Capote: A Christmas Memory

After reading Truman Capote's "A Christmas Memory", my view on writing short stories is forever changed.  While the story itself is long (about 20-some pages), the content is short and sweet.  The story focuses around a young boy and an old woman who both live in the same family, though we're not quite sure how they're related.  The family has labeled them as 'different' and excluded them in a way, so they find solace in each other.  What I find so beautiful about this friendship is that while she could be sixty and he could be ten, they pay no mind to the fifty-some years that separate them, they see themselves as equals.  They shop together, bake Christmas cakes together, even get a little tipsy together while trying to finish the last of the expensive liquor they bought to put into the cakes.  The rude awakening during this scene occurs when the rest of the family finds the woman and this young boy drunk in the kitchen.  They begin to scold the woman for giving the boy alcohol which seems to be the appropriate response, but in the context of the story I was so trapped in the perspective of the boy that my first reaction to it was why would they do that?  Personally, I think this speaks to how well the story is written.  The character of the boy was portrayed so well that you begin to think like him just enough that incidences like this occur.
Capote once said that this story was one of the best examples of style that he'd ever written, and I certainly agree, but I think it also has characters with the most depth.  He never says too much about anyone besides the two main characters, but those two seem like they could truly be real people.  As I've studied Capote, I've found that this is where his talents truly lie.  Even when he's writing about real people he portrays them as whole and complete people.  The older figure in the story, for example, shows maturity as well as a childish side that makes her age unimportant.  Within that is also the effortless friendship that seems so natural to both parties that makes the story so much more fun to read.
Lastly, one of my favorite quotes ever comes out of this story.  It describes the two cracking and shelling pecans to make fruitcake, the usage of imagery is absolutely gorgeous.

“Our backs hurt from gathering them: how hard they were to find (the main crop having been shaken off the trees and sold by the orchard’s owners, who are not us) among the concealing leaves, the frosted, deceiving grass.  Caarackle!  A cheery crunch, scraps of miniature thunder sound as the shells collapse and the golden mound of sweet oily ivory meat mounts in the milk-glass bowl...The kitchen is growing dark.  Dusk turns the window into a mirror: our reflections mingle with the rising moon as we work by the fireside in the firelight.”

This is certainly something I'd love to emulate someday. If anyone is interested in writing quality short stories I beg you to read this it is truly a masterpiece in terms of character development and style.

Hemingway part 3: A breakdown of "Snows"

As I've mentioned before, probably my favorite story of Hemingway's so far is "The Snows of Kilimanjaro".  So I've decided to focus on three elements of the story: the exposition, formatting, and point of view.  It's probably his most uniquely formatted as well as chilling.  It's about a dying man and his wife who are on a safari in Africa (a common theme for Hemingway).  However, to preface the story there's a small blurb at the top of the page that reads "Kilimanjaro is a snow-covered mountain, 19,710 feet high, and is said to be the highest mountain in Africa.  Its western summit is called the Masai "Ngàje Ngài," the House of God.  Close to the western summit there is the dried and frozen carcass of a leopard.  No one had explained what the leopard was seeking at that altitude.".  It's a bit chilling, and it gives the introduction a bit of a darker tone.  It would make sense then that the first sentence "'The marvellous thing is that it's painless,' he said.  'That's how you know when it starts.'".  We can readily assume that whomever he is, he is probably talking about death.  As you read on you discover he's lying in a cot underneath a mimosa tree, (which according to Wikipedia is actually indigenous to southern Asia, I wonder if that's important) and talking to his wife.  Their relationship is indroduced as strained and they seem to argue a lot.  However, it seems that he is dying and she's standing in the way of the one thing he wants: a drink.
From there we're introduced to Hemingway's first change in format.  He switches to writing in italics (in this book it's italicized, originally it may have been something else) and proceeds to describe in detail a scene completely unrelated to the story he's presented.  When I read the story, it seemed like he might connect the two images but the second time around it seems to be memories of the dying man.  If that is the case, what purpose do they serve and what exactly is happening to him?  They could just be memories or flashbacks, but I like to think it's more of a drawn-out way of showing the reader that the man is going to die.  Some people say that when you die your life flashes before your eyes, and I believe that's what Hemingway is trying to show but over a longer span of time.  This way, he gets to recognize his regrets - whether it's something he did or didn't do.  I find that to be a fascinating idea.  Humans seem to be fascinated with death, coming up with all sorts of ways to explain it or describe it because nobody can actually talk about what death is like.  Therefore writers and artists have to conceptualize on their own about what death must be like, and this is Hemingway's version.
The third element that makes this story so fascinating is that it's all written in the third person, but you also see flashes of what's happening in the man's head.  When Hemingway changes format is when we see this change in perspective as well as a few pieces during the story that's happening in the present.  His perspective is used mostly to provide exposition or background information about his wife.  Additionally you catch a glimpse of what death feels like from his perspective, which Hemingway describes as a figure physically creeping on top of him that smelled of rot and other foul things.  I just loved that, how Hemingway again captures this idea in multiple ways.  As you've probably guessed the story ends with the man dying in the middle of the night.  What Hemingway does is very interesting.  The end of the story begins with the man being carried out of his tent to a small cart where he takes a ride with a man named Compton.  It's a beautifully written scene full of gorgeous landscapes, but the curious part of it is the last sentence.
"Compile turned is head and grinned and pointed and there, ahead, all he could see, as wide as all the world, great, high, and unbelievably white in the sun, was the square top of Kilimanjaro.  And then he knew that was where he was going."  At this point, it all seems to click, the title, the blurb at the beginning, the ideas of death.  Interestingly enough, Hemingway switches the perspective in the last paragraph to that of the wife, while still in 3rd person, because she is the one that finds the man dead. In the end, Hemingway expertly ties the whole story together with a nice little bow at the close of this story.  He introduces the reader with just the right tone, experiements with format and perspective, and weaves these macabre tones thoughout the entire work.  I hope you can see why it's one of my favorites!