Skip to main content

Magpie Murders complete


What a terrific book! A double murder mystery, and lots of interesting and unobtrusive observations on the merits of literature and popular fiction and the distinction between the two.

Since I write YA books, my take on the literature/fiction distinction goes about like this. Just like Horowitz's main character--a writer who wants to be considered part of the pantheon of greats but isn't--I started writing wanting to be a "great." But there's that thing called talent, and I just don't have a great work of literature in me. But I did discover along the way that I could write a book that at least some 14 year-old readers think is great. This is why I never say to students: "You can be anything you want to be." Much more sensible to say: "Figure out what you're pretty good at, work at that, and become as great in that area as your talents allow."

Anyway, I'm in total awe of how Horowitz handles this amazingly intricate double plot, how the pieces tie together so neatly, how many twists and turn there were (all of which were believable). Just really impressive.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Napoleon 14 Amiens

"Ambassadors are essentially spies with titles."  Napoleon President of Italy . . . Peace treaty with England (Amiens) in March 1802, with Turkey in June 1802 . . . flawed peace treaty with England because there was no opening up of France for trade with England, infuriating the English who thought peace would mean trade. . . tourism, though--Brits come to Paris and admire Napoleon . . . British liberals enamored . . . Napoleon "consul for life" . . . lots of unsettled territories, Switzerland being the largest . . . Industrialization much greater in England than France . . . France in 1802 is about the same as England in 1780 as a manufacturing center . . . Napoleon is basically Anglophobic, complaining of any art work that celebrates English victories being shown in Louvre . . . peace unraveling . . . by 1803 . . .  War May 18, 1803! . . . Louisiana Territory sold, advantageous to both parties.  France gets money; USA gets land.  France avoids possible war with ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Puppy, Story by George Saunders

PUPPY  Dysfunctional family has puppy that they need to get rid of.  Mom places ad; family is coming over. Description of family.   Mom:  husband changed from long-haired attractive to stooped old man. Husband: talks constantly of living on a farm and doing what needs to be done, though he never lived on a farm.   Conversations together:   Sell and move to Arizona, get hooked on phonics for kids, buying a car wash. . . wonderful randomness. Straight-laced suburbanite comes to look at puppy.  Seems like she will buy it, even though she is repelled by house.  (Dog turds on carpet, filthy.) She is proud of how accepting she is until she looks out window and sees white trash's son tied by harness to a tree.  Reader knows he is a menace to himself, darting across I-90, for example.  Suburban mother beats hasty retreat, leaving dog to be (probably) drowned by dad who does what has to be done.   Suburbanite remembers her own pathetic ch...
Post a Comment
Read more

Factual basis of American Tragedy: Wikipedia

Dreiser based the book on a notorious criminal case. On July 11, 1906, resort owners found an overturned boat and the body of 20-year-old  Grace Brown  at  Big Moose Lake  in the  Adirondack Mountains  of  Upstate New York .  Chester Gillette  was put on trial and convicted of killing Brown, though he claimed that her death was a suicide. Gillette was executed by electric chair on March 30, 1908. [1] The murder trial drew international attention when Brown's love letters to Gillette were read in court. Dreiser saved newspaper clippings about the case for several years before writing his novel, during which he studied the case closely. He based Clyde Griffiths on Chester Gillette, deliberately giving him the same initials.
Post a Comment
Read more