Week Four: Messages From My Father
"The best nonfiction writers do not tell us how we should think about something, how we should feel about it....They simply present the concrete details. The reader's brain, to the extent it has experienced or known something about an exact or similar situation, will be "excited" and the old emotion reexperienced." Cheney, Writing Creative Nonfiction, pg. 36
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Calvin Trillin's Messages from My Father, while about a similar theme as A River Runs Through It and in a similar time period, is a very different work. Part of this might be attributed to the fact that Trillin and Maclean, while both writers, were immersed in two very different worlds: Maclean in the literary world of the 20th century University of Chicago and Trillin in newspapers and for popular press. Maclean wrote one novella and a series of shorter works of fiction and nonfiction. Trillin has been a prolific writer, penning over 20 books in addition to being a journalist for Time and The New York Times. This week, as you read Messages from My Father, consider the details that Trillin uses to create his world and the central role his father played in it. In particular, think about how each essay both 1) develops an individual theme, often established in the first line of a paragraph and 2) contributes to the overall impression/intention of the book itself. While ARRTI was an extended work about the Maclean family, Messages from My Father is more episodic, a series of vignettes about a man, his family, and the values he worked to instill in them. |
4.1 Discussion Board
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We will discuss each book over two weeks, but your first post regarding the book should be no later than Thursday of Week Four.
For our second book discussion, I would like us to consider how in particular Trillin deals with the details in the book. How do his telling details explain and elaborate on the key themes that he establishes in each chapter and throughout the book? What details do we see and hear about individuals and scenes? How does Trillin build a dominant impression by the listing of details? In Week Five, we will focus on adding details that direct the reader toward particular emotions and impressions without telling them what to think or feel. We will prepare for this in the discussion by doing the following:
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