The Friday
On Junot Díaz, Random House picks, Summer Brennan, Give the Devil a Dictionary -- Kate Morgan Reade, Color Revolution in Bangladesh, The Ritz (film)
American Psycho, Lolita, Spare and many other books have unreliable narrators. If the author repeatedly tries to make you think he’s kind and compassionate toward animals, for example, that’s a red flag. Real love for animals comes through effortlessly.
An unreliable narrator is a narrator who cannot be trusted— they either are just using you (as a member of the audience) the way they use everyone else because they’re in it for themselves, or they are naive or extremely set in their ways of thinking. They are usually in the first-person, but not always.
The term “unreliable narrator” was coined by Wayne C. Booth in his 1961 book The Rhetoric of Fiction.
On Junot Diaz: https://chapter16.org/in-the-land-of-the-unreliable-narrator/
And more interesting articles on the phenomenon:
https://thewritersally.com/articles/how-to-rely-on-the-unreliable-narrator/
https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/the-read-down/unreliable-narrators/
On Sept 1st I went to a cafe and a woman was sitting there dressed like a witch with her friends, hat and all. Maybe Halloween season has already begun:
The Unabridged Devil’s Dictionary: https://thedevilsdictionary.com/
Recommendation for a very good private email: Startmail.com
Yet because I tell the truth, you do not believe me! —John 8:45
One Ukraine is never enough once they get started! Recently, the 99% cooperative 4-term prime minister of Bangladesh, Sheikh Hasina, fled her country when the USA insisted on building a military base she didn’t need, throwing the country into chaos: https://www.eurasiantimes.com/us-desperate-for-military-base-in-bangladesh
By the way, did you know the Red states of the US now have lower life expectancy than Bangladesh (about 72 years)? What goes around, comes around.
Free film: “The Ritz” (comedy written by the great Terence McNally):
But Michelle Obama Really Is a Woman!
Recently on YouTube I saw a woman in Sweden refer to First Lady Michelle Obama as "Michael." This joke has gotten out of hand. Do they really believe it or are they just malicious? How did this meme start? It feels a bit preposterous, however, to address this issue, as when a producer at a film festival told me he was a cis male (meaning, he was born …