I really enjoyed reading this. ( )

A couple of good stories but most are dull. ( )

"A Few Short Notes on Tropical Butterflies" is a psychological tragedy. You cannot help but feel sorry for the first person protagonist as he slowly loses his grip on his once secure life. As a plastic surgeon married to a neurosurgeon twenty years his junior he has turned to the bottle to reconcile the memory of the death of his sister, his grandfather's suicide brought about by mental illness, his wife's miscarriage and his own handed-down obsession with butterflies.

"Watson and the Shark" is a different kind of tragedy. A doctor volunteering in the Democratic Republic of the Congo is witness to the brutal injuries a boy suffers at the hands of machete-mad soldiers. He begins to operate on the critically wounded boy when hundreds of other severely wounded men, women and children are brought into his operating tent. In the beginning of the story the narrator feels like god, controlling the lives of the mangled patients under his knife. He has the power to stitch them together and potentially give them their life back. But, as he watches the multitude of mutilated suffer and die he begins to feel a hopelessness creep in. ( )

This was a beautiful, thoughtful and interesting group of long(ish) short stories that often took my breath away. I am a bit new to the short story genre, but these struck me as unique, both in location and subject matter. Each of the eight stories deals with some similar themes, e.g., loss (usually of a parent), acceptance of hardships and issues of parenting (from either a grown child's perspective or a parent's perspective) and often the struggle between being a parent and pursuing individual needs and desires. There are also themes of what we become, and why, either to follow in our parents' footsteps or conversely, consciously avoid that path. The stories often weave in exotic locations, India, Africa, the Himalayas; and also usually involve some facet of the medical profession (even if just the learning) as the author is a doctor. The thing I loved is that I felt I learned a little bit about something with each story, whether beetles, butterflies, carpentry, surgery, volunteering in a war-torn country, etc. The stories do tend to wander a bit, they don't have a cohesive beginning/middle/end, but that said, I think that is part of their beauty. Characters walk in, walk out, and some never reappear, much like life. Although I liked them all, I believe my favorite story was "The Carpenter Who Looked Like A Boxer" - about a self-labled ugly man who marries a beautiful physician with some dark secrets that bubble up early in their marriage. He is left with the couple's two children and he just tells of the simple joys of being a father, artist, carpenter and homeowner. He accepts his flaws and as the story grows, he learns to like who he is and what he provides for his children and others. It's a beautiful story. My second favorite was "All The Rivers In The World" about a chubby, stuck-in-middle-life man who road trips from Maine to Florida to try to figure out why his father left his mother and sold everything to live/work on a fishing boat in Florida. As is often true of life, things were not what he thought, and he gains new understanding and empathy about his father and himself. I highly recommend this book, especially if you like something a bit off the beaten path. ( )

A fantastic book. Each story is so rich you feel like you read an entire novel afterwards.The stories have recurring themes but are not linked in any obvious way. All of the stories feature fathers or one kind or another, and most have a troubled father-son relationship at its core. Many also feature doctors or medical problems; some have international settings (Murray is a doctor who worked in the developing world). I highly recommend this book to anyone who likes the short story form. ( )

A Few Short Notes on Tropical Butterflies by John Murray (a physician) is an impressive collection of short stories, each of which provides a remarkable glimpse into the complexitiesof relationships of various types. It is a serious, yet uplifting book - with beautiful and powerful portraits of difficult emotions. ( )

I find the intricacy of his prose, the exotic situations narrated in a flat, matter-of-fact tone--tantalizing. But I do agree with the reviewer (Megami?) who says that the situations seem to vary little from story to story-- there is always the brilliant, distant father; the neurasthenic, unhappy mother; the son (or daughter) caught between these two opposing forces. Still, I know I'll finish the book, if only because I can't get over how someone with a name like JOHN MURRAY could channel Ruth Prawer Jhabvala... ( )

This is a collection of short stories that don't seem to be linked by a common thread - all the stories bar one feature fathers, many feature doctors and/or medical dramas (Murray trained in medicine), many feature India or Indian ex-patriates - but there is no one common theme. It could be that these stories are all Murray has written, but if not you have to ask yourself if the editor really thought things through. By halfway through, you start each story wondering if yet again Murray will be using the same themes....the story that is a bit different `Blue' with its austere setting, is all the more striking for not featuring the tropics. By the end, you feel that the writer is being arrogant, and rather than writing for a reader, he is simply working out his `issues' story after story to the detriment of enjoying his work.

Except for the last story, these don't seem to work very well as short stories, rather they feel like chapters from novels; or perhaps ideas for novels that didn't quite grow.

While there is some lovely prose, there is not nearly enough to cover its flaws. The characters are interesting as isolated examples, but they become very boring when then seem to be in each story, just in a different guise - son/daughter dealing with clever and methodical father/grandfather while mother tries to grow as an individual.

It will be interesting to see if Murray writes a novel, and if so if he moves on to exploring new themes. ( )