Kincaid, Edwards, and Bazterrica --In which I return to two previously enjoyed writers' works, and "discover" one new-to-me writer. Although... since the Winter Quarterly, my short story reading has been all over the place. Usually I have a collection or two in my stacks, and I read
In reading this fifty-page-long story, I followed the instructions that Saunders set out for us in the first story, curious to see whether the process would prove valuable. Saunders, himself, took a unique approach with the first of the seven stories he considers herein; he offered commentary after each
May’s story is Leo Tolstoy’s “Master and Man” (1895), the longest of the seven Russian stories that George Saunders contemplates in A Swim in a Pond in the Rain, which Bill and Bron and I will read in the next couple of weeks and discuss mid-month. (The project details
Since 2020, my bookbag has been at home more often than not, so this has also become a place to share the books I’ve found myself reading in bits and pieces. Originally, I bought Democracy with last year’s MARM in mind, for Margaret Atwood’s contribution. It opens with a
If I were to witness a murder, I figure I’d be like that woman in the Swedish drama “The Breakthrough” who sees the perpetrator straight on but, later, cannot recall a single facial feature. So Saunders’ point about the previous story, about Turgenev’s physical descriptions in “The Singers”, didn’t
