Tag Archives: Writer

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Stephen King’s The Long Walk: A Harrowing Journey of Sacrifice

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The thought of walking a 5k is miserable to some people, but walking endlessly until only one of you remain? Well, that would be a nightmare. However, what if your prize is anything that you choose? Money? Love? Richard Bachman (author Stephen King‘s famous alter-ego who died due to cancer of the pseudonym) executed this idea during his freshman year at the University of Maine in 1967. That story came out as Stephen King’s “The Long Walk.” It is also a story straight from King’s distinct Bachman-voice. These stories are a bit more violent, and a bit more pointed. Currently, the production company Lionsgate is producing a film directed by Francis Lawrence, which is due out Sept. 12, 2025. But what is this story about, and what does it say about who we are as a society?

Summary of Stephen King’s The Long Walk

The setting of the story is the United States under a totalitarian regime. The regime televises the titular “Long Walk.” It is a filmed contest in which 100 men walk along US Route 1 until only one remains. The rules for the game are as follows: contestants must walk at least 4 miles per hour; the escort soldier give three warnings if they drop below that speed for 30 seconds. The soldiers shoot and kill the contestant on the fourth.

Stephen King’s “The Long Walk” centers around Ray Garraty from Androscoggin County, Maine. He enters the walk and begins to get to know the people around him. Slowly, we learn more about the desperation of each contestant. We also learn why they have come to be in the “Long Walk” themselves. Nevertheless, the soldiers kill the contestants ruthlessly as the walk continues. Much infighting occurs throughout the day and night. Garraty befriends a number of walkers. The walk only fuels some of the others. The winner, as it stands, receives the prize of his choosing. This grand, open-ending prize pushes the contestants into the literal long walk. Throughout the story, alliances are made and broken, and friends sacrifice themselves to save each other.

Conclusion

Bachman and Roadwork

I initially read Bachman when I read a novella called “Roadwork.” It had all the markings of a good King story. It featured well-drawn characters, including the protagonist Barton Dawes. As well, the story is a compelling narrative in which municipality and highway construction imposes its imminent domain on the hero’s home. The events in the novel result in a final standoff between the protagonist and police. It posits the question as to whether villains are made or created.

The other element that Roadwork has is a certain amount of raw grittiness that other King stories simply don’t have. As it were, Roadwork is a political story about government overreach and the place of citizens in the US. While King has mentioned that he wrote the story about his mother’s death, one can only assume King’s political activism (and late night with road cones) played into the perspective of this novel. Therefore, we can see Bachman as a sort of soapbox for King to speak about issues in which he believes. In this way, he can remark about controversial issues and write about taboo subject matter (school shootings and the like).

The Long Walk Themes

In a similar vein, Stephen King’s The Long Walk has an air of violence and punchy discourse that cuts the reader to the bone. As it relates to this style of storytelling, the overused expression “unflinching” is fitting. Some critics–and the author himself–have pointed out that the book seems to mirror the Vietnam War. Think about the death marches and senseless sacrifice through violence.

Meanwhile, the book itself is a critique of sensationalism and viewership in the age of entertainment and TV. The reader can imagine the enthralled audience at home throwing their hands up and celebrating as each contestant falls to the ground and is shot (circa Bachman’s other novel The Running Man). After all, the television during the late 1960s (and modern media) were evolving in ways moral sensors felt unbecoming. As I get older (and more prudish), I see some of these arguments in a new light. If copulation and physical aggression are already on the platter, how far do we really have to go to show violence, bloodshed, and death?

Outside of the moralizing, it’s a great story worth reading from the king of horror.

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Analyzing “The Lake Isle of Innisfree” by W. B. Yeats

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W.B. Yeats was an immensely popular poet in his time, and for good reason. His poems resonate with readers for their beauty and themes. In fact, his poem, “When You Are Old,” very simply identifies aging in a creative way. These themes include universal ideas of nature, solitude, and peace. In this post, we examine his poem “The Lake Isle of Innisfree,” which discusses these ideas. While one of his most popular, the poem is eternal in its meaning.

Format Structure of Innisfree

The poem has three quatrains, and it is written in iambic tetrameter. It also has an ABAB rhyme scheme. There is simplicity to its form, but this is intentional. Additionally, it uses repetition to repeat the important ideas of determination to escape from the confines of their life. There is peace in this simple verse.

Themes of Innisfree

The themes in the poem include those of solitude, nature’s healing, and imagination. To begin, the solitude of this poem is found in the speaker’s disdain for “pavements gray,” and his want of a “small cabin” that consists “of clay and wattles.”

Likewise, there is an emphasis on the healing power of nature. Yeats writes, “Nine bean rows will I have there, a hive for the honey bee, / An live alone in the bee-loud glade.” Yeats’s yearning for such agrarian existence shows his interest in the natural world. In addition, the themes of imagination come through in Yeats’s want of this faraway, natural world. Imagination, in this way, takes Yeats to a land of carefree calm.

Conclusion

Yeats’s poem “The Lake Isle of Innisfree” speaks to the authors need to escape the world as we know it. In pining for nature, he imagines himself in a land of peace. The structure of this poem speaks to this simplicity. As in one’s desires and love of imagined worlds, Yeats simplistic poem gives way to complex understandings. Leaving the concrete jungle of urban life for rural serenity is a dream of many.

Blog, Literary Bios

The Rough and Rustic Writings of Jack London

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Tales of exploration, violence, and humanity’s struggle against nature permeate the writings of Jack London. In a past post, we discussed a fantastic story by the author, but, today, we are going to look at London’s life and times to glean some of the significance of his upbringing, which, hopefully, will help us better understand how his experiences impacted his work as a vivid storyteller and weaver of adventures.

London’s Early Years

Jack London was born John Griffith Chaney in San Francisco, California, on January 12th, 1876. London never really knew his father, who left the family when London was young. His mother married a Civil War veteran, and they fell into a working-class life. When London was old enough to work, he ran a variety of manual labor jobs, from shoveling coal to working on ships.

He also spent his youth stealing oysters on his own sloop ship and riding a freight train around the United States as a hobo. As it was the turn of the century, financial ruin and economic disparity plagued many Americans, so London also spent time in Charles T. Kelly’s industrial army—a “protest” army—which was born of the financial strife in the late 1800s.

“London saw depression conditions, was jailed for vagrancy, and in 1894 became a militant socialist” (Britannica).

His early success winning a writing contest after a rather scary adventure on the ocean proved to be a catalyst for the young London. At the behest of his mother, he wrote about his experiences in “Story of a Typhoon of the Coast of China.”

London stated of writing his first victory while still working aggressively as a manual laborer:

“Very tired and sleepy and knowing I had to be up at 5:30, I began the article at midnight and worked straight on until I had written 2,000 words, the limit of the article, but with my idea only half worked out. I continued adding another 2,000 words before I had finished, and the third night I spent in cutting out the excess, so as to bring the article within the conditions of the contest. The first prize came to me, and my success seriously turned my thoughts to writing, but my blood was still too hot for a settled routine” (The New York Times).

He would eventually take this one-off success more seriously and dedicate himself to the craft.

London’s Life as a Writer

Libraries, as they often are for budding writers, became a haven for the young London, who took refuge amongst the volumes of action, adventure, and philosophy. After graduating an accelerated version of high school, London attended the University of California; however, he quit after a year due to a “lack of money or means to support himself.” He then departed to pan for gold in the Klondikes (which would inspire his short story “To Build a fire” among others). After that venture proved to be a bust, London set about taking writing seriously.

“By 1899, he had honed his craft and major magazines began snapping up his vigorous stories. When it came to evoking elemental sensations, he was a literary maven” (Smithsonian).

London published his first book in 1900, The Son of the Wolf. This novel was followed by The God of His Fathers (1901), A Daughter of the Snows (1902), The Children of the Frost (1902), and The Cruise of the Dazzler (1902). Of course, being a prolific author meant that London would continue churning out novel after novel, and story after story for many years.

London died of an apparent accidental overdose of morphine on November 22, 1916, at his ranch home shortly before his 41st birthday.

Works Cited

Brandt, Kenneth. “The Short, Frantic, Rags-to-Riches Life of Jack London.” Smithsonian. Nov. 22, 2016. Web.

“Biography: Jack London.” Biography.com. A&E Television Network. April 2, 2014. Web.

“Jack London.” Famous Authors.org. 2020. Web.

“Jack London: American Author.” Britannica. Jan. 8, 2022. Web.

The New York Times. “Jack London Dies Suddenly on Ranch. November 23, 1916.

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A look at “They’re Made Out of Meat” by Terry Bisson

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“They’re Made Out of Meat” by Terry Bisson is an excellent work of fiction for many reasons. It also often appears in school curriculum due to its subject matter and creativeness. In this post, we are going to analyze the story’s background, structure, and unique POV.

“They’re Made Out of Meat” Background

Dialogue comprises the entirety of the story. As such, the reader acts as though they are simply a passive listener to the subject matter. The aliens discuss their curiosity and horror at humans as anatomical structures. This framing method creates a great deal of humor. It also removes the necessity to explain the aliens in any amount of detail. The author, in this way, does not need to needlessly elaborate on anything but the conversation. This is crucial to the theme of the story, which we will get to later.

Bisson, during an interview on The Truth Podcast, discussed the inception of the short story. The idea, he said, came from a famous author’s off-handed remark.

“I was thinking about an interview I had read or heard that Allen Ginsberg was doing with some journalist,” he stated, “and he was talking about poetry and the guy was saying that it was like they were two poets talking or something like that and Ginsberg says, ‘No, we’re just meat talking to meat.’ And somehow that got stuck in my head” (Mitchell).

Bisson said that he did not know why artists interpreted his story so many times in movies and radio. Nonetheless, he took a few guesses. Some of the reasons he cited included its its humor, short length, and that it makes the reader think.

“It gets used a lot in psychology,” he said, referencing its use in curriculum. “How can consciousness emerge in a pile of meat that looks like a pound of hamburger?” (Mitchell)

“They’re Made Out of Meat” first appeared in Omni magazine in 1991.

“They’re Made Out of Meat” Summary

The story is about two aliens on a scientific journey to locate life in the universe. They stumble upon Earth and discuss the sentient creatures they find there. One of the two aliens has discovered and possibly dissected an Earthling and tries to give the other alien all the relevant details of its discovery.

If you have ever tried to explain a new board game to somebody, then you probably know how difficult it is to describe a hitherto unknown entity. More specifically, the first alien explains that the “meat” actually thinks, while this baffles the second alien.

Of course, the first alien has only just discovered humanity. Yet, the aliens are confused by our existence. Humans, he states, talk with “meat flaps.” Meanwhile, they are further horrified by our sentience for another reason: our brains are entirely mad out of meat. At this point, the reader can infer that the aliens have a completely different anatomical structure. Some interpretations show them as two floating orbs. Therefore, as it relates to the story, these orbs would probably have a hard time relating to bags of meat.

The aliens exchange the following dialogue in the story:

“You’re not understanding, are you? You’re refusing to deal with what I’m telling you. The brain does the thinking. The meat.”

“Thinking meat! You’re asking me to believe in thinking meat!”

“Yes, thinking meat! Conscious meat! Loving meat. Dreaming meat. The meat is the whole deal.”

“They’re Made Out of Meat” Analysis

The story’s most important theme is that of alien-ness. What this means is that everything in the story is alien in its own way, from the humans the aliens are examining to the aliens themselves. Similarly, if humans had discovered the aliens first, the reader might imagine that humans would react in exactly the same way. If, in fact, if the aliens were two floating orbs, humans would no doubt be confounded by this fact.

The reader feels a normalcy and superiority as a human, but extraterrestrials may look at us in a much different light. In other words, we may ultimately be as insignificant as ants to a superior race–or even a race of different construct.

In one section, the aliens discuss communication and the technological capabilities of the “meat.” The aliens are mystified by how humans communicate.

“They actually do talk, then. They use words, ideas, concepts?”

“Oh, yes. Except they do it with meat.”

“I thought you just told me they used radio.”

“They do, but what do you think is on the radio? Meat sounds. You know how when you slap or flap meat it makes a noise? They talk by flapping their meat at each other. They can even sing by squirting air through their meat.”

“Omigod. Singing meat. This is altogether too much. So what do you advise?”

In this way, human’s use of radios is extremely underdeveloped compared to alien technology. Likewise, the aliens see this as both idiotic and barbaric for humans to use “meat flaps.” What this should tell the reader is that humans want to feel important and crucial to the universe, but that humans are in fact less significant than we would like to think.

Works Cited

Bisson, Terry. “‘They’re Made Out of Meat.’” Manchester, June , users.manchester.edu/Facstaff/SSNaragon/Online/texts/201/-Essays/Bisson,%20MadeOfMeat.pdf.

Literary Bios

An Author in Many Forms: Richard Matheson

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Richard Matheson is a great, unsung hero of literature. While he is well-known in writerly circles, he often seems vacant from mainstream discussion. Nevertheless, he may be one of the most talented horror authors and genre writers of all time. This is because he writes in a modern, straightforward way that speaks to a universal audience. His style is utilitarian, and has no frills or accoutrement. Putting it plainly, he is just a brilliant writer with an equitable style. In this post, we will analyze his history and his style.

About Richard Matheson

Born in Allendale, New Jersey on Feb. 20, 1926, Matheson loved the film Dracula and the writings of history author Kenneth Roberts. He attended Brooklyn Technical High School and went on to serve in the US Army during WWII before entering The Missouri School of Journalism. 

Matheson started his career much like many other writers by writing short stories. His first story published, “Born of Man and Woman,” which told the tale of a monster child, appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction.

Following this, Matheson’s career became a long one, and he wrote a lot material in many genres, including science fiction and horror. His list of written works features numerous books that include The Beardless Warriors, The Incredible Shrinking Man, A Stir of Echoes, and What Dreams May Come. He is also an accomplished short story writer, having written “Third from the Sun,” “Little Girl Lost,” “The Conqueror,” and “Steel.”

Likewise, he has written many films, such as Tales of Terror and The Legend of Hell House. Most notably, Matheson wrote 14 episodes of The Twilight Zone, also writing Rod Serling’s introduction and concluding statement of each episode. He also wrote the two Kolchak: The Night Stalker movies. Considering this, his work is worth investigating purely for his ability to jump from genre to genre.

After a long and robust writing career, Matheson died at the age of 87 on June 23, 2013.

Matheson’s Lasting Impression

Matheson left behind a large quantity of memorable works and many of which defined genres, from the vampiric creatures in I am Legend to the harrowing science experiment in The Incredible Shrinking Man. This balance between genres is a difficult one to maintain, but his ability to create compelling stories of average people dealing with above average conflicts is a crucial element of his staying power.

Not only that, he inspired many authors who were on the rise, which in itself is an extraordinary achievement.

As stated by the AP:

“Matheson influenced several generations of storytellers. Among them were Stephen King, who dedicated his 2006 novel Cell to Matheson, and Steven Spielberg, whose first feature-length film was the made-for-TV movie Duel, based on the Matheson short story of the same name.”

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Should you pay to enter a writing contest?

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A few months ago, I submitted a short story to a writing contest that required a $20 entrance fee. I have never paid to submit my writing before. Mostly, this is because I have verifiable evidence that writers don’t make enough money to consider contest deals. However, it was a writing contest, so I thought, what the heck!? Long story short, I did not win (I didn’t even get a pity publication even though they stipulated that there was a chance, but I honestly don’t think I understood the market that well). I was also out $20, which is kind of a bummer because that could have been money for late-night writing fuel (coffee, probably).

Anyway, it got me thinking that maybe paying to submit writing is…well…absurd. I mean, that’s $20 that I could have spent on notebooks and pens—or a new journal. It’s also time one could spend on the craft of writing. As such, I compiled my own thoughts and others’ thoughts from blogs and websites (always the carrion writer) for today’s post to hopefully inform you of the pros and cons of paying to play.

Spending money on contests does not guarantee outcomes

In “Six Reasons You Shouldn’t Enter Writing Contests,” author Oren Ashkenazi states that one should avoid writing contests with a fee because having a money component creates problems.

“This sort of contest, for all practical purposes, is a form of gambling. Everyone puts in money, and only one person walks away with any reward. Statistically, that person is unlikely to be you. You’re spending money on something with a very poor rate of return, and any financial planner will tell you that’s a bad idea.”

(Ashkenazi)

I think this criticism is practical, and it’s certainly fair, as it addresses the strange ways artists and writers tackle creation and publication—we are okay with putting in work and paying to get it seen rather than putting in work and getting paid to have it seen. I suppose one could argue that capitalism and art have competing motivations.

Knowing what’s good in a writing contest

Meanwhile, we can look at writing contests as a sort of quality comparison. If it looks good and sounds good—it’s probably good. As offered by Writer’s Digest, one can deduce the quality of a contest (and whether paying makes sense) by looking at a few factors:

  • Who is judging the work? Are they reputable? What does researching them tell you?
  • Never get in a situation where you sign all of the rights to your story away (one-time publication rights are okay).
  • What is the prize? Is it cheap?
  • Does it do something for you as a writer (reach an audience, give writing credit, stroke your ego, etc.)?

This is a roundabout way of saying: do your research! Make sure you completely understand what you are getting into before you commit. I have submitted lots of stories without ever reading the publication, which makes the 100 rejection emails I have received over the years more reasonable.

In summation

In writing this, I was hoping to find some concrete rationale that would make me decide one way or the other about paying to enter a writing contest—but there really is not a general consensus. The best I can figure is that if you think it’s a reputable organization, you don’t mind spending some scratch, and you have a story that is undeniably good—then maybe you should consider paying to enter a contest. For me, at least right now anyway, I think I am going to save some cash for an extra coffee or two.

Works Cited

Ashkenazi, Oren. “Six Reasons You Shouldn’t Enter Writing Contests.” Mythcreants. May 27, 2017. Web.

Cook, Amy. “The Truth About Writing Contests.” Writer’s Digest. March 11, 2008. Web.

Playle, Sophie. “How Many Submissions Do Literary Agents Receive?” Liminal Pages. Sept. 11, 2018. Web.

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Social Class in “The Garden Party” by Katherine Mansfield

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Regularly, you will see collections of short stories marked The Greatest Short Stories of All Time, or Short Stories to Read Before You Die. Typically, these books have a number of great stories inside. Edgar Allan Poe will undoubtedly make an appearance. So will “Beyond the Door” by Philip K. Dick, and certainly “The Other Side of the Hedge” by E. M. Forster. In addition, you might find Kate Chopin’s extraordinary “The Yellow Wallpaper,” and the following short story: “The Garden Party” by Katherine Mansfield. 

As you will see, Mansfield’s short story fits well with the classics, as it has a great deal of emotional depth and sheds a light on class conflict. In today’s post, we are going to examine the short story and analyze its themes and importance.

Background of “The Garden Party”

Mansfield wrote “The Garden Party” in 1922. The Saturday Westminster Gazette published it in three parts. It later appeared in the collection The Garden Party and Other Stories.

Mansfield came from an affluent household. She would attend Wellington Girls’ College and later to the Fitzherbert Terrace School. “The Garden Party” illustrates her experience as a well-to-do child from a wealthy home. Yet, it’s also much deeper than just superficial aristocracy. The story has a great reflection on wealth and opportunity. 

“The Garden Party” Summary

Laura, the protagonist, sets about preparing for a fancy garden party. She occasionally looks to the workers in reverence because she feels connected to them.

“Four men in their shirt-sleeves stood grouped together on the garden path. They carried staves covered with rolls of canvas, and they had big tool-bags slung on their backs. They looked impressive. Laura wished now that she had not got the bread-and-butter, but there was nowhere to put it, and she couldn’t possibly throw it away.”

(The Garden Party)

Regardless of the extravagant event, Mansfield presents Laura’s own rich lifestyle as a norm. In this way, Laura is afforded many opportunities to live a separate life from the workers. Laura, though aristocratic, has a great deal of empathy for those from the working class. 

Later in the story, Laura is informed that her neighbor, Mr. Scott, has been killed outside of their home in a car accident. Laura drags her sister into the kitchen to discuss how she will stop the party. Her sister, Jose, confused, doesn’t quite understand what Laura is getting at in her hysteria.

“Stop everything, Laura!” cried Jose in astonishment. “What do you mean?”

“Stop the garden-party, of course.” Why did Jose pretend?

But Jose was still more amazed. “Stop the garden-party? My dear Laura, don’t be so absurd. Of course we can’t do anything of the kind. Nobody expects us to. Don’t be so extravagant.”

“But we can’t possibly have a garden-party with a man dead just outside the front gate.”

(The Garden Party)

After visiting Mr. Scott’s home with party leftovers, she sees his dead body and is overcome by the experience. She likens the man’s peaceful expression to that of somebody in a deep “fast sleep,” and dosing so intensely that he was “far, far away from them both” in the real world.

“Oh, so remote, so peaceful. He was dreaming. Never wake him up again. His head was sunk in the pillow, his eyes were closed; they were blind under the closed eyelids. He was given up to his dream.”

(The Garden Party)

After departing the home and meeting her brother Laurie at the corner, Laura is pulled from her fanciful life and instead grapples with questions of mortality and life itself. Laurie asks her if it was “awful” to witness his corpse.

“No,” sobbed laura. “It was simply marvellous. But Laurie–” She stopped, she looked at her brother. “Isn’t life,” she stammered, “isn’t life–” But what life was she couldn’t explain. No matter. He quite understood. 

“Isn’t it, darling?” said Laurie. 

Themes 

Mansfield’s story discusses multiple themes. These include life, socioeconomic concerns, and the reality of death. In the text, the reader gets a good sense that Laura is living a near fantastical life outside of poverty and circumstance; meanwhile, the workers around her are all living a more grounded existence, as they lack the opportunities and conveniences of Laura’s life. 

However, with that said, Laura is a conscious child and realizes that there are many similarities between herself and the workers. They are all just people after all. Similarly, Laura sees a sort of beauty and patience in Mr. Scott’s death. His expression of happiness as he lies dead in his room is how Laura feels in life. So, there are actually very few differences in both of their lives when class is stripped away. 

Conclusion

In my opinion, “The Garden Party” excels at these themes by providing the reader a window into the atmosphere of wealth. The garden party itself is a foray into decadence. Nevertheless, death drags Laura into reality. By and of itself, Laura has an epiphany about death and her own station in life.

Blog, Writing Craft

Exploring Sestina Poem Examples and Their Unique Features

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Poems are a fun, complex thing. They can take many forms, from acrostic to haikus. Likewise, some poems take the sestina verse form, which have their own complex way about them. In this post, we will define these types of poems and look at a few examples.

Background

The sestina was developed by Arnaut Daniel, who was a troubadour during the 12th century, and the first known example of his craft was “lo ferm voler qu’el cor m’intra,” which was written around 1200.

Many sestinas were about “courtly love” and were practiced by Dante and Petrarch. Similarly, the form has taken on many variations, including double sestinas and tritina (poets.org).

Definition

As mentioned, poems are intricate, and sestina verse form is a great example of that complexity.

“The sestina is a complex, thirty-nine-line poem featuring the intricate repetition of end-words in six stanzas and envoi” states some sources (poets.org). An envoi, in this case, is just a brief stanza at the end of a poem that either addresses the poem or acts as explanatory remarks.

“The end words of the first stanza are repeated in a different order as end words in each of the subsequent five stanzas; the closing envoi contains all six words, two per line, placed in the middle and at the end of the three lines” (poetryfoundation)

A sestina would look like this in scheme:

ABCDEF

FAEBDC

CFDABE

ECBFAD

DEACFB

BDFECA

ECA or ACE

Examples of Sestinas

  1. Elizabeth Bishop’s “A Miracle for Breakfast” 
  2. Camille Guthrie’s “Beautiful Poetry”
  3. John Ashbery’s “Farm Implements and Rutabagas in a Landscape.”
Literary Bios

James Joyce: Author of “Finnegans Wake” and “Ulysses”

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James Joyce falls right in line with modernist literature, although his work can be difficult to digest, unlike other modernist writers. However, as we know, just because literature can be difficult doesn’t mean we should discard it. For today’s post, let’s take a look at Joyce’s life and a few major works.

Early life

Joyce was born in Dublin, Ireland on Feb. 2, 1882 as James Augustine Aloysius Joyce. Joyce was the oldest of ten children in a rather unstable household where his father failed to bring in enough money for a suitable household, instead falling to drink. Nevertheless, Joyce was a smart child and excelled in all modes of writing.

As the Britannica states:

“Because of his intelligence, Joyce’s family pushed him to get an education. Largely educated by Jesuits, Joyce attended the Irish schools of Clongowes Wood College and later Belvedere College before finally landing at University College Dublin, where he earned a Bachelor of Arts degree with a focus on modern languages.”

(Britannica)

Joyce left for Paris after graduating and after departing for Ireland to tend to sick mother, he moved with his future wife to the Italian city of Trieste. There, Joyce taught English until he published Dubliners and Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. These books, though unremarkable at the time, found their way to prominent writers and poets, such as Ezra Pound.

James Joyce and Ulysses

Joyce began working on his landmark novel Ulysses, which showcased his virtuosic talent as a stream-of-conscious writer. However, detractors claimed its subject matter was less than savory.

Here’s a tame, descriptive excerpt:

“Suppose the communal kitchen years to come perhaps. All trotting down with porringers and tommycans to be filled. Devour contents in the street. John Howard Parnell example the provost of Trinity every mother’s son don’t talk of your provosts and provost of Trinity women and children cabmen priests parsons fieldmarshals archbishops.”

(Ulysses)

As you can see—it’s not exactly direct. However, it struck up a bit of controversy.

Writer Laura Miller writes, “One of the unexpected effects of the novel, which was first published in its entirety in Paris in 1922, was the most famous obscenity trial in U.S. history, conducted in 1933.”

Eventually the book got a fair shake (we’ll talk more about this in a later post), and it is currently revered for its challenging prose and style.

Joyce eventually settled down in Paris with his family and wrote Finnegans Wake (1939), which was also a success. With those two books alone (Ulysses and Finnegans Wake), Joyce cemented his status as a literary icon.

Joyce died following an “intestinal operation” on Jan. 12, 1941.

James Joyce’s Notable Works

Dubliners (1914)

A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (1916)

Ulysses (1922)

Finnegans Wake (1939)

Works Cited

Britannica. “James Joyce.” Sep. 12, 2019. Web.

Miller, Laura. “The Most Dangerous Book”: When ‘Ulysses’ was obscene.” Salon. June 16, 2014. Web.

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Knowledge on fire: why do book burnings happen?

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At the end of the endearing Kevin Bacon film Footloose (1984), John Lithgow, playing the antagonist Rev. Shaw Moore, realizes he has created a truly noxious environment of zealotry and closemindedness after his ban on dancing results in his flock piling books into a big pile with the intention to set it ablaze. Book burnings are a byproduct of fascist ideology in this case. Luckily, Lithgow convinces everybody to stop their staunch, entrenched antics, and therefore has an epiphany that resisting difference with extreme prejudice is not the right course of action.

As we know, Footloose is fiction…but that doesn’t mean book burnings and banning dance parties hasn’t happened. Unfortunately, wherever there is knowledge, there will be those who look to remove it, because facts and evidence can stand contrary to entire parties—and that really upsets oligarchs, demagogues, and dictators. For today’s post, let’s take a look at the world as Ray Bradbury envisioned it in Fahrenheit 451 (1953) and try to understand why burning books happens.

Knowledge is power. Literally.

Books allow the average person to learn more, which goes beyond just learning new facts, but books allow people to understand new narratives, new points of view, and new arguments (“Letter from Birmingham Jail” by MLK).

The more information and education that people have access to, the more likely they are going to challenge institutions of power—and, if you don’t know, that doesn’t always sound agreeable to those who are trying to maintain that power.

Professors Edward Glaeser, Giacomo Ponzetto, and Andrei Shleifer argue in “Why does Democracy need education?” that education and democracy are highly correlated.

“Education increases the society-wide support for democracy because democracy relies on people with high participation benefits for its support,” they write. “We show that better educated nations are more likely both to preserve democracy and to protect it from coups.”

“Why does Democracy need education?”

Without a doubt, this is important, because it argues that there is political power in being a well-read citizen. So, a good way to dissuade populations from challenging authority is by burning books that sow the seeds of education, because, as Orwell wrote, “Who controls the past, controls the future. Who controls the present, controls the past.” 

Creating new histories

Researchers have also suggested that conquering armies have targeted these domains of knowledge deliberately during wartime. Book burnings can create new histories.

 “… Books of poetry, philosophy and history were specifically targeted, so that (a new emperor, king, faction, etc.) couldn’t be compared to more virtuous or successful rulers of the past,” states writer Lorraine Boisoneault.

This goes specifically for Emperor Shih Huang Ti of China and Caliph Omar—the latter of which ordered over the burning of over 200,000 books from the Library of Alexandria because they stood in contrast to the religious ideology (Seeker).

And, I suppose, the elimination of knowledge is not the only reason books are burned, but it’s certainly a compelling and familiar rationale for perpetrators.

Symbolic action

As John Henley states writing for The Guardian:

“There’s something uniquely symbolic about the burning of books. It goes beyond censoring of beliefs and ideas. A book, plainly, is something more than ink and paper, and burning one (or many) means something more than destroying it by any other means.”

“Book-Burning: fanning the flames of hatred”

And what Henley is hinting at is what visual rhetoricians have been pointing out for years, which is that books have a life of their own—they are not static constructs. They evolve and change, and they can be interacted with and expanded upon.

For leaders who sometimes need an unchanging view of the world—a text’s very nature is incompatible.

While brief, hopefully this gives you some view of why regimes and institutions might see book burning as a suitable response to maintaining power. For tomorrow’s post, I will be discussing a few real-life examples.

Works Cited

“Why Did Nazis Burn Thousands of Books.” Seeker. Aug. 13, 2015. Web.

Boissoneault, Lorraine. “A Brief History of Book Burning, From the Printing Press to Internet Archives.” Smithsonian. Aug. 31, 2017. Web.

Glaeser, Edward, Ponzetto, Shleifer. “Why does democracy need education?” Springer Science, Business Media. May 31, 2007. Web.

Henley, Jon. “Book-Burning: fanning the flames of hatred.” The Guardian. Sept. 10, 2010. Web.

Rothman, Lily. “The Real History Behind Book Burning and Fahrenheit 451.” Time. May 18, 2018. Web.

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“The Dead Zone” by Stephen King: Alienation and Recovery

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In talking about books written by Stephen King, I think there is some trepidation when it comes to listing one’s favorites. There are just so many great novels in his horror canon. Nonetheless, I am always quick to point out The Dead Zone (1979) by King as one of my favorites. I read it when I was in my early 20s. I remember staying up night after night reading it until I had completed it in a sad, bleary-eyed mess. It was a fantastic experience.

I think it is an important book.

With that said, in this post, I am going to summarize the novel and provide my overall thoughts near the end.

Synopsis
The Beginning

The novel opens with a young Johnny Smith falling and hitting his head on the ice while skating. This accident causes him to see a future accident. In his vision, a man gets his face burned with battery acid after jumping his car. This comes to fruition, though nobody thinks twice.

Meanwhile, somewhere else in the US, bible salesmen Greg Stillson thinks about his future (and dreams of power). Then after a bout of annoyance with a barking dog, he savagely beats it to death. It is a rough scene:

“Sometimes he wondered if he was going crazy. Like now. He had meant to give the dog a burst from the ammonia Flit gun, drive it back into the barn so he could leave his business card in the crack of the screen door.

Come back some other time and make a sale. Now look. Look at this mess. Couldn’t very well leave his card now, could he?

He opened his eyes. The dog lay at his feet, panting rapidly, drizzling blood from its snout. As Greg Stillson looked down, it licked his shoe humbly, as if to acknowledge that it had been bested, and then it went back to the business of dying.”

(The Dead Zone | Stephen King)

Fast forward to 1970, Johnny Smith teaches English at a high school in Maine. He is also dating one of the other teachers at the school, Sarah Bracknell. They both go on a date that ends in a spectacular showing of Johnny’s latent ability. He wins a “Wheel of Fortune” carnival game multiple times. This upsets the game manager, and so Johnny and Sarah leave.

After taking Sarah home, Johnny is involved in a car accident and falls into a four-year coma. After he awakes he discovers that he can touch people and see events, typically tragedies, in their future. He has a revealing interaction with one of his nurses during the proceeding passage:

“He was still gripping her hand, looking into her face with’ a faraway, dreamy contemplation that made her feel nervous. She had heard things about Johnny Smith, rumors that she had disregarded with her own brand of hard-headed pragmatism. There was a story that he had predicted Marie Michaud’s boy was going to be all right, even before the doctors were one hundred percent sure they wanted to try the risky operation.

Another rumor had something to do with Dr. Weizak; it was said Johnny had told him his mother was not dead but living someplace on the West Coast under another name. As far as Eileen Magown was concerned, the stories were so much eyewash on a par with the confession magazines and sweet-savage love stories so many nurses read on station. But the way he was looking at her now made her feel afraid. It was as if he was looking inside her.”

(The Dead Zone | Stephen King)
The Middle

After Johnny’s ability becomes known, the press wants to capitalize on his “gift.” They inundate him with interviews, but he begins to reject his newfound fame by becoming more reclusive. After a tabloid prints a story on Johnny that dismisses his ability, Johnny believes he can resume his old life. However, the local sheriff, Bannerman, asks him if he can help solve a slew of serial-killings. Johnny is able to adeptly solve the case, which results in a shocking climax.

We cut to the door-to-door salesman (Greg Stillson) who is now the mayor of Ridgeway, New Hampshire. He has found success through making violent threats and other illicit activities against his enemies. Stillson later wins a seat in the U. S. House of Representatives while Johnny is teaching as a tutor in Ridgeway. Johnny decides to meet Stillson, as he has made a hobby of meeting elected officials. During the rally, he has a psychic vision that the vicious, dog-killing politician will eventually cause worldwide nuclear chaos.

“There was the sense of flying – flying through the blue – above scenes of utter desolation that could not quite be seen. And cutting through this came the disembodied voice of Greg Stillson, the voice of a cut-rate God or a comic-opera engine of the dead: ‘I’M GONNA GO THROUGH THEM LIKE BUCKWHEAT THROUGH A GOOSE! GONNA GO THROUGH THEM LIKE SHIT THROUGH A CANEBRAKE!’

‘The tiger,’ Johnny muttered thickly. ‘The tiger’s behind the blue. Behind the yellow.’

Then all of it, pictures, images, and words, broke up in the swelling, soft roar of oblivion. He seemed to smell some sweet, coppery scent, like burning high-tension wires. For a moment that inner eye seemed to open even wider, searching; the blue and yellow that had obscured everything seemed about to solidify into … into something, and from somewhere inside, distant and full of terror, he heard a woman shriek: ‘Give him to me, you bastard!’”

(The Dead Zone | Stephen King)
The End

Johnny decides to take matters into his own hands to stop Sillson. He buys a rifle with the intent to assassinate the prospective politician before he can do harm. However, his plans fail, and he is mortally wounded, but no before Stillson undoes his career with a fatal mistake. Before dying, Johnny touches Stillson and learns that he has prevented the violent future he saw in his premonition.

“Stillson got up abruptly, and with the last bit of his strength Johnny reached out and grasped his ankle. It was only for a second; Stillson pulled free easily. But it was long enough.

Everything had changed.

People were drawing near him now, but he saw only feet and legs, no faces. It didn’t matter. Everything had changed.

He began to cry a little. Touching Stillson this time had been like touching a blank. Dead battery. Fallen tree. Empty house. Bare bookshelves. Wine bottles ready for candles.”

(The Dead Zone| Stephen King)

The book closes with letters from Johnny to his father and other loved ones that detail his motives and rationale. It also features a brief narrative including Sarah, who visits Johnny’s grave and makes peace with his death. It turns out that Johnny’s headaches were caused by a tumor that gave him only a few months to live. Feeling too passive with his psychic gift, he decides to take action. So, according to Johny, there was no alternative to killing Stillson.

Overall thoughts

I love The Dead Zone by King for its pacing. The reader gets to live with Johnny Smith and his strange psychic gift. As some critics have pointed out, there really is not an antagonist for most of this novel. Instead, it relies on the themes of “recovery” and alienation for a large chunk of the story. All of this adds to the pacing of the story. The slowness of it (the day-to-day of the novel) feels a bit truer in regards to a story about suffering.

Additionally, The Dead Zone is both a supernatural and extremely human experience. There could not be more pathos in regards to the character of Johnny. He spends much of the book in quiet contemplation, wondering why he was given the gift of second sight. This confusion causes him great psychological harm. It also puts him in strange situations, including solving murders committed by a serial killer, and saving students from a catastrophe. Johnny isn’t running in and kicking down doors. Rather, he is focused on the emotional impact of his psychic powers. It seems as though he save those around him but with great cost to himself.

Works Cited

King, Stephen. The Dead Zone. Viking Press, 1979.

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The Reclusive and Complex Thomas Pynchon

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There is an interesting story about science fiction author Thomas Pynchon that is a little hard to verify—because it’s probably false. But here it is anyway: the author of the book V, Thomas Pynchon, was sitting quietly in his hotel room one day waiting to meet with a publisher. Suddenly, there came a knock on the door, loudly abrasive, and the voice behind demanded an audience. It was a reporter. And he wasn’t going to leave until he got at least one picture of the famously reclusive author. Instead of entertaining this bit of mania, Pynchon instead chose to jump out of a third-story window from the hotel and into a tree. He shimmied down and ran to freedom.

Much like J. D. Salinger (or Boo Radley from To Kill a Mockingbird), when you are infamous for your reclusive nature, and you hate interviews, myths begin to pop up around your character. In today’s post, we are going to examine the life and achievements of science fiction author Thomas Pynchon.

Pynchon’s Early Years and Education

Pynchon was born as one of three children in Glen Cove, Long Island, on May 8, 1937. He would go on to Oyster Bay High School in Nassau County and graduated in 1953. Pynchon earned his bachelor’s in English from Cornell University in 1958. Afterward, he lived in Greenwich Village for a short time, crafting short stories, and eventually found work in Seattle writing safety articles for Boeing.

Thomas Pynchon’s Publishing History

He eventually turned to writing full-time and won the Faulkner Foundation Award in 1963 for his book V. Following this success, Pynchon wrote The Crying of Lot 49 (1966) and Gravity’s Rainbow (1973). He also published a collection of short stories titled Slow Learner (1984) (Britannica).

Over a decade later, Pynchon published Vineland (1990), Mason & Dixon (1997), and Against the Day (2006). His most recent novels include Inherent Vice (2009) and Bleeding Edge (2013). Regarding his “complex” novels, some sources state: “To plunge down the rabbit hole of Pynchon’s fiction is to commence a journey into an alternate world, a world—somewhat like our own but, as Pynchon put it ‘Maybe it’s not the world, but with a minor adjustment or two it’s what the world might be.’”

Examining Pynchon’s History of Reclusiveness

As stated earlier in the post, the synonymity of Thomas Pynchon and “the myth of the reclusive author” is apparent when people converse about him. Time reported that, “Almost nothing is known about the author of some of the most seminal, mysterious and generally difficult works of the 20th century fiction, and the novelist would like to keep it that way … When his 1973 novel Gravity’s Rainbow won the National Book Award, Pynchon had someone else accept on his behalf” (Time). In other words, he was not about the song and dance of writing. He was about the writing.

Moreover, it may be that this reclusiveness is a fabrication of pop culture obsession. It is very well that Pynchon just might dislike the attention from journalists, or he just might not like answering questions. Both of these are valid reasons to skip ceremony, and his privacy is probably a much less dramatic story then some would like. It is not like other writers aren’t eccentric or don’t have eccentric ideas.

As contributor to Vice David Whelan said of Pynchon’s mythos: “This is far from the truth. He’s not hiding in the woods or refusing to publish new work à la J.D. Salinger; he just doesn’t like talking to reporters. While there are only four known photos of Pynchon … he’s a vibrant prankster with his finger on the world’s pulse. He knows how to manipulate us. He’s willing to make fun of himself …”

Conclusion

We should accept a nuanced version of Pynchon because it makes more sense that a story of reclusiveness has been created around him rather than him intentionally creating the story itself because he’s a “weirdo” or an “eccentric.” As we should see it, Pynchon is just a talented writer who doesn’t care at all for the additional publicity that comes with fame. Writing, after all, takes time, and that doesn’t include the spotlight.

Works Cited

“Thomas Pynchon.” Britannica. Web.

“Thomas Pynchon.” Thomaspynchon.com. 1997-2018. Web.

“Top 10 Most Reclusive Celebrities.” Time. Web.

Whelan, David. “Thomas Pynchon and the Myth of the Reclusive Author.” Vice. Oct. 9, 2014. Web.

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Four Literary Road Trips by Famous Authors

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Once upon a time in the long ago, as Cormac McCarthy wrote, I was an avid traveler. These days, I don’t get out all that much, but I still enjoy reading about people who do. My most favorite literary road trips aren’t lifestyle magazine featurettes but, rather, bookish adventures. Because I too believe, as literary critic Harold Bloom said over and over, that the secret to reading is rereading, here are some musings on four road trips which top my re-re-rereading list.

The Tender Hem Rides Along

I’ve tried on several occasions to get into books like For Whom the Bell Tolls and The Sun Also Rises but they just weren’t for me. I’d just about given up on Hemingway when I decided to give The Green Hills of Africa a try. Pleasantly surprised by how much I liked his nonfiction, I next read A Moveable Feast.

It was while reading Hem’s memoir of his youth in Paris that I got my next big surprise. Knowing Hemingway’s reputation of hypermasculinity, I was rather shocked to read how tenderly he behaved toward his friend F. Scott Fitzgerald, particularly during a 900-mile road trip they took from Paris to Léon and back again to pick up Scott and Zelda’s car.

The auto had been abandoned there due to bad weather after Zelda demanded the roof be cut off because she would only ride in a convertible. From the get-go, Scott—a hypochondriac of sorts—claimed he was coming down with a lung ailment. On their way back from picking up the car, Scott became more and more convinced he was developing congestion of the lungs.

Hem did his best to manage Scott, even telling him about an article he’d read on the subject. And this helped calm him for a while during the road trip. Then the weather turned bad and they decided to stopover that second night.

Once at the hotel, Hem sent Scott—who had been complaining of fever and demanding a thermometer—to bed.

“Scott was lying in bed to conserve his strength for his battle against the disease,” Hemingway wrote. “I had taken his pulse, which was 72, and had felt his forehead, which was cool. I had listened to his chest and had him breathe deeply. His chest sounded alright.”

Hem continued to assure Scott he was fine and ordered hot beverages to help soothe him, in addition to finding a waiter at that late hour in search of the almighty oral thermometer. But, since everything was closed, the best the waiter could produce was a bathtub thermometer.

Hem put the thermometer under Scott’s armpit, telling him to be thankful it wasn’t a rectal model. Because he couldn’t remember the conversion, Hem lied about the Celsius reading, saying Scott’s temperature was perfectly normal.

“You could not be angry with Scott,” Hemingway wrote, “any more than you could be angry with someone who was crazy.”

Hem continued to nurse Scott through the night. And, when the patient felt fine the next morning, they continued on their road trip to Paris. There’s a lot more to the story, and I urge you to at least check out that chapter of the book for a funny and heartwarming read.

Manson Family Realty: Bukowski Travels

In the shortest of my chosen literary road trips, Henry Chinaski (nee Bukowski) scores big when he’s offered $10,000 to write a screenplay and earns $35,000 off the German translations of several of his books. After some rather dubious financial advice from one Vin Marbad, Buk decides to go house hunting.

This little literary road trip takes Buk and his “good lady” Sarah to a nationally known realty firm, where they are summarily dismissed as vagabonds without ever having had the chance to speak with a realtor. Eventually, they find a place called Rainbow Realty and are taken to a dark mansion occupied by eccentric Grey Gardens types.

About halfway through the tour, Sarah realizes the house was one of the Manson Family murder sites and she and Buk get the hell out of there toot de suite. My favorite part of this minor misadventure, detailed in the book Hollywood, is when they visit a biker bar where the patrons recognize Buk and begin buying him drinks.

To get out of there alive, Sarah downs one of the many shots of whiskey intended for Buk, who one drunk refers to as, “The world’s greatest writer.”

On the way out, Sarah asks, “Are those your readers?”

Buk says, “That’s most of them, I think.”

Even though these would seem to be Buk’s people, he takes pity on grown men day-drinking in a filthy dead-end bar.

“[A]gain I noted the leather jackets and the blandness of the faces and the feeling that there wasn’t much joy or daring in any of them,” Bukowski wrote. “There was something missing, the poor fellows, and something in me wrenched for just a moment. And I felt like throwing my arms around them, consoling, and embracing them like some Dostoevsky.”

He added, “But I knew that would finally lead nowhere except to ridicule and humiliation for myself and for them. The world had somehow gone too far and spontaneous kindness could never be so easy. It was something we would all have to work for once again.”

One Fast Move: A Car Ride with Kerouac

While On The Road continues to be Jack Kerouac’s big hit, I continue to argue his later work Big Sur is superior as a story in general and as a travelogue. Not only is the work a poetic feast from start to finish, its prose is singular in its honesty and beauty. As the book is described in its foreword, Big Sur details Kerouac’s long series of tender nervous breakdowns.

Jack left his mother’s house after the publication of On The Road made him famous—so famous that he couldn’t get a moment’s peace from reporters, fans, and friends. While it was written in 1961 as one sojourn, his Big Sur trips were several.

In the book, Kerouac takes a train from his mother’s in New York to San Francisco, where he meets up with Lawrence Ferlinghetti who lets him stay in his cabin in Bixby Canyon.

Kerouac wanders as a man-child from friend to friend, bed to bed, bottle to bottle; confused, sad, tired, self-absorbed.

Scared and desperate, he feels the warring pulls of solitude—which always turned out for him to be brutal isolation—and socialization, which soothed him for a time but ended too often in jealousy, shame, regret.

“One fast more or I’m gone,” Kerouac wrote of his need to get away, and adding that he felt like, “a bent back mudman monster groaning underground in hot steaming mud pulling a long hot burden nowhere.”

McCarthy On The Road

Saving the darkest—and most hopeful of these literary road trips—for last, I give you Cormac McCarthy’s The Road. Even if you’ve already seen the movie, please make time to read this book. It’s part spiritual journey, part post-apocalyptic adventure, and all meditation on what it means to live a good life amidst suffering and uncertainty … and knowing there will never be a time when we’re truly ready to die.

Golden nuggets of wisdom include the exhortation to beware what you let into your head, because you’ll remember the things you want to forget and forget the things you want to remember. When the boy character asks what’s the bravest thing his father has ever done, the man says, “Getting up this morning.” One of my favorite lines comes in the father character’s exchange with a fellow hobo.

When he asks the old man if he wished he had died, the old man responds “no” but that he might wish he had died because, when you’re alive, you’ve always got that to look forward to. I have read The Road more times than any other book except for Bukowski’s Hollywood.

In fact, as soon as I finished it for the first time, I immediately began reading it again. I’ve been doing so at varying paces for nearly five years.

These literary road trips have taught me much about both the real and figurative highways we travel, how those roads intersect with other people’s paths or sometimes only run parallel, how we’re all traveling down that long lonesome road of life, and how someday we all come to the end of our own road … even though roads never really end.

And, if we’re lucky, we’ll have someone who cares about us to carry our memory with them as they keep going down the road long after we’re gone.

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“I saw a man pursuing the horizon” by Stephen Crane Analysis

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In the literary realism movement, we have a great deal of authors and their novels doing some heavy lifting. In today’s post, a poem titled “I saw a man pursuing the horizon” by Stephen Crane will do the work.

Analysis of “I saw a man pursuing the horizon”

In the first stanza of the poem, Crane discusses seeing a man “pursuing the horizon.” For what purpose, we are yet to be sure. But, we know that as he watched the man, he goes “round and round,” speeding toward the destination.

Yet, the man’s strange pursuit “disturbed” the speaker. So, he engages the man. He tells him, “‘It is futile,'” I said, / ‘You can never–‘” Then the man cries, “You lie!” and runs on toward the horizon.

In this brief poem, Crane epitomizes a few things as it relates to human error. First, the poem addresses humanity’s fascination with futility. That is to say, even if something is not worth pursuing because it is hopeless, humanity has a way to strive straight for it head first. Second, Crane points out that no matter if humanity is confronted by their own ignorance, there narrowmindedness is so strident that even the obvious could not deter them.

Crane writes “round and round” not because the man is making a beeline toward the horizon. Rather that he is trapped in a desert loop, forever hunting for the horizon. It is in this realization that we understand the mocking nature that man must presume he is near when laboring under delusions. In “I saw a man pursuing the horizon,” Crane is letting his cynicism outward into the light. In other words, humanity will have their joyous ending whether it is there or not, and whether it kills them in following it or not.

The poem fits the literary realism only in its pessimistic view of humanity. It is certainly a view fellow literary realist writer Mark Twain would agree with. The desperate nature for humans to get what they want is unquenchable in Crane’s eyes. That does ring true if one considers historical accounts of bad decisions and outright irrational behavior for something as grand as catching the horizon.

Works Cited

Crane, Stephen. “I Saw a Man Pursuing the Horizon.” The Red Badge of Courage, Dover Publications, 1997, pp. 171-172.

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A Look at the Era of Literary Realism and its Authors

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We have looked at a lot of movements on this blog, but today we look at the era of literary realism. We have even discussed writers from this particular era, so it’s high-time to see what these realistic writers were up during the time of the American Civil War.

The Roots of the Movement

As we see so often from movements, artistic and otherwise, there can be a good deal of push-back from creators who were too young to contribute to the previous movement or just had no interest in creating in a style they didn’t like (the modernists, for example). Similarly, the realism movement exploded at the end of the Romantic period as the writers of this era wanted to depict a less glamorized world.

Thus, the “realism” aspect of the era itself is derived from authors avoiding a romantic view of the world. They wanted to show people living and breathing in a natural environment as honestly as possible.

Realism rejects imaginative idealization in favor of a close observation of outward appearances. As such, realism in its broad sense has comprised many artistic currents in different civilizations.

(Britannica)

If you look closely, it is actually fairly hard to distinguish literary realism from naturalism for the above reasons. However, keep in mind that conveying a real view of the world is essential for these writers, so more honest dialogue and setting were common in the books that appeared in the late 19th century.

Additionally, after the Civil War, the US advanced in numerous ways that included a more literate populace, increased urbanization, and a larger population, and this, “provided a fertile literary environment for readers interested in understanding these rapid shifts in culture,” (Campbell).

Important Authors of Realism

The genre was much defined by the author’s works and their attempts to interpret the world around them. Honore de Balzac, for instance, attempted to give an “encyclopaedic portrait of the whole range of French society …” (Britannica). Meanwhile, the genre did not fully develop until later in the 1860s and 1870s. These authors included Charles Dickens, George Elio, Leo Tolstoy, and William Dean Howells.

Some novels from the realism movement include:

  • Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
  • War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
  • Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky
  • Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain

Works Cited

Campbell, Donna M. “Realism in American Literature, 1860-1890.” Literary Movements. Washington State University. Sept. 7th, 2015. Web.

“What is Literary Realism? Definition and Examples of the Realism Genre in Literature.” Masterclass. Aug. 15, 2019. Web.