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The Littlest Hitler
Bette wore what I had come to secretly call her Star Trek uniform, a hideous white suit jacket with too-pointy collars. From her face hung a beard of bees. Everyone's seen these things on TV or in National Geographic. Some farmer standing shirtless in his field, a stalactite of writhing insects dangling from his grinning face. But on Bette, though. Our account manager for digital media. I wasn't even aware she raised bees.
Welcome to the world of Ryan Boudinot, where a little boy who innocently dresses up as Hitler for Halloween suffers the consequences ("The Littlest Hitler"); a world where a typical office romance is destroyed by the female half's habit of coming to work covered in live bees ("Bee Beard"); where jacked-up salesmen go on murderous, Burgess-like rampages ("The Sales Team"); and the children of the future are required to kill off their parents--preferably with an ice pick--in order to be accepted to the college of their choice ("Civilization"). You may never want to leave. In each of these fearless, hilarious, and tightly crafted stories, Boudinot's voice rings with a clarity rarely seen in a debut collection. He speaks to a generation that has tried to seem disaffected but can't help wishing for a better world. His characters shake their heads over the same messes they're busily creating, or lash out angrily at a sex-and-violence-saturated culture. But they can never entirely lose their sense of fun, however perverse it may be.
Welcome to the world of Ryan Boudinot, where a little boy who innocently dresses up as Hitler for Halloween suffers the consequences ("The Littlest Hitler"); a world where a typical office romance is destroyed by the female half's habit of coming to work covered in live bees ("Bee Beard"); where jacked-up salesmen go on murderous, Burgess-like rampages ("The Sales Team"); and the children of the future are required to kill off their parents--preferably with an ice pick--in order to be accepted to the college of their choice ("Civilization"). You may never want to leave. In each of these fearless, hilarious, and tightly crafted stories, Boudinot's voice rings with a clarity rarely seen in a debut collection. He speaks to a generation that has tried to seem disaffected but can't help wishing for a better world. His characters shake their heads over the same messes they're busily creating, or lash out angrily at a sex-and-violence-saturated culture. But they can never entirely lose their sense of fun, however perverse it may be.
224 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2006
About the author
Ryan Boudinot
17 books142 followersRyan Boudinot is the author of the novels Blueprints of the Afterlife and Misconception, and the story collections The Octopus Rises and The Littlest Hitler.
Ryan received his Master of Fine Arts degree in Creative Writing from Bennington College. He also holds a BA from The Evergreen State College. Born in the US Virgin Islands, he grew up in Skagit Valley, in Washington State, and now lives in Seattle.
Ryan received his Master of Fine Arts degree in Creative Writing from Bennington College. He also holds a BA from The Evergreen State College. Born in the US Virgin Islands, he grew up in Skagit Valley, in Washington State, and now lives in Seattle.
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February 6, 2012
René Magritte and David Lynch. These are two signifiers that point towards a general, sometimes hazily defined aesthetic that I absolutely adore and consequently happen to run into every once and a while. When I find something that gives me that feeling I frequently rely heavily on these names in order to at least start making the ineffable effable—to steady my explanatory fumbling with well-anchored metaphors and ubiquitous cultural touchstones. An attempt to relay my reactions to this book beyond a bunch of variations of "I loved it! It was weird!" is one such occasion in which I'll initiate this (heretofore narrated) alignment of my thoughts by diagonally intersecting them at Magritte St. and Lynch Ln.
This book exudes My Kind of Surrealism. It's the kind of stuff that's rooted just enough in the real world for its strikingly unreal elements to really pack a wallop in a way that feels paradoxically subtle and monumental all at once. Think about some of the less overtly fucked up elements of a David Lynch film. Cross the dream sequences from Twin Peaks off of your list and replace them with some of the unnatural dialogue instead. Shoo the "Club Silencio" scene in Mulholland Drive from your mind and replace it with the scene in which Naomi Watts is first auditioning for an acting role. Et cetera, et cetera.
Now think of the differences between the paintings of Salvador Dalí and those of the (superior, in my opinion) Belgian brush-wielder René Magritte. E.g.:
Salvador Dalí, Temptation of Anthony, (1946)
René Magritte, La Reproduction Interdite, (1937)
Salvador Dalí, Dream Caused by the Flight of a Bee around a Pomegranate a Second Before Awakening, (1944)
René Magritte, La Durée poignardée (Time Transfixed), (1938)
This book is more Magritte than Dalí. More restrained Lynchian oddness than, say, the non-stop over-the-top surrealistic bludgeoning of a flick like Holy Mountain or the earliest reels of Luis Buñuel (namely something like Un Chien Andalou ).
The power of this preferable kind of surrealism lies in the juxtapositions of the ordinary and the extraordinary. Or, to reiterate a favorite phrase (the origins of which are apparently unclear), "to make the strange appear familiar, and to make the familiar appear strange." The Littlest Hitler has this quality in spades.
Another analogy I’m thinking of as a useful explanatory heuristic—to further illustrate what I meant by "paradoxically subtle and monumental all at once"—is the causal relationship between the microscopic level of genes and the macroscopic level of organisms like human beings. A small change on one level is a big change on another, yet each so strongly correlates with one another that in some heady, confusing way they’re one and the same. Ok. So the book...
It’s a bit difficult knowing how to go about reviewing this book. On one hand I’d love to share specifics but on the other I feel like all of the notable details I’d want to share would be spoilers in the worst sense. Most of these stories involve at least one moment in which something extremely unusual juts out through the narrative (which was humming along pleasantly and/or normally enough) only to be looked over in an oblivious or matter-of-fact way by the narrative voice and/or the characters, all of which strongly recalls the awkward, nervous-laughter-inducing way that the characters often interact with each other in Lynch's films—carrying on, indifferent to the most bizarre of elephants grazing in the room.
The prose that constructs these perfectly hilarious, disturbing and even sincerely moving tales is a well-measured mix of strange and familiar styles as well as content. It often feels rather direct and matter of fact, while at the same time maintains a wonderful sense of linguistic playfulness, a willingness to conjure up a unique splicing of descriptions, from something as subtle as an eye-catching word here and there to the melding of certain sensations and happenings that never would’ve crossed your mind but luckily crossed the author’s.
This is also thoroughly contemporary writing that makes unselfconscious reference to more modern products and slang and even a dash of actual Instant Messaging, which all feels completely organic and to emphasize this again, unselfconscious. While reading and making mental notes, one quote from a David Foster Wallace interview kept coming to mind when thinking about the book on a purely stylistic level:
"I've always thought of myself as a realist. I can remember fighting with my professors about it in grad school. The world that I live in consists of 250 advertisements a day and any number of unbelievably entertaining options, most of which are subsidized by corporations that want to sell me things. The whole way that the world acts on my nerve endings is bound up with stuff that the guys with leather patches on their elbows would consider pop or trivial or ephemeral. I use a fair amount of pop stuff in my fiction, but what I mean by it is nothing different than what other people mean in writing about trees and parks and having to walk to the river to get water a 100 years ago. It's just the texture of the world I live in."
So I’m not going to divulge anything terribly specific but here’s a rundown of a few stories, with a self-imposed limit of one descriptive sentence each. There’s a story about what happens when a young boy dresses as Hitler for his grade school Halloween Party (without coordinating this decision with someone who may’ve planned to don an Anne Frank costume). There’s a story about what happens when people bring their pets to the workplace (and their pets are bees that cling to their owner’s face). A story in which the matriarch of a family has a rather unorthodox definition of what constitutes a "fancy" meal prepared once a week to break up the monotony of Hot Pockets and Hamburger Helper. Sometimes a third-shift in a frozen pea factory is more than it seems. What would Bring Your Father To School Day be like for a father like Ted Bundy? There’s one standout called "Civilization" which severely turns the concepts of the draft and of killing for God and Country on their asses. One in which the lines between computer code and poetry are called into question, plus there’s drugs and cancer. A confessional from a flautist who loses his girlfriend to a Storm of Horses. A shocking tale which consciously bounces ideas off of the film Glenngary, Glen Ross but also integrates binging and purging in a McDonald’s play area and a home invasion akin to A Clockwork Orange. And the final one is another wonderful portrait of grade school youth, plus nerds, plus suicide.
This is a fabulously entertaining book. Just read it already.
This book exudes My Kind of Surrealism. It's the kind of stuff that's rooted just enough in the real world for its strikingly unreal elements to really pack a wallop in a way that feels paradoxically subtle and monumental all at once. Think about some of the less overtly fucked up elements of a David Lynch film. Cross the dream sequences from Twin Peaks off of your list and replace them with some of the unnatural dialogue instead. Shoo the "Club Silencio" scene in Mulholland Drive from your mind and replace it with the scene in which Naomi Watts is first auditioning for an acting role. Et cetera, et cetera.
Now think of the differences between the paintings of Salvador Dalí and those of the (superior, in my opinion) Belgian brush-wielder René Magritte. E.g.:
Salvador Dalí, Temptation of Anthony, (1946)
René Magritte, La Reproduction Interdite, (1937)
Salvador Dalí, Dream Caused by the Flight of a Bee around a Pomegranate a Second Before Awakening, (1944)
René Magritte, La Durée poignardée (Time Transfixed), (1938)
This book is more Magritte than Dalí. More restrained Lynchian oddness than, say, the non-stop over-the-top surrealistic bludgeoning of a flick like Holy Mountain or the earliest reels of Luis Buñuel (namely something like Un Chien Andalou ).
The power of this preferable kind of surrealism lies in the juxtapositions of the ordinary and the extraordinary. Or, to reiterate a favorite phrase (the origins of which are apparently unclear), "to make the strange appear familiar, and to make the familiar appear strange." The Littlest Hitler has this quality in spades.
Another analogy I’m thinking of as a useful explanatory heuristic—to further illustrate what I meant by "paradoxically subtle and monumental all at once"—is the causal relationship between the microscopic level of genes and the macroscopic level of organisms like human beings. A small change on one level is a big change on another, yet each so strongly correlates with one another that in some heady, confusing way they’re one and the same. Ok. So the book...
It’s a bit difficult knowing how to go about reviewing this book. On one hand I’d love to share specifics but on the other I feel like all of the notable details I’d want to share would be spoilers in the worst sense. Most of these stories involve at least one moment in which something extremely unusual juts out through the narrative (which was humming along pleasantly and/or normally enough) only to be looked over in an oblivious or matter-of-fact way by the narrative voice and/or the characters, all of which strongly recalls the awkward, nervous-laughter-inducing way that the characters often interact with each other in Lynch's films—carrying on, indifferent to the most bizarre of elephants grazing in the room.
The prose that constructs these perfectly hilarious, disturbing and even sincerely moving tales is a well-measured mix of strange and familiar styles as well as content. It often feels rather direct and matter of fact, while at the same time maintains a wonderful sense of linguistic playfulness, a willingness to conjure up a unique splicing of descriptions, from something as subtle as an eye-catching word here and there to the melding of certain sensations and happenings that never would’ve crossed your mind but luckily crossed the author’s.
This is also thoroughly contemporary writing that makes unselfconscious reference to more modern products and slang and even a dash of actual Instant Messaging, which all feels completely organic and to emphasize this again, unselfconscious. While reading and making mental notes, one quote from a David Foster Wallace interview kept coming to mind when thinking about the book on a purely stylistic level:
"I've always thought of myself as a realist. I can remember fighting with my professors about it in grad school. The world that I live in consists of 250 advertisements a day and any number of unbelievably entertaining options, most of which are subsidized by corporations that want to sell me things. The whole way that the world acts on my nerve endings is bound up with stuff that the guys with leather patches on their elbows would consider pop or trivial or ephemeral. I use a fair amount of pop stuff in my fiction, but what I mean by it is nothing different than what other people mean in writing about trees and parks and having to walk to the river to get water a 100 years ago. It's just the texture of the world I live in."
So I’m not going to divulge anything terribly specific but here’s a rundown of a few stories, with a self-imposed limit of one descriptive sentence each. There’s a story about what happens when a young boy dresses as Hitler for his grade school Halloween Party (without coordinating this decision with someone who may’ve planned to don an Anne Frank costume). There’s a story about what happens when people bring their pets to the workplace (and their pets are bees that cling to their owner’s face). A story in which the matriarch of a family has a rather unorthodox definition of what constitutes a "fancy" meal prepared once a week to break up the monotony of Hot Pockets and Hamburger Helper. Sometimes a third-shift in a frozen pea factory is more than it seems. What would Bring Your Father To School Day be like for a father like Ted Bundy? There’s one standout called "Civilization" which severely turns the concepts of the draft and of killing for God and Country on their asses. One in which the lines between computer code and poetry are called into question, plus there’s drugs and cancer. A confessional from a flautist who loses his girlfriend to a Storm of Horses. A shocking tale which consciously bounces ideas off of the film Glenngary, Glen Ross but also integrates binging and purging in a McDonald’s play area and a home invasion akin to A Clockwork Orange. And the final one is another wonderful portrait of grade school youth, plus nerds, plus suicide.
This is a fabulously entertaining book. Just read it already.
January 5, 2009
this collection is just "off" enough to appeal to me. its a good balance of creepy and gentle, with some humor infusing both. i tend not to read short stories, so for me to have liked all but one ("written by machines"), well it means this book can stay on table.
October 19, 2007
A fun collection of short stories, in the same vein as George Saunders or a less verbose David Foster Wallace. The surreal quality thrown into these stories that mainly deal with everyday life in modern society works incredibly well. Where the idea of child being drafted to kill his parents for the protection of American Democracy would seem an unbelievable premise, but in his hands it seems as natural and banal as anything that occurs in our own everyday lives. Overall a funny criticism of our own post-9/11 and dot com society.
February 9, 2012
For certain restless minds, the treadmill of realism may get a little tedious. Ryan Boudinot is one possible remedy. The Littlest Hitler features stories that mix humor, biting social commentary, and surrealism in varying amounts, all to good effect. While I can’t wax profound like Joshua did in his review, I can tell you that the more absurd elements have a point to them. In one example, a woman produced a new weapon in the face of office politics (and sexual politics, too) when she came to work with a beard made of bees. One of the most appealing things about these surreal stories is how casual his tone is when he tells them. It’s emphasis through understatement. The absurdities were not shouted. There was no laugh track. They were simply offered up in a straight-faced, unimpassioned way as part of an otherwise standard narrative.
Not all his stories embraced the bizarre. In fact, the first one might have been taken from the David Sedaris playbook: conventional observational humor (though, to my mind, Boudinot’s was hipper and funnier). Another one I enjoyed -- one about the dynamic between two couples who came to realize they’d grown apart -- kept mostly within the real world, too. To be honest, the surreal stories, for me, were more hit or miss.
Even though the intended targets of his extrapolations were usually clear, I didn’t always view his absurdities as responses to anywhere we’re actually heading. For instance, what social ill would be addressed by having 18-year-olds ? Maybe that was more for the shock value itself. Same goes for the matter-of-fact way that a mom would alter the usual dinner menu with a once-a-week special night of . At times like those, I was reminded of the highly experimental skits on SNL that they’d show at the end of the program. I guess outré is not always a means to the end. Sometimes it’s an end in itself. (As counterpoint, one that did strike me as on message featured Glengarry Glen Ross acolytes behaving badly, where the rape-and-pillage Viking ethos that they took door-to-door was just kind of accepted as the nature of the beast.)
I’m a lot less ambivalent about the writing. It was crisp, cool, and seemingly effortless. He was good at that style that mixes the sagacious with the scurrilous for taste sensations that the most inventive chefs can make work. Don’t you envy people who can sound smart without the obvious signs of trying too hard? I suppose for Boudinot, it’s simply a matter of good word choices – ones he’s confident will connect with his audience. When I think about it, his audience must be mostly young, clever readers from the slightly out there wing of the party. Then I wonder how it is I have any right to like this.
Not all his stories embraced the bizarre. In fact, the first one might have been taken from the David Sedaris playbook: conventional observational humor (though, to my mind, Boudinot’s was hipper and funnier). Another one I enjoyed -- one about the dynamic between two couples who came to realize they’d grown apart -- kept mostly within the real world, too. To be honest, the surreal stories, for me, were more hit or miss.
Even though the intended targets of his extrapolations were usually clear, I didn’t always view his absurdities as responses to anywhere we’re actually heading. For instance, what social ill would be addressed by having 18-year-olds ? Maybe that was more for the shock value itself. Same goes for the matter-of-fact way that a mom would alter the usual dinner menu with a once-a-week special night of . At times like those, I was reminded of the highly experimental skits on SNL that they’d show at the end of the program. I guess outré is not always a means to the end. Sometimes it’s an end in itself. (As counterpoint, one that did strike me as on message featured Glengarry Glen Ross acolytes behaving badly, where the rape-and-pillage Viking ethos that they took door-to-door was just kind of accepted as the nature of the beast.)
I’m a lot less ambivalent about the writing. It was crisp, cool, and seemingly effortless. He was good at that style that mixes the sagacious with the scurrilous for taste sensations that the most inventive chefs can make work. Don’t you envy people who can sound smart without the obvious signs of trying too hard? I suppose for Boudinot, it’s simply a matter of good word choices – ones he’s confident will connect with his audience. When I think about it, his audience must be mostly young, clever readers from the slightly out there wing of the party. Then I wonder how it is I have any right to like this.
April 3, 2020
I love to read something once in while that seems to have that halo glow of under-appreciation as it sits on the shelf. This book is one of them. First, that cover! One of my favorites. It looks like a Halloween costume box... with a Hitler mask. The end-papers even emulate the cardboard box back that the back-cover has. It's a piece of art, in design. And the writing! Fun, dark, but with a hint of whimsy short stories that would fit right on the shelf of writers with Kelly Link, George Saunders, Sharma Shields, Lydia Millet, Julia Elliott, Karen Russell, Helen Oyeyemi, Kevin Wilson... I'm sure I'm not recalling MANY of these sorts of writers at the moment, or haven't delved in to them yet. But I love these sorts of stories. Hilarious but terrifying, like terrorists in clown costumes on Halloween (don't worry, that one is only two pages long.) I would have liked more back-story detail with some of these stories, like 'Civilization'. But I noticed my favorite stories in this collection are usually the stories with kids because he writes them really well and nostalgically, so my favorites: The Littlest Hitler, So Little Time, Blood Relatives, and Newholly are the top four, but I love most of these stories. I bet Mr. Boudinot really loved Jean Shepherd's Christmas Story. Please write more!
October 19, 2007
I did read "The Littlest Hitler" in an anthology, and I can't wait to read the rest of this collection!
***
I started reading the rest of the stories this morning, and I loved the story "Bee Beard." I'm on a constant search for good literature about the world of work, specifically the cubicle-inhabiting, mouse-clicking kind of work that so many of us spend the bulk of our lives doing. "Bee Beard" was a good example. Plus, I am afraid of bees, so the whole story was very freaky.
***
Finished this up today, and I was genuinely impressed with this collection. The only low point for me was the short-short "Absolut Boudinot." It wasn't funny/scathing enough to justify its inclusion. I felt that maybe the publisher was pushing the author to include a certain number of pieces, so he just threw that in.
Other than that brief disappointment, I loved this collection so much that I'm upgrading my rating to 5 stars! The narrative voices were varied; each story felt distinct from the others. Some of them had a little po-mo gimmickry, which I enjoy.
***
I started reading the rest of the stories this morning, and I loved the story "Bee Beard." I'm on a constant search for good literature about the world of work, specifically the cubicle-inhabiting, mouse-clicking kind of work that so many of us spend the bulk of our lives doing. "Bee Beard" was a good example. Plus, I am afraid of bees, so the whole story was very freaky.
***
Finished this up today, and I was genuinely impressed with this collection. The only low point for me was the short-short "Absolut Boudinot." It wasn't funny/scathing enough to justify its inclusion. I felt that maybe the publisher was pushing the author to include a certain number of pieces, so he just threw that in.
Other than that brief disappointment, I loved this collection so much that I'm upgrading my rating to 5 stars! The narrative voices were varied; each story felt distinct from the others. Some of them had a little po-mo gimmickry, which I enjoy.
December 23, 2018
The Littlest Hitler is almost a collection of bloated flash fiction. The entries are often breathtakingly brief, truncated, almost incomplete. Yet, the work as a whole has a consistent thematic message and leaves a profound, disturbing feeling in its wake. These slivered bits of shorts are so vivid that they linger in the subconscious, haunting daydreams days after you have read them.
The collection contains an array of commentaries on America and modern life, often juxtaposing the banal with the profound, seemingly to jar visceral reactions from the sleep-walking soul of the reader.
For all of that, the stories here are not all equally evocative, and they don't work equally well. The extremely truncated, undercooked nature of these tales often leaves a reader feeling a tad cheated. Surely, Boudinot could have given us more, one thinks—expanded 10 pages into 16 to round out the commentary and give us a little more plot. And yet, the lingering impressions remain.
I don't think The Littlest Hitler is great literature exactly, but I do think that it more or less achieves exactly what its author intended for it to be, and that is certainly a worthy accomplishment, and a worthy literary contribution. I would be happy to recommend this work to people, and I think that most people reading it would be moved and would glean something of lasting meaning from the experience.
The collection contains an array of commentaries on America and modern life, often juxtaposing the banal with the profound, seemingly to jar visceral reactions from the sleep-walking soul of the reader.
For all of that, the stories here are not all equally evocative, and they don't work equally well. The extremely truncated, undercooked nature of these tales often leaves a reader feeling a tad cheated. Surely, Boudinot could have given us more, one thinks—expanded 10 pages into 16 to round out the commentary and give us a little more plot. And yet, the lingering impressions remain.
I don't think The Littlest Hitler is great literature exactly, but I do think that it more or less achieves exactly what its author intended for it to be, and that is certainly a worthy accomplishment, and a worthy literary contribution. I would be happy to recommend this work to people, and I think that most people reading it would be moved and would glean something of lasting meaning from the experience.
May 20, 2009
I have decided the difference between 4 and 5 stars is actually my mood. I am in a four star mood currently but I have decided to give this book five stars anyway because it is in no way Ryan's fault.
I was shocked that Karen recommended this book to me because of an innate assumption that we have completely different taste, but this book is exactly the kind of thing that I like. I mean the book is horrifically morbid, but in a fun way. The author seems a bit creepily obsessed with horrible things happening, it must be Seattle.
The stories are fun and read quickly, but they still leave you with something, which I find most short stories have trouble doing, being that they are forgotten as fast as they are read.
This book is fun. Read it... now.
I was shocked that Karen recommended this book to me because of an innate assumption that we have completely different taste, but this book is exactly the kind of thing that I like. I mean the book is horrifically morbid, but in a fun way. The author seems a bit creepily obsessed with horrible things happening, it must be Seattle.
The stories are fun and read quickly, but they still leave you with something, which I find most short stories have trouble doing, being that they are forgotten as fast as they are read.
This book is fun. Read it... now.
May 15, 2007
Boudinot can definitely write and he's often funny ... but this short story collection just doesn't work nearly as well as it should. He overdoes the absurd and shock endings and can't just let a story stand on its own. Something always has to happen or be revealed in the end. And the absurdity often feels more like weirdness for the sake of weirdness a lot of the time. But its a written with verve, style, and a great eye for the oddities in the everyday.
December 22, 2009
These stories rely way too much on gimmick and absurdity. There isn't much depth to be spoken of.
I was intrigued by the Dave Eggers blurb on the back cover comparing Boudinot to Barthelme and Vonnegut, and I was sorely disappointed. The stories were nowhere near as sharply written as Barthelme and had none of the human pathos of
Vonnegut. There are some very clever moments, to be sure, but cleverness shouldn't be considered enough for short stories.
I was intrigued by the Dave Eggers blurb on the back cover comparing Boudinot to Barthelme and Vonnegut, and I was sorely disappointed. The stories were nowhere near as sharply written as Barthelme and had none of the human pathos of
Vonnegut. There are some very clever moments, to be sure, but cleverness shouldn't be considered enough for short stories.
June 9, 2010
Couldn't finish. The writing is too antiseptic for the themes.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jl6yP5...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jl6yP5...
April 29, 2015
This is hilarious stuff. "Written by Machines" is a snarky but just slightly affectionate swipe at the first dot com bubble. Automatic poetry. James Tate. Witkin prints.
Read
October 20, 2016Some feel these stories are absurd and gimmicky. If the gimmick ends in itself and doesn't lead readers to further insights or explorations. Then they are pointless jokes, mere entertainment. (Still super funny)
But these short stories are alot more than that. For example, in The Littlest Hitler, you can tell something important is missing in Davy's life, his mother. And both the father/son are trying their best to live as a normal life as they can with their impaired social skills, or the lack of a mother and wife's wisdom in a home. Because of this, there is always a sadness in their lives even in the funniest situations they created for themselves.
These stories are more than funny jokes, they are a mirror to the psych of a 3rd grader.
But these short stories are alot more than that. For example, in The Littlest Hitler, you can tell something important is missing in Davy's life, his mother. And both the father/son are trying their best to live as a normal life as they can with their impaired social skills, or the lack of a mother and wife's wisdom in a home. Because of this, there is always a sadness in their lives even in the funniest situations they created for themselves.
These stories are more than funny jokes, they are a mirror to the psych of a 3rd grader.
June 8, 2018
Every once in a while, a book is written when there's no need for it. This was one of them. The sad thing about this particular book is that it's a book of short stories. Some of the stories were mediocre at best. The others, well, they weren't entertaining. They weren't enlightening. They weren't even boring in the way that would put me to sleep. But I kept reading on, hoping the next story would be better. It wasn't.
September 24, 2019
At times these stories can come across as a bit too precocious, but they're not. There is an ill-formed thread of reality grounding them but not one so overbearing as to keep them down. While lighthearted on the surface, many of them are discomforting. The author, Ryan Boudinot is to be commended at balancing such disparate ideas and themes and attitudes and somehow making them into entertaining short stories.
Read
December 31, 2021A book that had me turning to the card catalog immediately upon finishing in search of other books by Boudinot. Most of the stories feel like they were inspired by his dreams. The stories would not make much sense in the real world; they have the logic of dreams, which dissipates on waking. For example, wouldn’t it make perfect sense in a dream that a coworker come to the office in a bee beard, yet on waking you realize how improbable that is?
November 1, 2022
I’m not huge into short stories, but I was very into this book. There were probably only 2 or 3 out of 13 that I didn’t care for. I found myself enthralled by the stories, and constantly surprised at how quickly I could transport into the different worlds within them in such a short amount of time. Some of them were so strange, otherworldly, yet written in a way that made their alternate realities feel real for as long as the story lasted. I was impressed.
January 1, 2018
I was intrigued by the title, cover art, and description on the jacket, but wasn’t expecting much from this collection of short stories. I was pleasantly surprised to enjoy it quite a bit. The author does a good job making the everyday and the nostalgic surreal and dark, but somehow still fun in spirit. A little bit of The Wonder Years meets The Twilight Zone.
January 16, 2019
The characters range from the cozily familiar (pre-adolescent Doctor Who fans) to the bizarre (a bee-bearded lady), as do the situations. I loved how the stories kept me off balance, as I'd think I knew the world Boudinot was writing about but some event or detail would appear and upset my perspective.
July 14, 2020
This collection of short stories was just creepy enough without being too much for my sensitive brain. I enjoyed the contrast between some of the ridiculous content and the author's extremely matter of fact, pragmatic tone.
January 2, 2022
I read this for school. It wasn’t bad, it’s just not my choice of genre.
December 17, 2007
I first came across Ryan Boudinot from the titular story of this collection, which was the opening story from the 'Best American Non-Required Reading' in 2003. It's a wonderful little story about a child who dresses up as Hitler for Halloween because he wanted to go as something really scary, not fully comprehending the repercussions of such a decision.
That story, while great, didn't really prepare me for the strange world of Ryan Boudinot. In my opinion, he is at his best when he's writing real, true-to-life stories with his deft compassion, and this collection contains more than a few of those such stories. But it also contains many stories of a bizarre, surreal nature that are quite good in their own right. If you'd told me what some of these stories were about, I would have thought I'd not have enjoyed it. However, Boudinot has a very inviting writing style and keeps the stories feeling real even when they inhabit worlds very different from our own. The best way I can describe it is that some of the stories seem to take place in real-life and could be about your friends and neighbors, until some strange, bizarre twist occurs, but everyone in the story goes on as if it is the most natural thing in the world.
They're each weird and wonderful in their own way, and I can't recommend this book highly enough. I can't wait until Boudinot completes his first novel, which he is reportedly working on.
That story, while great, didn't really prepare me for the strange world of Ryan Boudinot. In my opinion, he is at his best when he's writing real, true-to-life stories with his deft compassion, and this collection contains more than a few of those such stories. But it also contains many stories of a bizarre, surreal nature that are quite good in their own right. If you'd told me what some of these stories were about, I would have thought I'd not have enjoyed it. However, Boudinot has a very inviting writing style and keeps the stories feeling real even when they inhabit worlds very different from our own. The best way I can describe it is that some of the stories seem to take place in real-life and could be about your friends and neighbors, until some strange, bizarre twist occurs, but everyone in the story goes on as if it is the most natural thing in the world.
They're each weird and wonderful in their own way, and I can't recommend this book highly enough. I can't wait until Boudinot completes his first novel, which he is reportedly working on.
August 6, 2007
What can't I say about this book? Elephants? Nope, been said.
Ryan Boudinot looks like a large man who could very easily kick my ass. It's with this in mind that I say, "I loved this book!"
Actually, it's okay. It's not bad. It can be read by people who know how to read. Let me put it this way: I never at any point and time wanted to gouge my eyes out, slash my wrists, or stick my head in the oven (I have an electric oven, so eventually it would have killed me... but it probably would have been way more painful than a gas oven) while reading this book.
It's a book of twisted short stories. So keep that in mind when reading this book. Don't get in a huff when you realize that the page you're currently reading has nothing to do with the previous page. It's meant to be like that.
It's a little twisted, so if you don't like poking dead things with sticks, then you're probably not going to like this book.
BUT: If you love watching old people in golf carts run over cute squirrels while listening to AC/DC, and if you can read, then you might enjoy this book.
I really liked the cover. Never underestimate the power of good cover art.
You can indeed judge a book by it's cover. Remember that.
Ryan Boudinot looks like a large man who could very easily kick my ass. It's with this in mind that I say, "I loved this book!"
Actually, it's okay. It's not bad. It can be read by people who know how to read. Let me put it this way: I never at any point and time wanted to gouge my eyes out, slash my wrists, or stick my head in the oven (I have an electric oven, so eventually it would have killed me... but it probably would have been way more painful than a gas oven) while reading this book.
It's a book of twisted short stories. So keep that in mind when reading this book. Don't get in a huff when you realize that the page you're currently reading has nothing to do with the previous page. It's meant to be like that.
It's a little twisted, so if you don't like poking dead things with sticks, then you're probably not going to like this book.
BUT: If you love watching old people in golf carts run over cute squirrels while listening to AC/DC, and if you can read, then you might enjoy this book.
I really liked the cover. Never underestimate the power of good cover art.
You can indeed judge a book by it's cover. Remember that.
January 14, 2010
Once again, I rather wish there were a two-and-a-half star option.
Some of these short stories are fine little gems. The eponymous story is heart-breaking in its take on class politics in a grade-school class. "On Sex and Relationships" is a snap-shot of a long-term friendship between two couples which has probably finally run its course, and "Newholly" takes an unflinching look (well, okay, flinches are involved) at what happens when one's liberal outlook is really put to the test. "Written by Machines" is eerily beautiful.
Other stories, though, seem to be running along the same formula of juxtaposing everyday life with a bizarre or downright disturbing element. Suppose I make a nice suburban family cannibals? Or: Suppose I create a world where you get into the college of your choice by the style with which you kill your parents? It gets a bit wearing after a while. I nearly gave up all together, but decided to read "So Little Time", a tale about three barely teen-aged pals and their first Doctor Who Convention. This story rang true (and frankly, seemed to explain the Stephen King-ish bent of some of the stories I didn't like).
Bottom line: fourteen short stories. I liked five of them.
Some of these short stories are fine little gems. The eponymous story is heart-breaking in its take on class politics in a grade-school class. "On Sex and Relationships" is a snap-shot of a long-term friendship between two couples which has probably finally run its course, and "Newholly" takes an unflinching look (well, okay, flinches are involved) at what happens when one's liberal outlook is really put to the test. "Written by Machines" is eerily beautiful.
Other stories, though, seem to be running along the same formula of juxtaposing everyday life with a bizarre or downright disturbing element. Suppose I make a nice suburban family cannibals? Or: Suppose I create a world where you get into the college of your choice by the style with which you kill your parents? It gets a bit wearing after a while. I nearly gave up all together, but decided to read "So Little Time", a tale about three barely teen-aged pals and their first Doctor Who Convention. This story rang true (and frankly, seemed to explain the Stephen King-ish bent of some of the stories I didn't like).
Bottom line: fourteen short stories. I liked five of them.
November 23, 2007
So Boudinot's stories remind me alot of Kurt Vonnegut's collection of the same (Welcome to the Monkey House). Not because I remember much of Vonnegut's stories, but because I remember the same creeped-out feeling I got that almost made me sleep with the lights on last night (no joke).
Boudinot brilliant blends the mundate and the pop with the seriously disturbing. The language is marvelously tight (like a tiger?) and his diction is wonderfully chosen and executed. The weird thing about the stories is they are perfectly normal and engaging in their prosaicness in all things but one element. This one thing (whether it be rape, serial killing, violence, etc.) makes itself known with a bang whenever it pops up. The best part is how seamlessly it's blended into the rest of the narrative.
I'm not very good at short stories or at disturbing literature, but after reading an article by David Foster Wallace convincing me that David Lynch is good art (long story, great article), I've been trying a little less hard to avoid the uncomfortable/morally mushy/disturbing.
Please read and discuss.
Boudinot brilliant blends the mundate and the pop with the seriously disturbing. The language is marvelously tight (like a tiger?) and his diction is wonderfully chosen and executed. The weird thing about the stories is they are perfectly normal and engaging in their prosaicness in all things but one element. This one thing (whether it be rape, serial killing, violence, etc.) makes itself known with a bang whenever it pops up. The best part is how seamlessly it's blended into the rest of the narrative.
I'm not very good at short stories or at disturbing literature, but after reading an article by David Foster Wallace convincing me that David Lynch is good art (long story, great article), I've been trying a little less hard to avoid the uncomfortable/morally mushy/disturbing.
Please read and discuss.
March 25, 2008
The dystopic stories-- in which salesmen are socially sanctioned rapists/criminals and the government enforces a policy of patricide-- are good, and generally satisfy with their classic O. Henry twists. But Boudinot is at his best when he plays it straight, like he does in "So Little Time," in which the earnest voice of a thirteen-year-old boy with a Dr. Who obsession, a shitty summer job, and a dorky mom and dad, captures the deep, sad space that exists even (or especially) between best friends. Also, this story contains one of the greatest litanies of adolescently-imagined violence ever:
"I could only imagine the worst scenarios: a whiskey bottle broken over his head, teeth punched out, kicked in the groin, baseball bat shoved into his gut, throat slit, hand stomped by a steel-toed boot, eye gouged out with a spoon, stabbed in the ribs, nose sliced like Jack Nicholson's in Chinatown, acid thrown in face, rapidly punched in nads, arm chopped off with a machete, head shoved through particle board wall, spike through hand, ear severed with an axe, chainsaw to the face, drowned in bathtub."
I feel like I understand my husband's inner life a little better after reading that.
"I could only imagine the worst scenarios: a whiskey bottle broken over his head, teeth punched out, kicked in the groin, baseball bat shoved into his gut, throat slit, hand stomped by a steel-toed boot, eye gouged out with a spoon, stabbed in the ribs, nose sliced like Jack Nicholson's in Chinatown, acid thrown in face, rapidly punched in nads, arm chopped off with a machete, head shoved through particle board wall, spike through hand, ear severed with an axe, chainsaw to the face, drowned in bathtub."
I feel like I understand my husband's inner life a little better after reading that.
January 25, 2014
Ryan Boudinot proves he is a master of the absurd and surreal here, employing his talent to peel back the strained fabric of class politics in an overly PC world. Through the conversation of two couples comparign their lives to each other in a game of one-up, in keeping the calm and accepting differences in an office where one's boss wears a beard of bees, and through the titular story where a young boy learns the hard way what constitutes acceptable in our newly minted 21st century; we see the world as Boudinot laments it. Bland, depersonalized, and over-regulated.
I have owned this book for a while and I have revisited its pages a few times since my initial sojourn through Boudinot's world. That first time I picked it up (2006) I was a freshman in college, newly transposed to a liberal university, from a conservative hometown. The rules of moving in diverse circles were an important first lesson, and I related to these stories when these rules seemed absurd, questionable, and innumerable. Each successive visit has yielded a new visit as I live more fully in my adult life. Highly recommended reading.
I have owned this book for a while and I have revisited its pages a few times since my initial sojourn through Boudinot's world. That first time I picked it up (2006) I was a freshman in college, newly transposed to a liberal university, from a conservative hometown. The rules of moving in diverse circles were an important first lesson, and I related to these stories when these rules seemed absurd, questionable, and innumerable. Each successive visit has yielded a new visit as I live more fully in my adult life. Highly recommended reading.
April 14, 2009
The title story in this book actually made me laugh out loud on the metro. I'm used to trying to hide tears on the metro when I get to the end of books, but I don't usually laugh out loud in response to inanimate stimuli. This was new. I'm generally not that keen on short stories (see my post on St. Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves for further detail), but Boudinot's collection was different for me.
Rather than just coming up with interesting premises, he inserted interesting moments into the mundane. And it totally worked for me. "The Littlest Hitler" reads like a messed-up Halloween version of "A Christmas Story." "Bee Beard" is a gentle narrative that is utterly unaware of its own bizarreness. It's true that I read this several weeks ago, and already can't remember many of the collection's stories, so it's probably less exceptional than I'm making it out to seem.
But the truth is, it's a collection of short stories that I didn't need to see in novel form to fully appreciate it. And for me, that's pretty big.
Rather than just coming up with interesting premises, he inserted interesting moments into the mundane. And it totally worked for me. "The Littlest Hitler" reads like a messed-up Halloween version of "A Christmas Story." "Bee Beard" is a gentle narrative that is utterly unaware of its own bizarreness. It's true that I read this several weeks ago, and already can't remember many of the collection's stories, so it's probably less exceptional than I'm making it out to seem.
But the truth is, it's a collection of short stories that I didn't need to see in novel form to fully appreciate it. And for me, that's pretty big.
July 7, 2007
this book is bizarre. any reader has to accept this and expect this walking in. otherwise, you're likely going to be a bit blown away. that said, its a good sort of bizarre. the stories are well written, and follow a logic within them clearly. they do not, however, follow any sort of outside logic. nothing is taboo within these. be it a family that eats children for dinner, a child who dresses as hitler for halloween, or a more 'typical' story of old friends who have lost touch and are meeting for dinner. the collection covers a wide variety of topics, each of which are entirely interesting. additionally, while the stories are short, they are not exactly simple reads. complex ideas and thoughts are proposed, and oftentimes require a quick re-read or a moment of contemplation before jumping to the next one. very enjoyable collection, though make sure you are in the right mindset when you start.
August 22, 2009
This is a collection of possibly the strangest short stories you will read this year. Like, really. They're completely random and completely ridiculous with kids having to kill their parents and dead people going to work and salesmen shooting people who don't listen to their pitches and people opening not-real toy stores and machines that write poetry... but they're mostly pretty brilliant. There were a couple of stories that just didn't click with me, but in general they were just weird enough to keep my interest. As an example, the titular story is about a kid who decides to dress up as Hitler for Hallowe'en at school, but another kid decides to dress up as Anne Frank and the littlest Hitler's life becomes a teeny bit difficult. It's all pretty neat and you should totally read this if you have a warped sense of humor.
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