Monday, Monday

 

Monday, Monday

 

FFB: OH, WILLIAM, Elizabeth Strout

( from the archives)

Elizabeth Strout is probably my favorite writer and Oh, William is a continuation of the story she began in MY NAME IS LUCY BARTON. I love her unadorned, plain-speaking writing style, I like her characters and find them completely credible, I love her affection for even the worst of them. Lucy Barton is introduced as a patient in a hospital after an operation went bad. She spends a month there ruminating on her life and especially on her horrific childhood. Her mother visits her-something unexpected because of the way she treated Lucy as a child. But William calls her in because it is hard for him to visit with a job and two children to care for.

Oh William picks the story up later. Lucy is now a successful novelist with two grown daughters and has just lost her second husband, who she adored. William was her first husband and she is thrown together with him when he finds out he has a stepsister he never knew existed and needs help coping with it. Lucy takes the journey with him despite herself. 

I am now reading the third story about this family (although written before Oh, William) and it is terrific too.Is anything nicer than being in the hands of a writer you love?

SSW: "The Fourth State of Matter" Joann Beard from the NEW YORKER in 1996

 

Beard combines the dissolution of her marriage, the squirrels in her attic, her dying collie and the murder of students at the University of Iowa by a discontent student into a powerful short story.https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1996/06/24/the-fourth-state-of-matter

This is also known as an essay since Beard was a student there in 1991 when this happened.

I am perhaps telling you too much about what happens when I shouldn't. It took me by surprise but all of the descriptions give it away too.  

George Kelley 

Jerry House (TV based on a short story)

Todd Mason 

Jerry House 2 

Monday, Monday

 

Aside from these two movies at the theater, I also rewatched SLEEPLESS IN SEATTLE, BOB AND CAROL AND TED AND ALICE and something else that escapes me. (THE GREEN RAY by ERIC ROHMER) and the best of the lot. A real movie week. I am on the last season of MAD MEN, which I will miss. Maybe I will rewatch THE WEST WING. 

Getting ready to go to CA next Monday, so I will post blanks to put up on Monday and WEDNESDAY of both weeks because I so enjoy reading your posts on here. 

Finishing up the Lily King book and reading the Updike letters.  Last week, Megan zoomed with my very large book group-about thirty people-- about EL DORADO DRIVE. We don't usually read thrillers, but it went well.  

Hoping I don't get the horrible flu going around.  Would I go if sick. I don't know. Is it acceptable to fly with the flu? 

FFB: WHO WILL RUN THE FROG HOSPITAL, Lorrie Moore

 reviewed by Casual Debris in 2015

Lorrie Moore, Who Will Run the Frog Hospital? (1994)

Rating: 5/10



As an avid radio listener throughout my teens, I first came across Lorrie Moore by accident when I heard a live reading of her famous short story "How to Become a Writer." Normally, especially at that age, I would quickly seek out other works of newly-discovered writers I enjoyed, but in the case of Moore, though I continued to stumble upon the story throughout the years, along with one or two others, I never actively searched for more of her work. About a year ago I came across a bent copy of Who Will Run the Frog Hospital?, and finally read the book last week.

Moore's second novel, currently bookended by Anagrams (1986) and A Gate at the Stairs (2009), is a short work that reads like a memoir, a narrator's personal guide through a specific time in her life. (Memoir, however, is simply another kind of fiction, another kind of fabrication; while there are certainly elements from Moore's own life present in the work, it does not read like autobiography.) The narrator is on vacation in Paris in the midst of a seemingly failed marriage, and interspersed with brief conversations with and thoughts of her husband, hearkens back to a summer in the 1970s during which she was obsessed with popular best friend Sils.

The work focuses on the relationship, the narrator's insecurities and very much on the decade. Though it is well written (very well written), it is lacking. The plot is incidental and awakens late in the work, which generates an uneven read. (Ironically, this is one of the threads running through Moore's "How to Become a Writer," as protagonist Francie is being criticized for her lack of plot.) The ending is rushed through, acts as an epilogue and is unnecessary. I would have liked to have been left in the uncertainty of the past as mirrored by the uncertainty of the present, as the two narratives should coincide. Or perhaps the present should have also had its own epilogue? But not really.

While I did not care much for the work as a novel, it is a fast read and worthy of a read for Ms. Moore's writing skills are impressive. The characters are solid and real, and the small town universe they live in is constructed with great care.

Now to seek out more of those fine short stories...

Blog note: Moore has continued to produce fine work.