"So, here, re. “An Incident,” let’s pose a hypothetical question: Could we just cut the intro and epilogue?"
You conclude that we probably shouldn't, but I'm betting almost every Clubber would indeed cut some or all of that Intro and all of the Epilogue, and if you don't mind me saying, George, if this was your story I think you'd do so t…
"So, here, re. “An Incident,” let’s pose a hypothetical question: Could we just cut the intro and epilogue?"
You conclude that we probably shouldn't, but I'm betting almost every Clubber would indeed cut some or all of that Intro and all of the Epilogue, and if you don't mind me saying, George, if this was your story I think you'd do so too.
Not because the Intro and Epilogue are superfluous -- you make a convincing case against that -- but because they're simply not the kind of things most modern writers are going to end up including in their final drafts. "One incident, however, struck me as significant, and aroused me from my ill temper, so that even now I cannot forget it" is gorgeously raw and open and/but also mildly boastful about the resonance of the story that follows, and for these very reasons would be cut by almost all modern writers. Nobody in this Club would ever say in their opening paragraphs "The story that follows is important and transformative", would they? Instead they'd leave it to the reader to be the judge of that.
And it's even more likely IMO that any Clubber would cut an Epilogue like
"Even now, this remains fresh in my memory. It often causes me distress, and makes me try to think about myself. The military and political affairs of those years I have forgotten as completely as the classics I read in my childhood. Yet this incident keeps coming back to me, often more vivid than in actual life, teaching me shame, urging me to reform, and giving me fresh courage and hope."
Again, beautiful and touching and even inspiring as this is, it's too raw and blunt about the story's moral impact on its teller for our fallen 21st-century tastes. None of us would get away these days with boasting, or seeming to boast, that a crucial event years ago may have made us a better person, including making us braver and more hopeful. And we fallen modern writers know this, I think, and therefore for better or worse, this Epilogue would end up getting cut by every writer in this thread.
Yes, interesting & valid points, Sean. I think I’d make a distinction, though, between the language of the intro & epilogue (which, possibly because of the periods in which it was written, is a bit formal & stilted, to our ears) and their function (which is to, let’s say, advance, between them, our understanding of the narrator’s arc). He’s more overtly didactic than we can likely get away with, but in something like “The Calm,” there’s also that sort of guiding tone at the end (albeit much more minimally and, if I’m remembering correctly, conveyed on the action of...something to with the leaves on the sidewalk. (I’d consult it directly but am currently taking a break from shoveling our driveway out from a mudslide...and gotta get back to it.❤️
We might ask how a contemporary writer might rewrite the framing graphs in “An Incident,” losing the didactic quality/stiffness but preserving the slight escalation there at the end - that sense of renewed moral resolve...
"We might ask how a contemporary writer might rewrite the framing graphs in “An Incident,” losing the didactic quality/stiffness but preserving the slight escalation there at the end - that sense of renewed moral resolve..."
Yes! And Rosanne has pointed the way with her Frank O'Connor example below. And Borges managed this (extremely difficult, for me at least) effect many times, didn't he? Not necessarily in terms of moral resolve, but instead feeling comfortable explicitly stating the narrator or protag's revelation and transformation, as part of framing devices or within the stories themselves.
Denis Johnson's 'Jesus' Son' too, though almost in an opposite way to Borges, who prepares the reader for these statements through the establishment of authority (technical, philosophical, spiritual). When his claims about relevation arrive, therefore, I find myself simply submitting to that authority. But Johnson's Fuckhead is so broken, has so little personal authority beyond the beauty of his voice, that there's no chance of his declared revelations seeming boastful, and so I find myself entralled and, yes, inspired by them.
'An Incident' lies somewhere between those two, I think, and therefore is less likely to offer a model to modern writers. Still a stoater (Scottish word) of a story, though.
"I move off down the sidewalk. Some kids are tossing a football at the end of the street. But they aren't my kids, and they aren't her kids either. There are these leaves everywhere, even in the gutters. Piles of leaves wherever I look. They're falling off the limbs as I walk. I can't take a step without putting my shoe into leaves. Somebody ought to make an effort here. Somebody ought to get a rake and take care of this."
Interestingly enough, the ending section of "The Calm" uses the word "framing": "We looked into the mirror together, his hands still framing my head."
Anyway, Raymond Carver is amazing and I'm having a great time reading all of these comments.
I just now read "The Calm." Unbelievably good. And the way the narrator is nearly invisible until the very end, when he finally is not, is astonishing.
I also like "soughing" -- He listened to the wind soughing through the trees. (Some pronounce it "suff" but I believe it's original pronunciation is "sow." I guess it works best while reading silently to oneself.
We could say that soughing is a product of psithurism. Neither is especially onomatopoetic.
Perhaps this is more a reflection on my drafts that are written in first person evolving into a third person narrative, leading me to wonder if "The Incident" had been written in a third person point of view of the official riding in the rickshaw, would the introduction and epilogue seem boastful. In this iteration, my first impulse would be a narrator relating the introduction and epilogue as a conversation between the official (if that is what he truly is) and another person.
This story is quite a fragile piece, especially perhaps by modern standards, as you allude to. However, it is also exceptionally good(!) and makes you feel amazing after reading it. If a modern writer was lucky enough to have written it and then tried cutting away the intro and epilogue and then read it again and thought, well it’s not quite so amazing now, you’d hope they might put them back.
It somehow brings to mind a conversation I once had with a friend who pointed out that if you read a paragraph or a page of Kafka, you wouldn’t necessarily know you were reading a great writer. I guess I mean by that: if you read the intro or epilogue of An Incident on their own you might think “Cut that!” But reading them in the story as a whole you might think they were just about as good as they could be?
But we just don't see it, Shaiza. I can't think of a single modern story that explicitly and unironically claims the events portrayed turned the narrator into a significantly better person, and certainly none that concludes that way. Haven't seen it in published writing, fellow writers' final drafts, anywhere.
I've seen stuff vaguely akin to that in early drafts, but it always ends up getting cut, for the reasons outlined above. And I've seen it plenty of times in self-help books. But not in any fiction I can recall. Hence the assumption that this Club's writers are unlikely to include such an Intro and Epilogue in their final drafts. I'm not claiming intimate knowledge of these Clubbers' minds, yourself included, just assuming they and you are probably not that different from virtually all other modern writers.
If it was happening in a classroom, I for one wouldn't be there, so I am HUGELY grateful that it is happening this way. Having contact with a deep thinker on writing issues which interest me is amazing. Plus the stimulation of everyone else's arguments and counter arguments.
Sean's line of argument is tempting me to write a 21st-Century-Radio-Phone-In-influenced parody of The Incident. People may not be writing moral frame stories in 2022 but that doesn't mean nobody tells them...
I think you are right that the style of An Incident is certainly old-fashioned, but I think George's reply of looking at the function vs the language is really interesting. A modern writer wouldn't use that same language, but could perhaps convey a similar feeling or perform a similar function in the story without being so extra WOW I'M CHANGED about it.
But I'm not talking about the prose style of 'An Incident'. Apologies if I haven't made that clear. I'm talking instead about the content, the actual idea itself, however we phrase it:
Intro: Here is an important and transformative story.
Epilogue: This event was so significant it forced me to look deeply into myself, after which I emerged a better person.
I would *love* it if modern writers could say this kind of thing with a straight face, but we can't. There is no way to phrase the above ideas that doesn't contain a strong sense of WOW I'M CHANGED (LOL at *your* witty phrasing btw). Or none that I can see at least.
Which is not to say the particular issue we're addressing here -- i.e. why can't modern writers just be straightforwardly honest about their stories' moral worth, even if this sounds somewhat boastful? -- can't be finessed some other way. In other words, I strongly agree with your final sentence.
Late to the party, I know, and slightly off piste, but your comment reminded me of the semi-lament in this intro to a (wonderful) Paul Giamatti reading of A Noiseless Patient Spider:
"So much contemporary poetry is full of playful irony and irreverent humor – which, personally, I love. But when I go back and read Walt Whitman, the grandfather of American poetry, I feel like a post-modern fool in the face of Whitman’s totally sincere, un-ironic vision."
I think it has, yes, and just self-consciousness about appearing earnest generally. Plus artistic 'sophistication' comes into play as well, the desire to avoid any explicit nod to the underlying essence of all stories: 'And the moral of the story is...'
The work of some of George's friends like Dave Eggers and David Foster Wallace has been labelled the New Sincerity. Perhaps George too, though I'm less sure of that.
It would make an interesting writing exercise/challenge to put together a modern story with a similar moral vibe to see how (if) it could be done without hitting us over the head with its intentions.
Very much so, Sara. Denis Johnson's 'Jesus' Son' achieves this kind of effect, I think, in a way I've described elsewhere in the thread.
It would also be pretty funny, I think, to take e.g. a DeLillo story and introduce it with 'The following story is just amazing' and then end it with your WOW I'M CHANGED. :-)
I wonder, can we step back and ask if the narrator is a significantly better person at the end of The Incident? If we want him to be, he can be. But he may well be an unchanged man paying lip service, putting off his goodness until tomorrow instead of getting around to it today. There's a lot of motion at the end of the story that says his journey isn't complete - he has hope and courage to be good one day. Not the same as attaining it. He tries. But, you know the quote, do or do not, there is no try. I'd vote that the author doesn't claim the narrator is a significantly better person. Just that he wishes he were. And that is his moral failing. I'm out on a limb, I know.
Is this epilogue boastful? My first gut read of it was, "well this stuck with me over the years, but do you know what I am not actually sure I'd behave differently even after all this". Hedging is right in there: 'makes me try to', 'often' rather than 'always', and no indication that anything has changed other than thoughts. I think in C21st we might very well frame in this way: sure this story has some power, but I can't promise it's enough.
However, I do think your point is interesting, Sean, and carries a wider truth about one way framing can seem awkward for our modern expectations. A v interesting discussion.
Cheers. George and others ask the really interesting question, though: how *might* we explicitly communicate a story's resonance and moral worth without seeming in any way boastful about that story? Extremely difficult task, I'd say, but well worth the effort if it can be convincingly pulled off.
I put 'apparently' and 'seeming' alongside boastful because as you suggest, Niall, it's not clearcut. What tips it for me is the fact that the Intro is bordeline boastful too about the story's resonance for the narrator and therefore, by implication, for the reader. The Epilogue has a similar flavour. It's subtle, and it's hardly a crime -- in fact I like it, if I haven't made that clear. But I still think most modern writers would cut it, because they wouldn't want any of that flavour in their story.
It's not even a particularly interesting point I'm making tbh. George asked might we Clubbers cut the Intro and Epilogue? And I'm just saying yes, I think most of us would.
Agree, Niall, and I suppose a reader (then or now) might reject too much certainty in the epilogue. Ambiguity improves it, I think. One thing we know for sure is that the narrator, misanthrope or no, is still thinking about the incident, and in that way, if no other, he has been changed.
Wow. This comment is amazingly crazy in the best possible way. And I thank you for leaving me forever imagining Lu Hsun behind closed blinds in a tweed walking suit twirling a brass and walnut cane indulging his secret Victorian dandy side.
Agreed, Rosanne. I have no issues at all with framing devices, and as you say they can often be very helpful in orienting the reader. And I didn't have any objections to the device used in 'An Incident'. I found it beautiful. Nonetheless I'm confident it wouldn't survive the final drafts of most writers hereabouts, for the reasons given.
"And anything that happened me afterwards, I never felt the same about again". I think that story would be less, would suffer, without that line, that back end of the frame."
Complete agreement on this, and a superbly chosen example. And because it's shorter, subtler and less (apparently) boastful, most of us, even in the self-conscious, morally nervous 21st century, would be proud of that line if it was ours.
I’m a little late to this framing thread, but I wonder if one of the things the frame in this story does is to get the reader to feel more generously about the narrator than if the opening part of the frame was not included.
In paragraph 1, he describes himself as a misanthrope - and my first thought is, do I even want to read a story about a self-described misanthrope? But in the next paragraph, he immediately says that an incident aroused him from his ill temper. So I think, okay, something happened to make him change and maybe I will give this story a chance.
After the opening part of the frame, his description of himself becomes worse and worse, and it is not until paragraph 12 that his revelation about his lack of compassion begins. So, without the frame, I think I would have felt negatively about the narrator for much of the story, since I would not have known from the outset that he had changed.
Ah, Guests of the Nation was my gateway into short stories. I finished reading and anything that happened to me afterwards, I never felt the same about again.
Mine too, Niall and when I was reading George's comments on introductory and epilogue paragraphs, I thought of the ending of Frank O'Connor's story, the enormous emotional force of it! I remember the first time I read it... 1970, I was thirteen, imprisoned - as I saw it - in a catholic convent boarding school ... a grim winter evening and I'd run out of things to read so I borrowed an older girl's textbook - Exploring English 1 -and came across Guests of the Nation. I'd been an avid reader since I was about six, but mainly for escape or comfort or a laugh. After Guests of the Nation I think I became a different kind of reader, I started looking for stories that would make me feel part of 'it' all, get me thinking about things. I'll never forget that ending ( and anyone who hasn't read the story yet should skip this, but find that story and read it!) :
" Noble says he felt he seen everything ten times as big, perceiving nothing around him but the little patch of black bog with the two Englishmen stiffening into it; but with me it was the other way, as though the patch of bog where the two Englishmen were was a thousand miles away from me, and even Noble mumbling just behind me and the old woman and the birds and the bloody stars were all far away, and I was somehow very small and very lonely. And anything that ever happened me after I never felt the same about again"
On my first read I wanted to cut that whole ending, feeling that the story had already ended. But I understand it’s place from George’s comments. Have I read too much “modern” literature without framing that I can’t accept it in a story, even if it is done well?
"So, here, re. “An Incident,” let’s pose a hypothetical question: Could we just cut the intro and epilogue?"
You conclude that we probably shouldn't, but I'm betting almost every Clubber would indeed cut some or all of that Intro and all of the Epilogue, and if you don't mind me saying, George, if this was your story I think you'd do so too.
Not because the Intro and Epilogue are superfluous -- you make a convincing case against that -- but because they're simply not the kind of things most modern writers are going to end up including in their final drafts. "One incident, however, struck me as significant, and aroused me from my ill temper, so that even now I cannot forget it" is gorgeously raw and open and/but also mildly boastful about the resonance of the story that follows, and for these very reasons would be cut by almost all modern writers. Nobody in this Club would ever say in their opening paragraphs "The story that follows is important and transformative", would they? Instead they'd leave it to the reader to be the judge of that.
And it's even more likely IMO that any Clubber would cut an Epilogue like
"Even now, this remains fresh in my memory. It often causes me distress, and makes me try to think about myself. The military and political affairs of those years I have forgotten as completely as the classics I read in my childhood. Yet this incident keeps coming back to me, often more vivid than in actual life, teaching me shame, urging me to reform, and giving me fresh courage and hope."
Again, beautiful and touching and even inspiring as this is, it's too raw and blunt about the story's moral impact on its teller for our fallen 21st-century tastes. None of us would get away these days with boasting, or seeming to boast, that a crucial event years ago may have made us a better person, including making us braver and more hopeful. And we fallen modern writers know this, I think, and therefore for better or worse, this Epilogue would end up getting cut by every writer in this thread.
Yes, interesting & valid points, Sean. I think I’d make a distinction, though, between the language of the intro & epilogue (which, possibly because of the periods in which it was written, is a bit formal & stilted, to our ears) and their function (which is to, let’s say, advance, between them, our understanding of the narrator’s arc). He’s more overtly didactic than we can likely get away with, but in something like “The Calm,” there’s also that sort of guiding tone at the end (albeit much more minimally and, if I’m remembering correctly, conveyed on the action of...something to with the leaves on the sidewalk. (I’d consult it directly but am currently taking a break from shoveling our driveway out from a mudslide...and gotta get back to it.❤️
We might ask how a contemporary writer might rewrite the framing graphs in “An Incident,” losing the didactic quality/stiffness but preserving the slight escalation there at the end - that sense of renewed moral resolve...
"We might ask how a contemporary writer might rewrite the framing graphs in “An Incident,” losing the didactic quality/stiffness but preserving the slight escalation there at the end - that sense of renewed moral resolve..."
Yes! And Rosanne has pointed the way with her Frank O'Connor example below. And Borges managed this (extremely difficult, for me at least) effect many times, didn't he? Not necessarily in terms of moral resolve, but instead feeling comfortable explicitly stating the narrator or protag's revelation and transformation, as part of framing devices or within the stories themselves.
Denis Johnson's 'Jesus' Son' too, though almost in an opposite way to Borges, who prepares the reader for these statements through the establishment of authority (technical, philosophical, spiritual). When his claims about relevation arrive, therefore, I find myself simply submitting to that authority. But Johnson's Fuckhead is so broken, has so little personal authority beyond the beauty of his voice, that there's no chance of his declared revelations seeming boastful, and so I find myself entralled and, yes, inspired by them.
'An Incident' lies somewhere between those two, I think, and therefore is less likely to offer a model to modern writers. Still a stoater (Scottish word) of a story, though.
I think the story with the leaves is "Intimacy":
"I move off down the sidewalk. Some kids are tossing a football at the end of the street. But they aren't my kids, and they aren't her kids either. There are these leaves everywhere, even in the gutters. Piles of leaves wherever I look. They're falling off the limbs as I walk. I can't take a step without putting my shoe into leaves. Somebody ought to make an effort here. Somebody ought to get a rake and take care of this."
Interestingly enough, the ending section of "The Calm" uses the word "framing": "We looked into the mirror together, his hands still framing my head."
Anyway, Raymond Carver is amazing and I'm having a great time reading all of these comments.
You are right, Brad, thanks.
I just now read "The Calm." Unbelievably good. And the way the narrator is nearly invisible until the very end, when he finally is not, is astonishing.
Psithurism does inspire reflection^^
I just learned a new word! thank you.
I also like "soughing" -- He listened to the wind soughing through the trees. (Some pronounce it "suff" but I believe it's original pronunciation is "sow." I guess it works best while reading silently to oneself.
We could say that soughing is a product of psithurism. Neither is especially onomatopoetic.
In Britain - soffing. There are some other words like that I think. Then there is a slough and to slough. A slew that we sloff off.
The “sow” pronunciation is clearly preferable since we can then have soughs through boughs 😊
Valid point poet^^
Perhaps this is more a reflection on my drafts that are written in first person evolving into a third person narrative, leading me to wonder if "The Incident" had been written in a third person point of view of the official riding in the rickshaw, would the introduction and epilogue seem boastful. In this iteration, my first impulse would be a narrator relating the introduction and epilogue as a conversation between the official (if that is what he truly is) and another person.
This story is quite a fragile piece, especially perhaps by modern standards, as you allude to. However, it is also exceptionally good(!) and makes you feel amazing after reading it. If a modern writer was lucky enough to have written it and then tried cutting away the intro and epilogue and then read it again and thought, well it’s not quite so amazing now, you’d hope they might put them back.
It somehow brings to mind a conversation I once had with a friend who pointed out that if you read a paragraph or a page of Kafka, you wouldn’t necessarily know you were reading a great writer. I guess I mean by that: if you read the intro or epilogue of An Incident on their own you might think “Cut that!” But reading them in the story as a whole you might think they were just about as good as they could be?
I wouldn't. I also wouldn't speak for people I don't know.
But we just don't see it, Shaiza. I can't think of a single modern story that explicitly and unironically claims the events portrayed turned the narrator into a significantly better person, and certainly none that concludes that way. Haven't seen it in published writing, fellow writers' final drafts, anywhere.
I've seen stuff vaguely akin to that in early drafts, but it always ends up getting cut, for the reasons outlined above. And I've seen it plenty of times in self-help books. But not in any fiction I can recall. Hence the assumption that this Club's writers are unlikely to include such an Intro and Epilogue in their final drafts. I'm not claiming intimate knowledge of these Clubbers' minds, yourself included, just assuming they and you are probably not that different from virtually all other modern writers.
City of Girls by Elizabeth Gilbert.
Loving this sub-thread & wishing we were all in a physical classroom, working through it that way...
But this is still pretty good. 👍
If it was happening in a classroom, I for one wouldn't be there, so I am HUGELY grateful that it is happening this way. Having contact with a deep thinker on writing issues which interest me is amazing. Plus the stimulation of everyone else's arguments and counter arguments.
Sean's line of argument is tempting me to write a 21st-Century-Radio-Phone-In-influenced parody of The Incident. People may not be writing moral frame stories in 2022 but that doesn't mean nobody tells them...
Yes! And beyond being fun, I believe the actual 'writing' uniquely nuances our thinking in a way that might not be possible in a physical classroom.
I think you are right that the style of An Incident is certainly old-fashioned, but I think George's reply of looking at the function vs the language is really interesting. A modern writer wouldn't use that same language, but could perhaps convey a similar feeling or perform a similar function in the story without being so extra WOW I'M CHANGED about it.
Hi Sara.
But I'm not talking about the prose style of 'An Incident'. Apologies if I haven't made that clear. I'm talking instead about the content, the actual idea itself, however we phrase it:
Intro: Here is an important and transformative story.
Epilogue: This event was so significant it forced me to look deeply into myself, after which I emerged a better person.
I would *love* it if modern writers could say this kind of thing with a straight face, but we can't. There is no way to phrase the above ideas that doesn't contain a strong sense of WOW I'M CHANGED (LOL at *your* witty phrasing btw). Or none that I can see at least.
Which is not to say the particular issue we're addressing here -- i.e. why can't modern writers just be straightforwardly honest about their stories' moral worth, even if this sounds somewhat boastful? -- can't be finessed some other way. In other words, I strongly agree with your final sentence.
Late to the party, I know, and slightly off piste, but your comment reminded me of the semi-lament in this intro to a (wonderful) Paul Giamatti reading of A Noiseless Patient Spider:
"So much contemporary poetry is full of playful irony and irreverent humor – which, personally, I love. But when I go back and read Walt Whitman, the grandfather of American poetry, I feel like a post-modern fool in the face of Whitman’s totally sincere, un-ironic vision."
Has irony robbed us of the honesty you mention?
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/podcasts/74670/looking-for-god-with-ar-ammons
I think it has, yes, and just self-consciousness about appearing earnest generally. Plus artistic 'sophistication' comes into play as well, the desire to avoid any explicit nod to the underlying essence of all stories: 'And the moral of the story is...'
Absolutely. I wonder if a new earnestness is possible, whether events can/will eventually revive it.
The work of some of George's friends like Dave Eggers and David Foster Wallace has been labelled the New Sincerity. Perhaps George too, though I'm less sure of that.
Aha, interesting – thank you, Sean! George, do you consider yourself Newly Sincere? :)
This quote is great. Thank you!
Glad you like it too, Sara.
It would make an interesting writing exercise/challenge to put together a modern story with a similar moral vibe to see how (if) it could be done without hitting us over the head with its intentions.
Very much so, Sara. Denis Johnson's 'Jesus' Son' achieves this kind of effect, I think, in a way I've described elsewhere in the thread.
It would also be pretty funny, I think, to take e.g. a DeLillo story and introduce it with 'The following story is just amazing' and then end it with your WOW I'M CHANGED. :-)
Somewhat to Shaiza's point, aren't artistic revolutions/changes set in motion when someone says "to hell with 'we just don't do that"...?
I wonder, can we step back and ask if the narrator is a significantly better person at the end of The Incident? If we want him to be, he can be. But he may well be an unchanged man paying lip service, putting off his goodness until tomorrow instead of getting around to it today. There's a lot of motion at the end of the story that says his journey isn't complete - he has hope and courage to be good one day. Not the same as attaining it. He tries. But, you know the quote, do or do not, there is no try. I'd vote that the author doesn't claim the narrator is a significantly better person. Just that he wishes he were. And that is his moral failing. I'm out on a limb, I know.
Is this epilogue boastful? My first gut read of it was, "well this stuck with me over the years, but do you know what I am not actually sure I'd behave differently even after all this". Hedging is right in there: 'makes me try to', 'often' rather than 'always', and no indication that anything has changed other than thoughts. I think in C21st we might very well frame in this way: sure this story has some power, but I can't promise it's enough.
However, I do think your point is interesting, Sean, and carries a wider truth about one way framing can seem awkward for our modern expectations. A v interesting discussion.
Cheers. George and others ask the really interesting question, though: how *might* we explicitly communicate a story's resonance and moral worth without seeming in any way boastful about that story? Extremely difficult task, I'd say, but well worth the effort if it can be convincingly pulled off.
I put 'apparently' and 'seeming' alongside boastful because as you suggest, Niall, it's not clearcut. What tips it for me is the fact that the Intro is bordeline boastful too about the story's resonance for the narrator and therefore, by implication, for the reader. The Epilogue has a similar flavour. It's subtle, and it's hardly a crime -- in fact I like it, if I haven't made that clear. But I still think most modern writers would cut it, because they wouldn't want any of that flavour in their story.
It's not even a particularly interesting point I'm making tbh. George asked might we Clubbers cut the Intro and Epilogue? And I'm just saying yes, I think most of us would.
Agree, Niall, and I suppose a reader (then or now) might reject too much certainty in the epilogue. Ambiguity improves it, I think. One thing we know for sure is that the narrator, misanthrope or no, is still thinking about the incident, and in that way, if no other, he has been changed.
Wow. This comment is amazingly crazy in the best possible way. And I thank you for leaving me forever imagining Lu Hsun behind closed blinds in a tweed walking suit twirling a brass and walnut cane indulging his secret Victorian dandy side.
Agreed, Rosanne. I have no issues at all with framing devices, and as you say they can often be very helpful in orienting the reader. And I didn't have any objections to the device used in 'An Incident'. I found it beautiful. Nonetheless I'm confident it wouldn't survive the final drafts of most writers hereabouts, for the reasons given.
"And anything that happened me afterwards, I never felt the same about again". I think that story would be less, would suffer, without that line, that back end of the frame."
Complete agreement on this, and a superbly chosen example. And because it's shorter, subtler and less (apparently) boastful, most of us, even in the self-conscious, morally nervous 21st century, would be proud of that line if it was ours.
I’m a little late to this framing thread, but I wonder if one of the things the frame in this story does is to get the reader to feel more generously about the narrator than if the opening part of the frame was not included.
In paragraph 1, he describes himself as a misanthrope - and my first thought is, do I even want to read a story about a self-described misanthrope? But in the next paragraph, he immediately says that an incident aroused him from his ill temper. So I think, okay, something happened to make him change and maybe I will give this story a chance.
After the opening part of the frame, his description of himself becomes worse and worse, and it is not until paragraph 12 that his revelation about his lack of compassion begins. So, without the frame, I think I would have felt negatively about the narrator for much of the story, since I would not have known from the outset that he had changed.
Ah, Guests of the Nation was my gateway into short stories. I finished reading and anything that happened to me afterwards, I never felt the same about again.
Mine too, Niall and when I was reading George's comments on introductory and epilogue paragraphs, I thought of the ending of Frank O'Connor's story, the enormous emotional force of it! I remember the first time I read it... 1970, I was thirteen, imprisoned - as I saw it - in a catholic convent boarding school ... a grim winter evening and I'd run out of things to read so I borrowed an older girl's textbook - Exploring English 1 -and came across Guests of the Nation. I'd been an avid reader since I was about six, but mainly for escape or comfort or a laugh. After Guests of the Nation I think I became a different kind of reader, I started looking for stories that would make me feel part of 'it' all, get me thinking about things. I'll never forget that ending ( and anyone who hasn't read the story yet should skip this, but find that story and read it!) :
" Noble says he felt he seen everything ten times as big, perceiving nothing around him but the little patch of black bog with the two Englishmen stiffening into it; but with me it was the other way, as though the patch of bog where the two Englishmen were was a thousand miles away from me, and even Noble mumbling just behind me and the old woman and the birds and the bloody stars were all far away, and I was somehow very small and very lonely. And anything that ever happened me after I never felt the same about again"
Just seen Rosanne's comment now, which also quotes this ending (I've just joined and am playing catch up)
Guests of the Nation is a great story. Many years ago, I saw Gregory Peck read it at the Mark Taper Forum. Thanks for reminding me.
On my first read I wanted to cut that whole ending, feeling that the story had already ended. But I understand it’s place from George’s comments. Have I read too much “modern” literature without framing that I can’t accept it in a story, even if it is done well?