Author Archives: susan

LITERATURE: Munro’s The Moons of Jupiter – Finale

Posted on December 6, 2008 by susan

I found myself, as always, reading through this one too quickly because it is the last story in the anthology. Reading Munro is always a pleasure, always a learning process. In this story, a woman is helping her elderly father … Continue reading → Continue reading →

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LITERATURE: Munro’s Visitors

Posted on December 6, 2008 by susan

Munro sets the stage: an older couple, Mildred and Wilfred, entertaining visitors, his brother Albert, his wife and her sister, in their small home for the summer. Then she paints in the characters, Mildred and Wilfrid are large, robust people; … Continue reading → Continue reading →

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LITERATURE: Munro’s Hard-Luck Stories

Posted on December 6, 2008 by susan

Two old friends meet, talk a bit about love and relationships and stories with twisted endings, and we go back to their last meeting of a few months' back. At that time, they attended a conference and accepted a ride … Continue reading → Continue reading →

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LITERATURE: The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao – Finale

Posted on December 5, 2008 by susan

The story is simple yet complex, involving generations of a family that are doing their best to find love and happiness between lives spent in New Jersey and their homeland of Santo Domingo. But there is no separation, and the … Continue reading → Continue reading →

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LITERATURE: The BW Life of Oscar Wao – Symbolism

Posted on December 5, 2008 by susan

If I had been really good at close reading, I'd have been smart enough to mark those spots that somehow I just knew would form a pattern. Here, in the closing pages of the story, we're back with Oscar who … Continue reading → Continue reading →

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LITERATURE: The BW Life of Oscar Wao – Motif & Character

Posted on December 4, 2008 by susan

While I might in many ways compare this novel to Marquez's 100 Years of Solitude, Diaz gives his characters a much stronger personality, although Oscar seems to be rather faceless for me when held up against his sister Lola or … Continue reading → Continue reading →

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POETRY: (UPDATED) Looking for that title, and the last stanza

Posted on December 3, 2008 by susan

Aspirations in An Unknown Space Fishnet-stockinged manatees dance salsas in their dreams while laughing dolphins flipper neatly  through white clouds. Sharks nest in the highest boughs  of  weeping pine tree tips  and lone tuna write their poems in caves   … Continue reading → Continue reading →

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LITERATURE: Munro’s Mrs. Cross and Mrs. Kidd

Posted on November 30, 2008 by susan

This is a very interesting look at two old women who find themselves in a nursing home. Munro carefully draws out the difference in their lives, though they had known each other in kindergarten, over eighty years ago, and likely … Continue reading → Continue reading →

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LITERATURE: Munro’s Labor Day Dinner – Endings

Posted on November 29, 2008 by susan

This story, as do most of Munro's, focuses on how people interact, what part of their inner self they compromise or embellish in order to deal with life and the people in it.  There is usually, as is here, a … Continue reading → Continue reading →

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LITERATURE: Munro’s Labor Day Dinner – Revealing a Character’s State of Mind

Posted on November 29, 2008 by susan

"And nobody does it better,makes me feel sad for the rest…"  (Carly Simon) Again, Munro's just tops with creating a rounded character that evokes empathy. Here, a husband and wife (Roberta) are going to a friend's for dinner and they've … Continue reading → Continue reading →

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LITERATURE: Munro’s Labor Day Dinner – Description

Posted on November 29, 2008 by susan

While Alice Munro pins down her characters so well that they remain in the mind for a while as an acquaintance, this definitive description of a 12 year-old caught me by surprise: Eva is wearing several fragile, yellowed lace curtains … Continue reading → Continue reading →

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LITERATURE: : The BW Life of Oscar Wao – History and Voice

Posted on November 28, 2008 by susan

As we move through this chapter on Beli (Oscar’s mother) as a young girl in Santo Domingo, there is a preponderance of background and history woven in, about a country in upheaval under a cruel regime. This, I believe, along … Continue reading →

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LITERATURE: The BW Life of Oscar Wao – Lost in Translation

Posted on November 26, 2008 by susan

While it likely assists to establish the voice, the frequent use of Spanish words within the text are starting to annoy me. When I read, I like to get into the movement of the story and while I can remember … Continue reading → Continue reading →

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LITERATURE: The BW Life of Oscar Wao – Plot

Posted on November 25, 2008 by susan

Clearly nonlinear, we go back in time rather than forward with each chapter, marked with dates (years) covered. Junot Diaz jumps from time periods with focus on a different character in each chapter, from Oscar, to his sister Lola, and … Continue reading → Continue reading →

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LITERATURE: Neruda’s Ode to Criticism

Posted on November 25, 2008 by susan

Neruda finds beauty in the act of critique: I touched my book:it wascompact,solid,arched like a white ship,half openlike a new rose,it was to my eyes a mill,from each pageof my booksprouted the flower of bread;I was blinded by my own … Continue reading → Continue reading →

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