Tuesday, March 17, 2020

If You Havent Read These Short Stories, You Should

If You Havent Read These Short Stories, You Should Recently, the literary world has had good reason to become interested in short stories again. The Rogues anthology includes some great stories by George R.R. Martin, Neil Gaiman, Garth Nix and other literary greats meant to hold us over until Martin releases The Winds of Winter. This post wont harp on about those, because every blog on the face of the planet has tread that ground. The anthology is a reminder however, of short stories which have endured the test of time. These are some of the short stories that grab and dont let go, despite their age.The Swimmer, John Cheever (1968)The Swimmer is a masterclass in using language to convey a sensation, and an excellent introduction to surrealism. Though the initial events of the story are grounded in reality- a man in his prime taking it upon himself to journey home by swimming through all of the pools of his wealthy neighbors properties- it soon becomes a less literal experience. This work deals with class and social hierarchy, but tho se are the boring bits. The real meat is in Cheevers use of language to demonstrate the link between the primary ideas of his work. The concepts of alcoholism, swimming, wealth, and loss each blur into one another until it is unclear where one idea begins and the other ends. Read the swimmer slowly, and with an eye to the language used, and it wont disappoint.The concepts of alcoholism, swimming, wealth, and loss each blur into one another in Cheevers The Swimmer. Photo by Guduru Ajay bhargav from Pexels.The Yellow Wallpaper, Charlotte Perkins Gilman (1892)The Yellow Wallpaper is likewise, an introduction. This story is one of the earliest works of American feminist literature, and is written in the first person. This is a darker story, and can feel a bit stifling to read, but has been widely adapted to the stage. A performance often feels much more light-hearted than the brooding tone of the story, while conveying the deeper themes of the work undiluted. Suffice to say that this is an early discovery of feminist issues, written by a woman, from a womans perspective. It is especially concerned with the treatment of women by doctors, and by the men in their lives; and with the relationship between infants and their parents (both father and mother). A tense and sometimes horrifying narrative, The Yellow Wallpaper is worth the stress of reading it, and downright enjoyable on the stage.The Wendigo, Algernon Blackwood (1910)The Wendigo is a special type of horror which captures the sense and grandeur of the Canadian and American frontiers. Drawing inspiration from the myth of the Wendigo- a creature said to always feel hungry, and thus gorge itself unendingly- this story is slow to start, but offers a fully realized and captured sense of the loneliness and desolation of the wilderness, alongside the tensions which encourage belief in the supernatural. Readers who weather the introduction, and who appreciate the tension of the environment and the severe costs of dec isions in the wilderness, will be rewarded with a supernatural and surreal tale about what it means to be lost in the woods. This is a must-read for any Canadian or American who has found themselves beneath the snow-covered boughs of a forest in winter.The Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad (1899)The Heart of Darkness is a must-read, just as the movie it inspired- Apocalypse Now- might be considered a must-watch. The reason I suggest reading Joseph Conrad however, is not as a dry lesson in colonialism, but because like The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, The Heart of Darkness is a tale about how the journey changes the destination. Joseph Conrads contribution to literature, and his tale of men set off down a river, is so iconic that it is impossible not to see the reflection of certain scenes in other works- The Life of Pi, for instance, borrows Conrads imagery of encountering a tiger; and the recent film The Lost City of Z likewise draws strongly on the narrative tropes of the journe y into the unknown genre. For this reason, Conrads work cannot be overlooked, despite recent scholarly assertions that its depictions of colonialism have not aged well.The Black Cat, Edgar Allan Poe (1843)The Black Cat, sticks out as one of the greatest uses of an unreliable narrator in fiction- that is, the character telling the story has reason to avoid telling the whole truth. This story is ostensibly horrific, but is the kind of horror which creates dread rather than fear or disgust. It is written from the perspective of a condemned man, of arguable sanity, and follows the chain of events leading up to that characters crime and subsequent sentence to hang. What makes this story worth reading is the vivid descriptions of the narrators actions, which lead a reader to believe in the validity of the actions, despite ample reason to doubt that characters claims. Couple this with the symbolism throughout the short story, and a dark conclusion, and The Black Cat stands out as a special type of brooding horror, perfect for reading by candlelight. Of course, Poe is famous for stories like this, and those who enjoy The Black Cat should also read The Purloined Letter.The Magic Shop, H. G. Wells (1903)Stories like The Magic Shop, are astounding in their quickness. A very light read, this story will remind Harry Potter fans of the room of requirement. It is also an example of a short story which creates a world in your mind, building the size, and shape, and occupants of the eponymous magic shop until they stick out vividly in your mind. This story captures the sense of wonder present in a child watching a display of magic, and twists it ever so slightly so that undercurrents of danger lurk. For the scholarly minded, the story paints an interesting picture of masculine parenthood in the late 1800s.The Gift of the Magi, O. Henry (1905)This story is a classic; and even if few remember its name, almost everyone has heard it told (and retold). The Gift of the Magi is impor tant because it demonstrates the inherent value in self-sacrifice, and because it is one of the few short stories that is neither horror, nor suspenseful; but which builds a narrative in the span of less than three pages, and delivers an ending which reveals a magnificent amount about both characters in the tale, and about love in general. Of the stories here, this is one of the shortest, and is also the most likely to be enjoyed by any reader, whether for the first time, or as it sparks their memory of having read it- or heard it told- in the past.Beyond the Door, Philip K. Dick (1954)Beyond the Door is an exercise in weirdness and will leave the reader unresolved. A departure from Philip K. Dicks normally light tone, and from his normally science-fiction works. This is the amusing, strange, and violent tale of a cuckoo clock and adultery. A very quick read, Beyond the Door is recommended here because it is hard to make heads or tails of, and it certainly tells a unique tale about marriage and how relationships can fall apart when viewed differently from each side.The Bet, Anton P. Chekhov (1889)The Bet is another, like Beyond the Door, which may leave readers unresolved. It is a short, short story discussing the virtues of morality and wealth, via the narrative device of a bet between two men regarding which is the greater punishment: death, or life imprisonment. Each character involved in the bet- a lawyer and a banker- are flawed, and so the outcome is ambiguous in some ways, but poses questions about what was sacrificed during the bet, and why each character lost gained wealth or morality by having made the bet. The bet itself is meaningful, rather than simply the outcome.Chekhovs The Bet is a short, short story discussing the virtues of morality and wealth. Photo by Thgusstavo Santana from Pexels.Araby, James Joyce (1914)Araby is perhaps another must-read piece, especially because it deals with the conflict between imagined or ideal circumstances, and re ality. It is interesting because of the way children, particularly the child whose point of view the story is written from, are described. Often, characters are light, or glowing, or otherwise magical. This attribute is given to children, despite the environment they are being raised in, which is grim. As the story progresses, the idea that children are ideal is tarnished, and the outcome of the story can be interpreted in a number of ways. We might conclude that a journey to the Araby bazaar is a journey into adulthood and that the change in the protagonists perspective is one created by a coming of age; or else we can view all of the romantic ideals at the outset of the story as simply a falsehood or faà §ade, which was never truly indicative of what the boy was experiencing. In either case, Araby will likely leave a hole in your heart, and make you think about who you were when you were young- and of course, that means you should read it.To concludeThe stories here are classics, but also powerful. Most of them are quite short, and great for a bite-sized piece of literary snack while we wait for George R. R. Martin to finish his next full-sized novel; or just so we remember some of the short stories which have helped shape the stories being told now. Its always good to know where stories come from, and how they change.

Sunday, March 1, 2020

Definition and Examples of Lowercase Letters in English

Definition and Examples of Lowercase Letters in English In the printed alphabet  and orthography, the term lowercase  (sometimes spelled as two words) refers to small letters (a,b,c . . .) as distinguished from capital letters (A,B,C . . . ). Also known as  minuscule  (from Latin  minusculus, rather small). The writing system of English (as in most Western languages) uses a dual alphabet or  bicameral scriptthat is, a combination of lowercase and uppercase letters. By convention, lowercase is generally used for the letters in all words except for the initial letter in  proper nouns  and in words that begin sentences. (For exceptions, see Names With Unusual Capitalization, below.) Origin and Evolution of Lowercase Letters Originally, lower case letters stood by themselves. Their forms derived from the penned Carolingian minuscule. The upper and lower case letters received their present form in the Renaissance. The serifs of the capitals, or upper case letters, were adapted to those of the lower case alphabet. The capitals are based on an incised or chiseled letter; the lower case characters are based on a pen-written calligraphic form. Now the two kinds of letters appear together. (Jan Tschichold, Treasury of Alphabets and Lettering. Norton, 1995)Upper and lower case? The term comes from the position of the loose metal or wooden letters laid in front of the traditional compositors hands before they were used to form a word- the commonly used ones on an accessible lower level, the capitals above them, waiting their turn. Even with this distinction, the compositor would still have to mind their ps and qs, so alike were they when each letter was dismantled from a block of type and then tossed back into t he compartments of a tray. (Simon Garfield, True to Type: How We Fell in Love With Our Letters. The Observer, October 17, 2010) Names With Unusual Capitalization Several coinages provide a new look to English spelling, especially with names. We have never seen anything before quite like the use of a lower-case initial for a brand-name, as in iPod, iPhone, iSense and eBay, or airline companies such as easyJet and jetBlue, and it is not yet clear how to handle them, especially when we want one of these words to begin a sentence. There are precedents for introducing a capital in the middle of a word (as in such names as McDonalds and chemical substances such as CaSi, calcium silicate), but brand names have hugely increased its everyday visibility, as seen in AltaVista, AskJeeves, PlayStation, YouTube and MasterCard. (David Crystal, Spell It Out. Picador, 2012)Brand names or names of companies that are spelled with a lowercase initial letter followed by a capital letter (eBay, iPod iPhone, etc.) need not be capitalized at the beginning of a sentence or heading, though some editors may prefer to reword. This departure from Chicagos former usage re cognizes not only the preferred usage of the owners of most such names but also the fact that such spellings are already capitalized (if on the second letter). Company or product names with additional, internal capitals (sometimes called midcaps) should likewise be left unchanged. (​The Chicago Manual of Style, 16th ed.The University of Chicago Press, 2010)  Ã‚  Ã¢â‚¬â€¹ Xerox or xerox? The dropping of the capital letter of the trademark is one piece of certain evidence that the trademark has indeed become generic...The OED [Oxford English Dictionary] lists XEROX both as capitalized, and in lower case, as well as a trademark and generic term: a proprietary name for photocopiers . . . also used loosely to denote any photocopy (20: 676). This definition points out clearly that xerox, either capitalized or in lower case, is used throughout the population as both a proper adjective and as a noun. (Shawn M. Clankie, Brand Name Use in Creative Writing: Genericide or Language Right? in Perspectives on Plagiarism and Intellectual Property in a Postmodern World, ed. Lise Buranen and Alice M. Roy. SUNY Press, 1999)A good rule to follow is that most trademarks are adjectives, not nouns or verbs. Use trademarks as modifiers as in Kleenex tissues or Xerox copiers. Similarly, trademarks are not verbsyou can copy on a Xerox machine, but you cannot xerox anything.(Jill B. Treadwell , Public Relations Writing. Sage, 2005) Pronunciation: lo-er-KAS Alternate Spellings: lower case, lower-case