GatesyRead

This is a very well known collection of perfectly written short stories by the American writer, Raymond Carver. They are best read with a glass of beer, or wine, or something stronger if you can keep your head. I am going to confess that this was my first Carver experience; I wouldn’t be original in saying that the economy of style reminds readers of Hemingway and that thematically the collection could also be placed alongside of Richard Ford’s short story writing ( Rock Springs ). So, we are talking about masculine prose, which manages to be both serious, sad, without "funny" irony, and yet also resonates in that human vein which American short story writers seem to manage better than anyone. A few examples of what’s in the collection – more for myself than for anyone who might be kind enough to read this blog. ‘Why Don’t You Dance?’ is the opening story, and it’s a story that speaks deeply through things that aren’t said (in that Hemingway notion of the omisson). A man lo

Gail Jones’ 2002 novel Black Mirror holds my interest for a number of reasons. First, Professor Jones is one of the leading lights at the Western Sydney University’s Writing & Society Research Centre where I am currently enrolled in a doctoral program. Second, the novel explores modernism, and an Australian artist in Paris and London; and a young researcher who goes to see the elderly artist in search of some personal truths. When I read about the nature of the novel, I feared a little (as writers do) that my own thoughts and ideas may have already been captured by this prize-winning writer. However, Jones’ book is quite different to the one I hope to write, and having read it, I can breathe more easily. What follows is then just a few observations. The novel opens in the viewpoint of the young Anna Griffin, about to interview the famous surrealist, Victoria Morrell. The same rainy scene is then told from Victoria’s perspective; and so quite easily and naturally, the reader un