Joyce Carol Oates' "Heat" and Tobias Wolff's "Hunters in the Snow"
Focus on narrator's voice in "Heat".
HMWK: For Friday, read Tobias Wolff's "Hunters in the Snow"--indirect and direct approaches to character description and development. Major themes? Symbols?
Continue to work on short stories.
For Tuesday, read John Wideman's "Fever".
Joyce Carol Oates:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=LgJ809QKmas
www.youtube.com/watch?v=LaxFbNgskOw
Biography (born in Lockport):
www.achievement.org/autodoc/page/oat0bio-1
Video adaptation:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=y4Mw-1EQTpM
I really could not take that video adaptation seriously, and I'm sure that Lady162 worked really hard on it but I don't think that Sims can quite convey the drama you need for this story. The first interview with Joyce Carol Oats was actually pretty interesting and I liked what she said about the first 6 weeks of writing a novel and it really made me look at my own commitment issues with prose in a new light.
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"Heat" also reminded me of that book we read last year by Tim O'Brien, The Lake in the Woods, I think it was called. It reminded me of a better version of that, trying to piece together what happened and talking about different people's reactions to what happened. Also, that video adaptation of the story was weird. Their joints and arms were all wonky.
ReplyDeleteThe adaption was hilarious. I wonder what the cross over is between someone who enjoys video game simulations and someone who reads Joyce Carol Oats short stories. The story on the other hand, was haunting and very well done. The author's sentence structure and syntax made me pay attention to each and every word. She was able to capture elements of archetypal small town life, summertime, and being a child extremely artfully.
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ReplyDeleteI think that video adaptation was a masterpiece of modern cinema. It brought me to tears. I ate my blanket out from under my cat because I was so emotional. Then my cat slapped me and I stared at her with tears in my eyes until she got uncomfortable and left. The story was okay too, I guess. The way it was told was a bit frustrating to me. I didn't like when they'd start talking about what actually happened and then start talking about something else for two paragraphs. It was like trying to buy socks and a salesman keeps trying to swap your socks with a bowl of tacky fake fruit. It wasn't the not knowing that annoyed me, it was just that they kept slowing down the story whenever it sped up.
ReplyDeleteThe video adaptation was kind of a joke to me. I didn't believe it honestly and I'm not sure if they'd read and actually understood what it was they were portraying. But I did like hearing the interview because Joyce Carol Oates, she said a lot of things about the foundation of a novel that I as a young writer felt I could relate to. Also, I agree with Clara "Heat" definitely reminded me of the Lake in the Woods.
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