Recent Reading: Etgar Keret

I really enjoyed the short story collection Suddenly, a Knock on the Door from Israeli author Etgar Keret. I have heard several of his stories read on This American Life and I enjoyed the Middleman -- a miniseries about a French real estate agent, a talking goldfish, and time travel -- on the Criterion Channel. However, this was the first time I have actually read a whole book by Keret.

The stories are short, sometimes they are really short, flash fiction, earthy, and, at least for me, quite funny. I am sure they were challenging to translate from Hebrew to English because they are filled with informal language and slang. Keret is fond of having his characters use metonymy (a part standing for the whole) so that rather than names, in dialogue, characters are referred to as mustache or bandaid. More than one story ends with a man -- the stories are overwhelmingly told by and about men -- taking things to far and being punched. And for some reason dentists appear frequently in these stories. I laughed quite a bit and enjoyed Keret's stories.