Munro's fine work held back by audio format

Audiobook review: Runaway
Kevin Wood Daily Yomiuri Staff Writer
Runaway
By Alice Munro
Read by Kymberly Dakin
Audio Editions
9 CDs, 11 hours (unabridged)

Alice Munro's 10th collection of short stories, the Giller Prize-winning Runaway, shows both the form and writer at their best.

As always, Munro's short fiction reads like a series of compressed novels, delving deep into her characters' memories, thoughts and circumstances, dealing always with the personal rather than the political as she spins her small, psychologically compelling tales of ordinary life.

Like Raymond Carver and Ernest Hemingway, other modern masters of the short story, Munro rarely strays far from her own life experience, but still manages to speak to universal themes. Munro's work generally concerns a bright young woman escaping her rural Ontario, Canada, background, often through education or marriage that takes her west, only to mourn the passing of the world she grew up in when she eventually returns to her roots.

A common but nonsensical criticism of Munro is that all her main characters are women and her tales often center on women who waver between domesticity and independence, their lives changing drastically through chance or whim. Like calling Carver preoccupied with love and drinking or Hemingway obsessed with machismo, such a critique misses the point of her work entirely.

Like Hemingway and Carver, Munro's prose style is spare, deceptively simple and packs an emotional wallop. Of the eight stories here, three deal with Juliet, a classics scholar we first meet in "Chance" when she begins a love affair with Eric, a man she meets on a cross-country train trip. "Soon" sees Juliet return to her rural Ontario hometown with her year-old daughter to bid her ailing mother farewell. The third in the trio, "Silence," shows us a much older Juliet struggling with her grown daughter whom she fears has been ensnared by a cult.

The title story is that of a young woman presented with the daunting choice between being ground down in a comfortable self-delusion of innocence and faith or being forced to confront the world on its terms, find her true self and become independent. The strongest story in the collection, "Passion," concerns a young resort waitress who is suddenly thrust between two wealthy brothers.

While the reading by actress Kymberly Dakin is largely faultless, sensitive and restrained, Munro's writing suffers from the audio format, mainly because of its quality and seriousness. Munro's flawless prose deserves to be savored, and the printed form allows the reader to more easily go back and reread her seamless sentences and paragraphs, whereas the audio does not allow the listener to linger and bask in Munro's subtle art.

While the immediacy of suspense fiction or lighter comedic works is often enhanced by a dramatic reading, Munro's writing seems a bit beyond the spoken word at times, being more suited to contemplation than instant reaction.

Copyright 2005 The Yomiuri Shimbun

Closing in on visitor 1,000
Well, according to the counter I'm getting about 25 hits a day - as compared to the big boys like Atrios and Kos who get a few hundred thousand a day - but we all gotta start somewhere. If you are the 1,000th visitor - post a comment and claim your mystery prize! If you are not the 1,000th visitor, screw it, post a comment anyways. Nobody ever posts a comment and the blogosphere gets lonesome without comments.

Where would Jesus find the WMD?

Thanks to Atrios and Billmon, among others, we have a Wanker of the week: Bill Tierny, a former weapons inspector in Iraq who knows where the WMD in Iraq are 'cause God told him and who enjoys torturing prisoners of war, sorry "enemy combatants", because its fun -he even worked at Gitmo. And of course he's a devout born again Christian who felt that God had called him to join the Army and got kicked out for praying with the people he was supposed to be interogating.

"Tierney's methods of ascertaining this location were rather unconventional. "I would ask God and just get a sense if something was valid or not, and then know if I needed to pursue it," he said. His assessments through prayer were then confirmed to him by a friend's clairvoyant dream, where he was able to find the location on a map. "Everything she said lined up. This place meets the criteria," Tierney said of a power generator plant near the Tigris River that he believes is actually a cover for a secret uranium facility. "

Mark Twain - Still da man!
How I edited an Agricultural paper
http://www.twainquotes.com

"I tell you I have been in the editorial business going on fourteen years, and it is the first time I ever heard of a man's having to know anything in order to edit a newspaper.

You turnip! Who write the dramatic critiques for the second-rate papers? Why, a parcel of promoted shoemakers and apprentice apothecaries, who know just as much about good acting as I do about good farming and no more. Who review the books? People who never wrote one. Who do up the heavy leaders on finance? Parties who have had the largest opportunities for knowing nothing about it. Who criticise the Indian campaigns? Gentlemen who do not know a war-whoop from a wigwam.... Who write the temperance appeals and clamor about the flowing bowl? Folks who will never draw another sober breath till they do it in the grave.

...You try to tell me anything about the newspaper business! Sir, I have been through it from Alpha to Omaha, and I tell you that the less a man knows the bigger noise he makes and the higher the salary he commands. Heaven knows if I had but been ignorant instead of cultivated, and impudent instead of diffident, I could have made a name for myself in this cold, selfish world. I take my leave, sir. Since I have been treated as you have treated me, I am perfectly willing to go.

But I have done my duty. I have fulfilled my contract, as far as I was permitted to do it. I said I could make your paper of interest to all classes, and I have. I said I could run your circulation up to twenty thousand copies, and if I had had two more weeks I'd have done it...."


yes, the media has changed since Twain's day. Plus ca change, plus ca meme chose!

(thanks to the Americanist over at Orcinus)

NRA argues for more guns in schools
Further proof that the NRA are a bunch of complete fruitcakes. Their answer to the Red Lake, Minnesota school shooting? Arm the teachers

Demotivational materials

This site and stuff it sells are a must-see for anyone who has ever had to attend a motivational seminar or who cringes at the phrase "chicken soup for the ...." Truly a completely inspired attempt to discourage and beat down the soul and set the inner cynic free.

Sick but funny and also appropriate
the Talent Show provides the pictures for the Schavio story, you'll need to scroll down to Gallows Humor, apparently the joke started with a thread on Fark.com (highly recommended site). I've avoided writing about the Republican favorite vegetable since ketchup since most of what needs to be said has already been said by others, but just to summarize:

• Tom 'Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain' Delay is an evil shit who is doing what he is doing to distract from his own numerous ethics violations and the Republican assault on Social Security.
• "Culture of Life" - don't make me laugh. People might take the evil chimp a bit more seriously on this if hadn't made all those jokes about how he had teenagers and mentally retarded people executed in Texas, and especially if he hadn't killed tens of thousands in Iraq, Afghanistan and who knows where else.
• Where were all these Right-to-life activists when the hospital pulled the plug on Sun Hudson , a six-month old boy who was conscious at the time, against the wishes of his family and why hasn't anyone asked why Bush signed the Texas Futile Care Bill that let them do it.
• Theresa Schavio's brain has pretty much turned to goo, and she isn't going to get better. There is no there, there. Let her go.

Armageddon sick of fundementalists
Bill Moyers is too. Check out his excellent essay
"They are sincere, serious, and polite as they tell you they feel called to help bring the Rapture on as fulfillment of biblical prophecy. To this end they have declared solidarity with Israel and the Jewish settlements and backed up their support with money and volunteers.

For them the invasion of Iraq was a warm-up act, predicted in the Book of Revelation, where four angels "bound in the great river Euphrates" will be released "to slay the third part of man." A war with Islam in the Middle East is not something to be feared but welcomed—an essential conflagration on the road to redemption. The last time I Googled it, the Rapture Index stood at 144—approaching the critical threshold when the prophecy is fulfilled, the whole thing blows, the Son of God returns, and the righteous enter paradise while sinners will be condemned to eternal hellfire."

photo of the dayYahoo! News - Sports Photos - Reuters

Anarchist infiltrates US Army

I think Skippy must have been motivated to join the army by watching "Stripes"
100 Things Skippy has been officially ordered not to do in theU.S. Army
"7.Not allowed to add 'In accordance with the prophesy' to the end of answers I give to a question an officer asks me."
"58. The following words and phrases may not be used in a cadence- Budding sexuality, necrophilia, I hate everyone in this formation and wish they were dead, sexual lubrication, black earth mother, all Marines are latent homosexuals, Tantric yoga, Gotterdammerung, Korean hooker, Eskimo Nell, we've all got jackboots now, slut puppy, or any references to squid. "
"166.No, the pants are not optional. "
"197.I am not allowed to sing 'Henry the VIII I am' until verse 68 ever again. "

108 and counting

The Roachblog makes an interesting observation on the number of American POWs who died in North Vietnamese custody over the long years of the Vietnam War (114) versus the number of prisoners who have died in U.S. custody since the start of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq (108 and counting). CBS news has the facts

Holy Shit(s)
Christian Nation
"Their mission is not simply to save souls. The goal is to mobilize evangelical Christians for political action to return society to what they call "the biblical worldview of the Founding Fathers." Some speak of "restoring a Christian nation." Others shy from that phrase, but agree that the Bible calls them not only to evangelize, but also to transform the culture."

And then there is this dimbulb who despite the fact that several people died considers it a happy ending that he now has a summer home in Nova Scotia. For a full parsing of the good parson's sermon, have a look at the Poor Man - especially the comments.

Sinking globalization
Niall Ferguson is a very smart man, that what makes this all the more scary - he's probably right.

I love the smell of schaedenfreud in the morning, it smells like...well, you know.

Christian radio personality arrested on kiddie porn charges. "Suffer the little children to come unto me" indeed.

More Wolfowitticisms

Billmon at Whiskey Bar reads the Long Island Iced Tea-leaves on the future of the World Bank under the Wolfman

Hank returns

I posted this link about a month ago, but it is now way down in the backlog. It is an absolute must see

"Hank wants to give you a million dollars, but first you have to kiss his ass. If you don't kiss his ass, he'll kick the shit out of you"

Me: "And you just took his word for it when he said there was a Hank, that Hank wanted you to kiss His ass, and that Hank would reward you?"
John: "Oh no! Karl has a letter he got from Hank years ago explaining the whole thing. Here's a copy; see for yourself."

From the Desk of Karl
1.Kiss Hank's ass and He'll give you a million dollars when you leave town.
2.Use alcohol in moderation.
3.Kick the shit out of people who aren't like you.
4.Eat right.
5.Hank dictated this list Himself.
6.The moon is made of green cheese.
7.Everything Hank says is right.
8.Wash your hands after going to the bathroom.
9.Don't use alcohol.
10.Eat your wieners on buns, no condiments.
11. Kiss Hank's ass or He'll kick the shit out of you.

Also, check out the FBI investigation of gay cartoon characters

Rant du jour

I see the moderates are already claiming US President George W. Bush's nomination of Paul Wolfowitz as president of the World Bank is is just a sop by Bush to the far right. When will these people wake up and realize that neither this appointment, nor the appoint of John "the UN does not exist" Bolton, nor the appointment of Al "it's not torture unless it causes organ failure" Gonzales are sops to the right, but the actions of a right-wing extremist president. What is it going to take? The appointment of a Falangist to the office of faith-based initiatives? A new Kristalnacht?

Since the Reagan and Thatcher years (and I'd include Mulroney in this too) the strategy of the right whenever and wherever they have held power has been to push the center to the right by means of fear-mongering, bribing the people with their own money, campaigning against government and the neo-con game of "starving the beast" through tax cuts and pandering to strident patriotic nationalism.

Since the early 1980's we've have been treated to politicians on the right constantly wailing in alarm about street crime, violence and drugs that are destroying our cities. About the proliferation of WMD and so-called rogue states and creating domestic crises to push their own policies - the coal strike in the UK that was used to break the British trade union movement, the various ill-fated attempts at constitutional reform in Canada under Mulroney, the current social security "emergency" cooked up by Bush the Younger - these are all "crises" created by the governments in question to allow them to further their own agenda in the solution.

A right-wing government cuts taxes and promises to cut spending and "waste" and "red tape" that is handcuffing free enterprise. They trot out the most extreme cases of govt funded research into obscure fields, or funding given to narrow-focus advocacy groups they can find and ridicule it. They make a sweeping promise to cut the civil service ("everybody knows how lazy those darn bureaucrats are - govt should be run like a business") and turn hundreds, even thousands of govt employees out into the street. When the remaining staff can no longer deliver adequate services due to lack of manpower, they decry this as further proof of government inefficiency and impotence.

Meanwhile the tax cuts are all to aid the corporate sector and the wealthy. The "waste" that is cut is usually in fields like education and social service spending: "useless" things like support for teachers and social workers, halfway houses and drug treatment programs. Mental health facilities in particular took a huge hit in the Reagan era, leading to the current epidemic of homelessness among the borderline and often not-so-borderline mentally ill.

Often these cuts are ideologically driven. Subsidization of post-secondary education is cut "because it favors elitism" when in reality it is now only the elite who can afford university. Health care subsidization is cut and private care encouraged, because socialized medicine is "socialism" and doctors deserve to take part in the free market system as much as anyone else. The red tape that gets cut are things like environmental standards and enforcement (see Ontario under the Harris government, the USA under Bush) corporate oversight and financial regulation.

The right campaign on a platform of fiscal responsibility and keep hammering on the size of the public debt to scare the electorate into voting for "fiscal conservatism" and when they get into office, reduce the government's income by cutting taxes while reallocating (and often increasing) spending to pay private contractors to provide the government services they have cut at a higher cost and with less accountability. If the government-run agency screws up, the politicians take the heat, but if the private contractor screws up, the politicians can wring their hands and say they didn't know about it, it was a private firm and so they had no control.

With less money coming in, the deficit gets bigger, giving the right wing politicians further ammunition to cut more government programs. Most schools in Ontario used to have good art, music, sports and drama programs. Not anymore, they werer cut in 90's as "too expensive in the current dire financial climate" Most provincial parks in Ontario replaced government employees (with living wages and benefits) with private contractors (much lower wages, no benefits) for all but senior management jobs.

The use of misinformation and outright propaganda is essential to the task of moving the center. When conservatives railed against crime in the streets and the need for getting tough on crime in the 80s and 90s, the crime rate was actually lower than it had been in the 70s and going down. Since they couldn't rely on statistical evidence, they would dredge up anecdotes about the most brutal crimes they could find and then act as though brutal crime had not existed before 1965, Jack the ripper and Lizzie Borden notwithstanding. The media ran with the anecdotes rather than the scientific recording of actual trends because gory anecdotes always make better copy than dry statistics. Sins of ommission are the most common type of media offense - telling us all about American Idol or Martha Stuart or Michael Jackson's day in court rather than the bankrupcy bill that just handed credit card companies the right to seize people's homes or the debate over social security reform. I'm sure when the U.S. congress eventually introduces a bill calling for a military draft, the lead story on CNN is going to be Brittany Spears miracle baby or the discovery that some mental defective in Utah who has cooked and eaten the babysitter.

As the Bruce Cockburn song says "the trouble with normal is it always get worse" - the more of these changes that are made, the more people accept them and the more willing they become to accept even more heavy-handed measures. What would have been completely unacceptable to most people in 1975 or even 1985 (The Patriot Act, machinegun-toting National Guardsmen in airports forcing people to take off their shoes, "free speech" zones away from Presidential speeches, the hate rhetoric of Ann Coulter, the ten commandments in court rooms and the teaching of creationism in schools to name a few off the top of my head) is no longer even blinked at. The political pendulum swings back and forth from left to right, but in the 80s, Reagan, Thatcher and Mulroney managed to move the top of the pendulum itself to the right, so when it swung back to Clinton, Blair and Chretien, it didn't go very far to the left, but stopped just to the right of what used to be the center. Now as it swings to the right again, the center is being pulled with it, ensuring a sort of creeping facism will be with us for years, perhaps generations to come.

Germany, Italy and Spain did not become facist states overnight - the facists created the conditions for their seizing of power over a number of years before provoking unrest and even civil war to allow them to impose a military solution to "protect peace."That is what we are watching right now in the United States.

My favorite record

Enough good things cannot be said about Austin, Texas' legendary Asylum Street Spankers. Buy their records, videos, download all their stuff off itunes and watch these concert and interview clips taped last fall for a Kansas television program called Turnpike

flipping the bird
Just in case the world didn't realize what dubya was saying when he appointed John "The United Nations does not exist" Bolton as ambassador to the UN, the commander-in-chimp has now held up his owther middle finger and nominated Paul Wolfowitz to head the World Bank

testing testing 1..2...3....is this thing on?