Nobel

[Prospero]

The wonderful Canadian short story writer Alice Munro has just been awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature.


http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-24477246

My favourite short story is by Hemingway.

"For sale. Baby shoes. Never worn."
Anyone here write short stories?

My lame contender.....

"Once upon a time they all lived happily ever after. Not these days."

[tsmirandameadows]

Hemingway is a superb author. While certainly a manly man, and thus eschewed out of hand by those (too heavily in my opinion) influenced by feminism, his prose and his plotting convey a depth of emotion that resonates with my soul like few other authors. I quite like Indian Camp and the closing line on Nick's reasonable certainty that "he will never die." I'm not sure I ever had such certainty, but the innocence of youth which such a statement implies is an experience I'm afraid being transsexual prevented me from ever having. The spectre of Death, or at least the desire for it, was a constant companion, which gradually morphed into a desire to die well, in the Vergilian sense. Literature is a powerful thing, and I am forever grateful to the professors of my university's Classics department that they were able to turn me on to it with the same degree of passion which animates me when an object of male attraction today.

Again, I apologize for my drunkenness.

[Stavros]

Hemingway's mother wanted girls, so when Ernest came along she dressed him girls clothes and called her children 'sweet Dutch dollies'. He went to great lengths to suppress the history and keep photos of him dressed in frilly pink dresses away from the public gaze but one wonders if this early forced feminization was responsible -to whatever degree- in the exaggerated masculinity of the man and his characters...?


http://www.timelesshemingway.com/images/hemingwayinbabydress.jpg

[Prospero]

Wasn't it quite common for very young men to be dressed up thus in that era? I have pictures of my father as a baby in the early 1920s in little sailor's suits with long flowing blond hair.

[dderek123]

I like Stephen Kings collection of short stories. There was one where two kids are stuck on a raft in a lake and theres this blob-like alien thing underneath the raft.

And Philip Dicks stories weren't too long but enjoyable. A lot of them were adapted into hollywood movies with mixed results. I was really disappointed by Paycheck. They did the novel no justice in that one.

[trish]

Recently read (and can recommend) Daniel Woodrell's The Outlaw Album, a collection of gritty American stories.

I never read Alice Munro, but yesterday I bought Alice Munro's The Moons of Jupiter. I don't have time to read right now, but in a couple of weeks I intend to find a clean, well-lighted place and give it a try.