And speaking of irony…
Last week I was talking about Michael Chabon's new book, McSweeney's Mammoth Treasury of Thrilling Tales and its stated goal to reinvigorate the plot-driven short story. When I read the intro, with Chabon's description of the current short story market as filled with "stories that are plotless and sparkling with epiphanic dew", one of the first stories that came to mind was the movie Wonder Boys. A friend of mine had gushed over this movie before it came out and told me I had to see it. When I went to it, I discovered it was another in the seemingly endless “university professor in midlife crisis surrounded by hot undergrad” stories. I understand why these stories are so popular… I mean, look at how many authors ARE university professors who have either experienced the midlife crisis surrounded by hot undergrads, or have witnessed others going through said experience. So, copping to the truism that “you write what you know” sooner or later, they all seem obliged to tackle this theme. (All right, that's a broad generalization, but you know what I mean.)
The point of all this is that I wasn’t overly taken by the movie, despite good performances by all involved and shoved it onto my list of “probably very good but I’m never going to watch again” movies.
Now, there probably was a plot to Wonder Boys and it was more than just the “epiphanic dew” type of story Chabon laments in his intro, but it still was the first story that came to me when I read the intro.
Imagine my surprise when I did my search on Amazon for Michael Chabon to find this:
Wonder Boys by Michael Chabon
Now THAT’S what I call ironic.
Last week I was talking about Michael Chabon's new book, McSweeney's Mammoth Treasury of Thrilling Tales and its stated goal to reinvigorate the plot-driven short story. When I read the intro, with Chabon's description of the current short story market as filled with "stories that are plotless and sparkling with epiphanic dew", one of the first stories that came to mind was the movie Wonder Boys. A friend of mine had gushed over this movie before it came out and told me I had to see it. When I went to it, I discovered it was another in the seemingly endless “university professor in midlife crisis surrounded by hot undergrad” stories. I understand why these stories are so popular… I mean, look at how many authors ARE university professors who have either experienced the midlife crisis surrounded by hot undergrads, or have witnessed others going through said experience. So, copping to the truism that “you write what you know” sooner or later, they all seem obliged to tackle this theme. (All right, that's a broad generalization, but you know what I mean.)
The point of all this is that I wasn’t overly taken by the movie, despite good performances by all involved and shoved it onto my list of “probably very good but I’m never going to watch again” movies.
Now, there probably was a plot to Wonder Boys and it was more than just the “epiphanic dew” type of story Chabon laments in his intro, but it still was the first story that came to me when I read the intro.
Imagine my surprise when I did my search on Amazon for Michael Chabon to find this:
Wonder Boys by Michael Chabon
Now THAT’S what I call ironic.
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