{"id":16018,"date":"2015-06-29T15:19:48","date_gmt":"2015-06-29T19:19:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/?p=16018"},"modified":"2015-06-29T17:01:35","modified_gmt":"2015-06-29T21:01:35","slug":"alejandro-zambra-reading-comprehension-text-no-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/2015\/06\/29\/alejandro-zambra-reading-comprehension-text-no-1\/","title":{"rendered":"Alejandro Zambra: “Reading Comprehension: Text No. 1”"},"content":{"rendered":"
Click here<\/a> to read the story in its entirety on\u00a0The New Yorker <\/em>webpage. Alejandro Zambra's \"Reading Comprehension: Text No. 1\" was originally published in the\u00a0July 6 & 13, 2015 issue of\u00a0The New Yorker<\/em>.<\/pre>\n
\"July<\/a>Two issues ago, The New Yorker<\/em> published a very positive article on Zambra by none other than James Wood — it was very positive. They follow that up with\u00a0one of Zambra’s stories, the second they’ve published (you can read some thoughts on “Camilo,” which appeared in the May 26, 2014 issue, here<\/a>).<\/p>\n
Honestly, I am not quite on board. I’ve read and admired Ways of Going Home<\/em> (my thoughts here<\/a>), and I read his new story collection My Documents<\/em> (which spurred Wood to read the rest of Zambra’s work) but didn’t enjoy it much at all. I hope it’s just me and that I’ll find more to admire as Zambra keeps writing.<\/p>\n
I’m anxious to read your thoughts, so please join the conversation below!<\/p>\n
\n
To get things started, here are Adrienne’s initial thoughts.<\/em><\/p>\n
Something is missing here for me on this one.\u00a0It feels like a memoir\/essay that moves clumsily into an anecdote, then crashes with a \u201cthud\u201d into a slightly humorous satire.<\/p>\n
This tale is set-up perfectly for an honors English class that can take and dissect it into form and feature.\u00a0The quiz at the end is a parody of the theme — a gimmick to be sure, but one that will introduce students to a new author and will offer opportunities to compare and contrast education across cultures.<\/p>\n
But for me?\u00a0At this point in my life?\u00a0I have heard great things about the creativity and skill of Alejandro Zambra, and I am disappointed that \u201cReading Comprehension: Text No. 1\u201d was my introduction to his work.<\/p>\n
I was not reading a story here.\u00a0I was reading an English Comp paper written by a student who decided to be clever, and even a bit trite.<\/p>\n
Not every writing by a well-praised writer can be praiseworthy.\u00a0But in this magazine?\u00a0Surrounded by accolades in an interview and laden with commendation in an interview?\u00a0This<\/em> piece does not warrant the laurel leaves.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
This week\u2019s New Yorker<\/em> fiction is Alejandro Zambra’s \u201cReading Comprehension: Text No. 1.\u201d Come join the discussion! Read the full post<\/u><\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":16020,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"libsyn-item-id":0,"libsyn-show-id":0,"libsyn-post-error":"","libsyn-post-error_post-type":"","libsyn-post-error_post-permissions":"","libsyn-post-error_api":"","playlist-podcast-url":"","libsyn-episode-thumbnail":"","libsyn-episode-widescreen_image":"","libsyn-episode-blog_image":"","libsyn-episode-background_image":"","libsyn-post-episode-category-selection":"","libsyn-post-episode-player_use_thumbnail":"","libsyn-post-episode-player_use_theme":"","libsyn-post-episode-player_height":"","libsyn-post-episode-player_width":"","libsyn-post-episode-player_placement":"","libsyn-post-episode-player_use_download_link":"","libsyn-post-episode-player_use_download_link_text":"","libsyn-post-episode-player_custom_color":"","libsyn-post-episode-itunes-explicit":"","libsyn-post-episode":"","libsyn-post-episode-update-id3":"","libsyn-post-episode-release-date":"","libsyn-post-episode-simple-download":"","libsyn-release-date":"","libsyn-post-update-release-date":"","libsyn-is_draft":"","libsyn-new-media-media":"","libsyn-post-episode-subtitle":"","libsyn-new-media-image":"","libsyn-post-episode-keywords":"","libsyn-post-itunes":"","libsyn-post-episode-itunes-episode-number":"","libsyn-post-episode-itunes-season-number":"","libsyn-post-episode-itunes-episode-type":"","libsyn-post-episode-itunes-episode-title":"","libsyn-post-episode-itunes-episode-author":"","libsyn-destination-releases":"","libsyn-post-episode-advanced-destination-form-data":"","libsyn-post-episode-advanced-destination-form-data-enabled":"","libsyn-post-episode-advanced-destination-form-data-input-enabled":false,"libsyn-post-episode-premium_state":"","libsyn-episode-shortcode":"","libsyn-episode-embedurl":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[482,94],"tags":[560],"coauthors":[505],"class_list":["post-16018","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-alejandro-zambra","category-new-yorker-fiction","tag-short-story"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/06\/Zambra.jpg?fit=320%2C240&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pqqvZ-4am","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16018","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16018"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16018\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16036,"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16018\/revisions\/16036"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16020"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16018"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16018"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16018"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=16018"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}