Murnane’s a genius. I think best taken in doses. But his stories, fictions as he calls them, turn in on themselves constantly. Landscapes, objects, people, memories prompting him to spend time in mental landscapes. Here we get Murnane walking along a stream that on a map appears blue. But it wasn’t always there. And, in real life, standing next to it, the water looks more brown than anything. We follow Murnane along the stream into his mental landscapes. Similar to Fosse’s slow prose. It’s sweet, it keeps splitting, no one else could bite what Murnane does without immediately making one think of Murnane. He’s too sweetly, beautifully, boringly (in the best way) original.
First written ‘to be be read aloud at a gathering in the Department of English at La Trobe University in 1988’. Collected in Invisible Yet Enduring Lilacs, Giramondo, 2005/And Other Stories, 2020, and in Stream System, FSG, 2018
A Personal Anthology 