Marcia Calhoun Forecki's Blog, page 5
January 3, 2012
Hard Times, by Charles Dickens
This is one of my favorite books by Charles Dickens. It is his shortest work, and his funniest. There is much obvious humor here. But, it is Dickens at his social critic best. For those frightened by the commitment to Dickens' seemingly never-ending Nicholas Nickleby or Bleak House, I recommend Hard Times.
Another great thing about this book is that it is available in free e-versions in many places: gutenberg.org, www.dickens-literature.com (also available in downloadable audio form here), http://dickens.stanford.edu/hard/time... (available here in a scanned version of the original publication in Household Words), and a Google.co.uk books version (http://books.google.co.uk/books?)
The book was published in 1854, in serial form in Dickens' own weekly journal, Household Words, in an attempt to spark interest in the struggling publication. It was a satire of hard-core Utilitarianism, who preached analysis, efficiency, and devotion to the bottom line as the way to provide society's blessings to the greatest number of people. Think 19th Century trickle-down.
Louisa, the oldest child of Mr. Gradgrind, attends her father's school in that Coketown. He is interested in facts and only facts, with a devotion to make Detective Joe Friday wince. He teaches one of Louisa's classmates, Sissy Jupe, is the child of a horseman in the circus. When forced to choose between an education or a life with her father in the circus, Sissy chooses the former, hoping someday to return to the latter. Sissy represents the amalgam of logic and emotion, the compromise Louisa seeks throughout her life and never manages to attain. Louisa's brother, Tom, also pays for his father's devotion to analysis, logic, and statistics. He is unprepared to confront the moral grey areas of life and ends his life in America, as a fugitive bank robber.
This is a great read-aloud book, allowing the reader to give in to the Utilitarian bombast of Gradgrind and Bounderby (the über-capitalist mill owner,) and the pinched and punctilious pronunciation of Bounderby's "paid companion," Mrs. Sparsit, whose interfering, jealous machinations help bring the Gradgrind children to their sad and lonely ends.
If you feel the need to add a Dickens novel to your reading list, Hard Times is an enjoyable choice, and you'll still have enough life left over for other pursuits.
Another great thing about this book is that it is available in free e-versions in many places: gutenberg.org, www.dickens-literature.com (also available in downloadable audio form here), http://dickens.stanford.edu/hard/time... (available here in a scanned version of the original publication in Household Words), and a Google.co.uk books version (http://books.google.co.uk/books?)
The book was published in 1854, in serial form in Dickens' own weekly journal, Household Words, in an attempt to spark interest in the struggling publication. It was a satire of hard-core Utilitarianism, who preached analysis, efficiency, and devotion to the bottom line as the way to provide society's blessings to the greatest number of people. Think 19th Century trickle-down.
Louisa, the oldest child of Mr. Gradgrind, attends her father's school in that Coketown. He is interested in facts and only facts, with a devotion to make Detective Joe Friday wince. He teaches one of Louisa's classmates, Sissy Jupe, is the child of a horseman in the circus. When forced to choose between an education or a life with her father in the circus, Sissy chooses the former, hoping someday to return to the latter. Sissy represents the amalgam of logic and emotion, the compromise Louisa seeks throughout her life and never manages to attain. Louisa's brother, Tom, also pays for his father's devotion to analysis, logic, and statistics. He is unprepared to confront the moral grey areas of life and ends his life in America, as a fugitive bank robber.
This is a great read-aloud book, allowing the reader to give in to the Utilitarian bombast of Gradgrind and Bounderby (the über-capitalist mill owner,) and the pinched and punctilious pronunciation of Bounderby's "paid companion," Mrs. Sparsit, whose interfering, jealous machinations help bring the Gradgrind children to their sad and lonely ends.
If you feel the need to add a Dickens novel to your reading list, Hard Times is an enjoyable choice, and you'll still have enough life left over for other pursuits.
December 19, 2011
Why Write Stories?
Why write stories? Why not poems or novels or screenplays? If you have something to tell the world, why not just communicate it directly in an essay or article? Just say what truth you need to impart and let us be on our way.
Storytelling is as old as language. Once homo sapiens developed communication more precise than pointing and grunting, they began telling stories. Way back, humans discovered the story expanded their ability to express complex emotions. Maybe I can't express the sentiment of kindness, but I can tell the story of how a little boy overcame his fear to approach a limping lion and remove a thorn from its paw. I can't explain how an act of kindness sets in motion positive outcomes in unexpected ways, but I can tell that the boy's act was repaid in an arena when the lion spared his life. The story of "Androcles and the Lion" is an simple story, but its truth is profound. (The story is a metaphor, if you're taking notes.)
As a writer, I love the boundaries of stories - limited characters, action and time. The structure makes me focus on a single idea, using every precious word to help express it. Any word suspected of not supporting the main idea gets cut. A storyteller says what she has to say, and sits down. We all know people who would benefit from using the story structure in their communication, written and oral.
In my story, "The Soul Most In Need," I want to say that friendship is the strongest relationship between non-relatives. Not a very memorable statement, is it? When I create two friends, put them in a setting that holds your attention, and show you by the actions and words of the characters how I believe deep friendship makes the burdens of life easier to bear, maybe you think about the story a little bit after you put it down. At least, you are thinking about my idea while you are reading the story.
What about boundaries in this story? In my first drafts, there was another character, the preacher's niece. I dropped her because she did not carry enough of the load of support for the main idea. Now, she is referred to, but does not speak. I tell you as much background as you need to know to understand the main characters, but no more. I also considered a scene at the hospital where Margrit goes to visit her mentally ill brother, but decided it lent nothing to my verbal sculpture of the friendship between my two southern widows.
The short story as a literary structure has suffered from a lack of venue in recent years. Truman Capote's early success came from publishing stories in women's magazines. Not possible today. The demise of many print magazines, and the decision to drop fiction from the ones that survived, severely limit publication opportunities for short story writers. Internet sites have picked up some of the slack, thankfully. Story collections are another avenue for publication.
My first story collection, Hurricane Blues and Other Stories, was published by WriteLife, LLC. If you are a story lover, please consider it, at http://www.writelife.com/hurricaneblu...
Storytelling is as old as language. Once homo sapiens developed communication more precise than pointing and grunting, they began telling stories. Way back, humans discovered the story expanded their ability to express complex emotions. Maybe I can't express the sentiment of kindness, but I can tell the story of how a little boy overcame his fear to approach a limping lion and remove a thorn from its paw. I can't explain how an act of kindness sets in motion positive outcomes in unexpected ways, but I can tell that the boy's act was repaid in an arena when the lion spared his life. The story of "Androcles and the Lion" is an simple story, but its truth is profound. (The story is a metaphor, if you're taking notes.)
As a writer, I love the boundaries of stories - limited characters, action and time. The structure makes me focus on a single idea, using every precious word to help express it. Any word suspected of not supporting the main idea gets cut. A storyteller says what she has to say, and sits down. We all know people who would benefit from using the story structure in their communication, written and oral.
In my story, "The Soul Most In Need," I want to say that friendship is the strongest relationship between non-relatives. Not a very memorable statement, is it? When I create two friends, put them in a setting that holds your attention, and show you by the actions and words of the characters how I believe deep friendship makes the burdens of life easier to bear, maybe you think about the story a little bit after you put it down. At least, you are thinking about my idea while you are reading the story.
What about boundaries in this story? In my first drafts, there was another character, the preacher's niece. I dropped her because she did not carry enough of the load of support for the main idea. Now, she is referred to, but does not speak. I tell you as much background as you need to know to understand the main characters, but no more. I also considered a scene at the hospital where Margrit goes to visit her mentally ill brother, but decided it lent nothing to my verbal sculpture of the friendship between my two southern widows.
The short story as a literary structure has suffered from a lack of venue in recent years. Truman Capote's early success came from publishing stories in women's magazines. Not possible today. The demise of many print magazines, and the decision to drop fiction from the ones that survived, severely limit publication opportunities for short story writers. Internet sites have picked up some of the slack, thankfully. Story collections are another avenue for publication.
My first story collection, Hurricane Blues and Other Stories, was published by WriteLife, LLC. If you are a story lover, please consider it, at http://www.writelife.com/hurricaneblu...
