January 2018 – That's What She Read

Sunday Short: The Dinosaurs on Other Planets by Danielle McLaughlin

January 14, 2018January 1, 2021 E.F. Sunland

Previously On: “The Machine Stops” by E.M. Forster

Only one story in and I’m already rethinking my strategy for the year…
I decided on shorts from The New Yorker to easily find stories by authors I’d like to read more from (Munro, Wolff, Alexie, Smith…) and authors I’d like to try (Erdich, Meloy, Bolaño…). However—and I knew this going in—stories in The New Yorker can have more style than substance. There’s no guarantee that any of shorts on my list for the year will contain a proper story. Unfortunately, “The Dinosaurs on Other Planets” by Danielle McLaughlin is the first to fit this bill. read more

Review: The Shining by Stephen King

January 10, 2018October 12, 2020 E.F. Sunland

a.k.a. I would like to officially retract every bad or unflattering thing I’ve ever said about Stephen King’s writing.

I’m not a fan of Kubrick’s film so there was little chance of my picking up the book… until I ran across King’s comments:

The character of Jack Torrance has no arc in that movie. Absolutely no arc at all. When we first see Jack Nicholson, he’s in the office of Mr. Ullman, the manager of the hotel, and you know, then, that he’s crazy as a shit house rat. All he does is get crazier. In the book, he’s a guy who’s struggling with his sanity and finally loses it. To me, that’s a tragedy. In the movie, there’s no tragedy because there’s no real change.

and:

[Wendy is] one of the most misogynistic characters ever put on film. She’s basically just there to scream and be stupid. And that’s not the woman I wrote about.

Sunday Short: The Machine Stops by E.M. Forster

January 7, 2018January 1, 2021 E.F. Sunland

This is a more of a novella (12,000 words) than a short story, but E.M. Forster’s “The Machine Stops” made me want to read more short fiction this year, so here we are. The timing of this story is the most interesting thing about it. If it hadn’t originally been published in 1909, it would be just another story about the hazards of social media and virtual reality. Instead, it feels eerily prophetic. read more