2.
The governing metaphor of Sam Peckinpah’s The Wild Bunch is impressed on both protagonist and audience alike in the first moments of the film.
Continue readingArchive for the Fiction Category
Americans, Scorpions and Ants
Posted in Fiction, Film with tags A Farewell to Arms, a Revolution in Hollywood and the making of a Legendary Film, ants, Camille Paglia, Coppola, De Palma, Emilio Fernandez, Ernest Hemingway, Pike Bishop, Sam Peckinpah, scorpions, Scorsese, The Wild Bunch, The Wild Bunch: Sam Peckinpah, W.K. Stratton, Warner Brothers, William Holden on June 30, 2024 by Jarrod Boyle
Americans, Scorpions and Ants
Posted in Fiction, Film with tags A Farewell to Arms, A Mouthful of Stones, Americans, ants, Ernest Hemingway, For Whom the Bell Tolls, Frederic Henry, Hadji Murat, Leo Tolstoy, scorpions, War and Peace on June 20, 2024 by Jarrod Boyle
1.
“If people bring so much courage to this world the world has to kill them to break them, so of course it kills them. The world breaks every one and afterward many are strong at the broken places. But those that will not break it kills. It kills the very good and the very gentle and the very brave impartially. If you are none of these you can be sure it will kill you too but there will be no special hurry.”
― Ernest Hemingway, A Farewell to Arms
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Thomas Hardy: Character is Fate in ‘The Mayor of Casterbridge’
Posted in Fiction, Observation, Reading with tags Charles Dickens, David Copperfield, Donald Farfrae, Michael Henchard, Narcissus, Phillip Pirrip, Tess of the D'Urbervilles, The Mayor of Casterbridge, Thomas Hardy on May 31, 2022 by Jarrod Boyle
‘Character is fate, said Novalis, and Farfrae’s character was just the reverse of Henchard’s, who might not be inaptly described as Faust has been described – as a vehement gloomy being who had quitted the ways of vulgar men without light to guide him on a better way.’
Thomas Hardy,
The Mayor of Casterbridge,
P. 131
While reading The Mayor of Casterbridge this morning, I saw something that I did not like: myself.
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The Devils – A User’s Guide
Posted in Fiction, Observation, Reading with tags Dostoyevsky, Martin Scorsese, Pyramids, Raging Bull, Taxi Driver, The Devils on August 26, 2020 by Jarrod Boyle
What’s it about?
What amounts to a terrorist cell in mid-nineteenth century Russia and its effect on a small fictional town of Dostoyevsky’s invention.
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Rodney Hall: A Stolen Season
Posted in Fiction, Reading, Real Men with tags A Stolen Season, Autumn of the Patriarch, Belize, Central America, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, George Saunders, James Joyce, Mayan, Miles Franklin Award, Rodney Hall, The Brief and Frightening Reign of Phil, Ulysses on July 16, 2019 by Jarrod Boyle
At the gym – working on the gun show.
Rodney Hall is one of Australia’s greatest living writers. He has been nominated for the Miles Franklin Award seven times and if he wins this year, it’ll be the third time he’s gone home with the prize.
I have known him for eighteen years and he never fails to deliver on the subject of literature. He has been kind enough to wax lyrical at the Theme Park on matters literary and a few others that happen to intersect within his purview.
T.P: I’m guessing that if the Miles Franklin Award was predicated on biceps, you’d win that. Continue reading
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The Worst First Date in the History of the World
Posted in Fiction, sexual misadventure, Writing with tags Baby arm, Disaster first dates, Frankston on October 9, 2018 by Jarrod Boyle
There is something confronting about the disembodied voice of a stranger on the telephone, particularly when it’s someone you may fall in love with. Continue reading
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Fighting in Public Places
Posted in Fiction on February 17, 2018 by Jarrod Boyle
Final
I don’t believe in threats. A threat is specific, and knowable. It comes from you, and it’s contained and bordered by words. Fear, however, is personal. It’s amorphous and endless. Like a gas, it expands to fill a space.
“You’re done! You’re done!” said the others.
“I’m done when I say I’m done,” I replied, trying to find his eye. Continue reading
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Fighting in Public Places
Posted in Fiction on February 10, 2018 by Jarrod Boyle
3.
Jester Mitolo Cabernet Sauvignon from McLaren Vale, South Australia.
She never loved you.
Further down, Kaysler Cabernet Sauvignon, Barossa Valley.
She never loved you.
In the next rack, Saltram’s Barossa Shiraz.
She never loved you.
I opted for the Kaysler. Continue reading
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Fighting in Public Places
Posted in Fiction on February 5, 2018 by Jarrod Boyle
2.
Maybe she didn’t love me. Worse, all those times we lay in each other’s arms at night, she may have just been doing that so I’d keep paying her registration fees and mobile phone bills. Continue reading
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Fighting in Public Places
Posted in Fiction on January 28, 2018 by Jarrod Boyle
1.
Night. A depthless, crystalline dark. I was lighting candles when the phone rang.
“Hey Monkey,” I said, “How’s it going?” Continue reading
Theme Park at its Darkest 