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Aug 24, 2008 07:32 PM

“This little green soul of his”

by Stefan Beck


Five of my favorite words: new fiction by Tobias Wolff. “Awake,” a story in the current New Yorker, isn’t quite up to the standard of Wolff’s best, but it’s well worth a read. Speaking broadly and simply, it’s about—as is so much of his writing—the perils of growing up:

“Odysseus turned his back on the harbour and followed a rough track leading through the woods and up to the hills toward the place where Athene had told him . . .”

Richard read on for a time. He was restless but tried to take an interest in Odysseus’ journey to the home of his loyal “swineherd”—what a word, what a way to make a living!—who of course doesn’t recognize him, nobody ever recognized anybody in these old books, but offers Odysseus a meal anyway and bangs his ear off with complaints. Now and then Richard glanced over at Ana, asleep beside him. He kept willing her to wake, to turn and open her arms to him—no such luck.

Speaking of New Yorker fiction, I’m reminded to recommend this curiously chilling story by Joshua Ferris, whose debut novel, Then We Came to the End, was, I think, one of last year’s best.

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