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The Great Frustration
Channeling Steven Millhauser by way of George Saunders, The Great Frustration is a sparkling debut, equal parts fable and wry satire. Seth Fried balances the dark—a town besieged, a yearly massacre, the harem of a pathological king—with moments of sweet optimism—researchers unexpectedly inspired by discovery, the triumph of a doomed monkey, the big implications found in a series of tiny creatures.
In "Loeka Discovered,” a buzz flows throughout a lab when scientists unearth a perfectly preserved prehistoric man who suggests to them the hopefulness of life, but the more they learn, the more the realities of ancient survival invade their buoyant projections. "Frost Mountain Picnic Massacre” meditates on why an entire town enthusiastically rushes out to the annual picnic that ends, year after year, in a massacre of astonishing creativity and casualty. The title story illuminates the desires and even the violence that surges beneath the tenuous peace among the animals in the Garden of Eden.
Fried’s stories suggest that we are at our most compelling and human when wrestling with the most frustrating aspects of both the world around us and of our very own natures—and in the process shows why he is a talent to be watched.
In "Loeka Discovered,” a buzz flows throughout a lab when scientists unearth a perfectly preserved prehistoric man who suggests to them the hopefulness of life, but the more they learn, the more the realities of ancient survival invade their buoyant projections. "Frost Mountain Picnic Massacre” meditates on why an entire town enthusiastically rushes out to the annual picnic that ends, year after year, in a massacre of astonishing creativity and casualty. The title story illuminates the desires and even the violence that surges beneath the tenuous peace among the animals in the Garden of Eden.
Fried’s stories suggest that we are at our most compelling and human when wrestling with the most frustrating aspects of both the world around us and of our very own natures—and in the process shows why he is a talent to be watched.
192 pages, Paperback
First published May 1, 2011
About the author
Seth Fried
15 books117 followersSeth Fried is a recurring contributor to The New Yorker’s “Shouts and Murmurs” and NPR’s “Selected Shorts.” His writing has also appeared in Tin House, One Story, Electric Literature, McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern, The Kenyon Review, The Missouri Review, Vice, and many others. His short stories have been anthologized in the 2011 and 2013 Pushcart Prize Anthologies as well as The Better of McSweeney’s Vol 2. He currently lives in Brooklyn with his fiancée and their two goldfish.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 43 reviews
February 14, 2013
This collection exudes the nicely equalized balance of variance and unity that I crave from art, but maybe especially from short story collections. The book's gaze shifts and leaps from laboratory to picnic grounds, from Harems to Conquistadors to the animals inhabiting the Garden of Eden to Norse myth to recognizable contemporary landscapes, and so on.
Seth Fried's overall writerly skills are remarkably well-honed, especially for a debut. I would be easily convinced in a double-blind experiment that this was the work of an old seasoned veteran. And he's intelligent, sensitive, funny. The whole deal.
Every story had me firmly engaged in its grasp, but the peak experience came in the final and longest story ("Animalcula: A Young Scientist's Guide To New Creatures") which is less a 'story' than a series of discrete stories, and by 'stories' I mean encyclopedic entries concerning animalcula, and by 'animalcula' I mean microscopic creatures. It truly blew me away. It's coldly clinical in its tone but warm and emotionally profound in its effects. Creatures so beautiful those who view them cannot look away; those that rapidly evolve in reaction to being viewed; those that are born and die in a matter of imperceptible nanoseconds; those whose entire lifespans are spent trying desperately and futilely to reunite with their once conjoined sibling; those that make up the space we call nothing; those used as seasoning whose pain only makes them more delicious; those that teach us the true nature of emotion; those whose collective density will potentially obliterate the Earth; those who can create our landscapes; those that can only be seen by screaming at them; etc. Fantastical, but in a way that points us towards how the world truly is stranger than fiction. It causes one to reflect on a huge number of intense realities and possibilities such as how we come to place value upon things, how easily we can delude ourselves, how precious and fleeting life is, etc. As I typed midway through my reading of this final portion of the book:
This final story is already one of the most brilliant and beautiful things I've ever laid eyes on.
Seth Fried's overall writerly skills are remarkably well-honed, especially for a debut. I would be easily convinced in a double-blind experiment that this was the work of an old seasoned veteran. And he's intelligent, sensitive, funny. The whole deal.
Every story had me firmly engaged in its grasp, but the peak experience came in the final and longest story ("Animalcula: A Young Scientist's Guide To New Creatures") which is less a 'story' than a series of discrete stories, and by 'stories' I mean encyclopedic entries concerning animalcula, and by 'animalcula' I mean microscopic creatures. It truly blew me away. It's coldly clinical in its tone but warm and emotionally profound in its effects. Creatures so beautiful those who view them cannot look away; those that rapidly evolve in reaction to being viewed; those that are born and die in a matter of imperceptible nanoseconds; those whose entire lifespans are spent trying desperately and futilely to reunite with their once conjoined sibling; those that make up the space we call nothing; those used as seasoning whose pain only makes them more delicious; those that teach us the true nature of emotion; those whose collective density will potentially obliterate the Earth; those who can create our landscapes; those that can only be seen by screaming at them; etc. Fantastical, but in a way that points us towards how the world truly is stranger than fiction. It causes one to reflect on a huge number of intense realities and possibilities such as how we come to place value upon things, how easily we can delude ourselves, how precious and fleeting life is, etc. As I typed midway through my reading of this final portion of the book:
This final story is already one of the most brilliant and beautiful things I've ever laid eyes on.
Read
November 1, 2019*'Loeka Discovered', 'Life in the Harem' and some of the 'Animalcula': 4 stars.
April 21, 2015
This was the best short-story collection I read last year. Wonderfully vivid writing, hysterically funny but filled with pathos as well. Characters that were deeply flawed, complex, and engaging. Each story offers a unique contribution to the collection, and the range of stories was amazing. If you like George Saunders, Aimee Bender, then you need to pick up this book. Fried ranks up there with the best. Can't wait until his next book.
August 24, 2023
I saw another person describe the writing style as masculine and it rang true for me. Why? I suppose it was the warning-less quick switches between hyperviolent ideations and silly farce. And maybe the Hemingway length short sentences. The flow sometimes made it hard to get into stories, but the plot set ups and imaginative descriptions made this an enjoyable read.
July 21, 2011
I think what I found so fascinating with this collection of short stories is that it was Seth Fried's debut collection. His language is that of an experienced writer who has been releasing novels for the past ten years. His stories are hilarious, frightening, and absurd. I especially loved his last story "Animacula: A Young Scientist's Guide to New Creatures." It was strange, very funny, and suprisingly real (seeing that he made up the entire world of tiny animal-like particles). I really enjoyed this collection from Seth Fried, and I'm looking forward to when he publishes a novel, or another set of short stories.
July 25, 2015
Loved the last piece about the tiny creatures Fried calls "animalcula". Hilarious and absurd, delivered in a cool, pseudo-analytic tone, more than a little like Calvino or Millhauser. My favorite stories here are more anchored in flesh (as opposed to Millhauser's fascination with boardgames and cartoons). The prose is clear and elegant.
September 4, 2018
a couple of the stories were threes, but the last one was a straight up five, loved loved loved animalcula
clever, laughed out multiple times, but too ... i don't know. masculine maybe? for my taste. i could never quite escape the fact that this was written by a man, if that makes sense.
clever, laughed out multiple times, but too ... i don't know. masculine maybe? for my taste. i could never quite escape the fact that this was written by a man, if that makes sense.
September 5, 2017
4 stars for a handful of really great stories. Several written in first person plural. As others have noted, reminiscent of Millhauser in the way that they escalate, for being about kings and kingdoms, and for being meta: not about the experience so much as the experience of the experience. I was exhausted, though, by the time I began reading the last story. Maybe best to read one story at a time.
March 24, 2018
Fantastic. I liked the title story best, but they are all perfectly evocative of the nature of frustration intrinsic to so many aspects of existence, while presenting it with playfulness and wry humor. What sticks with me most right now is the undeniably familiar sensations of the cat, jaws clicking, so full of desire and resentment toward that desire. Highly recommended.
March 19, 2018
Appreciate that this was interesting & well written but some of it made me squirm so I will read again another time. Loved his story Mendelssohn in Tin House.
December 13, 2021
It had it's moments, and the descriptions were great. But I didn't find an engaging narrative
April 17, 2022
A wonderful and sharp collection of fables. I love the way Fried takes an idea out to its wobbliest frontiers where it starts to render strangely and invert on itself.
January 2, 2022
I don't usually enjoy short story collections that much, i.e. I get bored.
But for some bizarre reason, I couldn't stop reading.
This author's narrative is smooth and soothing.
(I made the mistake of trying to translate this smooth and long narrative to Japanese. Occupational hazard, I guess.)
But the story itself is not that fun. They all deal with individuals struggling with their inner thoughts and what they thought was "normal".
However, I ended up loving this one. Especially the last one which tells about some of the unknown species.
But for some bizarre reason, I couldn't stop reading.
This author's narrative is smooth and soothing.
(I made the mistake of trying to translate this smooth and long narrative to Japanese. Occupational hazard, I guess.)
But the story itself is not that fun. They all deal with individuals struggling with their inner thoughts and what they thought was "normal".
However, I ended up loving this one. Especially the last one which tells about some of the unknown species.
January 29, 2012
I first heard about Seth Fried when one of his tweets about Hurricane Irene went viral:
"If your apartment is hit by a dolphin, DO NOT GO OUT TO SEE IF THE DOLPHIN IS OKAY. That's how the hurricane tricks you into coming outside."
That was funny enough to earn him a new follower (me) on Twitter. So then I got to see whenever The Great Frustration got a new accolade, whenever another indie bookstore recommended it, and so on. And it also made sure I was in on the deal when his collection was free on Kindle for a limited period of time--I jumped at the chance to check it out.
But of course I get a lot of books free. This one, I actually read all the way through (something I don’t do with a ton of story collections), and now intend to purchase.
Here's the deal, what I got out of these stories: humor and recognition and occasional insight, fresh perspectives on familiar problems, overarching metaphors examined and extrapolated and complicated, and sentences pithy enough to be worth highlighting in the ebook. These aren't stories about small moments of change, but big questions of existence as expressed in aptly absurd specifics: they're half-fable, but half-Kafka or Vonnegut, too (so, a bit like George Saunders, also). However, it's not philosophy or self-help, but fiction, so the meaning is perhaps more meaningful for its ambiguity, for the way I suspect that whatever I'm recognizing in the stories is something that probably already existed in my own head, at least in embryonic form.
The criticism I have is not really a criticism; it's only that it seems like these stories aim to tackle really big questions, but do so from a perspective that feels very specific to me: recognizably young, educated, probably male. So I can’t be sure the stories will work quite as well for people who do not share that background. On the other hand, I could be wrong; very possibly Fried’s perspective will be just as recognizable to plenty of other readers.
Either way, the stories visibly reach for greater understanding and compassion, to look at the world from a wider angle, and any author's writing can only come in their own voice. I think it's worth giving this collection a look and seeing if it speaks to you.
"If your apartment is hit by a dolphin, DO NOT GO OUT TO SEE IF THE DOLPHIN IS OKAY. That's how the hurricane tricks you into coming outside."
That was funny enough to earn him a new follower (me) on Twitter. So then I got to see whenever The Great Frustration got a new accolade, whenever another indie bookstore recommended it, and so on. And it also made sure I was in on the deal when his collection was free on Kindle for a limited period of time--I jumped at the chance to check it out.
But of course I get a lot of books free. This one, I actually read all the way through (something I don’t do with a ton of story collections), and now intend to purchase.
Here's the deal, what I got out of these stories: humor and recognition and occasional insight, fresh perspectives on familiar problems, overarching metaphors examined and extrapolated and complicated, and sentences pithy enough to be worth highlighting in the ebook. These aren't stories about small moments of change, but big questions of existence as expressed in aptly absurd specifics: they're half-fable, but half-Kafka or Vonnegut, too (so, a bit like George Saunders, also). However, it's not philosophy or self-help, but fiction, so the meaning is perhaps more meaningful for its ambiguity, for the way I suspect that whatever I'm recognizing in the stories is something that probably already existed in my own head, at least in embryonic form.
The criticism I have is not really a criticism; it's only that it seems like these stories aim to tackle really big questions, but do so from a perspective that feels very specific to me: recognizably young, educated, probably male. So I can’t be sure the stories will work quite as well for people who do not share that background. On the other hand, I could be wrong; very possibly Fried’s perspective will be just as recognizable to plenty of other readers.
Either way, the stories visibly reach for greater understanding and compassion, to look at the world from a wider angle, and any author's writing can only come in their own voice. I think it's worth giving this collection a look and seeing if it speaks to you.
June 13, 2011
Good stories, including several that involve our fine primate friends (always a topic of interest for me). Yes, if you start one story ("Those of Us in Plaid") with the sentence, "Our job was simple: get the monkey in the capsule," you won't have to do much more to earn my readership. I also particularly like "The Frenchman" and the final story in the collection, "Animalcula."
From "Animalcula," in which 14 new creatures are described to an audience presumed to be scientists:
"...the universe is a hairy, tangled mess filled with purposeless digressions, of which our entire emotional framework is most likely just one among the uncountable. At any rate, be wary of those who would attempt to judge things solely by their function. The world is not an implement.
We must begin to approach the idea that, perhaps, emotion exists for emotion's sake, and that what makes our inner events so intense and manifestly difficult to understand is that the end toward which all emotion is moving is unknown even to its own components. And if this uncertainty troubles you or leaves you feeling depressed, then examine your feelings carefully and take note of the fact that you are also thrilled by it."
Given the jaggedness of my own emotions these days, I am comforted. (And also maybe bewildered!)
From "Animalcula," in which 14 new creatures are described to an audience presumed to be scientists:
"...the universe is a hairy, tangled mess filled with purposeless digressions, of which our entire emotional framework is most likely just one among the uncountable. At any rate, be wary of those who would attempt to judge things solely by their function. The world is not an implement.
We must begin to approach the idea that, perhaps, emotion exists for emotion's sake, and that what makes our inner events so intense and manifestly difficult to understand is that the end toward which all emotion is moving is unknown even to its own components. And if this uncertainty troubles you or leaves you feeling depressed, then examine your feelings carefully and take note of the fact that you are also thrilled by it."
Given the jaggedness of my own emotions these days, I am comforted. (And also maybe bewildered!)
Shelved as 'did-not-finish'
October 13, 2011Too clever by half. The first two stories are both told in the first person plural, which is a bit much. It's all very allegorical, but with an ironic veneer that makes it seem very heavy handed.
The second story, "Frost Mountain Picnic Massacre" started out so funny that it's what drew me to the book. Every year something hideous happens and a bunch of people at the picnic die. But every year everyone goes back. But the details that elaborate on it--how everyone starts out irate but gradually over the course of the year chills out about it, and if there are commercials on TV it can't be too bad, and the few people who keep protesting are seen as zealots and crackpots--are not really insightful. Nothing about the story goes very far beyond "somehow people keep convincing themselves to do stupid things over and over," with no new twist, no thoughts on why, nothing to make you feel anything but pathetic for ever watching bad TV or eating Twinkies.
The second story, "Frost Mountain Picnic Massacre" started out so funny that it's what drew me to the book. Every year something hideous happens and a bunch of people at the picnic die. But every year everyone goes back. But the details that elaborate on it--how everyone starts out irate but gradually over the course of the year chills out about it, and if there are commercials on TV it can't be too bad, and the few people who keep protesting are seen as zealots and crackpots--are not really insightful. Nothing about the story goes very far beyond "somehow people keep convincing themselves to do stupid things over and over," with no new twist, no thoughts on why, nothing to make you feel anything but pathetic for ever watching bad TV or eating Twinkies.
February 16, 2019
As the title suggests, Fried writes about people (and the occasional monkey) pressed up against the boundary of their existence, never quite breaking through. Fried often takes as his subject the first-person plural, inviting us into a “we” we didn’t know we belonged to; his mission here is empathy, and these stories offer a masterclass in it. The final piece, “Animalcula,” is a series of 15 ostensible textbook entries on microscopic creatures, from the eldrit, which drastically alters all of its characteristics as soon as they documented, to the halifite, which shows a different emotion depending on the level of magnification with which it is observed. I could read a whole book of these—the way Fried distills elements of humanity into these creatures is elegant and often profound, and the context of the satirical textbook, rather than being distracting, only adds to the effect, as these poetic observations are delivered in the intellectual tones of scientific truth.
January 5, 2012
Some great short stories, others that I didn't like at all. "The Frost Mountain Picnic Massacre" is the short story I always wanted to write. It's an amazing short story! The satirical wit makes it one of the best short stories I have ever read; a damning indictment of American culture and politics. I just wish I liked more of the stories in this collection. I almost couldn't finish the last story, "Animalcula..." I'm sure we'll hear more from this gifted writer.
July 12, 2015
These are startling and original stories, mostly about scientests and their belief systems, but also including laments of a conquistodore and a Beowolf scribe. Hard to pick, but I think my favorite involved a team of low ranking scientests working on a project that will involve sending a lab monkey they have come to love, to his certain death. Charmed by the whole premise of this book, I will gladly read what he comes up with next.
July 2, 2013
You remember that guy in your middle school, who would constantly make the same joke? "Hey, what's that?" "Huh?" "MADE YOU LOOK!"
These stories are like that, except the smack is to your brain, and you want it to keep happening.
These stories are like that, except the smack is to your brain, and you want it to keep happening.
February 12, 2015
Seth Fried does so many good things in this excellent debut collection it's difficult to begin to think of them all. His scientific fabulism hearkens back to Italo Calvino's "Cosmicomics" and few story collections I've read could get away with the first person plural as cleanly as he does (though I'll admit that style wore on me after a while). I highly recommend this one.
February 17, 2016
4.5 stars in fact
A brilliant collection of stories that reminded me of Steven Millhauser and Italo Calvino. Original, funny, highly entertaining, with some gems like "Loeka discovered", "Frost Mountain Picnic Massacre", "The Scribe's Lament" and "Animalcula". Fried has been my best discovery so far this year.
A brilliant collection of stories that reminded me of Steven Millhauser and Italo Calvino. Original, funny, highly entertaining, with some gems like "Loeka discovered", "Frost Mountain Picnic Massacre", "The Scribe's Lament" and "Animalcula". Fried has been my best discovery so far this year.
June 21, 2011
taking george saunders to pretty fucked up extremes. a bit repetitive, and (wait for it) frustrating in the way fried seems to take each story to the same place. but very funny, and enormously imaginative.
February 12, 2012
Wonderful; quirky stories with a point. Detailed comments (with spoilers) at A Just Recompense.
February 9, 2012
This collection was uneven for me. I found the title story, Loeka Discovered, and The Scribes' Lament to be stand-out stories, primarily for handling unique subject matter in a memorable voice. There is a lovely unraveling of the status quo in each of them.
June 5, 2012
My rating is about as borderline as can be. What nudged it into four-star range was the last story, "Animalcula". It's a very clever, absurdist, science-y story that is one of the few to really stand out in this otherwise good-but-not-great collection.
November 10, 2014
i read this for a class. An english class called creative writing. Seth used creativity to make this book of short stories. Some of them were good while others were just meh. I would recommended the ones that were good.
February 17, 2016
This is not a full review. I just want to note that although I keep seeing comments--including on its own cover--that this book is "funny" or "hilarious," I don't think I even smiled while reading it. I like to laugh, and I frequently do, but this book did not make it happen.
April 7, 2011
Fantastic collection! Reminded me of some of my favorite short story writers: Vonnegut, George Saunders, Stephen Millhauser, and Jim Shepard. Smart, funny, inventive stuff!
August 23, 2011
One of the best things I've read this year.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 43 reviews