dilimizde ayrıca Ask ve Yaz, Son Öyküler ve Felicia'nın Yolculuğu isimli kitapları yayımlanmış. Keşke Penguin Books tarafından yayımlanan The Collected Stories çevrilse.
Mükemmel öyküleri usta işi çevirisiyle dilimize kazandıran Püren Özgüren'in, editör Serra Çifkurt'un, düzeltiyi yapan Dilman Muradoğlu'nun, kapak tasarımı ve illüstrasyon için Melis Rozental'ın, kitap tasarımı için Mehmet Ulusel'in emeklerine sağlık.
December 12, 2021
William Trevor is an eminently competent and skilled writer who has the knack of drawing the reader in with his calm and confident cadence. This collection of stories is populated for the most part with sad and disappointed individuals. There is humour of a slippery, grating kind. Really I find little comfort here. But WT seems always on the verge of revealing a delicious secret and I suppose I will seek him out again to see if I can discern it.
Let the wind blow away the mixture of triviality and death. p201
May 6, 2018
Nên nghĩ về Trevor như một phiên bản thô ráp của Munro, những nốt sần khiến tôi bải hoải rất lâu sau khi dấu chấm đã được đặt, trang sách đã được lật qua.
March 6, 2020
''Dünyanın en iyi öykü yazarlarından biri kabul edilen William Trevor...'' gibi iddialı bir arka kapak yazısını görünce beklentimi en düşük seviyiye çektim. Hepimizin başına gelmiştir çünkü; övgülere boğulan, ödüllerle donatılan kitaplar genelde damağımızda nahoş bir tad bırakır. Temkinli başladım o yüzden ve iyi ki de öyle yapmışım. Satırlarda ilerledikçe nasıl güçlü bir kalemin dünyasına girdiğimi anlamak inanılmaz etkiledi beni. Kuruntulu, hayal kırıklıklarıyla dolu yine de belli belirsiz iyimserliklerini yazarın güçlü kelimeleriyle hissettiğimiz karakterler öykülerin başlıca karakterleri. İnsanları anlatma tarzındaki açık ve süslemelere kaçmadan yaptığı tanımlamalar karakterleri, kişilik özellikleri ne olursa olsun anlayıp sevmemize, benimsememize yardımcı oluyor. Ulaşılması kolay köprüler inşa edilebiliyor okurken. Ve bunu okuyucuya yaptırabilen yazar gerçekten de övgüleri hak ediyor. Püren Özgören'in incelikli ve tertemiz çevirisi kitabı okuma zevkimizi üst seviyeye çıkarıyor.
Onur Çalı The Paris Review dergisinde Mira Stout 'un yazarla yaptığı söyleşinin bir kısmını çevirmiş. Söyleşiyi okurken yazara sempati duymak garanti :)
https://parsomenfanzin.com/2019/06/25...
Kitap hakkında Emek Erez'in güzel bir yazısı var. Okumak isteyenler için linki buraya koyuyorum:
https://www.gazeteduvar.com.tr/kitap/...
Onur Çalı The Paris Review dergisinde Mira Stout 'un yazarla yaptığı söyleşinin bir kısmını çevirmiş. Söyleşiyi okurken yazara sempati duymak garanti :)
https://parsomenfanzin.com/2019/06/25...
Kitap hakkında Emek Erez'in güzel bir yazısı var. Okumak isteyenler için linki buraya koyuyorum:
https://www.gazeteduvar.com.tr/kitap/...
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