Looking for Meaning in Fiction Today

Dear readers and writers,

This week, I read an essay in an old magazine about short stories today.  It came to the conclusion that writers are constructing their stories with intellectual dimensions that make it fascinating to read them, but without the heart and deep meaning that used to be found in stories. The author thought it a loss, and said that probably the stories won't prove as memorable to the readers.

 I thought about the novels and short stories that we read in my Theories of Fiction class last semester, and what I remembered best was--Tobias Wolfe.  Not exactly contemporary.  Somewhat minimalist but with loads of feeling buried just beneath the surface.  Two of the class members twisted the professor's arm to get permission to use stories by Wolfe.  He had wanted only very contemporary work at first, but he couldn't turn down these stories.  I'm glad.  Each of them made an indelible impression on me.  I chose to present a story by Amy Hempel called "The Afterlife."  It was highly minimalist, but there was a ton of feeling, buried a bit deeper than in the Wolfe stories but there, I thought.  Some agreed with me about the Hempel story, some did not.  But probably most of the class would view the two Wolfe stories as highlights of the course.  So meaning still means something important to the rising writers of the next generation, I'm pleased to find. What do you think?

cheers,
Laura

Thanks to Mark Coggins and Creative Commons/Wikipedia for the photograph of Tobias Wolfe.

The end of the music

Dear readers and writers,

I've been reading about Amy Hempel this weekend, in preparation for my class on Wednesday, and she talks about finding the first and last sentence in a story, how that guides the entire writing process.  I was fascinated.  I've started to love sentences, to revel in their intricacies or simplicities.

Then, I went on Facebook and saw that at St. Paul's Church, my friend LizBeth mourned the financial necessity to end the position there of the paid music director.  She said this was a bittersweet day as the choir sang out the beloved Jim French.  The end of the music.  Yes, something there calls me to a story.  I don't know when I will write it, because I only have the first sentence so far.

When music ends...that has always fascinated me, and many others, with the song "American Pie."  The day the music died.  The end of rock and roll.  Of course, music lives on, yes, that's true.  But when people who make it die, or lose their jobs, music disappears in one place.  It pops up somewhere else, later, not now, not here.  So that first sentence, "The end of the music," resonates, loaded with mystery and sadness.

regards,
Laura
Image from Creative Commons, with thanks.