Monday, January 16, 2012

Stories: "Ventures into Unknown Terreritory 41:70

Pierce Arrow Automobile

Winter Dreams by F. Scott Fitzgerald(Metropolitan Magazine in 1922)


  • Length: 5 Pages +
  • Genre: Lost Generation, Romance
Short Summary-No Spoiler
Dexter, A golf caddy has winter dreams of one day making it big on the golf tour; where he will be respected by his doings and is name will be known.  He obtains the privileged life, but a girl haunts him to follow the call to adventure.  Will the call still be there after his fortunes are made?




Quote
There was a fish jumping and a star shining and the lights around the lake were gleaming. Dexter sat beside Judy Jones and she explained how her boat was driven. Then she was in the water, swimming to the floating surfboard with a sinuous crawl. Watching her was without effort to the eye, watching a branch waving or a sea-gull flying. Her arms, burned to butternut, moved sinuously among the dull platinum ripples, elbow appearing first, casting the forearm back with a cadence of falling water, then reaching out and down, stabbing a path ahead.

Writers Notes
 Knight Errant is set on his wondrous course by the desires and passions he has for a young maiden.  In Araby by Joyce the young boy goes to the Araby Fair; while in Winter Dreams the boy becomes a man and then is moved by her gravity.  The story looks at what happens when the Knight leaves the garden.
Details Uses a lot more details to describe an event than does Hemingway.  Both writers though yield tremendous power in their prose.   Fitzgerald's  story seemed more resonant to me and my personal journey than did Hemingway's aloof style.
Direct The Focus: Fitzgerald turns the focus for the reader by saying, now don't go looking this way but this is the part of the story that concerns us.
Quote and Use of Verbs: Fitzgerald uses great verbs to describe his heroine, driving, flying, falling, stabbing, crawling.   These are all verbs that move.  She is a moving creature because of the verbs used for her.    


Tidbits


  1. In 1917, on probation and unlikely to graduate, Fitzgerald enlisted in the army, where he was eventually stationed at Alabama’s Camp Sheridan
  2. At Camp Sheirdan he met the girl that would send him on his quest for tangled love, Zelda Sayre.
  3. Fitzgerald wrote the Great Gatsby not in the United States, but abroad in France.

Where to Find It

Spark Notes on Winter Dreams
The Story Can Be Read Here

No comments:

Post a Comment

Search This Blog