This is the blog of Ian Rosales Casocot. Filipino writer. Sometime academic. Former backpacker. Twink bait. Hamster lover.
The Boy The Girl
The Rat The Rabbit
and the Last Magic Days
Chapbook, 2018
Republic of Carnage:
Three Horror Stories
For the Way We Live Now
Chapbook, 2018
Bamboo Girls:
Stories and Poems
From a Forgotten Life
Ateneo de Naga University Press, 2018
Don't Tell Anyone:
Literary Smut
With Shakira Andrea Sison
Pride Press / Anvil Publishing, 2017
Cupful of Anger,
Bottle Full of Smoke:
The Stories of
Jose V. Montebon Jr.
Silliman Writers Series, 2017
First Sight of Snow
and Other Stories
Encounters Chapbook Series
Et Al Books, 2014
Celebration: An Anthology to Commemorate the 50th Anniversary of the Silliman University National Writers Workshop
Sands and Coral, 2011-2013
Silliman University, 2013
Handulantaw: Celebrating 50 Years of Culture and the Arts in Silliman
Tao Foundation and Silliman University Cultural Affairs Committee, 2013
Inday Goes About Her Day
Locsin Books, 2012
Beautiful Accidents: Stories
University of the Philippines Press, 2011
Heartbreak & Magic: Stories of Fantasy and Horror
Anvil, 2011
Old Movies and Other Stories
National Commission for Culture
and the Arts, 2006
FutureShock Prose: An Anthology of Young Writers and New Literatures
Sands and Coral, 2003
Nominated for Best Anthology
2004 National Book Awards
3:50 PM |
I Want This Book
Two literary saints for short story enthusiasts -- Alice Munro and William Trevor (one Canadian, the other Irish). Both have achieved magnificent bodies of work. Of the two, I find Trevor more awe-inspiring because his imagination is more supple. Reading his Collected Stories a few years ago revived my love for the traditional short story.
Anyway, while waiting for Richy two weeks ago for that post-birthday dinner at Sentro, I found myself in Powerbooks Makati turning over in my hands Trevor's newest collections of stories Cheating at Canasta. So tempting to buy it, even at P890 -- as a form of reverence to a master. Didn't buy it though, and chose to surf the net for reviews. Here's one I particularly liked, because I also happen to like the novels of the reviewer.
I am actually addicted to Trevor's prose style, I don't know why. I even read his bad novels. His best, as far as his novels are concerned ("a hit-and-miss thing", according to Chari Lucero) are the following: The Story of Lucy Gault, The Silence in the Garden, and Fools of Fortune.
He never won the Booker, and yet writers like Stanley Elkin and Julian Barnes have always admired him.
Of his late stories, I have noticed a falling off from the classical structure of his best stories from the 70s. The sympathy can be overwhelming that at times I ask for more irony. He's already 80, and still going at it, and gets preferential publishing treatment from the New Yorker which considers him "the greatest living practitioner of the short story form." Many young contemporary prize-winning writers owe their precocious wisdom from reading his stories: Jhumpa Lahiri, Yiyun Li, etc.
