One imagines that a nest of little stories like Winesberg, Ohio could make a hypertext -- that is, that one could read them in various sequences and gain something by their re-ordering.
The book makes deft turns towards passion; some events are plenty extreme. But it's written as though it were trivial, from a POV very exclusively outside the character. I find it far more understated than Hemingway. After all, tightlipped machismo is a gesture of emotional extremis, not of detachment.
I wonder about relations between Winesberg, Hem, and Jewett's Pointed Firs. Firs seems structurally similar to Winesberg in that aspects of plot and quest diminish as the narrator-focalizer-protagonist diminish. Some critics discussing Jewett see this as related to gender-specific ideas of what does (or perhaps does not) constitute quest, crisis, identity and so forth.
Showing posts with label Winesburg Ohio. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Winesburg Ohio. Show all posts
Tuesday, March 27, 2007
Mary Austin Notes
The Land of Little Rain (1903) http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/Literature/Austin/LandOfLittleRain/
Lost Borders 1909
Austin Resources. http://www.wsu.edu/%7Ecampbelld/amlit/austin.htm
Mary Austin was born in the midwest but seemed to find Home in eastern California. She writes stylistically interesting pieces about the desert and semiarid regions either side of the Sierra Nevada -- the best description I know of.
For some reason, Robert Hass in his Introduction considers her sentences strange -- he makes no qualification or explanation. I don't find them so. She's terse. And she's clearly internalized an idea of her material surroundings that incorporates some conception of what's called spirituality: in other words, her coyote has perceptions and a soul; her rabbit has perceptions and a soul, and so forth.
The Land of Little Rain is quite well written for a locality-type book. Since her greater impressions derive from the physical descriptions, she thereby approaches an elemental description of Life. It's not trivial, though she accepts restricted means. I wonder about reading this against Jewett and Winesberg Ohio.
Lost Borders 1909
Austin Resources. http://www.wsu.edu/%7Ecampbelld/amlit/austin.htm
Mary Austin was born in the midwest but seemed to find Home in eastern California. She writes stylistically interesting pieces about the desert and semiarid regions either side of the Sierra Nevada -- the best description I know of.
For some reason, Robert Hass in his Introduction considers her sentences strange -- he makes no qualification or explanation. I don't find them so. She's terse. And she's clearly internalized an idea of her material surroundings that incorporates some conception of what's called spirituality: in other words, her coyote has perceptions and a soul; her rabbit has perceptions and a soul, and so forth.
The Land of Little Rain is quite well written for a locality-type book. Since her greater impressions derive from the physical descriptions, she thereby approaches an elemental description of Life. It's not trivial, though she accepts restricted means. I wonder about reading this against Jewett and Winesberg Ohio.
Saturday, March 24, 2007
Winesburg Ohio & Uncle Tom's Cabin
I'm going to start reading Sherwood Anderson's Winesburg Ohio next. I spoke to Greg Stone and he's halfway through reading Uncle Tom's Cabin which I've read recently and would be glad to discuss with him on the blog as soon as he is finished. I'll put up a post on Winesburg Ohio as soon as I finish it.
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