Selected Miscellany
A post from the Bound Galley blog
GEORGE SAUNDERS WATCH
My 7-year-old daughter was doing her homework, which consisted of writing sentences based on simple pictures. Sample: Next to a picture of a ball, she wrote "The ball rolled into the street." Her complaints about having to write these sentences often reach the pitch and tenor of an undergraduate penning a term paper the night before it's due.
But I digress. Next to a picture of a goat, she wrote: "Goats eat everything. No note, no goat."
This is a not-so-veiled reference to George Saunders' brilliant Pastoralia, a book she has not yet read. Although I have read it, and apparently, I am also fond of speaking of goats and notes. The quote refers to a delightfully bizarre story in the collection in which a man and a woman live inside a museum display as a prehistoric couple. When the institution's funds start to run dry, instead of receiving their regular food goat, the management starts to send them notes.
No word yet on what her first grade teacher made of the quote.
More Miscellany
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