Anodyne
Tuesday, October 12, 2004
 
Customer, picking up her hold, asks Keith and I a series of intricate questions crafted like a Russian nesting doll, designed to elicit our opinion as to the most famous living English-language short story writer.

Our double-barrelled answer, "Alice Munro and Stephen King," with Harlan Ellison suiting up in the dressing room as a possible third choice, pleases no one: not the customer, and definitely neither of us, who feel like vulgar popularizers under the weight of her (largely) incredulous gaze.

Still, a defensible choice, given that Haruki Murakami, Denis Johnson, Ursula K. LeGuin, Don DeLillo, & etc. are primarily known as novelists, not short story writers. And Faulker, Chekhov, RaymondCarver, Katherine Mansfield, O. Henry, Saki, V.S. Pritchett, and old gibbering crepulous H.P.L. are dead, hence off-limits.

- posted by cjb @ 7:39 PM


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