why i love garrison keillor
because he's funny in a way i can't understand.
with most writers you see where the humour comes from. in some horrible cases, you note the impending punchline for so long, it makes your stomach hurt and your bones groan. but even with the genius, out-of-the-blue variety of nailing the funny, you can see the tracks. eventually.
but keillor i cannot figure out. he writes peices about falling and being tall falling. about his mother's sneezes. about porches and the first time your son comes home with mud from a foreign land on his shoes. all reported in the same, unhurried tone. seeing, telling, seeing, telling.
he reminds me of ishiguro, in how completely he can transport you to a world where you question nothing, believe everything. a dreamworld where images are all. you are a child, led along by the hand, looking around curiously, but content to keep moving. you don't know where you're going and you don't care. you trust.
it's a world that notes the steel in the smile, the appetite in the glance, the composure in the crumpled. all without doubt, without cynicism. the eyes observe with the patience of a tree. people, incidents being observed are uncoloured by the author's presence. insight without intrusion. and there's never just one insight. and they're not all comfortable. but you accept.
and the funniness. unlaboured. funny people work at it, they all, without exception, do. which is why they are all, without exception, insecure. laughter is a cruel thing to be addicted to. keillor tries too. but his efforts are directed elsewhere. prior to a glimpse of the insanely hilarious, there's no tightening of grip, no quickening of breath, no pause for effect. he just lets the joke happen whenever it's ready. and it happens all over the place.
the village voice says this about gk. his "writing has the silvery slip of running water, so graceful and easy it’s hard to believe it can carry so much that is jagged and unresolved. His integrity lies in his not smoothing away those rough edges in the swift current of his prose; they’re bruisingly, sometimes cuttingly there."
reading him is like listening to the radio. it's a delicious giving up of control. and a delicious giving in to the voice.
with most writers you see where the humour comes from. in some horrible cases, you note the impending punchline for so long, it makes your stomach hurt and your bones groan. but even with the genius, out-of-the-blue variety of nailing the funny, you can see the tracks. eventually.
but keillor i cannot figure out. he writes peices about falling and being tall falling. about his mother's sneezes. about porches and the first time your son comes home with mud from a foreign land on his shoes. all reported in the same, unhurried tone. seeing, telling, seeing, telling.
he reminds me of ishiguro, in how completely he can transport you to a world where you question nothing, believe everything. a dreamworld where images are all. you are a child, led along by the hand, looking around curiously, but content to keep moving. you don't know where you're going and you don't care. you trust.
it's a world that notes the steel in the smile, the appetite in the glance, the composure in the crumpled. all without doubt, without cynicism. the eyes observe with the patience of a tree. people, incidents being observed are uncoloured by the author's presence. insight without intrusion. and there's never just one insight. and they're not all comfortable. but you accept.
and the funniness. unlaboured. funny people work at it, they all, without exception, do. which is why they are all, without exception, insecure. laughter is a cruel thing to be addicted to. keillor tries too. but his efforts are directed elsewhere. prior to a glimpse of the insanely hilarious, there's no tightening of grip, no quickening of breath, no pause for effect. he just lets the joke happen whenever it's ready. and it happens all over the place.
the village voice says this about gk. his "writing has the silvery slip of running water, so graceful and easy it’s hard to believe it can carry so much that is jagged and unresolved. His integrity lies in his not smoothing away those rough edges in the swift current of his prose; they’re bruisingly, sometimes cuttingly there."
reading him is like listening to the radio. it's a delicious giving up of control. and a delicious giving in to the voice.
posted by Deepa at 6:44 AM
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