Winesburg, Ohio (by Sherwood Anderson)
I have a suspicion that Winesburg, Ohio is important less as a work in itself, and more in the way it influenced writers like Faulkner, Steinbeck and Hemingway. Not that it is in any way bad, just that it doesn't knock me down with revelation.
I was interested in picking up this book to gain insight into a movie character (Matteo in The Best of Youth) and it did give me that. This book is a series of short, mostly unconnected vignettes. The introduction talks about an old man who is writing a series of "grotesques"--characters who try to incorporate a great truth into their lives, and are warped by that truth. The reader is left to discern the "great truths" in question for herself.
The main themes of the book are futility and alienation. Most actions taken by the characters are futile, and they are uniformly isolated from each other. Lost loves, estranged parents, unhappy marriages, an inability to communicate even in the most intimate relationships. I think Anderson's aim is a sort of social realism: even in an outwardly bucolic setting, a lovely small town in Ohio, people are hidden behind their own private pain.
Sound depressing? It kind of is! I mean, not Thomas Hardy-level depressing, or anything. Not tragic and dramatic. Just melancholy, and embedded with little nuggets of truth. (Which, ironically, you can't look at too closely--or you are in danger of becoming one of his grotesques yourself.)
"If you are to become a writer you'll have to stop fooling with words," she explained. "It would be better to give up the notion of writing until you are better prepared. Now it's time to be living. I don't want to frighten you, but I would like to make you understand the import of what you think of attempting. You must not become a mere peddler of words. The thing to learn is to know what people are thinking about, not what they say." (Page 98)
I was interested in picking up this book to gain insight into a movie character (Matteo in The Best of Youth) and it did give me that. This book is a series of short, mostly unconnected vignettes. The introduction talks about an old man who is writing a series of "grotesques"--characters who try to incorporate a great truth into their lives, and are warped by that truth. The reader is left to discern the "great truths" in question for herself.
The main themes of the book are futility and alienation. Most actions taken by the characters are futile, and they are uniformly isolated from each other. Lost loves, estranged parents, unhappy marriages, an inability to communicate even in the most intimate relationships. I think Anderson's aim is a sort of social realism: even in an outwardly bucolic setting, a lovely small town in Ohio, people are hidden behind their own private pain.
Sound depressing? It kind of is! I mean, not Thomas Hardy-level depressing, or anything. Not tragic and dramatic. Just melancholy, and embedded with little nuggets of truth. (Which, ironically, you can't look at too closely--or you are in danger of becoming one of his grotesques yourself.)
"If you are to become a writer you'll have to stop fooling with words," she explained. "It would be better to give up the notion of writing until you are better prepared. Now it's time to be living. I don't want to frighten you, but I would like to make you understand the import of what you think of attempting. You must not become a mere peddler of words. The thing to learn is to know what people are thinking about, not what they say." (Page 98)
posted by mo pie at 3:25 PM
2 Comments:
I saw an adaptation of three of the stories from Winesburg, Ohio a little while ago, and as such, they were pretty moving. Made me wonder about the book, actually... do you still have it on hand?
Dan, I read it as an etext on Project Gutenberg; it's in the public domain.
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