Twilight of the Superheroes

At last I am actually reading through the list of the twenty best books of the 21st century.

I've started with the Twilight of the Superheroes by Deborah Eisenberg. It is a collection of short stories.

The structure of the stories is quite unusual to me, Deborah Eisenberg isn't much concerned with the traditional structure. Her stories are very intimate and sudden, as life itself. She ponders problems, inner crises and unspoken feelings of small people.

The stories are in some ways distinctly american, but when one continues reading the gentle tapestry of the sorrows, breakdowns and losses transcends nationality. These stories are very vividly and gently human. They are about all of us, even the structure of the stories is lifelike. Nothing happens in a linear fashion, from start to end. Sometimes, it takes concentration to actually understand when this is going on..

It is a very sad and a very beautifully written collection of short stories. They left a strong impression on me. And, despite all the sadness there is hope. There always is hope.

I will quote one of the praises for the book, listed at the of the book. I quite agree with it.

“Reading Eisenberg makes you wish, as you study the family in front of you in the grocery line, that you could see their thoughts rendered as one of her stunning inner monologues … . Eisenberg, with her wide embrace of metaphor and keen sense of the eternal—the endlessly renewing cycle of human puttering—understands that behind every unexceptional face are notions and visions no one else has ever known.”
—Judith Lewis, Los Angeles Times

Judging by the quality of this book, there is hope that other best books of the 21st century, are at least very worthy of this title.