Tag Archives: William Styron
America’s greatest essay
“Uncle Tom’s Cabin is a very bad novel, having, in its self-righteous, virtuous sentimentality, much in common with Little Women. Sentimentality, the ostentatious parading of excessive and spurious emotion, is the mark of dishonesty, the inability to feel; the wet … Continue reading
Filed under discovery, essay-classical, essay-expository, essay-personal, NOTED, scene, sentimentality, teaching, working method
Writing by the ‘dangerous method’
“Frankly, I thought I knew how to write, but it turned out I didn’t, and I don’t. I don’t. I get to learn it over and over and over. It isn’t supposed to be easy. It is supposed to be … Continue reading
Filed under freewriting, revision, working method
Narrative structure in ‘Nat Turner’
The Confessions of Nat Turner by William Styron. Vintage. 480 pages. Eventually I realized that William Styron’s poetic descriptions of weather and landscapes in The Confessions of Nat Turner aren’t supposed to represent the world as we know it—or even … Continue reading
The poetic prose of ‘Nat Turner’
The Confessions of Nat Turner by William Styron. Vintage. 480 pages. William Styron told interviewers he worked slowly, writing his thick books by hand, in No. 2 pencil, on yellow legal pads. In Sophie’s Choice his alter ego reads his … Continue reading
Filed under aesthetics, REVIEW, syntax, voice, working method
A few more words
I own a few sacred words, words of such beauty I desire to be worthy of them. I adore these watery two: lacustrine, of or pertaining to a lake, and pelagic, of or pertaining to the open seas or oceans. … Continue reading
Filed under aesthetics, audience, reading, vocabulary
