I can't do it. I just can't. There are two stories left in The New York Stories of Elizabeth Hardwick, and I just can't make myself trudge through them. And 'trudge' is the operative word here—because even though I find many particular things in Hardwick's stories to admire in a purely analytic sense, divorced from all feeling—nothing compels me to return to these high-minded essay-fiction hybrids. But I really should have known better. I would speculate that the vast majority of books that blur...

♦ I've spent several days now with The New York Stories of Elizabeth Hardwick , and it had to be slow-going, because she demanded I savor her. All the other books I'd planned on reading with her, gently replaced on the shelves. Hardwick wanted all of me, or nothing at all. I was all too happy to give her, well, all.♦ As I read more and more of her, I knew I'd be saying, "Elizabeth Hardwick, where have you been all my life?" Seriously. Hardwick's one of the best discoveries in my travails thro...

Mixed feelings about this one. Hardwick was a masterful stylist, every brushstroke in this little miniature is perfectly placed. And she captures that mid-century something that I love, that delicious feeling of opening up an old issue of the New Yorker and vanishing into a slightly shabby, more genteel New York of once upon a time that is so familiar from other stories and movies and yet so tantalizingly out of reach. Indeed, New York is the most constant character in these stories (and the sto...

Well, these are hit-or-miss. I believe Hardwick was primarily known for essays, which I have never read, so perhaps this just isn't her preferred writing format. She does fairly well with developing characters, but then you get to the end of each story and realize nothing more has happened. Many lack not only what might be called a plot, but any action whatsoever, and are more like character sketches. The later stories are particularly dull, and many are just the stereotypical "an ordinary day i...

In hindsight it was probably unrealistic of me to expect to find the down at heel New York that is glimpsed so provocatively in Hardwick’s wonderful Sleepless Nights. I was even initially miffed to find that four of the 12 stories aren’t even set in New York. Nevertheless I’m glad I read the collection as it really gives an insight into the development of Hardwick as a writer.The first story in the collection (arranged chronologically) is The Temptations of Dr Hoffman written in 1946. This story...

A few of these stories are memorable (thus 3 stars), but generally a disappointment. It didn't help that I read this just after Mavis Gallant's Paris Stories, which I loved. Hardwick's stories are uncomfortable, and some are tiring, but a few--notably "Back Issues," "The Purchase," and "Evenings at Home" stand out for me.

I love Elizabeth Hardwick in a way that will probably feel embarrassing to me in a few years. There's just something about her writing that feels deeply ... relatable, maybe? for me. Like the narrator of Yes and No, she's not likeable but she's immediately understandable to me. I like whingey overly detailed plotless stories about women who aren't as good as they think they are but still think they're better than everyone else. So this is almost perfect.

Well-carved, thoughtful prose with the storytelling power to create deep interest in a very quiet scene with very ordinary characters. A book to dip in and out of.

For me this collection divides along a line between story-driven episodes that unfold ideas & characters from a narrative, and pieces that dissolve these elements in a diffuse, intensely poetic, emotionally charged meandering. But perhaps I'm being overly convergent in seeing a line when I should detect a field of ambiguity and shade.I often struggle with plotless writing but when I can feel a depth of glowing emotion as I can here I can appreciate. Hardwick conveys a moody, conflict-ridden yet

I finished this, but only barely. Mostly because throughout the majority of The New York Stories there was simply not enough of what I expected - New York and stories, of both the city and its people.The "stories" are largely plotless, and not very engaging - they are concerned with characters whom I found to be largely uninteresting, and who like to partake in discussion on subjects which scream "Big Themes" from a mile. To put it bluntly, this is a very easy book to put down and newer return t...

New Yorkers with post-graduate degrees talk movingly about their feelings, often in a frustratingly causal and didactic fashion.

The early stories here are conventional, drunk on extraneous words, as many writers were back then. Hardwick keeps it interesting through her characters though. In a story called "The Purchase," about an older, successful painter's competition with a young upstart, the older painter is first repulsed by the young painter's wife, then unreasonably infatuated with her. Hardwick paints such a vivid picture of the woman that I began to have feelings for her myself. The older painter's sudden attract...

Her prose are deeply intellectual and her characters are complex. Her style of writing is probably impossible to imitate but there is a flow that resembles abstract artwork. The narrative seems to be concerned with who is observing and how that individual feels about the plot and characters; she forces readers to see what she sees. Overall, I enjoyed the stories. The Purchase, The Classles Society, Shot: A New York Story, and The Final Conflict were my top choices.

not as brilliant as SLEEPLESS NIGHTs, but a nice collection of character studies about people and NYC. the style shifts from studied to the essayistic fiction of SLEEPLESS NIGHTS, and always with restraint and intelligence.

These stories are more character sketches, not short stories. They are interesting, but not engaging.

These stories felt generally uninspiring to me. "Evenings at Home" was great, delving into the psychology of someone who has built ramparts around their newly constructed self-identity as someone who has written out of the cultural poverty of the South only to find that such elaborate defenses were unnecessary. But most of the stories involve characters who don't do or experience anything particularly interesting. There are academics who don't like each other, painters don't like each other, peo...

Okay, it took me three tries to finish this book and I’m pretty sure starting with the last story and working my way backwards was *the key*. Maybe relevantly, the last few stories date from the late 1970s, while the bulk is from the 1950s. According to this https://www.theguardian.com/books/201..., she stopped writing for years after The Oak and the Axe, which the reviewer sees as a thinly veiled depiction of Hardwick’s difficult relationship with Robert Lowell. The story is, like most of the e...

In which people think they have more Great Potential then they probably actually do, but are still terrified of settling. Highlights include A Season's Romance, Evening's at Home, and Shot: A New York Story.

What a bizarre book. The first two thirds, maybe even three quarters of this book I could not get down with at all. Then all of a sudden it jumps to stories written a decade or two later and they're incredible. Like Renata Adler meets Leornard Michaels good. It feels weird giving a book a glowing recommendation but also recommending you ignore everything before pg. 156. I dunno.