Short Story Wednesday: "Stories: Annie Ernaux

 

This is one of the many stories in TNY that I can't quite make sense of. Sometimes it is probably part of a larger work by the writer, but sometimes the author and me inhabit different worlds. 

A ten -year old walks a five- year old to school every day. The way there is calm but on the way back, the ten-year old tell the kindergartner scary stories. The younger one screams and cries when the story is told. It's a game, but it isn't. One day, she isn't there in the morning and the ten-year old is told the younger one is now going to public school. She is grief stricken. Translated from the French. Perhaps that's why I didn't get it. Or maybe it's a religious thing (they are Catholic). But why did the kindergartner go along with it? Why did the older child derive satisfaction from the game? Just not enough information for me. 

 George Kelley

Jerry House 

Monday, Monday

 I probably shouldn't have rewatched CLOSE ENCOUNTERS the night before I saw this because it paled in comparison. It was certainly watchable but there were a lot of loose threads and so many references to his own work, it got annoying. Of course there are some great action scenes and great acting. And music!

Watching STAR CITY (very good) on APPLE. Finished WIDOW'S BAY (Apple) which was great and the first episode of the second season of SUGAR (Apple) .

Went to a concert with a harpist and cello player from the DSO. We do have a great Senior Center. 

Started THE IVY TREE by Mary Stewart (as recommended by Tracy). Seemed like a nice palate cleanser after THE GRIFTERS. 

Great weather mostly sunny and in the seventies. 

What's up with you 

FFB: THE GRIFTERS, Jim Thompson

 

I've been told for years if I like Charles Willeford, I would like Jim Thompson. Well, I liked this book a lot, but there is not an ounce of humor in it unlike the Hoke Mosley books. The writing is terrific and what a trio inhabits these pages. It begins with Roy Dillon getting clubbed in the stomach. He is a grifter, a man of mostly small cons. His mother and girlfriend form the trio and it's hard to say whose the most noirish but I am betting on Lilly, his mother. This has so much atmosphere, and good settings and great dialog, you can hardly turn the pages fast enough. La Jolla never seemed so dark to me. Like a play almost, each of these characters has their own little story and the other back away and let them tell it. 

Short Story Wednesday: MUTTER, Esther Yi from the New Yorker

 

A mother has traveled from Korea to visit her daughter who lives in the US. now. She works in a zoo and takes her mother along with her one day. They are especially interested in Zelzah, the last California Condor who lives in the zoo. The animals are now arranged by how endangered their species is. She encourages her mother to walk the length of the zoo while she does her job in security. Later they have dinner and the mother combs the daughter's hair. She then tells her daughter that she has come to tell her daughter she's been diagnosed with dementia. The daughter tells her that she will care for her but the mother refuses it. "Understand that your human mother has gone away. Don't try to find her in what I've become. Only then is there a chance you will love me still. 
Is there any of us who doesn't have a relative or friend suffering from this? 

George Kelley 

Jerry House 

Monday, Monday

 

Those balloons are a major part of YIYI. You forget how much fun a kid can have with a simple thing. This was a terrific film about a year in the life of a Taiwanese family. An awful lot of screaming and angst. Not much fun. I also saw SEND HELP, which was good. It is streaming on HULU. ALSO POWER BALLAD at the theater, which was likable if not compelling. 

I am binging LANDSCAPE ARTIST OF THE YEAR (On Prime). Love seeing the amazing British countrysides.

Reading THE GRIFTERS by Jim Thompson. Excellent writing, not sure if it will get too violent for me but the signs are there.  So many writers I have never read-David Goodis among them. 

Weather is up and down, sunny and then not.  

What about you? 

FFB: A GREAT DELIVERANCE, Elizabeth George

 

A Great Deliverance is the debut novel by Elizabeth George, published in 1988, and the first in the Inspector Lynley series, introducing the aristocratic Thomas Lynley and his working-class partner, Sergeant Barbara Havers, as they investigate a brutal murder in the Yorkshire Moors where a woman confesses to beheading her father. The book won multiple awards, including the Agatha and Anthony Awards for Best First Novel, and explores the complex relationship between the two detectives as they uncover dark secrets in a seemingly peaceful village. I read much of this series and enjoyed the dynamics between the very much have Lynley and the have-not Havers. It also was a wonderful TV series, perfectly cast.  At some point, I fell out of reading it. Perhaps because the books were very long. Anyway, this first one was great.