Anthony Doerrs “The Shell Collector” is a series of beautifully written short stories that take the audience to different adventures and places that are easily forgotten. This is one of his many books but his first collection of short stories he had created in 2002. Doerr's specialty is capturing the poetic essence of human interaction inside different circumstances.
I had sparked an interest in testing out this new author after reading the description on looking further into human psychology. His stories are short which are able to keep the reader interested and crave more towards the end. However, I was not aware that when I chose this book that this was a collection and not one single story. That being my fault of not catching the full description I read all of it instead of switching to a new book. I found myself having a strong appreciation for the way he constructs his stories and beautifully written words. I am not sure how if his writing style is the same throughout all of his works and I certainly hope not. These stories were poetic but depressing. One after the other would get continuously worse the more I progressed. The stories were not a sit down and relax kind of book. In fact, I found myself having enough of the 'woe is me 'theme after I read each one. This book was slowly becoming harder and harder for me to pick it up each time. Not one of his stories had a change in tempo. Although each circumstance was completely different from the next such as wars in africa, a runabout girl who leaves her family, and death of people caused by carelessness, it was all the same in a nutshell. As far as the description of The Shell Collectors 'human psychology' I saw none of a learning experience from his works.
This book went both ways for me and rather me saying it was unsuccessful because of my pure opinion it was more misleading. His stories were more for an audience to appreciate charitable acts and remind us to strive to be selfless humans; a very nice time to read his book during the holidays. His variety of characters and circumstances gave me a worldly insight to everything that happens to people all over the world. Finishing his book was indeed a emotional bruise and some people like romantic genres. On the other hand my disappointment lead into my interest in actually studying human psychology and learning legitimate facts and the science of our nature. I am drawn into documentaries and educational movies and books that give me factual information which was my greatest disappointment with this book purely on an opinion based review.
Doerr's stories are recommended for a remembrance as humans have the gift of free will and what we choose to do with it. Human relations are stressed as a reminder to not to take anything for granted. That we are turned on more by the smallest kind gesture over the negativity and sins we experience on a daily basis.
Chapter 1: The Shell collectors son died after being bitten by the 'miracle snail.'
Chapter 2: The hunters wife possessed power of telekinesis which led to their marriage slowly falling apart because of the emotional separation and disbelief. The result of them separating for 20 years and reunited at the end by proof and trust.
Chapter 3 (So many chances): A young girl moves with her family to a coastline where she meets a mysterious boy who teaches her tricks to fishing. Her mother forbids her to see him and when see finally escapes out into the night she finds out that he is only there seasonally and has left without a goodbye.
Chapter 4 (For a long time this was Griselda's story): Two daughters and a mother live together in a shack with no goals towards their future. The eldest had a reputation for being a high school run about and eventually ran off with a circus freak call the Metal Eater. She isn't seen by her mother or sister for years and writes letters to home every month. Griselda comes back to visit her sister who wants nothing to do with her after all these years.
Chapter 5 (The caretaker): A sick boy and his mother live in the slums of Liberia in the middle of a war. His mother disappears and he goes on a search to look for her.
Chapter 6 (A tangle by the Rapid River): A woman is skiddish to commit to the man she supposedly loves because there is still so much she does not know about him.
Chapter 7 (Mkondo): A paleontologist went on an excursion to locate a prehistoric bird, only to meet this girl who makes him work for what he really wants.
The Shell Collector
Author: Anthony Doerr
Award: Young Lions
The summary of this book caught my attention in hopes to better understand the psychology and interaction between people.
