Me feel dumb reading stories in book. Me do not like feeling dumb, so me give book two stars... The book begins and ends with stories that are very absurdly British. They could have possibly shown up somewhere in Waugh, or maybe K. Amis early body of work. They could have also shown up in something later like B.S. Johnson and not felt out of place. They were good like that. All of the filer stories though I couldn't make heads of tails of. I think not being Welsh added to my confusion. They all

Dylan’s idea is that you shed skins as you pass into new stages, and it’s only when you look back that you realize you’ve shed a skin. Although it’s unfinished, it doesn’t really matter. It’s the story of one skin in the process of molting.So, ‘Adventures in the Skin Trade’ is Dylan Thomas’ unfinished novel – his foray into prose – which is a wonderful glimpse into his lovely, coarse sense of humor. The first story of the collection (the unfinished novel) reminds me of ‘a Confederacy of Dunces’

one of the best memories of my life is waking up on a strangers couch, finding this in a second hand book store, and spending the rest of the day lying on the grass with a bag of grapefruits, reading this in the sunshine

Much prefer Thomas the poet, but I sometimes forget that he was also an impressive short story writer too.Faves here were—The VisitorThe OrchardsThe Horse's HaA Prospect of the SeaPrologue to an AdventureThe Followers

You'll either love it or hate it. It will prove a satisfying journey for those who recognize and appreciate the piercing beauty of dischordance when achieved with plan and purpose. This collection contains two of the most unsettling and lovely pieces of short fiction I've ever read. If you like the conventional - linear, literal fiction that does not leave you changed in some way - then you can safely assume this book will not be on your list of favorites.

I had the feeling, the entire time I was reading this collection, of having my head underwater while someone tries to tell me a story: I can make out the general gist, and some things sound really interesting and different from what I would expect, but really I am never quite sure I know what the other person is saying, and no matter how many times I ask them to repeat it, it's always going to be just as hard to make out.That being said, there were about three-quarters of these stories that I wa...

This book emphasizes just how ahead of his time Dylan Thomas was. His zany poetic narrative descriptions of the settings, the people, and their social interactions in this book is still in my opinion being mimicked today, probably accidently or sub consciously by many authors. Unaware of where it all started. Despite its age there something still very fresh about it. The frustrating thing is that its an incomplete piece of work, and for that reason, it feels like you are just getting a glimpse o...

I was unprepared.The title story and unfinished novel is a picaresque about a young man who leaves home and moves to London looking for a woman he has the barest connection to. His adventures are fairly absurd and non-sensical. The other characters are cartoonish and bizarre, though the author manages to capture the simultaneous feelings of uncertainty and invincibility you feel as a young man of privilege entering society.The rest of the stories are dark and Weird. Thomas taps into the traditio...

This is a book that I will be returning to again and again: it contains within each dense sentence an endlessly evolving experience of demiurgical vision that cannot be fully digested in a single reading. Within these stories the transcendent word is a buried treasure; abounding symbols map the way; ancient stories echo through the pages and new myths are born through the resonance. Like the narrator of these stories, the reader must continually search for the elusive meaning of the experience w...

Great title and opening line: "... only one person was awake in the street, and he was the quietest." No coincidence that the main character's called Samuel Bennett as it reads very like a Samuel Beckett. Just a fragment of a novel, he never finished it. The kind of book that academics find hilarious, but only raises the odd wry smile in most everyone else. Nice language, but I'm getting a bit sick of reading books that are heavy on description and light on story...

I had a hard time rating this one. The content is 3 stars, the delivery is five stars. This compilation of short stories reads like a series of poetic dreams. Imagery is vivid, evocative and rich. Plot lines are nearly non-existent.

Ghoulish, hilarious, mundane, magical, and at turns impenetrable. A dour world of witches and weirdness galore as well as a few regular nobodies just wandering aimlessly in the rain looking in windows for entertainment. There’s nothing quite like it.

Didn't get it. Couldn't follow it. Didn't understand it. I was so glad to finish it.

What an unexpectedly gorgeous book. Will send me back to read and re-read more Dylan Thomas.

I really wish Dylan Thomas had finished the title story to this collection, Adventures in the Skin Trade. It really shows him at his best, with elements of comedic inner dialogue (ala Joyce), absurdity (Kafka), adventurousness (Kerouac), and coming of age existentialism (Salinger), all flowing effortlessly. He started it before WWII and never got back to it afterwards, but it was enjoyable despite that.Unfortunately in many of the other short stories here, he gets into too much religious allegor...

"Image! All image!" exclaims an AitST character, as if in dutiful summary of these beautiful plotless stories // evasive, lyrical, dreamlike // drinking, vague sex and/or illusive metaphors that compare writing to sex, weird dreams // 3.0: 1.0, 3.6, 1.3, 2.8, 5.0, 4.0 // I purchased this at a used bookstore after finding it as part of a book scavenger hunt that I was playing with my wife; I was intrigued by the handwritten inscription on the inside front cover: "If you light a fire for a man, he...

This is a country-boy-goes-to-the-city story. At the station Samuel got his finger stuck in a beer bottle which he carried around d with him for the rest of the story. He also met some distinctly odd people and was introduced to the seamier side of London. Thomas had an amazing facility with language and this little book was no exception. We definitely get into Samuel's head as he first experienced the big city and allowed it to absorb him.

Stepping on a dead twig, he was bitten.There was nothing in his dream but her tired face. And the changes of the details of the dream and the celestial changes, the levers of the trees and the toothed twigs, these were the mechanisms of her delirium. It was not the sickness of sin that was upon her face. Rather it was the sickness of never having sinned and of never having done well.*

'adventures in the skin trade', what was completed, was brilliantly written and quite enjoyed. a shame he only finishes so little of it.the other stores included were hit and miss. it's because of them the rating was so low..

There were so many excited 'wtf am I reading?' moments during this book. Very odd, very angular, very poetic (imagine that). Not cohesive but stunningly punctuated with some of the most descriptive and off-the-wall sentences I have ever had the pleasure of reading. The best $1 I ever spent on a used book.