Monday 7 November 2011

Lyrical

I was reading the free Guardian book of short stories this morning on the tube. First short story by William Trevor, apparently the master of the genre.

Didn't like it. It's the kind of writing that gets described as lyrical, which always sets alarm bells jangling.

In the story, a woman discovers her married lover has left and returned to his wife and kids. Anything strike you about this paragraph...?

"When spring was about to come and then did not, one morning Anthony wasn't there. Waking early, Mary Bella heard the car...

...His clothes, his inks, his pens, unfinished Dijon, his books: all these were gone."


Wait a minute - his unfinished Dijon? WTF? What kind of a man takes a half-eaten jar of mustard with him when he leaves you? A skin-flinted tightwad arsehole, that's who. She had a lucky escape if you ask me.



PS Here is a lovely programme on Iain Banks talking about the Wasp Factory, book lovers. He seems like a lovely man.

Maybe I will do a print based on the Wasp Factory.

6 comments:

  1. "A skin-flinted tightwad arsehole, that's who. She had a lucky escape if you ask me."

    You have made me chuckle and guffaw and shudder (all of them out loud). Thank you.

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  2. Would the print be of a set of genitalia so horribly mangled by animal fangs that it's impossible to discern the gender?

    You disgust me.

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  3. Yes! Who says art has to be pretty?

    (Had forgotten that bit. I love it that Frank is so very contemptuous of women, and turns out in the end to be a GIRL! Teehee!)

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  4. Maybe the Dijon would have gone to waste had he left it.

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  5. 'My love, I must go, though it tears the very heart out of - ooh, Dijon. Mustn't let that go to waste.'

    QED.

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