Wall Flowered

 Wall-Flowered.

This book of cautionary tales has languished on the Express Shelf of the library for weeks while more modestly titled books alongside it have whizzed off the shelf in days.

How to explain popularity?

How does it feel to be wall-flowered?

What’s that do to a book’s ego?

What’s not to like in the title, ‘Cautionary Tales for Excitable Girls’?

I was half tempted to borrow it myself except it would only confirm the chief librarian’s opinion of me.

I tried to imagine what one of these tales would be called, what it would be about, even how one of them would begin, but I just couldn’t. Can you?

One Day They’ll Wake up to Me

One day they’ll wake up to me.

They’ll say, he doesn’t read the books he requests we purchase.

He just flits through them

Why does he even bother?

And I’ll say, ‘coz the book reviews were inspiring

or I read an extract in ‘The New Yorker’ or ‘SMH’,

But when I went to read it I got bored: the characters were flat, the plot rambling, the writing uninspired.

A bit like some of your posts, a snide librarian might say.

My Friday friend once said, I had the attention span of a gnat.

Ouch!

I don’t know what’s wrong with me.

I did finish a book a few years ago.

That was a book of short stories. Does that count?

Anyway, they’ll blacklist me soon, and everyone will be happy.

The Search

I felt cheated

by the short story writer

whose piece

morphed

into a

sociopolitical tract

on racism

for page after phlegmatic page

leaving the characters fumbling

in the dark

in search of a plot —

and me, with them

Moments in Literary History 1

In the late Spring of 1891, Greenbough Smith, the newly appointed literary editor of

‘The Strand’ received a submission of two handwritten manuscripts.

Forty years later he described how he reacted on that day—“I at once realized here was the greatest short story writer

since Edgar Allan Poe, I remember rushing into Mr. Noames [publisher ] room and thrusting the stories before his eyes ….

Here was a new and gifted story writer; there was no mistaking the ingenuity of the plot, the limpid clearness of the style,

the perfect art of telling a story.”

The two stories that excited Smith’s interest were ‘A Scandal in Bohemia’ and ‘The Red-Headed League’

Is it Character then?

Is it the characters, then?

No, it is not.

Scenery. dialogue,

intrigue,

the machinations of plot?

No, it is not.

Really? None of the above?

Then, pray tell, what?

Far more important

than any of those,

he says,

is vivacity,

the vivacity of the prose.

* what is it you most treasure in a short story?

pic courtesy of Pixabay

You Can’t Stutter in Writing

You can’t stutter in writing,

my speech therapist said

before I had thought much about it.

Maybe that’s how it started.

I felt I could sprint in writing

while in speech I hobbled.

I was good over short distances:

haiku, poems, flash fiction,

the occasional story.

Any further I flagged,

my efforts stuttered

then stopped.

But I don’t know.

I can speak now

but I still write.

Goulash

I am reading a short story but it is not making any sense.

Call me ‘old-fashioned’ but I think a story should make sense.

Maybe it’s because it’s told in a goulash of styles.

But the writer is an accomplished writer.

Does that mean I am not an accomplished reader?

Can a writer be over-confident, cocky? If so, can a reader?

Maybe it’s my mindset.

Maybe I should loosen up like good old George, slouch around in the ungrammatic, delve in the demotic, savour the stew

• have you read any books or seen any films that made little sense? did you continue with them anyway?
• what makes an accomplished reader?

Flirting

I’m eating Tiramisu from Italy.

Wearing a T-shirt Made In China

Reading a Haruki Murakami story

penned in Japan.

I love flirting with danger.

‘The True Colour of the Sea’: Book Review

The challenge was to write a book review in haiku form. Here is my first attempt. Do you want to try one? It will be interesting to see what people come up with.

 

‘The True Color of the Sea’

 

didn’t flow for me

its prose flat and monochrome

as a pancake sea

Jolt

 

Every now and then you read a story which gives you a jolt. ‘Suicide Watch’ is one of these. In spite of its confronting title, the story is not depressing. It takes you into the teen world of social media, with its relentless pursuit of ‘likes’ and ‘comments’ and what lengths teens will go to so they can elevate their quota. The tension and uncertainty are nicely calibrated so the narrative skips along.

 

It has one of the best openings I’ve read:

 

‘Jill took her head out of the oven mainly because it was hot and the gas did not work independently of the pilot light. Stupid new technology! And preferring her head whole and her new auburn sew-in weave unsinged, and having no chloroform in the house, she decided she would not go out like a poet’.

 

I love the humor and desperation in this. The ending though comes with a jolt. Partly expected, partly not. The writing is an exercise in style, masterfully balanced between the vernacular and the poetic.

 

AS Adam Ant says, “Do yourself a favor’ and read it. *

 

Have you read a story recently that has given you a jolt?

 

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