Wednesday, January 21, 2009

Alice Munro will NOT actually be the most read writer in 100 years

Alice Munro's publishers have just let out a book of 'her best' short stories. One of the blow job pieces on the back is a famous literary figure saying "In 100 years, Alice Munro will be the most read writer of our times." I must disagree.

Alice Munro's stories are the last holdout of an era when short stories were written with the sole intent of torturing middle-school English students. I'll demonstrate.

Mr Haines: "So.... does anybody have any feelings about this story?.... Anybody?"
(Mr Haines is met with dead silence)
Mr Haines: "okay, well does anybody know what this story is about? Anyone? Any clue? Come on, guys. The story's not about nothing. Otherwise why would it have been written?"

Mr Haines, the story is actually about nothing.
The first Alice Munro story I ever read was in a book of High Brow Gay Erotica. Sandwiched in between a bunch of hot musings on Australian bathhouse culture was a story about Alice Munro's first job. She worked at a factory with some guys. She ate her lunch out of a thermos.Then at the end of the story she used literary techniques (I'm on to you, Alice!) to act as though something had happened, like, maybe she'd walked in on Ernie giving it to Stan in the boiler room. But actually, that hadn't happened. in fact, she had not witnessed one single gay moment in the whole story.
I can only guess that the editors approached her because she's famou and all of her pieces are so vague that the reader could easily fall asleep and imagine that a Big Gay Elephant had walked through the story, and if they didn't see the Gay Elephant, well, I guess they're just not a very astute, and they didn't read the story carefully enough. Just like grade ten English class.
I'm sorry Alice, but I have been hearing way too much hullaballoo about your latest 'Greatest Hits' anthology.
You have made a whole career out of being so overrated you're untouchable. I don't know how you pulled it off, but in a hundred years no one will be reading your boring stories and pretending to understand them.

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