Tuesday, February 27, 2018
Some Short Short Stories to Read Barthelme and others
AGENDA:
Go to this link:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/11/22/short-story-read_n_4220181.html
READ: "The School" by Donald Barthelme
“A Lack of Order in the Floating Object Room” by George Saunders
"A Clean Well-Lit Place" Ernest Hemingway
"A Worn Path" Eudora Welty
"Happy Endings" Margaret Atwood
"How to Become a Writer" Lorrie Moore
Post a comment on your reading. Which story interested you the most?the least? Why?
From a writer's perspective, what technical details interested you in the storytelling?
POV? Characterization? Plot? Setting? Conflict? Language? Imagery?
Continue to work on your own short story for workshop.
Remember, this marking period you will need to have 20 pages of fiction writing-You can combine a longer short story (5-10 pages) with flash fictions or short short stories, but you will need 20 pages by the end of the marking period.
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I’d say that out of all the short stories required to read from, “How to Become a Writer” by Lorrie Moore is my favorite out of all of them. There’s something about her style that makes me really happy, from the whimsicalness of her tone to the use of short, concrete sentences that really help the flow of the story, I just really enjoy it and I enjoyed reading it. In the same branch of ranking, so to speak, I would say the one I didn’t quite enjoy reading was “A Clean Well Lighted Place” by Ernest Hemingway. There’s just something about the dialogue, with how it’s exchange, that really takes the story away from me and ironically it’s the short sentences that really hurt my enjoyment of the story. There’s just something about how it flows, with how I read it, that I’m not particularly fond of.
ReplyDeleteIn terms of the list from Huffington Post, “Happy Endings” by Margaret Atwood is still my favorite short story. The structure and style is just very interesting and unique and captivating to me. There’s nothing entirely special about the characters or the plot, but what they represent isn’t nearly as black and white, which is what makes the structure so interesting. It’s like a “Choose Your Own Adventure,” but more mature. My least favorite story from the list was “The Last Night of the World” by Ray Bradbury. I don’t know why, but there’s just something about Bradbury’s style, from previous experience and now this story, that I just don’t quite click with. The characters are very flat and uninteresting to me and there’s nothing really special in the plot to make up for that. It’s a good story, but it’s nothing that really stands out to me. From a writer’s perspective, the details that interested me the most in these stories were the characterization, plot, and language. I feel like the trifecta of a good story includes these, but if one lacks that’s where the others pick up the slack. As in “Happy Endings,” the characterization wasn’t strong because the characters changed per section, but the language and plot were strong enough on their to where the characterization essentially didn’t affect the story. I felt the opposite way about “The Last Night of the World.” I feel like for where the plot was trying to go, it needed that strong characterization and language to make the story really stand out, and I didn’t get that.
ReplyDeleteMy favorites out of these stories are “A Clean Well-Lit Place” and “Happy Endings.” Margaret Atwood and Hemingway are two of my favorite authors and these short stories do not disappoint. “A Clean Well-Lit Place” is interesting and screams Hemingway. His use of multiple pronouns is intriguing and clear, adding depth to the story’s themes of sadness and happiness. “Happy Endings,” on the other hand, relishes in simplicity. While they diverge greatly, both have a narrative quality of the speaker telling the story rather than being a part of it, or third person omniscient.
ReplyDelete“The School” is my least favorite out of the six. Its style slightly reminds me of Poe’s “A Tell-Tale Heart” with more conversational phrases such as “you know” and “well, I don’t know to think…” In order words, it resembles stream of consciousness. I know there is probably a deep underlying meaning, but I just don’t like to imagine a group of students who have experienced so much loss personally and within the classroom then ask their teacher to have sex in front of them. Just not my cup of tea…
The story that interested me the most was “A Clean Well-Lit Place,” written by Ernest Hemingway, because his language is simple and precise, and the story is both specific and applicable to almost all of humankind. Hemingway is able to convey the foibles of mankind effortlessly, making a complex subject simple for his audience. He is able to differentiate between two waiters drastically within a few lines, in only one setting, which is admirable. Though there is no definitive climax in the story, there is a clear message being conveyed. The story that interested me the least was “A Lack of Order in the Floating Object Room” by George Saunders because it is extremely confusing and oddly sexual, which just isn’t my thing. The narrative in confusing in that it is fragmented and altering between a dream state and reality, and I am unable to differentiate between the two. This is most definitely my fault, but because I having such trouble with reading it, it interests me the least.
ReplyDeleteMy favorite story out of these was “A Worn Path" by Eudora Welty. The story was simple to understand, while still developing it’s characters and making the reader feel for them. I liked how the old lady Pheonix made this whole long journey all by herself just to get the medicine she needed for her grandson. Welty used strong imagery and an unreliable narrator in order to really place us in the head of this old woman, while still remaining in 3rd person. The language was easy to understand, in contrast to some of the stories that seemed annoyingly obscure, like “A Lack of Order in the Floating Object Room” by George Saunders. This was definitely my least favorite story out of them. I couldn’t get a clear sense of where the characters were or what they were doing or what motivated their actions. This story seemed to be written with the goal to keep readers confused for as long as possible, but then unlike some stories where there is a resolution and explanation, the story just ends.
ReplyDeleteI liked both "A Clean Well-Lit Place" by Ernest Hemingway and "The School" by Donald Barthelme because they, also, had a compreherdable plot and easy to understand language. This was impressive because both of these stories dealt with death and loneliness, so a story written to work through these subjects while still being understandable was commendable.
The story that interested me the most was Donald Barthelme’s story “The School” and the one that interested me the least was Ernest Hemingway’s “A Clean Well Lit Place”. I really liked “The School” because of its repetition and just the whole idea of everything dying even though they all try so hard to keep the “thing” alive. Hemingway’s story was my least favorite because some of the wording, although the overall theme of the story was a bit interesting between the two waiters exhchanges. In “The School” I really enjoyed how Barthelme went into detail about the things that died and how they kept dying, and how he said the class began “to feel that maybe there was something wrong with the school.” The only part I didn’t like about this was the end, how the children asked the teacher to “make love” with his assistant.
ReplyDeleteMy favorite story out of the ones that I read was “A Clean Well-Lit Place” by Ernest Hemingway. Although I tend to write in a way that is flowery and full of details, Hemingway’s succinct style in this piece is truly enthralling. The setting and characters are simple which lets the theme shine through. Hemingway does a terrific job in creating a complex conversation with simple sentences, allowing the older waiter’s fear of life and death to piece the readers and reassess their own feelings on these universal topics. Also, the little character habits such as the older waiter not liking when things are not clean flesh out the characters and make them more human rather than personas on a page. The fast dialogue keeps the reader interested without making them trek through paragraphs of text. Everything is written genuinely and precisely without anything out of place. My least favorite was “A Lack of Order in the Floating Object Room” by George Saunders. While this might have been the author’s intention, the entire story was unfocused and did not grab me at any particular moment. The imagery was interesting but not necessarily attractive to me. Most aspects of the story were really confusing and annoying and that made the entire reading experience unenjoyable.
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ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed reading “The school”. The story used death in a poetic way to represent coming of age scenarios. It was a very different style of writing. As the story progressed I was able to to see the author intentions in his writing. Donald was attempting to symbolically use death as a way to move forward ,but surely move on. The repetition of the same action is what made the story unique.
I personally did not care for hemingway story a clean well- lit place . The dialogue slowly threw the story off. There was so much talking amongst the barman I didn't quite grasp exactly what was going on until a second read through. The vocabulary was very simple , but can be interpreted differently for many people. After reading the story again I began to realize it was mostly about coming of age and dying.
Frank Cruz
ReplyDelete“The school” was the most interesting me because of how the author used death to symbolize a forced coming of age. “A worn path” was the least interesting to me because, personally things I cannot relate to doesn’t really catch my attention. I really liked the repetition of everything dying in “The School” because it is a true and harsh reality that everything and everyone will meet. The irony was very prevalent in the story as well, the fact that middle school kids had to deal with so many losses is harsh.