The Short Story (Summer 2017)

The Withlacoochee River, Florida Good evening!  Hope all is well and that you are safe from the storm, which as I write is moving away from Havana, Cuba, and forecast to strike the Florida Keys sometime in the next ten hours. It is week 10, the penultimate in the course, and class has been cancelled because of Hurricane Irma.  Thus, next week we will review final projects and the stories last assigned, by the contemporary authors Alice Munro (recent winner of the Nobel Prize), David Updike ("Summer"), and George Saunders.  The group response remains due and a short quiz on the several stories will be given in class.   There will be no final exam because of the disruption to our scheduled classes. Saunders is very articulate on the matter of his writing process (see the links below). Please watch and/or read below as he discusses the work he does. George Saunders on how to write a better story (video):   https://www.theatlantic.com/video/index...

Labor Day Holiday Maureen Gallace

      T oday we will look at the style of Zora Neale Hurston (1891-1960), whose work is characterized by poetic, figurative embellishments and the vernacular voicings of her characters. We leave the spare style of Ernest Hemingway, which we examined last week in the story "Hills Like White Elephants," with its focus on an "American" male and his (presumably) European girlfriend, as they sit for drinks while waiting for the arrival of a train, and obliquely discuss the matter of a "simple" operation that will take care of what will otherwise be a game-changer to their relationship.  In the story, the particular operation goes unnamed, but from hints we can assume a surgical abortion, a procedure illegal at the time the story was set and published, the 1920s.  Much lies below, is subtextual, in the work of Hemingway and requires the reader use his or her wits and imagination to suss it all out. We have to read, look and listen closely.  This is alway...

Ernest Hemingway (1899-1961),  at 18 H ow do we identify or define the central character, the protagonist, that is? Usually, the sheer attention given to one character over all others makes the matter simple. Still, it helps to apply certain tests.  What is the central conflict of the story? And who faces it most directly? That is, for whom is there more at stake in the issue? Let's take "Hills Like White Elephants,"    by Ernest Hemingway, and "Popular Mechanics, " by Raymond Carver, as examples, for they are difficult cases that may give rise to different interpretations and answers and show how questions such as who is the central character can serve to make us read more attentively, even if no easy answer is forthcoming. Much of what makes these two stories interesting is the style they exhibit, which has been given a name:  minimalism.  Hemingway began his career as a journalist, and the economy of news reports shaped his style.  Often t...

Library at Ancient Ephesus, Turkey  W elcome back.  Hope all is well!    The quiz question last week asked you to explore whether "Love in L.A.," by Gilberto Gilb, is a love story, as the title indicates. A few of the responses you gave: "He did what any other man would do when presented with a very attractive woman." "Maybe if Jake had been honest . . . ." ". . . more a story about a con artist."  "In an attempt to impress the woman who was from another state he claimed to be an actor who had been in a few movies, which earned him a smile, her phone number, and the request that he call her." "He wanted her phone number because he felt attracted to her and probably wanted to ask her out on a date." "Everything Jake is doing is a lie  in order to not get in trouble." "Through the small details given about Jake (owner of an old car with plates taken from a junkyard, no insuranc...

L.A.  Freeway and Skyline Good afternoon , class. Hope you are doing well. Today we will review "Up in the Tree," which was the subject of your group responses last week, "Joy" and "A Penny for Your Thoughts." There will be a quiz on "Love in L.A." and time to complete your compositions, due next week in class. --------------- I’m Nobody! Who are you? (260)    by   Emily Dickinson    ( 1830   -   1886) I’m Nobody! Who are you? Are you – Nobody – too? Then there’s a pair of us! Don’t tell! they’d advertise – you know! How dreary – to be – Somebody! How public – like a Frog –  To tell one’s name – the livelong June –  To an admiring Bog! I n the poem above, Emily Dickinson addresses a theme given a very different expression in "Joy," by Anton Chekhov: the need for recognition and status. In the short story "Joy" there...