Friday, June 17, 2016

Ben Lerner's "The Polish Rider": Exphrasis, Self-reflexivity, Intertextuality, and Other Genius Stuff in The New Yorker Summer Fiction Issue

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Although Ben Lerner's story "The Polish Rider" narrates a simple plot of a young female artist named Sonia who searches for...
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Thursday, June 16, 2016

Bloomsday 2016: A Few Comments on the Irish Short Story

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            Because today is Bloomsday, I felt I had to post something to commemorate it.  However, Leopold Bloom is, of course, not a chara...
Monday, June 13, 2016

Zadie Smith's parable:"Two Men Arrive in a Village"--New Yorker summer fiction issue

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I have been reading the stories in the Summer Fiction Issue of The New Yorker —June 6 & 13, 2016. I liked the Zadie Smith story ...
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Wednesday, June 8, 2016

A Novel to be Read as a Short Story: Elizabeth Strout's "My Name is Lucy Barton"

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As many of you who have been following my thoughts on "reading the short story" over the years know, I usually only read novels...
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Tuesday, May 31, 2016

John Barth, "Autobiography: A Self-Recorded Fiction"--Short Story Month 2016-Day 31

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            In 1967 and 1968 Barth aligned himself with the postmodernist focus on self-reflexive fiction with two decisive steps.  First...
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Monday, May 30, 2016

Henry James, "The Real Thing"—Short Story Month 2016—Day 30

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            James's "The Real Thing" is an important fictional treatment of the tension between reality and artistic techni...
Sunday, May 29, 2016

Frank Stockton, "The Lady or the Tiger"—Short Story Month—Day 29

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Ostensibly "The Lady or the Tiger" is a story about justice, that is, the only kind of justice possible in fiction--poetic just...