Author Archives: susan

LITERATURE: Cannery Row – Imagery

There are several forms of imagery:  simile, metaphor, solid description.  Steinbeck uses them all to best advantage, but in his description he is concise, that is, using many words perhaps, but each word is strung in a list that results … Continue reading Continue reading

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LITERATURE: Cannery Row – And Suttree

I’m sure the comparison has been made, not only in the writing styles of Steinbeck and McCarthy, but in these two novels in particular. Each holds a treasure box of character, history and a hard look at a society that … Continue reading Continue reading

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LITERATURE: Cannery Row – Narrative Structure through Setting

While there seems to be a narrative structure introduced by “In the evening, just at dusk, a curious thing happened on Cannery Row.” (p. 24) for example, the chapters appear more to be unrelated episodes from the overall lives of … Continue reading

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LITERATURE: A Perfect Stranger – Wrap Up

Robinson’s writing is flowing without flowery, descriptive and intimate.  Experience of observation and a keen understanding of human nature and relationships is woven into each story of this collection.  Shame:  Friends gather at the New Mexico ranch of a rather … Continue reading Continue reading

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LITERATURE: A Perfect Stranger

Catching up with Roxana Robinson’s A Perfect Stranger: Blind Man:  We are along for a rough traffic drive on a highway, with a man who has someplace to go, and worries to think about on the way.  Backstory gives us … Continue reading Continue reading

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LITERATURE: A Perfect Stranger – Story

There is a style that shows in Roxana Robinson’s stories that produces a defined reality that holds them together. My mother was a librarian at my elementary school, and my father was a doctor.  We lived in an old stone … Continue reading Continue reading

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LITERATURE: A Perfect Stranger – Style

A Perfect Stranger, by Roxana Robinson is a collection of short stories by this author of Sweetwater along with two other novels, two short story collections, and a biography of Georgia O’Keefe, four of which have been named Notable Books … Continue reading Continue reading

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LITERATURE: Ploughshares – Vol. 30, Nos. 2 & 3

Dragged my way through to the end, and found something of real interest in this edition.  Out of twelve authors whose work is presented, only one has never been published.  Most of the rest are published in their own novels … Continue reading Continue reading

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LITERATURE: Ploughshares: Parallel Plots

In the next to last story I’m reading in this issue, Lady of The Wild Beasts by Debra Spark, the narrative structure is a case of braiding two stories together.  The opening story is of a man in an office … Continue reading Continue reading

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LITERATURE: Ploughshares

S’um bitch.  One of the stories I really didn’t like because it seemed just another neurotic sitting at a desk with his memories and daydreams and problems with alcohol is included in a newly published collection by this writer.  While … Continue reading Continue reading

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LITERATURE: Aristotle’s Poetics

From Section 1, Part I (Yes, I did get further along than this, the second paragraph, but figured I’d better start posting on it): Epic poetry and Tragedy, Comedy also and Dithyrambic poetry, and the music of the flute and … Continue reading Continue reading

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LITERATURE: Aristotle’s Poetics

One thing I do like about what little I may have read of Aristotle, is that it does seem fairly clearly laid out.  The opening: I propose to treat of Poetry in itself and of its various kinds, noting the … Continue reading Continue reading

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LITERATURE: Ploughshares – Nameless

Why in the name of all that is sacred and hallowed do I feel this great need to finish every story I start to read?  Is it the artist granting his fellows due respect?  Is it to learn how not … Continue reading Continue reading

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LITERATURE: Ploughshares – The Lunatics’ Eclipse

Another good one in this same Fall 200 issue, by Randa Jarrar.  Qamar, a young girl who decides at nine she wants the moon for a neighbor boy who marries another before Qamar is fully grown.  She becomes a ballerina, … Continue reading Continue reading

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LITERATURE: Aristotle’s Poetics

Took a peek at the reading list provided by the kind professor (who should have well been rid of me by now) and found the first item, Aristotle’s Poetics available online and checked it out. Scanning it briefly, I found … Continue reading Continue reading

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