The Return of the Short Story Club: February nominations

[Blasarius '33]

Winesburg seems to have been about universally loved by Anderson's peers. Faulkner said of its characters, "These people live and breathe; they are beautiful." And Hart Crane said of Anderson, "He has a humanity and simplicity that is quite baffling in depth and suggestiveness." That word--simplicity--seems to come up a lot regarding Winesburg.

[qimissung]

I've read the story and enjoyed it. Anderson gives a short description of the young Enoch, a young man who lived in a house where the blinds were always pulled and who read so deeply that "Drivers of teams had to shout and swear to make him realize where he was so that he would turn out of the beaten track and let them pass"

When it says, "In his own mind he planned to go to Paris and to finish his art education among the masters there, but that never turned out", I feel a sense of desolation and unease for the young Encoh, that he, perhaps like the young Jay Gatsby, had a dream, and will in his turn, be consumed by it.

[Baudolina]

This story provides insight into what (I believe) many extreme introverts are like as children; of course, Enoch never grows up, by which I mean he never realizes the pathetic aspects of the way he lives. Of course, when he exposes his "people" to the light of day by telling someone about it, the illusion bursts.

[OrphanPip]

Well Winesburg is largely a Kunstlerroman/Bildungsroman about George Willard. I think to read the story properly we should be thinking about how Enoch differs and relates to George.

I'm not sure we should read a flaw into Enoch's character that places so much of the responsibility for his misfortune at his feet. Enoch actually has a pretty strong desire to interact with others, and also to create art, but he also lacks the ability to connect with other human beings functionally, at least not while he is producing art. As we see he is capable of maintaining an empty marriage as long as he was working for the advertising company.

Some interesting things Anderson does in this story is the description of the farmhouse at the beginning, which has the windows facing the road blinded. Yet, the paintings Enoch paint are of people in front of his house. Did he see these people as a child? Or are they like the figments in his room also creations that he made in an attempt to connect with other people. As child he was barely acknowledged by others, the description of him as a "smiling" and "silent" child suggest an aloofness of the community. Not to mention that he was run over and rendered lame by a trolly.

George has this drive to understand others, which perhaps balances Enoch's desire to be understood. And I think it's certainly significant that Enoch's world is shattered because the woman "understood," he can't handle what he seems to have wanted so badly when he was younger. Nonetheless, he still has a drive to tell his story to George.

I think overall this story draws attention to the tension between desires to understand and be understood, how these desires can be at time complimentary between individuals or can be destructively at odds.

Enoch's position as a failed artist is pretty obviously linked to George's position as an aspiring writer, but I think you'd have to bring in stuff from other parts of the novel to get into that.

[Baudolina]

It seems there are two points Enoch wants to be understand on: first, the meaning of his paintings, and second, that he is important ("a big thing"). Although Enoch gets frustrated when his paintings are misunderstood, there is security in not being understood. Once another person comprehends, their judgment (which may be unfavorable) now carries weight. However, one thing I don't understand about Enoch is his feeling that by being understood he will be "submerged, drowned out" and this even if there is no unfavorable judgment. Perhaps the intimacy is what was too much for him.

[qimissung]

I find it interesting that Enoch himself is ambivalent about being understood. "He knew what he wanted to say, but he knew also that he could never by any possibility say it." At the same time the important things in his picture, or at least one of them, is not even depicted. "There is something else, something you don't see at all."

And when George goes with him to talk he was "a little afraid but had never been more curious in his life." Of these three elements it seems that Anderson is saying something about the human condition, our desire to be understood, our fear to be thought of as small or narrow in that understanding, that if we do not struggle in some way and move beyond the small, narrow room to which we have retreated, that will become the sum of our existence.

[Blasarius '33]

I love what the last two posts say about Enoch's fear of and security in not being understood -- it's pretty much the heart of the story's action.
Also, it seems like a very common trait among artistic types. How many authors and painters answer questions about their work vaguely, ambiguosly, not wanting it to be too strictly defined.
I wonder, does anyone here ever read anything in that same spirit? I mean, is there an author or a story that you don't want to dissect too thoroughly? Not because you're afraid it won't stand up to scrutiny, necessarily, but because discussing it--defining it--might somehow lessen it for you?

[qimissung]

Oh, yes! All the time. While I do love discussion and the interplay of ideas, sometimes for me, as e.e. cummings said, "feeling is first."

[MeLiKeyClaSsIcS]

I'm loving this forum! I'm more of a Victorianist, but this forum gives me chance to discuss virtually anything! Also, I've looked forward to reading Anderson's work as it is a fantastic representation of a composite novel--at least that's what my fiction professor once said. I'm down to reading it for February; I'm so psyched!

[MeLiKeyClaSsIcS]

Whoops, wrong year! Hahahaha