I love short stories. I think it's probably an acquired taste, and I must thank my American literature teacher, Patricia Fra, for introducing me to the genre and for getting us acquainted with the short stories of William Faulkner, Tennessee Williams, Raymond Carver, Flannery O'Connor or Mark Twain among others. I am a very forgetful person, but the details of "Barn Burning", "A Good Man is Hard to Find" or "A Rose for Emily" have never escaped my mind.
A short story is so brief that, as the Encyclopaedia Britannica says, "the form encourages economy of setting, concise narrative, and the omission of a complex plot; character
is disclosed in action and dramatic encounter but is seldom fully
developed. Despite its relatively limited scope, though, a short story
is often judged by its ability to provide a “complete” or satisfying
treatment of its characters and subject." As a genre, it has received little critical attention, and in fact, in the 19th century there was a prevalence of two words, "sketch" and "tale", which establish the polarities of the milieu out of which the modern short story grew.
However, I share William Boyd's view in this article from The Telegraph where he claims that story-telling is hard-wired into our human discourse and that the short form is more natural to us than longer forms, since the stories we tell to each other are short and there is an unconscious predisposition in our minds for the short narrative.
The last collection of short stories I read was Mala letra (2016), by Sara Mesa. As soon as I saw it, it caught my attention because of its cover, which I am sure most of us are familiar with, thanks to the "Cuadernos de caligrafía Rubio" that were an essential part of our school education.
The stories are a real delight, exploring subjects such as guilt, lack of freedom, prejudices, fear or childhood. Personally, my favorites are "Apenas unos milímetros", "Papá es de goma" and "Mármol". We will focus on the last one in this entry: "Mármol", which is also the story that gives its title to the book.
The story made me recall the movie Monsieur Lazhar, since I think both have the purpose of presenting us with a situation (a suicide at a school, a student's in the book, a teacher's in the movie), exploring the feelings of the people involved and showing us how they deal with their deep hurts while suffusing the story with sadness as well as humor.
On top of that interesting storyline, the subplot of the story focuses on the act of writing itself, which is the reason why I am posting the entry. The narrator is traumatized by her science teacher, who was obssessed with the way she grabbed the pencil, "Parece que tuvieras un muñón, me decía, se te van a hacer callos en los dedos, así sólo te sale mala letra, vas a escribir bien cueste lo que cueste, ¡vas a escribir bien cueste lo que cueste!, repetía, y me mostraba el reverso del cuadernillo con sus dos dibujitos de las manos - está bien claro, ¿no?-, una cogiendo el lápiz bien, la otra cogiendo el lápiz mal, el secreto para una escritura armoniosa y delicada es tomar bien la pluma, sin apretarla, y escribir siempre despacio, no como yo, bruta, cabezota, terca como una mula, te empeñas en hacerlo mal queriendo" (p.23).
However, and as Banu Mushtaq once said, "Writing is an act of rebellion", and the girl goes on writing, first love letters that she then destroys, because the pleasure really resulted from writing them, "en la libre salida de la mala letra de mi lápiz cogido libremente" (p.26); and then becoming a writer ("more or less a writer" as she says) who still resents that science teacher, "Cuánto me gustaría ahora - si es que aún vive- decirle a aquel maestro que a pesar de coger mal el lápiz, y con mi mala letra incluso, acabé por hacerme escritora" (p.23).
In any case, the story makes us aware of the importance of "creative writing", which neurolinguistics has shown to be really good for your brain, since it combines handwriting and cognitive writing proccesses, memory, information processing and integration and verbal thinking. But beyond these benefits, it can be therapeutic, an enjoyable process, a way out.
The story made me recall the movie Monsieur Lazhar, since I think both have the purpose of presenting us with a situation (a suicide at a school, a student's in the book, a teacher's in the movie), exploring the feelings of the people involved and showing us how they deal with their deep hurts while suffusing the story with sadness as well as humor.
On top of that interesting storyline, the subplot of the story focuses on the act of writing itself, which is the reason why I am posting the entry. The narrator is traumatized by her science teacher, who was obssessed with the way she grabbed the pencil, "Parece que tuvieras un muñón, me decía, se te van a hacer callos en los dedos, así sólo te sale mala letra, vas a escribir bien cueste lo que cueste, ¡vas a escribir bien cueste lo que cueste!, repetía, y me mostraba el reverso del cuadernillo con sus dos dibujitos de las manos - está bien claro, ¿no?-, una cogiendo el lápiz bien, la otra cogiendo el lápiz mal, el secreto para una escritura armoniosa y delicada es tomar bien la pluma, sin apretarla, y escribir siempre despacio, no como yo, bruta, cabezota, terca como una mula, te empeñas en hacerlo mal queriendo" (p.23).
However, and as Banu Mushtaq once said, "Writing is an act of rebellion", and the girl goes on writing, first love letters that she then destroys, because the pleasure really resulted from writing them, "en la libre salida de la mala letra de mi lápiz cogido libremente" (p.26); and then becoming a writer ("more or less a writer" as she says) who still resents that science teacher, "Cuánto me gustaría ahora - si es que aún vive- decirle a aquel maestro que a pesar de coger mal el lápiz, y con mi mala letra incluso, acabé por hacerme escritora" (p.23).
In any case, the story makes us aware of the importance of "creative writing", which neurolinguistics has shown to be really good for your brain, since it combines handwriting and cognitive writing proccesses, memory, information processing and integration and verbal thinking. But beyond these benefits, it can be therapeutic, an enjoyable process, a way out.
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