Hello, welcome to my blog

Mostly you will find, here, transcribed entries from the secret diary that I used to keep as a teenager between 1970 and 1975. I try to be honest with my transcriptions, but, just occasionally I do edit, to protect myself or others from embarrassment or some other emotion.
Also, though, I like to do a brief review of the books I have been reading, so these are interspersed throughout. I reserve the right to write blog entries, also, about other random things.
Why do I keep this blog? I don't know. I am an academic and one of my research interests is around how people construct their own identities. The diary transcriptions, and what I write about my books, are very much about revealing something of my identity.

Sunday, 28 October 2012

Annie Proulx - Just finished reading ....



Fine Just the Way It Is by Annie Proulx

 9/10

I don't like short stories much, unless they are written by Annie Proulx.
In a book like this, not every story is going to be a gem, but the ones that are are overwhelmingly fine.

Please, please, please read some of these Wyoming stories. Read 'Them Old Cowboy Songs', and it'll break your heart. Read 'Testimony of the Donkey' and, like me, you will never know how it ends. Read 'Tits-Up in a Ditch' and you will break your heart again, and you will know exactly in which circumstances you can apply this phrase in your own life - though I hope you never have to.

Annie earned 9/10 on the back of these three stories and one other.

But do I want to visit Wyoming? Yes, I do. Just like her other masterpieces, 'The Shipping News' and 'That Ol' Ace in the Hole' made me want to see Newfoundland and the Texas Panhandle.

I love Annie Proulx, but I'm not sure I would want her round for dinner. She sees too much and understands too much. A wise woman.

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