The World Beyond BetterMost > The Culture Tent
In the New Yorker...
Front-Ranger:
Your reading patterns over the years are interesting. I take a different approach...I usually begin with Talk of the Town at the beginning and barrel right through to the critical reviews at the end. If I skip anything, it's usually the fiction. I also skip political stories, especially during election season, and sometimes Middle East or Africa stories.
This odd approach means that I'm sometimes not done with an issue when the new one comes. When that happens, I drop the half-read issue by the side of my bed and take up the new issue. I save the half-read issue for long winter nights or if I get sick.
I rarely read the fiction, but when the annual fiction issue comes out I force myself to read at least a few of the stories. Why? I think you know why...not a single story has hit me with anything near the force of our beloved Brokeback Mountain. The state of fiction today seems to be pretty sad to me. Sir Arthur is the Boyle I prefer to read, rather than T. C.
Jeff Wrangler:
--- Quote from: serious crayons on September 01, 2012, 09:42:03 pm ---I have something terrible to confess: I never really "get" Alice Munro. She's revered among all writers, but I read her stories and come to the end and think, "OK, so?" I know -- shameful! Also, from what I've read of her she sounds very nice. I'd probably like her. What's wrong with me?
--- End quote ---
I read her for the tone. I think the latest evokes what must have been the very chilly atmosphere of World War II-era Canada. Most of her stories also seem to take place in small towns, and as a kid I spent a lot of time in the small town where my parents grew up, so I sort of relate to that atmosphere. I don't know if that qualifies as "getting" her, but there you have it.
--- Quote ---Shouts and Murmurs (unless I start them and they seem too far-fetched -- I love Bob Odenkirk on Breaking Bad, but his recent S&M lost me midway through).
--- End quote ---
I'n't that funny? I almost never read "Shouts and Murmurs." I don't really know why. Maybe I've just read too many of them that struck me as, well, dumb. :-\
--- Quote from: Front-Ranger on September 03, 2012, 05:18:49 pm ---Sir Arthur is the Boyle I prefer to read, rather than T. C.
--- End quote ---
Who's Sir Arthur Boyle? What did he write? ???
Aloysius J. Gleek:
--- Quote from: Jeff Wrangler on September 03, 2012, 07:25:00 pm ---Who's Sir Arthur Boyle? What did he write? ???
--- End quote ---
Sir Arthur [Conan D]oyle, maybe!
Front-Ranger:
Most assuredly, Dr. Watson!!
serious crayons:
--- Quote from: Jeff Wrangler on September 03, 2012, 07:25:00 pm ---I'n't that funny? I almost never read "Shouts and Murmurs." I don't really know why. Maybe I've just read too many of them that struck me as, well, dumb. :-\
--- End quote ---
I know. Many of them strike me as dumb, too.
But I'll have to say, the most recent one (or the most recent one I've seen -- the one with little pictures of Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan on the front, I think it's Sept. 3) had me laughing out loud numerous times. It's titled "How to Win at Conversation" or something like that. Still, the parts that struck me the funniest, oddly, aren't the punchlines of each section, but the second lines of each section.
Years on years ago, I saw a S&M that was so amazing I clipped and saved it (not forever, unfortunately). It was a little story about a guy going to a party that was packed with positive versions of verbs and adjectives we almost exclusively use the negative versions of. "Plussed" instead of "nonplussed," for example. Chalant. Nerving. And so on.
In subsequent years, I've tried in vain to find it again. I don't remember the author and have no idea how I'd search for it.
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