An interrupted night last night chez Pointy Sticks. I was so sleepy this morning that it wasn't until about 10:30 that I realized that I was wearing two different earrings.
I am, I think, becoming disillusioned with the Chevron scarf and am thinking that perhaps the yarn wants to be something else. I am reassured as to the folding - fellow Ravelryers (Ravelryists? Ravelroids?) seem to have had luck eliminating the folding by a judicious use of an iron. But...I dunno. It feels sort of stiff. I think I might restart tonight with a different yarn and larger needles. Yes, I think the Chevron scarf will be taking a dip in the frog pond.
Probably won't be starting anything new tonight, though, as I have to go home and bake some cakes for T'day. We'll be eating at my aunt's and many cousins will be there. Should be fun. I think we should play some Charades.
Currently Reading
Still carrying When the Devil Holds the Candle back and forth to work with me but I'll admit I haven't cracked the cover in a couple of days. At home I am still reading away at The Chinese Tattoo Murder Case and I'm also reading Ingathering, a collection of Zenna Henderson's People stories. They are dated and a little hokey but still fun reading.
I am also reading, for a discussion on Readerville, the 2007 Best American Short Stories. This edition is edited by Stephen King. I gotta say, so far I've been disappointed in most of them. I mislaid my book for a while, so I haven't yet read the first five stories. (I didn't want the discussion to get too far ahead of me.) And of the others I've read...I think I've really only liked and admired "Wake." I recognize that the Mary Gordon story (the title of which escapes me) is well-written but I thought it about as bloodless and drab as its main character. "Riding the Doghouse" felt like a story that was meant to be the opening of a horror novel but it then just fizzled out. The story about the Jeepster and his murdered girlfriend (another title which has evaporated from my mind) was overly metaphored but once I got past that the story really grabbed me. But it was ruined by the last paragraph or so which seemed to me to be hammering the reader over the head with the Lesson to be Learned from This Story.
"Wake" has well-drawn, lively, flawed characters and an interesting situation. The opening sentence is a grabber and the voice stays true throughout the story. I thought it was fine. I also read, last night, the following story, "Wait." I thought it an sort of amusing trifle but ultimately meaningless and hollow, going nowhere.
So, Stephen, I ask you? What was it that really grabbed you about these stories? I wish he, as some other editors have done in the past, had written a little blurb before each story about why he picked it.
3 comments:
I'm with you on the BASS 07, although who knows how much dreck Mr. King had to wade through in the first place. Still, you'd think he could have picked some more exciting stuff. Did you read the T.C. Boyle? I liked that one, and also the Lauren Groff, which wasn't all that radical a story but I thought the writing was very elegant.
Mostly, though, I like the discussion. I've never been part of a book club or taken a lit class, but I love talking about what I'm reading on a level that's at least a step or two up from "I like it" or "it sucks." A lot of the conversation at home is book discussion -- it beats the hell out of descriptions of the workday, although probably comes in a close second to Cute Things About the Pets. But I like the big ones on RV too, with a lot of people in the mix.
Was the T.C. Boyle one "Balto?" I can't remember now if I read that one or just skimmed it after reading the discussion on R'ville.
I'll have to look up the Lauren Groff when I get home.
Yeah, that was "Balto." I've stopped on the BASS for the time being, but will start up again soon enough. J just bought me the new Ploughshares and it's turned my head for today, anyway.
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