Anthropology

by Rhodes, Dan

• ISBN13: 9780375504211
• ISBN10: 0375504214
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2000-09-01
• Publisher: Villard

Summary

"Crying": story number 13 from Anthropology "My girlfriend left me, and I started crying in my sleep. My nightly lament became so loud that my neighbors called the police. The press found out, and people came to stand outside my house to hear me call her name and moan. Television crews arrived, and soon a search was on to find the object of my misery. They tracked her to her new boyfriend's house. I watched the coverage. People were saying they had expected her to be much more beautiful than she was, and that I should pull myself together and stop crying over such an ordinary girl." In 101 words each, the 101 witty, haunting stories of Anthropology chronicle the search for love in an age preoccupied with sex. Each story is a pure distillation of heartbreak, longing, delusion, and bliss. Each spins speedily, shockingly, to its unpredictable climax. And each is unlike anything you have read before. Anthropology's macabre humor builds imperceptibly, story by story and girlfriend by girlfriend, until it reflects with surreal accuracy how we try to complete ourselves through--or at the expense of--another. Read it to laugh and forget your sorrows; read it to recognize and remember your delights; read it to discover a vivid, provocative new talent.

Author Biography

About the Author<br><br>Dan Rhodes was born in 1972. He lives in Kent, England. This is his first book. His e-mail address is [e-mail].

Table of Contents

Anthropology

Ashes

Baby

Beauty

Binding

Blind

Bulletin

Charging

Chemicals

Clever

Club

Coping

Crying

Drawing

Drinking

Dust

Eggs

Endless

Expecting

Exploring

Face

Faithful

Features

Fight

Flowers

Friends

Fuji

Fun

Glass

Groping

Herself

History

Hobbies

Honest

Horse

Indifference

Innocence

Jam

Kangaroo

Kiss

Kissing

Knife

Laughing

Leaving

Lesbian

Lilac

Lipstick

Lost

Madrid

Me

Memories

Milestones

Mold

Money

Museum

Naked

Nature

Noises

Normal

Open

Ouija

Paint

Pieces

Pilot

Plain

Plan

Pneumonia

Precious

Proust

Pumpkins

Real

Rehearsing

Sailing

Salesman

Saving

Schnauzer

Shipwreck

Shivers

Sleeping

Snakes

Special

Spirit

Squeals

Straight

Stuff

Support

Sushi

Tagged

Taxidermy

Together

Toys

Tractor

Travel

Trick

Trouble

Truncheon

Video

Violins

Volcano

Well

Words

Excerpts

ANTHROPOLOGY

I loved an anthropologist. She went to Mongolia to study the gays. At first she kept  their culture at arm's length, but eventually she decided that her fieldwork would benefit  from assimilation. She worked hard to become as much like them as possible, and gradually she was accepted. After a while she ended our romance by letter. It breaks my heart to think of her herding those yaks in the freezing hills, the peak of her leather cap shielding her eyes from the driving wind, her wrist dangling away, and nothing but a handlebar mustache to keep her top lip warm.


ASHES

My girlfriend died. We hadn't been together long, and I had felt indifferent toward her. She left me her ashes. "What should I do with them?" I asked her family.

"She wanted you to decide.' I really didn't care. "You two were so in love; we're leaving it up to you to choose her final resting place.' They were incredibly compassionate, and the pressure was enormous. I found myself in a helicopter, scattering her over the meadow where she had ridden her pony as a girl. Her family watched, weeping their final goodbyes as the little gray flecks fell to earth.


BABY

My girlfriend's pregnancy lasted over two years. "Maybe the doctor's right," I said. "Maybe a baby isn't going to come." She wouldn't listen. She carried on buying diapers, teething rings, woolly hats and mittens, and little bits and pieces for the nursery. One afternoon I came home to find her cradling a bundle in her arms.

"Look," she said. "It's arrived. It's a boy, and it's got your eyes."

"Well done," I said. "Congratulations."

"And congratulations to you too. After all, you don't become a father every day!'

"I suppose not. But really it's you that's done all the hard work."


BEAUTY

My girlfriend is so beautiful that she has never had cause to develop any kind of personality. People are always wildly glad to see her, even though she does little more than sit around and smoke. She's getting prettier, too. Last time she left the house she caused six car crashes, two coronaries, about thirty domestic disputes and an estimated six hundred unwanted and embarrassing erections. She seems to be quite indifferent to the havoc she causes. "I'm going to the shop for cigarettes," she'll say, yawning with that succulent, glossy mouth. "I suppose you'd better call some ambulances or something!'


BINDING

I found my girlfriend smashing our two year-old's toes with a rock. I told her to stop. "What are you doing?" I cried, above the baby's agonized wails.

"You wouldn't understand," she said, winding a bandage tightly around the crushed digits. "It's a woman thing. It'll help her get a boyfriend:'

"But darling, don't you remember what the doctor told us? It's a boy baby?'

"Really?" She looked surprised. "Oh well. Men look nice with small feet too. I expect he'll be gay, anyway. He's got that look about him. See?" I had to agree that she had a point.


BLIND

My girlfriend used my going blind as an excuse to start dressing sloppily. In the days when I could see her, she had always looked immaculate in the latest cuts of the best designer labels. Now, her high heels have been replaced by sneakers, her silk stockings and short skirts by jeans, and her smart blouses and figure-hugging jackets by baggy sweaters. I haven't said anything yet, but its getting to the point where I'm embarrassed to be seen with her as she gently holds my hand and guides me along, making sure I don't trip or bump into anything.


BULLETIN

My girlfriend is so lovely that I can't help feeling sorry for all her ex-boyfriends. I'm sure they must spend all their time thinking about her and wondering what she could be up to. So every month I send them a bulletin detailing all the pretty things she has said and done. Sometimes I enclose a discarded pair of tights, or the stub of an eyebrow pencil. I feel I should do everything I can to make up for them having lost a girl with such soft brown hair, and whose feet are so small you can hardly see them.

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Excerpted from Anthropology by Dan Rhodes
All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.