Yesterday we saw how an apparently trivial scene -an almost unbelievable one- can carry a strong emotional load.And that isn’t achieved through big abstracts words to emphasize the characters’ feelings. Instead, the emotion comes from what we know about the characters and how, through our own experiences in the world, we can relate to that [...]
Tagged quote, advice, photo, fiction, non-fictionFrank McCourt’s “Teacher Man”, chapter 14: Whenever a lesson sagged, whenever their minds wandered, when too many asked for the pas, I fell back on the “dinner interrogation”. Government officials or concerned superiors might have asked, Is this a valid educational activity? Yes, it is, ladies and gentlemen, because this is a writing class and [...]
Tagged quote, fiction, non-fiction“Teacher Man“, by Frank McCourt, page 224. The class is commenting a poem (“My Papa’s Waltz“, by Theodore Roethke). A student called Ann speaks. That’s one thing, Mr. McCourt, but we have to be careful. If you say something negative about anything, English teachers take it personally and get mad. My sister got in trouble [...]
Tagged quote, fiction, opinionFrank McCourt ended his career as a teacher of creative writing without having written a single book. They would only come afterwards. Reading Teacher Man, one would think that it was through his pupils that he learned that the best stories are often hidden behind everyday events. His students tended to understimate their own experiences [...]
Tagged quote, fiction, opinionFrank McCourt wrote three novels before dying last year at the age of 78. The first one, Angela’s Ashes, narrates his miserable Irish childhood in the slums of Limmerick, the opression of his Catholic upbringing and his fight to achieve the dream of sailing to America. It won the Pulitzer Prize and it makes a [...]
Tagged shopping, review, fiction, recommendationToday we get a suggestion from our friend Llabrac. I was listening to an interview with the Spanish author Jerónimo Tristante on La Rosa de los Vientos (the program from August 2nd). He believes we have been educated audiovisually, so when they tell him that his novels are very cinematic, he takes that as a [...]
Tagged scriptwriting, tools, fictionYesterday’s question by KHaL, with his two narrators, brought to mind a novel I tried to read 12 years ago, “Atlas de Geografía Humana” by Almudena Grandes (who, coincidentally, is presenting a new novel these days). I had enjoyed her previous work, “Malena es un nombre de tango“, enough to give her another go. “Atlas…” [...]
Tagged advice, fiction