THE LIGHTNING & THE LIGHTNING BUG

 (Tonight, with sheet lightning shooting across the sky over Manhattan, this post seems too appropriate,
though it was not meant to accompany a storm)
 *
 "The difference between the right word and the almost right word,"
said Mark Twain,
"is the difference between lightning and the lightning bug."

*

'The Situation and the Story'

 by Vivian Gornick
(http://www.amazon.com/Situation-Story-Art-Personal-Narrative/dp/0374528586)

Illuminates, brilliantly, the choices of some of the best (sometimes unexpected) writers of personal memoir, in such a way, using precisely the right word, so as to acquaint us with both individual technique, and each individual writer. Her own 'voice' has always interested me, from the days of following her weekly in the Village Voice.to 'Essays On Feminism'.Now, decades later, I'm playing catch up with what I missed.  Her dissection, and critical explication of the romance novel in 'The End of The Novel of Love'  was enlightening.  I'm looking forward to 'Fierce Attachments'.......

  *

Reading List

• The Men in My Life (2008, MIT Press)National Book Critics Circle Award finalist for criticism.  
• The Solitude of Self: Thinking About Elizabeth Cady Stanton (2005, FSG)  
• The Situation and the Story: The Art of Personal Narrative (2001, FSG)  
• The End of the Novel of Love (1997, Beacon Press)  
• Approaching Eye Level (1996)  
• Fierce Attachments: A Memoir (1987, FSG)  
• Women in Science: 100 Journeys into the Territory (1983)  
• Essays in Feminism (1978)  
• The Romance of American Communism (1977)  
• The Ancient Dream (Sep/Oct 2010, Boston Review)