(no subject)
Talked to dad on the phone yesterday, told him I got the coffeemaker he sent. Things will be alright maybe.
I've been reading so many short stories lately, maybe to help me write my workshop story for next week's composition [the last]. I've had a lot of interesting, provocative ideas, but none that I've been able to work to completion.
I read maybe the only story by Joy Williams that I haven't liked, "Anodyne," from her newest collection, Honored Guest. Hm, maybe I didn't dislike it, but I don't think it's up to par with her other work. Maybe it was my punishment for going to the table of contents to find the shortest story in the book. It was certainly interesting, and precise in that Joy Williams way. Revisiting the mother-daughter relationship, the mother quitting yoga and starting gun lessons, both of them diabetic, the father dead. It just felt a bit more bland than was forgivable. Oh well. I still love her work so much, she's one of the most unappreciated, unknown writers. It doesn't help that she publishes books very rarely, so she doesn't get exposure with people outside the literary crowd that reads things like Granta.
Williams is one of the best examples of a fiction writer I can think of who can express her worldview or politics while fitting it within the story.
"There's a big river there, a big attraction, that runs right past all the shops and restaurants and that's all lit up with fairy lights," the Marksman said. "Tourists take cruises on it and stroll beside it. They promenade," he said in a careful voice. "Once a year, they pump the whole thing out, the whole damn river, and clean it and then put the water back in again. They scrub the bottom like it was a bathtub and fill it up again. What do you think about that?"
My hands were damp. I was beginning to worry about this, but my mother always said there was nothing more useless than dreading something you weren't understanding.
"People have lost their interest in reality," the Marksman said.
Another recent read with a better passionless narrator, I think, was in Judy Budnitz's "Flush," originally published in McSweeney's. It starts like this:
I called my sister and said: What does a miscarriage look like?
What? she said. Oh. It looks like when you're having your period, I guess. You have cramps, and then there's blood.
What do people do with it? I asked.
With what?
The blood and stuff.
I don't know, she said impatiently. I don't know these things, I'm not a doctor. All I can tell you about anything is who you should sue.
It's hard to write disengaged narrators. Well it's hard to write them and have the story turn out seeming significant or "good." Back to trying to write something I'm not ashamed of my class reading.
I've been reading so many short stories lately, maybe to help me write my workshop story for next week's composition [the last]. I've had a lot of interesting, provocative ideas, but none that I've been able to work to completion.
I read maybe the only story by Joy Williams that I haven't liked, "Anodyne," from her newest collection, Honored Guest. Hm, maybe I didn't dislike it, but I don't think it's up to par with her other work. Maybe it was my punishment for going to the table of contents to find the shortest story in the book. It was certainly interesting, and precise in that Joy Williams way. Revisiting the mother-daughter relationship, the mother quitting yoga and starting gun lessons, both of them diabetic, the father dead. It just felt a bit more bland than was forgivable. Oh well. I still love her work so much, she's one of the most unappreciated, unknown writers. It doesn't help that she publishes books very rarely, so she doesn't get exposure with people outside the literary crowd that reads things like Granta.
Williams is one of the best examples of a fiction writer I can think of who can express her worldview or politics while fitting it within the story.
"There's a big river there, a big attraction, that runs right past all the shops and restaurants and that's all lit up with fairy lights," the Marksman said. "Tourists take cruises on it and stroll beside it. They promenade," he said in a careful voice. "Once a year, they pump the whole thing out, the whole damn river, and clean it and then put the water back in again. They scrub the bottom like it was a bathtub and fill it up again. What do you think about that?"
My hands were damp. I was beginning to worry about this, but my mother always said there was nothing more useless than dreading something you weren't understanding.
"People have lost their interest in reality," the Marksman said.
Another recent read with a better passionless narrator, I think, was in Judy Budnitz's "Flush," originally published in McSweeney's. It starts like this:
I called my sister and said: What does a miscarriage look like?
What? she said. Oh. It looks like when you're having your period, I guess. You have cramps, and then there's blood.
What do people do with it? I asked.
With what?
The blood and stuff.
I don't know, she said impatiently. I don't know these things, I'm not a doctor. All I can tell you about anything is who you should sue.
It's hard to write disengaged narrators. Well it's hard to write them and have the story turn out seeming significant or "good." Back to trying to write something I'm not ashamed of my class reading.