The Bus Driver Who Wanted to Be God: and Other Stories
Israel's hippest bestselling young writer today, Etgar Keret is part court jester, part literary crown prince, part national conscience. The Bus Driver Who Wanted to Be God gathers his daring and provocative short stories for the first time in English.Brief, intense, painfully funny, and...
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Israel's hippest bestselling young writer today, Etgar Keret is part court jester, part literary crown prince, part national conscience. The Bus Driver Who Wanted to Be God gathers his daring and provocative short stories for the first time in English.Brief, intense, painfully funny, and shockingly honest, Keret's stories are snapshots that illuminate with intelligence and wit the hidden truths of life. As with the best comic authors, hilarity and anguish are the twin pillars of his work. Keret covers a remarkable emotional and narrative terrain-from a father's first lesson to his boy to a standoff between soldiers caught in the Middle East conflict to a slice of life where nothing much happens. Bus Driver includes stories from Keret's bestselling collections in Israel, Pipelines and Missing Kissinger, as well as Keret's major new novella, "Kneller's Happy Campers," a bitingly satirical yet wistful road trip set in the afterlife for suicides.
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Format: hardcover
ISBN:
9780312261887 (0312261888)
Publish date: October 12th 2001
Publisher: Thomas Dunne Books
Pages no: 176
Edition language: English
Category:
Fantasy,
Literature,
Cultural,
Book Club,
Literary Fiction,
Adult,
Jewish,
Modern,
Magical Realism,
Short Stories,
Israel
Originally posted here.Everybody hates him, except Uzi. I think there's this thing that after you off yourself, with the way it hurts and everything – and it hurts like hell – the last thing you give a shit about is somebody with nothing on his mind except singing about how unhappy he is. I mean if ...
There is a direct path between Keret's fevered imagination and his written page. There are no speed limits or detours. The stories won't be inhibited by oppressive laws of physics, or even by reality. These are short intense bursts of 'what ifs'. In "One Last Story and That's It", a demon shows ...
Many good stories in this book including Kneller's Happy Campers, the basis for the film Wristcutters: A Love Story. I'll keep an eye out for The Girl On The Fridge and other english translations of this author's work.
I read the first 3-4 stories when I first picked this book up, and then finished the rest this past week. I was really impressed by this collection. His stories are funny, complex, sometimes profound, and very relevant (how many review bingo words did I get there?). I expected quirky but I really do...
There's something about a three-page story, like a 45-second pop song, that usually leaves me wanting. All conceptual riff, no cattle. Or something like that.But there were a few stories here that turned on a dime from absurdist punk to pathos, took some smirky wise-ass jape (a pet named Rabin) an...