The World Beyond BetterMost > The Culture Tent
Annie Proulx: Fine Just The Way It Is, Wyoming Stories 3
CellarDweller:
--- Quote from: shakestheground on September 16, 2008, 12:04:38 pm ---Last night I read The Sagebrush Kid, which is dedicated to George Jones.
Now one could probably correctly assume this is the George Jones she is refering to, which I don't quite understand but never mind.
This very short story features Bill and Mizpah, who operate a stage coach station who adopt a sage bush as their surrogate child and a Calcutta born Indian named R. Singh, who is living among the Souix. Shades of Stephen King here, that I have felt for a while Proulx has some strange connection of language and ideas with. Kind of a Maine thing.
--- End quote ---
This was the story that Annie read to us last year in NYC. Loved it then, love it now!
Shakesthecoffecan:
In Swamp Mischief we are visited again by our old friends, The Devil and his assistant, Duane Fork.
In it we learn that Satan does have an email address: [email protected] but like many of us, his emails tend to be spam.
Bored and wanting to cause some mischief on Earth, he creats a flock of pterosaurses at a national park, but in the tension betwixt the evolved world and the world of spiritual myth, the details of diet undo the operations. Proulx maintains the Devil is deffinatly a western figure, having left his name in so many places.
My favorite line in the story: "No Canadian stuff today. I'm in no mood for their so called civility."
Shakesthecoffecan:
I am in the home stretch now with FJTWII.
The next to the last story, Testamony of the Donkey, uuuuh, it is classic Proulx, if there is such a thing.
Marc and Catlin live together in a trailer in the rural landscape. We are treated to a background of their lives, and overview of their relationship and then half way thru, the direction turns 90 degrees. It is an ominious turn, and the reader knows exactly where they are headed, but man what a ride! It is flat out horrifying. I was glued to the book, page after page, I read it as the light died and hardly noticed.
This is so much shades of Postcards, Jewel Blood trying to cross a creek in the snow, OMG, this one will stay with me a long time.
retropian:
YAY! I'm looking forward to reading it. I like how many of her previous stories have a wry black humor present. Her sense of humor doesn't soften the stories. She can be funny but not sentimental.
Shakesthecoffecan:
--- Quote from: retropian on September 23, 2008, 06:46:12 pm ---YAY! I'm looking forward to reading it. I like how many of her previous stories have a wry black humor present. Her sense of humor doesn't soften the stories. She can be funny but not sentimental.
--- End quote ---
Hey Ian, have you been able to read the two stories that have been published in the New Yorker?
Navigation
[0] Message Index
[#] Next page
[*] Previous page
Go to full version