Reviews for The Other Two

The average rating for The Other Two based on 2 reviews is 3 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2009-01-12 00:00:00 Mohammad Aminian I did not get into her style of writing. Also to sterotypical.

Review # 2 was written on 2013-02-01 00:00:00 Mireille Lilly My review published in the San Francisco Chronicle in 2002: The Collected Stories of Joseph Roth By Joseph Roth; translated by W.W. NORTON & COMPANY; 281 PAGES; $27.95 It might not be immediately clear to some readers whether Austrian novelist Joseph Roth, author of the acclaimed "The Radetzky March," really deserves this clear-the-archives collection of nearly all his short fiction, gathered in English for the first time. The man died in Paris way back in 1939, after all, and has never been included among the greats of 20th century European literature. But for anyone with a passion for great writing, it's well worth sorting through the uneven offerings presented here for a glimpse of a tremendous talent finding itself -- and also of a long-gone world of Jewish villages late in the Hapsburg Empire. Born in 1894 in Galicia (now western Ukraine), Roth served in World War I, studied in Vienna and made his name as a newspaper journalist for Germany's Frankfurter Zeitung. What is amazing about Roth's short stories, though, is not their place in history, but his sense of fun and love of his characters. It takes love to craft someone as thoroughly awful as the thin-lipped, book-devouring, empty soul at the center of "The Honors Student," or as pathetic as the woman in "Barbara," whose dreary life of sacrifice for her only son ends up meaning nothing to the practical-minded son himself. Roth writes with the powerfully descriptive vividness of Babel, as when he describes the "slim white hands" of a train-wreck survivor lying still, atop her mink coat, like "two beautiful corpses." But he also loves to hop from one good-naturedly absurd idea to another, pursuing a light satire that brings to mind Garcia Marquez or Heller. "Describe the sea to me!" a coral dealer demands in "The Leviathan." " 'It's full of water,' said the sailor Komrower.' " Badda-badda-bing, we can almost hear. But as always, Roth uses his light touch to bring alive the inner longing of this coral dealer, one of many Roth characters who yearn to break out of the confines of their lives. Those longings are part of a human landscape that is anything but dated or dusty, but often haunting and always lively and moving. Read more: