Dec. 20th, 2010

sheenaghpugh: (Sydney Smith)
The Guardian's latest short story podcast has Helen Dunmore reading Frank O'Connor's My Oedipus Complex, which draws on his own experience, as a small boy, of a father he hardly knew returning from war. This has to be not only one of the wryest and most endearing short stories I know, but one of the best uses of a child narrator. The boy's total lack of sentimentality is vital for a story that, told from an adult viewpoint, might easily turn schmaltzy. I used it with students a lot and I don't think I ever had a class who couldn't relate to it.

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sheenaghpugh

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