Take a photo of a barcode or cover
lee_foust 's review for:
Mostly Hero
by Anna Burns
This is the third Anna Burns text I've read in the last month, since I casually picked up Milkman and devoured it in only a couple of sittings. Although that novel, her previous novel No Bones, and this short novel or longish short story, all treat of the Northern Irish experience of violence, vendetta, and the PTSD of their female heroines, I find Burns's prose style, aplomb, and terror-based humor really fabulous. She is a great stylist.
As an added bonus, Mostly Hero uses an absurd version of superhero comic language and situation to describe more of the Northern Irish civil war experience, taking the piss out of that tradition and drawing, in my opinion, the obvious parallel between humankind's worst idiocy--violence and warfare--and our so-called pop culture (really corporate/state propaganda) art--all that Star Wars and Marvel comix crap that indoctrinates our children into believing in the overly simplistic good guys/bad guys scenario, that heroes are invulnerable (quite useful in garnering recruits for the military), that violence solves every problem, and that violence and coercion through the threat of violence are the best measures of manhood, dignity, and pride.
Let my children read fables of anarcho-syndicalism!
--------------------
Just presented this novel novel to students. They enjoyed the humor, for the most part, but didn't seem to feel it as deeply as I feel it as an important take on how we cover our crimes in mythic hero and villain thought. Still, I loved the reread. I'd forgotten that Anna Burns and I are the same age. 1962 produced a few great writers: Burns, Paul Beatty, Donna Tartt, and yours, truly. Heh heh. Putting myself in rather illustrious company I know.
As an added bonus, Mostly Hero uses an absurd version of superhero comic language and situation to describe more of the Northern Irish civil war experience, taking the piss out of that tradition and drawing, in my opinion, the obvious parallel between humankind's worst idiocy--violence and warfare--and our so-called pop culture (really corporate/state propaganda) art--all that Star Wars and Marvel comix crap that indoctrinates our children into believing in the overly simplistic good guys/bad guys scenario, that heroes are invulnerable (quite useful in garnering recruits for the military), that violence solves every problem, and that violence and coercion through the threat of violence are the best measures of manhood, dignity, and pride.
Let my children read fables of anarcho-syndicalism!
--------------------
Just presented this novel novel to students. They enjoyed the humor, for the most part, but didn't seem to feel it as deeply as I feel it as an important take on how we cover our crimes in mythic hero and villain thought. Still, I loved the reread. I'd forgotten that Anna Burns and I are the same age. 1962 produced a few great writers: Burns, Paul Beatty, Donna Tartt, and yours, truly. Heh heh. Putting myself in rather illustrious company I know.