Short story writers, this is for you! Robert Papinchak writes an analysis of stories by D.H. Lawrence and John Updike showing how each author introduces setting, time, a main character and a theme in the beginning of a story. (Lawrence and Updike are in my pantheon of divine writers, so I found the article even more interesting.)
Both stories take place over the course of a few hours, but each describes a long emotional journey. Lawrence's "Odour of Chrysanthemums" follows the pregnant wife of a coal miner from waiting for her husband to come home at dusk to preparing his body for burial. Her emotions move from disdain and dislike for him to an acceptance of the fact that she really never knew him. Lawrence captures the dreary life of the miner's family and the fact that the miner's life and his home life are two separate arenas. His descriptions of the gritty, noisy coal mine and the cozy, homey world of the mother and children foreshadow the wife's emotional insight at the end. Updike, in "A Sense of Shelter," uses description to bring a high school senior to life showing him as comfortable in the surroundings of his school. When he confesses his love to a girl he worships, he finds that she wants only to graduate and never come back. Again, two characters living in separate worlds.
The article made me want to go back and read Lawrence and Updike with a more critical eye.
("Laying the Groundwork." Robert Papinchak, "The Writer," May, 2009.)
Now I want to re-read both of those short stories too, MK. Updike is one of those really "male" writers whom I love. I read the whole Rabbit series two summers ago and I also love The Witches of Eastwick (book, not movie!) and the follow up that came out just a couple of years ago (and was the last novel he wrote) The Widows of Eastwick. Gertrude and Claudius is another of his ingenious works, retelling Hamlet from Gertrude's point of view. (Very sensual and earthy.) I find his writing somewhat sexist but still really engaging and sensitive to and appreciative of women all at the same time.
ReplyDeleteWhen you read something in this case an article and it reminds you of something that you read that was good. I believe that it may almost make you read it. Especially if you have gotten a few years older. It gives you a renewed spirit.
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