Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned

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It’s the catty competition between Jacey, “with a shiny chin and forehead and a figure like a pickle jar,” and her cousin, Maya, “a five-foot-ten-inch mantis of legendary poise and ballet repute. I go wet at the eyes for my brother and swell with regret at the thirty-nine years we’ve spent lost to each other. Djarf was from Hedeby-Slesvig up the Sli fjord, a foul and rocky locality whose people take a worrisome pleasure in the gruesome sides of life. He builds his cabin, gathers around him a few other families of similar tastes and habits … till the neighbors crowd around, roads, bridges, and fields annoy him, and he lacks elbow room. Aunque los tiempos han cambiado, los perdedores siempre serán perdedores y sus historias son ahora tan duras y descarnadas —y atractivas— como hace 50 años.

They aren't mad because you hurt their feelings, they're mad because you found them in the first place and THEN hurt them. Of course, Djarf Fairhair had his stinger out even before his wife spotted those dragons winging it inland from the coast. Often the men are older, battered, no longer successful, and the women have had their patience sorely tried. He laughed and sang and put a lot of muscle into the oar, me just holding my hands on it to keep up appearances. Pero además tienen algo difícil de definir, algo casi inasible que consigue conectar con lo más íntimo del corazón del lector.Still, a strange choice, even considering the fact that such a title becomes emblematic of a basic kind of desperation and loss tucked deep within the characters of this collection. The characters are rich guys with lousy relationships, young teenage girls who want sex with middle-aged men, carnival workers and others living meaningless lives of their own creation. Tower's writing is incisive and vivid, and these stories frequently don't go where one might expect.

The last short story in the book is the only one that shows any originality but it's only about as good as an honors high school English class assignment (and not one of those "you have two weeks to complete it" assignments, but one of those "it's Tuesday and I want this handed in by Thursday" assignments). And the author’s powers of observation are such that one cannot help but associate with all of the characters, in spite of their mistakes and idiosyncratic situations. I read part of one looking for a quote, realized I had no idea how it ended, and read about 10 pages very little of which was familiar. by my count, there are three abused children (nothing graphic at all) and more children, some in flashback, whose childhood seems pretty blown; a number of youngish-to-middle-aged guys who have been taken by the currents of life to places they didn't really want to go, with no idea about what to do now that they are there; and a lot of non-protagonist characters with distinctly unhappy or unappealing lives. However, Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned: Stories turned out to be a collection of utterly depressing stories about self-indulgent losers.He drew his sword and swung it in figure eights above his head, causing the men around him to scatter under the gunwales. They are real-estate developers, carpenters, and entrepreneur inventors, bumbling through life, alienating their spouses, relatives, and friends. In my glass-half-empty moments, I feel like this continues until consequences accumulate to a critical point and progress has to be stopped to deal with the overflow.