The Best Bite: The Stories of Amy Hempel and Anne Beattie An amuse-bouche is an hors d'oeuvre served to shock the taste buds. Chefs are meticulous in their choice of ingredients for an amuse-bouche, as this one bite proclaims who they are and what they create. The bite must be just right. The writing of Amy Hempel and Anne Beattie is a lot like an amuse-bouche. Their opening sentences are immediately engaging, a unique and deliberate diction allows for maximum intensity in a limited space, and their stories are about the moment, rather than a prolonged succession of cause and effect events. An examination of the following six stories, “In the Cemetery When Al Jolson is Buried,” “Nashville Gone to Ashes,” “Jesus is Waiting,” “A Platonic Relationship,” “Home to Marie,” and “Find and Replace,” prove Beattie and Hempel’s concentrated works are demonstrative in the art of restraint. What takes an entire paragraph for some writers to covey is a clipped sentence for Hempel or Beattie. Each word is necessary and saturated with meaning, thus eliminating the need for excess. And no sentence is as important as the first. The initial sentence must incite intrigue and contain insight to the contents of the story. It is the foundation upon which the entire work is built. In an interview with the Paris Review, Amy Hempel compares writing short fiction with journalism, stating that, “you have to grab readers instantly and keep them.” She refers to “In the Cemetery Where Al Jolson is Buried,” remarking “The opener contains the whole story: ‘Tell me things I won’t mind forgetting’” (Hempel, 39). The story centers on two women, one terminally ill, the other a visitor to her sick friend. In order to divert attention from the true reason for t... ... middle of paper ... ...shachari, Neila C. . "Ann Beatie - Interview." PICTURING ANN BEATTIE: A DIALOGUE. Version Volume 7.1. N.p., n.d. Web. 30 May 2012. . Trouard, Dawn. Conversations with Ann Beattie. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2007. Print. Wagner, Erica. "'The Collected Stories of Amy Hempel' - New York Times." The New York Times - Breaking News, World News & Multimedia. The New York Times, 21 May 2006. Web. 30 May 2012. . Winner, Paul . "Paris Review - The Art of Fiction No. 176, Amy Hempel." Paris Review – Writers, Quotes, Biography, Interviews, Artists. Version No. 166. The Paris Review, n.d. Web. 30 May 2012. .
Devin Friedman is a creative storyteller who incorporates observant details in his writings, which makes the readers feel like as if they are part of the adventure. Devin attended the University of Michigan, and he was awarded as the winner of the Hopwood Contest. This contest was hosted by the university committee who appoints experienced judges and the Ann Arbor community to select winners in different writing divisions. In his recent years, Devin wrote for numerous publications such as The Best American Crime Writing, The Best American Travel Writing, The New York Times Magazine, Rolling Stone, The New Yorker, Esquire, People's Stories, and GQ. Out of the many articles Friedman has written in the past, “The Best Night $500,000 Can Buy,” “Famous People: James Franco,” and “The Unbearable Awkwardness of Being” are the ones I have chosen to read because of the interesting subject matters and the different writing styles.
One of the biggest determinants for the success of a writer is engaging and maintaining the interest of a variety of readers. While there are endless approaches to telling a story, as well as many writing styles, the most effective writings are the ones that successfully impress a diverse audience. The essays Eating Chili Peppers and Conforming to Stand Out: A Look at American Beauty are two different styles of essays that unveil a similar search for self-gratification. While the essays cover different topics and the authors use different writing styles and approaches to engage the reader, they both unveil a similar underlying message of a search for self-gratification.
The critics who perceived this book's central theme to be teen-age angst miss the deep underlying theme of grief and bereavement. Ambrosio asks the question, "Is silence for a writer tantamount to suicide? Why does the wr...
When I began to read Hidden Gems by Katherine Bomer, I did not know what to expect. But now, I feel that this book has taken me on a journey into news way of thinking about writing. This book has taught me how to look at the positive aspects in people’s writing, veer away from normal writing standards, and read literature like a writer. All 3 of these ideas can contribute to one finding the jewels inside writing pieces waiting to be polished and admired (Bomer, 2010).
I keep my journal hidden; the script, the drawings, the color, the weight of the paper, contents I hope never to be experienced by another. My journal is intensely personal, temporal and exposed. When opening the leather bound formality of Alice Williamson's journal a framework of meaning is presupposed by the reader's own feelings concerning the medium. Reading someone else's diary can be, and is for myself, an voyeuristic invasion of space. The act of reading makes the private and personal into public. Yet, for Alice Williamson and many other female journalists of the Civil War period, the journal was creating a public memory of the hardship that would be sustained when read by others. The knowledge of the outside reader reading of your life was as important as the exercise of recording for one's self; creating a sense of sentimentality connecting people through emotions. (Arnold)
Short stories are temporary portals to another world; there is a plethora of knowledge to learn from the scenario, and lies on top of that knowledge are simple morals. Langston Hughes writes in “Thank You Ma’m” the timeline of a single night in a slum neighborhood of an anonymous city. This “timeline” tells of the unfolding generosities that begin when a teenage boy fails an attempted robbery of Mrs. Jones. An annoyed bachelor on a British train listens to three children their aunt converse rather obnoxiously in Saki’s tale, “The Storyteller”. After a failed story attempt, the bachelor tries his hand at storytelling and gives a wonderfully satisfying, inappropriate story. These stories are laden with humor, but have, like all other stories, an underlying theme. Both themes of these stories are “implied,” and provide an excellent stage to compare and contrast a story on.
Pike, Gerald. “Excerpts from Criticism of the Works of Short Fiction Writers.” Short Story Criticism. Ed. Thomas Votteler. Vol. 6. Detroit: Gale Research International Limited, 1990. 90. Print.
In Raymond Carver's 'The Bath' and rewritten version of the story entitled 'A Small, Good Thing', the author tells the same tale in different ways, and to different ends, creating variegated experiences for the reader. Both stories have the same central plot and a majority of details remain the same, but the effects that the stories have upon the reader is significantly different. The greatest character difference is found in the role of the Baker, and his interaction with the other characters. The sparse details, language and sentence structure of 'The Bath' provide a sharp contrast emotionally and artistically to 'A Small Good Thing'. In many ways, 'The Bath' proves to have a more emotional impact because of all that it doesn't say; it's sparse, minimalist storytelling gives the impression of numbed shock and muted reactions. The descriptive storytelling of 'A Small Good Thing' goes deeper into the development of the characters and although it tells more story, it ends on a note of hopefulness, instead of fear or desperation. Each story has it's own magic that weave it's a powerful. When compared to each other the true masterpiece of each story is best revealed.
De France, Marie. Lanval. The Norton Anthology of English Literature. Ed. M.H. Abrams. New York: W.W. Norton and Company, 2000. 127-40.
Andi Anderson (Kate Hudson) is a beautiful, young, and successful writer who maintains a “How-To” section in “Composure” magazine. Her dream is to “write about things that matter, like politics and the environment, and foreign affairs- things I’m interested in.” (How To Lose A Guy In 10 Days, time stamp 02:00). She knows that the only way she will eventually be able to write about subjects she’s passionate about is to be successful in writing her superficial “How-To” section in the magazine.
Pike, David L., and Ana Acosta. "Chapter 10 "The Story Of An Hour"" Literature: A World of Writing. New York: Longman, 2009. 442-44. Print.
The nature of human communication requires that only a certain number of details may be expressed. A photograph leaves out what is beyond its frame, statistical data generalizes answers into categories to make results meaningful, and words distinguish between specific concepts to present ideas. The author of a written work chooses the details to express not only what they want, but how they want the audience to feel about it. I will analyze what the author chooses to include and to ignore in The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky and “Hills Like White Elephants” by Ernest Hemmingway.
The Norton Anthology of English Literature, Volume 1c. New York: W.W. Norton & Co, 2006. Print. The.
436-441. The Norton Anthology of Short Fiction. Ed. Cassel & Bausch. New York: The New York Times.
Damrosch, David. Longman anthology of British literature. 2nd ed. Vol. A. New York: Longman, 2004. Print.