Pricksongs & Descants
Pricksongs & Descants by Robert Coover, published by Penguin Adult on April 28, 2011, is a collection of 256 pages that showcases the author’s inventive storytelling. This work reinterprets classic tales such as Red Riding Hood and Hansel and Gretel, while also exploring original narratives that delve into themes of fantasy and the absurd. Coover’s unique style blends humor and darkness, presenting a fresh take on familiar stories and characters.
Readers will encounter a variety of narratives that challenge traditional storytelling conventions. The book features a man navigating the complexities of an office elevator, alongside the innovative piece “The Babysitter,” where moments of a single night are intricately replayed, exploring the interplay of hope and threat. With its focus on fantasy, fairy tales, and literary short stories, Pricksongs & Descants invites readers to engage with Coover’s chaotic and imaginative world.
Official synopsis Publisher
In his carnivalesque and riotously inventive Pricksongs & Descants Robert Coover remakes old stories: of Red Riding Hood, Hansel and Gretel, and Beauty (who married her Beast and spends a lifetime suffering his doggy stink). And he reshapes his own: a man makes repeating, re-imagined journeys in an office elevator (while his fellow riders taunt and tempt him), and in the seminal, fractal �The Babysitter� every moment in a single night is played and replayed, every hope and threat of sex and violence done and undone. Coover�s dark, wilfil, comic imagination revels brilliantly in contradictions, a master of chaos.
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