Pretty good, eh?

It's not often that I use this space for items that aren't political, but every now and again something strikes my fancy....

When I was still a young man, I harbored illusions held by many a youth--that of writing the great American novel (and what an illusion it was--at this stage of my life I'd settle for writing the mediocre American novel). As those who dream such dreams are wont to do, I was enamored of what is commonly referred to as literature (and everyone else calls shit that only eggheads read).  Over the course of the last dozen years or so, after the republican trifecta of the Clinton impeachment, the unmitigated disaster that was 9/11, and their subservience to the gods of income inequality, fiction seemed to become more and more...superfluous.  Even  "literature" seemed to become tiresome, corporatized, let's have a meeting and write that great American novel.  And it definitely didn't seem to give two shits about the human condition.

Except for three writers I could have given up fiction forever and not missed it much.  Cormac McCarthy, Ian McEwan, and Alice Munro wrote novels and stories that over the course of that time kept me at least slightly interested and believing that there were still those who could write tales that touched the heart without being Marley and Me.

For whatever it's worth, Alice Munro won the Nobel Prize for Literature today, and was cited for being a master of the short story (she is).  She writes stories about ordinary Canadians, people that you often wonder if should even care about, but she structures their lives as such that you cannot help but.

Alice Munro never wrote the great Canadian novel (in fact, she never wrote a novel period), but she has brought much joy into my life with her work.  I can't think of a better choice.

Peace,
emaycee