Estrangement – This American Life

Here is an example of how I wish I could write, this time from the world of radio storytelling. This American Life is a weekly radio program that features essays, interviews and stories on a given theme. For Season 1 of their TV show, they tell the story of an atheist couple, where the boyfriend models as Jesus for art while the girlfriend struggles with the issues this raises in her relationship with her devoutly religious father. Towards the end, Nancy Updike, the producer of the show says this:

Choosing not to become the person your family expected is painful. You have to leave their world completely just to make sense of your own life, and then fate lures you back whenever it can to give you the chance to measure the distance between their world and yours and see if it’s still just as far as you remembered.

The mental picture of ‘fate luring you back’ and ‘the chance to measure the distance’ match the emotions associated with the feelings of loss that estrangement with family brings to the fore.

“For sale: baby shoes, never worn” – Ernest Hemingway

It is a possibly apocryphal story about Ernest Hemingway, but here it goes: Hemingway was once challenged by his friends to write a story in under six words. He came up with the following six word composition that leave you simultaneously with a deep understanding of the story and a host of questions on who, what, why.

For sale: baby shoes, never worn

I have yet to read another writer match Hemingway in brevity.

Animal Farm – George Orwell

George Orwell is one of those writers who is quoted so often in American political and social discourse that I felt I knew his philosophy very well even before I had read any of his writings. When I finally did read ‘Animal Farm’, it was apparent that whatever good I had imagined of his writing, it far exceeded beyond that. If you have not read ‘Animal Farm’, suffice it to say that it is an allegorical novel in which George Orwell strips apart the ideology, and perhaps more so the practice, of communism. He uses an animal farm which has overthrown it’s human masters, only to be ruled by a new set of overlords: the pigs, as the setting. To me, the best sentence of this entire novel comes near the end, when the rest of the animals find that all of the commandments of animalism had been redacted by the pigs, replaced by one commandment only:

All animals are equal but some animals are more equal than others.

This is the whole novel; the rest is just commentary.

So, I wish I could write like George Orwell. In one short sentence, he reveals the reality of communism and the humiliation of those living under it.

Macbeth’s Soliloquy – ‘… Full of Sound and Fury Signifying Nothing’

Macbeth, along with Hamlet, is one of the best Shakespearian tragedies. If you haven’t read it, do yourself a favor and read it this holiday season. I will not hazard summarizing the play; the good editors at Wikipedia have done a better job than I can. The following soliloquy is delivered when Macbeth hears of his wife’s death:

She should have died hereafter;
There would have been a time for such a word.
To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day
To the last syllable of recorded time,
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more: it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.

For me the latter part of this soliloquy, starting from “Life’s but a walking shadow” holds more significance. The metaphor of an actor who says a lot, but ends up saying nothing, in his limited time on the stage is powerful.

In any case, I am hoping to read Hamlet soon.

The Crucible – Arthur Miller

I recently read Arthur Miller’s “The Crucible”, a play he wrote to highlight the hypocrisy of McCarthyism by drawing a parallel with the vindictiveness of Salem witch trials from 1690s.

One of the primary characters of this play is John Proctor who, along with a few others, is falsely accused of doing devil’s work in Salem. With a few hours left before he is due to be hanged, his accusers send him his wife to convince him to confess to the accusation and to incriminate the co-accused, in return for his life. Under sever emotional strain, he accepts the bargain, but refuses to sign the confession. When his accusers press him on why he would not put his name on the confession, he retorts:

 Because it is my name! Because I cannot have another in my life! Because I lie and sign myself to lies! Because I am not worth the dust on the feet of them that hang! How may I live without my name? I have given you my soul; leave me my name!

The beauty of this passage is that it is a window into the mind of someone at the end of his emotional rope. He has failed in his fight against the system, he is on his way to the gallows, and he realizes that his confession would condemn other innocents to an ignominious death.