The Shapes of Refugee Stories

Image taken from here

I just can't read them all. There are too many migrant-refugee books and not enough hours and not enough energies to read every friggin' one of 'em.

So, I take a deep breath....and Google stuff...

If you've never taken a gander at Kurt Vonnegut's The Shapes of Stories thesis-that-never-was, now would be a good time to take one:

Diction & Dick Jokes: A Look at Carl Hiaasen

Writing humor is not something that all writers undertake.

Some dramatic novelists might stick in a silly scenario or sarcasm, but they'll steer clear of riddling their work with gags for fear it won't be taken as a "serious" work. Some non-fictionalists won't sully their work with a single dirty phrase for fear of appearing (cringe) unprofessional.

Past and Present Concerns on Cormac McCarthy's "The Road"

https://dinanaim.wordpress.com/

I read The Road by Cormac McCarthy and it was a quick read. It took me all of two sittings on two separate days. I saw the film first, years ago, and just happened to pick up the book out of a stack in a thrift store. Many people absolutely love McCarthy and his works, so I decided to read it and...

Magic Systems — Arden's The Bear & The Nightingale

http://avalinahsbooks.space/the-bear-and-the-nightingale/

There're whole heaps of praise out there on the internet for Katherine Arden's debut: The Bear and the Nightingale, a fairy tale-esque coming-of-age story taking place in medieval Russia. I'm not going down that praising path, though I did enjoy the book over Christmas break (absolutely a winter read). Rather, I'm going down the magic-system path. And when it comes to fairy tales, pinning down a magic system is about as difficult as making waterfalls flow backwards.

Heart of Darkness...On Xmas

Sometimes there's just too much to think about in a book. While perusing over the Scmoop entries on Joseph Conrad's The Heart of Darkness, a dozen different blog topics came to mind. Should I focus on Conrad's diction? Or how about his style for this book, which isn't so much "poetic" as it is ruminative? Or maybe about the way Marlow's narration sets the mood? Or about themes of imperialism, humanity, madness, honesty/dishonesty and evil?

Rather, I've decided to talk about context, the circumstances surrounding both the author's life and the author's society that ever even allowed such a book to be contemplated, nonetheless written.