Product Description

'101 stories from a male perspective, these pieces deal exclusively with girlfriends - in all their ecstatic and incomprehensible glory. Here Room 101 houses the idea of loss, and the pain of memory - of beautiful hair, eyes and smiles. In Rhodes's eccentric emotional world, girlfriends with the improbable names of Azure, Xanthe and Hummingbird hold all the cards. Their hapless suitors struggle to keep up...Effortless to read, amusing, and yet coloured with a deep sadness about the passing of things, you might be able to finish this attractive volume over a long coffee, but you will want to hold on to the truths it so skilfully offers - for as long as you would to love.' Independent

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #789458 in Books
• Published on: 2001-02-05
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 208 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
Dan Rhodes' first book Anthropology consists of 101 stories, each around 120 words in length, and all working highly surreal variations around a single theme: relationships. A simple enough idea which is superlatively executed--the range and inventiveness of the texts within the strict format reveal a writer of formidable imaginative powers, able to move with ease from wit to farcical comedy to genuinely heartfelt evocations of loss and love. Each story is almost like a condensed novel, a distilled narrative that focuses on a particular moment, gesture or conversation, humorously unravelling the fragile structures and barely disguised inequalities that characterise the détente between the sexes.

If the stories are individually quirky, bizarre and amusing, paradoxically the incremental effect is one that is surprisingly revealing of the deep, tectonic instabilities in our relationships with partners and lovers.

If the touchstone of Anthropology is, in the end, a kind of disbelieving laughter, it is emphatically not observational humour, nor the bittersweet angst of wry comedy that dominates much contemporary fiction: Rhodes highlights the essential absurdity of heterosexual relationships, the fundamental incomprehension and misunderstandings that divide men and women. The wayward commandments of desire, the desperate mismatches of affection, the hilarious disjunctions of perception, the disequilibria of power, all are scrutinised in turn by the author's cool, deadpan prose; and the superficial equivalence of form mimics the fact that, while relationships may seem similar on the surface, each is uniquely odd, perverse or disfunctional.

The structure of the book is reminiscent of Raymond Queneau's Exercises in Style, its tone occasionally recalls Donald Barthelme's elegant postmodern short fiction, but Anthropology nevertheless mines a seam distinctly its own: quirky, surreal, often wildly funny and cumulatively profound. --Burhan Tufail

Amazon.co.uk Review
Dan Rhodes' first book Anthropology consists of 101 stories, each around 120 words in length, and all working highly surreal variations around a single theme: relationships. A simple enough idea which is superlatively executed--the range and inventiveness of the texts within the strict format reveal a writer of formidable imaginative powers, able to move with ease from wit to farcical comedy to genuinely heartfelt evocations of loss and love. Each story is almost like a condensed novel, a distilled narrative that focuses on a particular moment, gesture, or conversation, humourously unravelling the fragile structures and barely disguised inequalities that characterise the détente between the sexes.

If the stories are individually quirky, bizarre and amusing, paradoxically the incremental effect is one that is surprisingly revealing of the deep, tectonic instabilities in our relationships with partners and lovers.

If the touchstone of Anthropology is, in the end, a kind of disbelieving laughter, it is emphatically not observational humour, nor the bittersweet angst of wry comedy that dominates much contemporary fiction: Rhodes highlights the essential absurdity of heterosexual relationships, the fundamental incomprehension and misunderstandings that divide men and women. The wayward commandments of desire, the desperate mismatches of affection, the hilarious disjunctions of perception, the disequilibria of power, all are scrutinised in turn by the author's cool, deadpan prose; and the superficial equivalence of form mimics the fact that, while relationships may seem similar on the surface, each is uniquely odd, perverse, or disfunctional.

The structure of the book is reminiscent of Raymond Queneau's Exercises in Style, its tone occasionally recalls Donald Barthelme's elegant postmodern short fiction, but Anthropology nevertheless mines a seam distinctly its own: quirky, surreal, often wildly funny, and cumulatively profound. --Burhan Tufail

The Times
'Very funny and sharp . . there are some crushingly wicked moments.'

Customer Reviews

More Than Meets The Eye
The marketing of this book is putting it down just as a clever idea - 101 stories each told in 101 words. And it's also playing up the humorous, slightly surreal aspect - undoubtedly the story entitled 'Lesbian', where a new mother decides to name her baby by this word without having any idea what it means, is quite bizarre.

But one is missing so much if 'Anthropology' is simply levelled with the adjective 'quirky'. Dan Rhodes has achieved miracles in distilling emotions - well, one particular emotion particularly, that of obsession - into such brief, but affecting passages. I defy you not to read this book again immediately after you've read it the first time. I defy you not to cry at certain stories (crying at 101 words! ), and I defy you not to find yourself continually saying, "That's me!" or "I've felt like that!" Most of all, this book speaks to you about these things but does it in the blink of an eye - inflicting real emotion on the incredibly short attention spans we have developed in modern society.

Oh, and a last point - Dan Rhodes is 28. If this is a summary of his emotional ups-and-downs, I feel quite fortunate . . .

101 is such a nice, round number
My boyfriend left me. I had more time to read in bed so I bought a book. Anthropology: and a Hundred Other Stories, each one hundred and one words of cutting precision that serrate the edges of the 'perfect' relationship with all its clichés, falsity and questionable morals. This is twenty-first century love laid bare in its precious superficiality; concise, sharp and illuminated, each story has its own particular caustic bite, the pain of which is numbed by dark humour. Rhodes makes concrete every unspoken and unspeakable thought that pervades a mind in love and produces a collection of utter brilliance.

One of my favourite books
Blissful sums this one up. 101 stories, each 101 words long, the whole thing readable in a couple of hours but it will stay with you infinitely longer. These are very short stories about love, all told from a male perspective, and almost every one is a winner. Some make you laugh, some make you cry, but they all prove that Dan Rhodes is a fantastic writer, and this is a book to treasure.