Short Stories
Wednesday, April 9th, 2008I was trying to find ways to kill time today because for whatever reason and trust me im not complaining, its is dead at work. reading for me is the most efficient killer of time but thinking it would be busy as usual i neglected to bring a book. So i started reading through the New Yorker’s archives of recently published short stories. I read a John Updike first which was very John Updike-ish. I read one by Jeffrey Eugenides (the Virgin Suicides and Middlesex) I read one by Jonathan Lethem (Motherless Brooklyn and one of my favorite books, The Fortress of Solitude). I read one by Richard Ford and one by Salman Rushdie and one by Alice Munro and one by recent Pulitzer winner Junot Diaz. I was not overly impressed by any of them and i will get to why in a second.
The New Yorker must be going through some kind of TC Boyle phase because in the last 6 months they have published three of his stories. I am big TC Boyle fan in the way that i am a big Grateful dead fan. I like the idea of TC Boyle. I like his zaniness and he is obviously a good writer, but sometimes he can be too zany and most of the time he can be too long winded. he is also a little self indulgent for my taste but i do enjoy that piece of hair that he has that he always lets droop over his face. Anyway, I like the guy, i have enjoyed his stories in the past and i enjoyed the two i read today as well: Ash Monday and The Lie. Both very funny but with tons of heart, hes always been good at writing characters with a soul which is nice.
God, i am really taking forever to make this point.
My point is that the reason i liked the TC Boyle short stories and why wasnt crazy about any of the other ones i read today was because sometimes the TC Boyle’s got out of control. as you were reading it you could tell he let his mind wander a little bit and in goes a clever aside or a witty piece of dialogue or the whole mood of the story shifts to make it not only lighter and give it more of that heart stuff i was talking about it also makes them both instantly more readable. I am not a short story fan. I appreciate the genre and i especially appreciate all the work that goes into writing one but i have never been a shorty story “guy” for the specific reason that to write a good short story you have to have more control over your emotions and your language than i could ever dream of having but also more than i consistently enjoy reading. I go through phases, Like the New Yorker with the Boyles but i cannot sit down on a regular basis and chew through a series of short stories. the reason being that whole control thing. there doesnt seem to be enough space for the imagination to really take flight and do something crazy you didnt expect. You need to do your business and then get out! Thats why i find people who write fantastic short stories like EA Poe (I like how that looks, im going to start doing that to my name) and Jimmy Joyce so fascinating. they are able to let their imaginations take off while still keeping the story and the plot and the idea under control.
You know what else is a good way to kill time while you’re supposed to be working?
Writing for your blog.
