Author Archives: susan

LITERATURE: Glimmer Train #54 – Reader’s Rights

I’m getting old and losing patience with any waste of time.  I’ve overcome my innate need to finish what I start and so (with a bit of guilt) have learned that if a story is not enjoyable, read a bit … Continue reading Continue reading

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POETRY: Evolution

It was better then; you’d laugh and see the things I showed you that weren’t there.  When did opalescent dreams that only two could know turn into feathered shadows? Right here, I’d say, and you would nod your sandy headand … Continue reading Continue reading

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LITERATURE: Glimmer Train #54 – I’m in there, sort of…

Unfortunately, not as a published author, but as a character: Lucille used to look on the pines, watch them turn black against the horizon as the earth turned away from the sun, one cigarette after another, coffee making her hands … Continue reading Continue reading

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LITERATURE: Glimmer Train #54 – The Deep, Meaningful Ones

The next two stories do have that in common; they are more literary in that one can relate to the more character, human event nature of the storylines. Although it’s one more "divorced father coping with raising a kid minus … Continue reading Continue reading

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LITERATURE & NEW MEDIA: At Swim-Two-Birds – Grounding Ideas

O’Brien separates the stories in this novel by prefacing them with the narrator/author’s notes: Further extract from my Manuscript on the subject of Mr. Trellis’s Manuscript on the subject of John Furrisky, his first steps in life and his first … Continue reading Continue reading

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LITERATURE: The Pleasure of The Text – Some Thoughts

Obviously I read this a few paragraphs at a time, with days in between readings.  Also obvious, I’m sure, is that I don’t fully understand all the meanings as Barthes is presenting them.  But there are some things that just … Continue reading Continue reading

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LITERATURE: Glimmer Train #54 – Story

Hmmph.  I just got done reading a 38-page story in this issue that made me reconsider some things I thought I knew and practiced in just the last couple of days. Creed of Whispers by Joseph Flanagan is, oddly enough, … Continue reading Continue reading

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LITERATURE: At Swim-Two-Birds – Playing With Time Through Layers

Amazing to read; must have been near impossibly amazing to plan out, the beginning of the novel within the novel: Propped by pillows in his bed in the white light of an incandescent petrol lamp, Dermot Trellis adjusted the pimples … Continue reading Continue reading

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LITERATURE: At Swim-Two-Birds – Layers

O’Brien told us in the very first pages that this book would be like no other.  That it would be multi-layered with many beginnings and endings.  That its characters would be drawn from a well of personalities already established.  That … Continue reading Continue reading

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POETRY: Waters

I sought the river flowing homeward, the sea washed down with ice that froze my blood.  I seek the offer of the cleansing waters, the rinsing off of journeyed sands of sin.  The oceans were untameable, their innocence now slap … Continue reading Continue reading

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LITERATURE: Glimmer Train #54 – Voice?

I thought it’d be a good idea to catch up on some of my short story reading backlog of lit journals, especially at a time when I myself am submitting and seeking that magic key. While I usually start in … Continue reading

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LITERATURE: At Swim-Two-Birds – Exposition

Without that first bit of research I did on this, I might not have realized what is going on, but O’Brien, at his own pace, handles that: I was talking to a friend of yours last night, I said drily.  … Continue reading Continue reading

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LITERATURE: At Swim-Two-Birds – Techniques

O’Brien, with this novel, has shown that he knows the conventional form and elements of story, and therefore has become quite expert at twisting and flaunting them.  His novel approach of the many-faceted seemingly unrelated plot paths is even more … Continue reading Continue reading

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LITERATURE: The Pleasure of the Text – A Question of Degree?

Barthes claims that Pleasure is not the lesser, nor Bliss the greater form of the same thing. That instead, they run parallel, and may even be in conflict.  In an interesting argument he brings up the inability to speak of … Continue reading Continue reading

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LITERATURE & NEW MEDIA: At Swim-Two-Birds – Paths and Concepts

I don’t know that "concept" is precisely what I mean here, but with the multilayered structure of this novel (narrator present (?) plus three more separate story lines), it is a learning experience in itself, but the author teaches even … Continue reading Continue reading

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