No, this wasn't technically on the list. But that's only because I didn't think to read it until I saw it sitting there on the shelf at the library, and their copy of "Walden" was out anyway.
I know I have mentioned to many of you before why I love short stories. It's kind of like having snacks when you're not hungry or watching 5 20-minute television shows when you don't have time for a movie. They don't take effort or fill you up full, short stories are just little diversions (unless you're John Steinbeck, in which case piss off, stop ruining my life).
Long live Stuart McLean! These little stories that I usually hear on the radio on Sunday afternoons are always just the right thing to make me laugh aloud on the train home at the end of a very mediocre day at work or the thing to make me tear up when I thought I was too grouchy to feel sympathetic to something.
Their main strength is that they are told in plain Canadian. It's not the same as plain English. Plain Canadian is a speech that assumes you know what the worst is. It assumes that you don't need to be told all the grisly bits, you can tell them from the look on the storyteller's face. That, and Stuart is the unparalleled MASTER of dramatic irony. I believe this appeals to our national sense of patriotism. We don't rally to calls about hope and freedom and whichever that amendment is that lets people carry guns. We tend more to just look over everyone's shoulder and say "Told you it wouldn't work".
I would say the most loveable thing about the Vinyl Cafe is that it makes me feel like I have a lot of good friends around when I'm reading it or listening on the radio. It's disheartening to be out of the hosue for 12 hours in a day and realize you haven't talked to a single person that you truly like. And then along comes Dave and Morley and everything is okay again.
Up next: The View from Castle Rock by Alice Munro
No comments:
Post a Comment