For some strange reason, my sister-in-law decided to spend her boys' precious vacation time touring colleges in the United States. They crashed at my home for a day and a half, making it hard to read anything or reply to your last statement. I was going to ask a few questions about Walt Whitman and New York City.
I'll read the following story and write a post on it.
It's been a while since your last entry. Since that time I responded to you with a number of questions and observations that invited your attention.
I know you're busy. So am I.
I never felt this was to be a long-term project. Choosing a modest book of eight stories put a finite frame on this exchange. If we spent a week on each story, we would be done at the end of 8-10 weeks, and maybe we both might have learned something worthwhile.
Maybe you're writing your response even now, but it occurred to me that I should clarify what I was hoping might emerge from our dialogue in this space.
If you can add to Einstein's Beach House commentaries, do so quickly, because there's a critter waiting up the path that has a bizarre tale in "La Tristesse Des Hérissons." My first reading was one of disbelief. I'm still not sure what I think of this tale about "The Sadness of Hedgehogs."
Read the story, and in the meantime, I will give it another reading. I notice it is also divided into sections as was the first story. You never commented on how you thought sections function in structuring a narrative.
You make cogent observations about Appel's style. Your entry is right on target in what I was hoping to get from you, even though I was left wanting much more of your observations about his narrative technique. I appreciate your noticing Appel's similarities with Hemingway and Salter. It might be more convincing if you had offered some examples. I believe that critics have observed that Hemingway tried to be careful and sparse in the use of adjectives.
If you are writing continuously, it's hard to stay the same. Maybe style evolves as you develop more command over narrative.
Narrative is about "what happens"...and Hemingway moves slowly and deeply in allowing each of his narratives to find its own voice. If you've read The Old Man and The Sea, you encountered a deep narrative style that focused on minute tribulations of action unfolding, whether it be the sea, the old man's thoughts, his struggles with the elements, his boat, the giant marlin lashed to the side of his boat.
The Old Man and the Sea is his ninth novel. His first novel was The Sun Also Rises in 1926, ten years before I was born. The Old Man and the Sea was published in 1952, when I was a sophomore in high school. I include my chronology to note that Hemingway served as a teacher for me in the way that I appropriated his work to understand my own writing process.
Some observe that Hemingway prefers verbs over adjectives, but that may be an oversimplification.
I really appreciate how much you have improved your writing with regard to this Blog. But I have asked that you acknowledge the content I wrote specifically for you because it frames a foundation for some ground rules for our mutual inquiry. None of your entries acknowledge anything I've written and addressed specifically to you. All of my entries in this Blog are addressed specifically to you. And when you have submitted your writing, I have referred to the content of your entry.
A dialogue begins when you respond to someone who presents an idea or asks a question.
Please write a more or less diligent entry in response to the several points raised for you by me in the initial entry of this Blog.
Thanks for using a title, and I'm glad you used caps so our Blog starts to take on a certain consistency in style.
Using Verdana set as a medium-sized font also provides a standard for style.
Currently I am engaged with Walt Whitman and following him on his journey walking the streets of lower Manhattan as he did every day, writing and publishing newspapers and journals and gradually establishing a new literary style. Those days were stormy days in the history of the republic, and Whitman, I think, was the Hemingway of his day because of his prolific prose and poetry was shaping a new style for a new world.
GODOT or least some version of that elusive figure did arrive. At long last, let the dialogue begin. Please drop the "Dear Wyzard" salutation. We are not writing letters.
Just begin your conversation. I'm still waiting for your acknowledging any of the content that was written entirely for your benefit and no one else. All of that commentary was intended to launch several conversations, but alas, we are still bogged down in HUE AND CRY--- Oh, the wonder of it all!
Hue has a double meaning as it can refer to color, or it can refer to the quality of one's values. Cry might be someone shouting, or it might be someone weeping. This hadn't occurred to me until now, although I've read this story before, and now I can see that Appel's ambiguity is deliberate.
PLEASE: TITLES IN CAPS! Let's have a sense of style.
Dear Wyzard,
Forgive me for my absence, I’ve been struggling with time consuming tasks. Reading, for some reason, is quite a laborious task. I’ve yet to master the art of speed reading, much less reading carefully.
In my opinion, Godot did arrive. The two men, Vladimir and Estragon made him (whoever Godot is) into someone we desire to meet. In that sense, Godot (who may not have existed) become a person
I've come to this space twice since our email exchanges. I find no response to my entries.
Maybe you should schedule some of your Messaging and FaceBook time to a regular interaction with me on this Blog. An attractive feature of a Blog format is that it allows an asynchronous conversation between or among participants.
So I am waiting. I hope it is not for Godot. I don't think he ever arrived.
