Darryl Pinckney's brilliant essay on Elizabeth Hardwick in the current New York Review ofBooks whetted my appetite for Thursday night's "New York Stories" event at the Morgan Library. Here's a splendid passage from Pinckney: "What transfixed Hardwick about Renata Adler's Speedboat (1976) was her narrator's indifference to anything other than her own perceptions. Invovlement with a critical self suited the life of the single woman." I especially cherish the notion of a narrator's "indifference to anything other than her own perceptions." This might not be the governing aesthetic of the publishing industry at the moment, but it's a fine governing aesthetic for the serious novelist.
Last week I was down in Trenton with an organization called People & Stories, a reading and discussion program that (according to their mission statement) "creates unique access to literature. Adults and young adults who have had limited opportunities to experience the power of literature work in small groups led by a trained coordinator. Participants draw upon their own experiences to discuss complex short stories. As they examine the poetics, issues, and values the stories explore, people can discover ways to see things differently."
Now and then they ask me to join their classes and read one of my stories. The participants this time round...
I was as nervous as one of the blue herons I’d seen on our Black River Safari. The moment was here and I still didn’t know which story I was going to read. I’d narrowed down the choice to two stories: “The Day Jesus Christ Came to Mount Airy” or “Cry to Me” from Who’s Your Daddy? : And Other Stories. It was going to be a difficult choice between stories which confront two important issues in Jamaican life: spirituality and fatherhood.
“Cry to Me” seemed an obvious choice because throughout the festival, the theme of fatherhood was a subtext in many of the readings. I was also moved by the sight of so many fathers and their children in the audience: sitting on...
Do animals tell stories to one another? If so, are they tragic stories or funny stories? Are they short stories with lessons, a bit like the fables of Aesop? Are they stories that never end, like those of Arabian Nights Entertainments?
The other day, I saw a crow sitting quietly on a branch, when another few up to it, cawing frantically. The first crow remained mute and motionless, while the other, growing louder and more excited, circled his head a few times. The second crow then dive-bombed past the first, just barely missing her, but the first crow appeared completely unperturbed. This happened a second time, and then a third, when at last the two crows flew off together.
Pakistan: the world’s most dangerous country, read American papers.
America: the world’s most dangerous country, read Pakistani papers.
A Pakistani novelist, a Vietnamese short-story writer and a Syrian-born poet/translator spoke with eloquent hope about the idea that, scattered across the globe, we are more alike than we are different. But their conversation shined a spotlight on opposing worldviews that stem from varied cultural, historical and religious backgrounds.
Perhaps the clearest examples of those discordant views during the panel titled “East-West Storytelling” came from Nadeem Aslam, author most recently of The Wasted Vigil, set in Afghanistan, and also of Maps for Lost Lovers, about Pakistani emigrants living in England. He mentioned that he reads here in our newspapers about the most dangerous country...
I’m sitting looking out at the Indian Ocean from the eastern edge of Africa in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. It is Labor Day, at least in the U.S., though in the U.S. it is actually still Sunday night; but here it is morning with billowing white clouds,...
Michael has a stand of high chairs with foot-rests all built upon a sturdy oak wooden frame with arm-rests. He is a shoe-shine guy. He is standing under the shelter of the overhang of Grand Central Station on 42nd and Lex. in front of his shoe-shine booth. This makes sense - a good place for a booth - for it provides shelter for anyone who wants to get their shoes shined even while it's raining out, so the weather has no affect on Michael's business.
I'm standing outside of the Grand Central, waiting to meet my friend M. I have on a silk dress, flat ballerina flats (Michael notes that they are patent leather - "nice," he says. "Shiny."), and...
