More Hard Going

I'm also finding My Mother She Killed Me, My Father He Ate Me; Forty New Fairy Tales edited by Kate Bernheimer heavy going, and I seem to have been reading it forever. So far each of the stories I've read (a grand total of twenty-six so far) has proved to have its distinct challenges. Most have been rewarding, but in an exhausting way - exhausting, that is, for this tired old brain.

There's a very strong sense of the writers involved really writing; i.e., showing their writing chops, which are generally plentiful. There are a lot of clever people around but you don't necessarily want to meet them all the time. Well, not me, anyway. (Which leads to the very interesting question as to why one wilfully, gleefully surrenders to certain demandingly obscure writers, but not others.)

But having said all that, I'm fairly sure I'll be browsing through the collection again, once completed, in search of the definite gems in there - and most of the big names are still to come: Joyce Carol Oates, Updike, Gaiman.