The Art of Becoming: Sherwood Anderson, Frank Sargeson and the

Journal of New Zealand Literature
The Art of Becoming: Sherwood Anderson, Frank Sargeson and the Grotesque Aesthetic
Author(s): Melissa Gniadek
Reviewed work(s):
Source: Journal of New Zealand Literature: JNZL, No. 23, Part 2 (2005), pp. 21-35
Published by: Journal of New Zealand Literature and hosted by the University of Waikato
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20112398 .
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The Art of Becoming:
Frank Sargeson
Sherwood
Anderson,
and the Grotesque
Aesthetic
Melissa
Gniadek
in 1941, Sherwood Anderson,
best known for his
novel Winesburg Ohio, has been both celebrated
1919 composite
as a great American
to the task of creating
writer committed
Since his death
writer
literature, and derided as aMidwestern
recent
criticism has taken the former
ability. Much
durable American
of mediocre
but also recognizing
stance, admitting Anderson's
shortcomings,
of
his
of
the
subtle
frustrated,
genius
representations
Americans
who
face both ghosts of the past and
marginalized
more
immediate
Anderson
has
as Malcolm
forces.
alienating
been
increasingly
most
Perhaps
as
recognized
labelled
Cowley
to Winesburg, Ohio:
him
in
his
importantly,
'a writer's
writer',
quoted
storyteller of his
left his mark on the style and vision of the
generation who
that
followed.'
Indeed, his direct influence on literary
generation
and Faulkner
is well-documented,
giants including Hemingway
from Sinclair Lewis to
and he would pave the way for writers
introduction
'...The
a
self-proclaimed
Philip Roth. Anderson,
never
have
probably
imagined, however,
side of the earth.
extend to the opposite
The
6 November
1935
father'.
'American Man', could
that his influence would
later be referred
In
literary 'founding
literary devices,
praised Anderson's
country's
Sargeson
only
issue of Tomorrow, a liberal
in Christchurch,
New Zealand,
article
titled
'Sherwood
simply
weekly
independent
published
a brief
included
laudatory
written by the man who would
Anderson',
the
widely
21
to as
this piece, Frank
from his use of
Journal ofNew
Zealand Literature
sentences to his ability to make
repetition and 'short, suggestive'
understand
how
his
characters
feel by placing himself inside
'you
their skins'.
In the following
and
years these literary devices
values would
often
on
in essays
authors
What
been
be
identified
at least mentioned
critics have
as
Sargeson's
the connection
life
Sargeson's
Sargeson's
influence
style
For
work.
early
of
and many
the two
and work.
the two have
do exist between
comparisons
to issues
limited
own,
between
and
execution
seen
have
many
example,
generally
surrounding
the
of Anderson's
prose style in the language and rhythms
found in the New Zealander's
short stories.
of everyday
speech
in the tradition of Mark Twain
and Van
operating
a
career
had
built
his
around
Brooks,
Wyck
literary
rejection of
'neat slick writing', dramatizing
instead 'the crude expression'
of
Anderson,
lives. 'And if we are a crude and childlike people, how
people's
can our literature
hope to escape the influence of that fact? Why,
to escape?' wrote Anderson
in 1917.
indeed, should we want
career seemed
The
first phase of Sargeson's
to ask similar
questions
his
through
inarticulate
characters
was
vernacular
that
are often
credited
literary voice
stories
new
with
with
peopled
whose
speech
to New
Zealand
New
giving
class,
working
was
stories
literature,
a
in
conveyed
that
a distinctive
Zealanders
and with
capturing the spirit of the nation.
career
in the direction of longer
eventually moved
Sargeson's
works featuring articulate, well-educated
narrators, and this shift
has proved
difficult
have
to reconcile
around
developed
mention
of Andersonian
literature
concerning
that
pervasive
the critical
themes
as
later works,
between
the
that
surprisingly,
disappear from
and values
on the level of
language
resonances
analyses
Not
two
similarities
are
all
the
no
and style. Deeper,
authors
lie beneath
shared use of seemingly
short
simple characters,
are
and colloquial
however.
bound
up
They
language
is perhaps the most provocative,
and certainly the most
initial
sentences
in what
often
with
earlier work.
Sargeson's
longer clearly evident
more
his
quoted
sentence
of
Sargeson's
22
essay
on
Anderson.
The Art
of Becoming
'Anderson has lived his life in an environment
Sargeson wrote,
similar to our own, raw, aesthetically hostile; yet by his courage
a first-rate artist' (15). When
and his sincerity he has become
Sargeson
early laconic prose
style to long,
a reliance on the
a
implied author to
from
shifted
his
from
sentences,
complex
more direct, articulate narrative voice, most
stylistic similarities
to Anderson
have
but
the
fundamental
shared
may
disappeared,
influence
manifests
aesthetic
for
of
that
environment
remained.
It
'raw, hostile'
in Sargeson's
in part, through an
later writings,
so familiar that it is now often taken
that has become
itself
granted.
That
literature,
aesthetic?the
but
in
grotesque?has
the
come
has
incompatibles
the
innocence
capturing
past century
to be viewed
and
a long history
irresolvable
its
in art and
clash
as an ideal manner
of
of
horror
of modernity,
and of
name
from the self and others. Anderson's
subsequent alienation
has long been inseparable
American
characters
are,
literature, but
have
as Lawrence
been
Jones
from
the concept
it is only
has
recently
as
recognized
of the grotesque
in
that Sargeson's
later
'grotesques',
commented,
'openly
in works
and
that
sometimes
eccentric
and idiosyncratic'.
From the characters
magnificently
of The Hangover (1967), to those of The Joy of theWorm (1969) and
Man ofEngland Now (1972), Sargeson's creations share the quirky
excess
and the complex
that define Anderson's
oppositions
more
and
the
aesthetic
It is the pivotal
grotesques,
generally.
novel Memoirs of a Peon (1965) that best offers a procession
of
boundless
characters
constantly
through
when
which,
social and
shifting
with
Anderson's
spaces
physical
compared
facets of these writers' developing
Winesburg Ohio, illuminates
settler societies; societies grappling with the effects of a Puritan
the increasing obsession with material wealth
that
monoculture,
it engendered,
and the realities of Utopian dreams
23
gone
awry.
Journal ofNew
Zealand Literature
Incomplete
Both Anderson
in
change
Metamorphosis
and Sargeson
their
nations'
pasts;
were writing
moments
at times
of
of immense
great
as
expansion
as attitudes
industrialization
toward work,
flourished,
leisure,
to
and
the
self
results
shifted,
consumption,
bringing unimagined
the 'unique experiments'
that the nations were based upon. It is
such periods of transition that the grotesque
tradition best suits:
'Times of change,
periods which,
the
like the carnival
season...elicit
of
response
"carnivalesque"
bewildering
fecundating
distressful
and spaces
imagery, characters
delight'.
Grotesque
reflect cultural shocks and shifting traditions, offering new ways
a world that is no longer quite familiar. Bakhtin
of experiencing
realm
carnivalesque
the basis of his discussion
made
this
pleasure
ways his analysis helps to capture
shifting, 'raw, hostile' environments
portray
might
For
through
have been
of
and primitive
physicality
of the grotesque,
and in many
the essence
of
the constantly
and Sargeson
that Anderson
their grotesques; worlds
and what was becoming.
caught
between
what
of grotesque
imagery lies in the
so
are
in both
of
the
that
body
prevalent
exaggerated portrayals
The gaping,
irrational features that course
writers'
characters.
the basis
Bakhtin,
through
absurdity,
these
the sense
establish
immediately
at
that
is
the
heart of
comedy
books
and
horror
Anderson's
From
grotesque.
Wing
or
hands
uncontrollable
fluttering
persistent
Eddie
eye
twitch,
and Spots,
to
Sargeson's
or his Uncle
disintegrating
perpetually
and disconcerting,
making
Biddlebaum
Jesse
comic
Bentley
Hilary,
body, characters
with
his
with
his
coaches,
gymnasium
the academic
of
the
recluse with
remain
a
unresolved
up a series of strange, uncomfortable
incompatibilities.
The oddities
of the carnivalesque
extend
and incompleteness
not only to the characters who
flit in and out of the narrative,
the central
and Michael
but to George Willard
Newhouse,
24
The Art
of Becoming
the fact that he is present in nearly
of each book. Despite
in
remains an intangible
Ohio, George
story
Winesburg
figures
every
mass
being?a
of
ideas?some
to be a writer,
desire
consistent
but most
concrete
and
like
his
and shifting. His
as a reporter he
and
specific,
for other people's
tales. While
undeveloped
is never made
physical appearance
is, for the most part, a receptacle
he serves as the novel's only means of ordering and presenting
he does not leave the reader with a firm sense of
information,
an
remaining
of communion
himself,
moment
isolated
his
enigma
despite
fleeting
in the town's
Helen White
with
band-stand.
decaying
a much
more
maintains
of a Peon, Michael
in
in
that
book than does George
physical presence
In Memoirs
significant
to a more
traditional view of the
Ohio, conforming
as
but
is completely
grotesque,
remaining
just
enigmatic. Michael
to
reconcile
his
unable
intellectual
and carnal
incongruous,
Winesburg
desires, and even seemingly unable to decide whether he prefers
men or women,
every effort to live up to his literary
despite
of
namesake
with
Casanova.
his mental
sexual
I had
'...
and
rough
...I
could
have
and
it was
a
to
I
search
would
least
the
intellectual
one
best
illustration
feature,
redeeming
of
Neanderthal man
hope
an
glass
and
for
instead
did
that
with
ruefully
facially
attempt
at
was
of
stature,
far
features,
for
his
man
Michael:
of
a successful
in the
anxiously
I could
suggestion
myself
to control
young
lengthening
facial
that my
interests,
the
prove
might
attempts
comments
some
with
to me
is at odds
example,
a muscular
into
appearance',
done
contradict
training
for
build,
grown
rocky
grief
my
revealing
all
athletic
and his sporadic
pursuits
appetite.
somewhat
His
from
at
nothing
adequate
...
I
pugilist.
some
sign
of
to
serve
reconstruction
at
that
conclude
as
an
of
(48).
as a grotesque
of Michael
quite
primitive,
description
a
man
in
is
unfinished,
literally
keeping with ideas of his sexual
This
25
Zealand Literature
Journal ofNew
an odd juxtaposition with his lust after
appetite, but provides
that he too remains an
culture and book
learning, ensuring
uncertain entity, caught between
the values of his forefathers and
the
a more
of
desires
modern
age.
then, like the various characters whose
cross
course
in
the
of these books, reinforce Bakhtin's
paths they
that 'the confines between
the body and the world
contention
George
and Michael
genre
separate bodies are drawn in the grotesque
than in the classic and naturalist
images' (315),
quite differently
of the idea that the grotesque
reinforcement
and his continual
and between
body
is one
'in the act of becoming.
It is never
finished, never
and builds and creates
it is continually
bu?t, created,
completed;
not only their physical instability,
another body' (317). Through
and status as
but their corresponding
psychological
ambiguity
perpetually
'deep'
unfolding
forms
of
Since
of
and Boundaries
these
a visual
largely
the act of
resist
is further extended
grotesques
narrative and geographical
territory of the
the basis of the grotesque,
aesthetic is
carnivalesque
incompleteness
through the complex
novels.
of these novels
knowing.
Borders
The
the characters
beings,
and physical one defined
the aesthetic's
becoming',
by incomplete bodies 'in
is often
spatial nature
Indeed, both Winesburg Ohio and Memoirs of a Peon are
the first a composite
novel made up of
spatially oriented works,
across
the social and geographical
stories scattered
episodic
realm of the American Mid-West,
the second aligning itself with
critical.
the picaresque
tradition and similarly composed
of an assortment
a
moments
of
society.
offering
fragmented view of New Zealand
to
The episodic nature of each book enables the grotesques
flit past the reader's eye, dropping an image or association before
moving
on toward
the fringes
of the narrative.
26
These
characters
The Art
seem
to
a
over
out
stretch
horizontal
thin,
of Becoming
'a
surface,
long
the
that pass before
of figures', like the grotesques
procession
in
of
the
Ohio.1
While
of
the
old
writer
eyes
Winesburg,
prologue
crossroads',
them,
the
encouraging
process brings
the participant
reader
at 'symbolic
do overlap
'"'to
and
juxtapose
out
them
a
series
102). The
spatial reality' (Hayman,
a
that each novel offers maps
society,
snapshots
into
vertically
and
'eternally
town
between
the
another',8
between
'integrated
world-wide
and
horizontally,
a world
to describe
and
the
the
characters
suspended
on
between
city,
in-between
of
frenetic
then,
in
converge
the realm of the colonial
by modern
intellectual
It is this
counterpose
into a developing
series". The
to mind a canvas, which
like
the reader-viewer,
in time only to translate it
in a carnival, perceives
to stretch
and
and events
characters
largely discrete,
the flat
one
lake plain
century
intellectual
community'.9
realm that Claudio
Gorlier
and
and one
into a
and communication
transportation
both
space
addressed
when writing of 'a territory with jagged borders. Rural and urban
to display "the
locales seldom coalesce;
rather, they combine
a
a
of what "being"
New Zealander
making of New Zealander,"
means...the
individual
self proceeds
the
along
paths of an
could easily apply not
labyrinth'.10 This same comment
to
to
but
Anderson's
and to the American
only
Sargeson's work,
as
and nationalism
he was writing. The
regionalism
developing
borders
that define the social and geographical
space of both
endless
a
Winesburg Ohio and Memoirs of Peon are largely those between
rural and urban
and between
social
spaces,
corresponding
are
and
world
views.
These
critical
in
any
oppositions
settings
developing
Anderson
as
particularly
significant
towns, initially symbols of
the frontier, became
sites of
society, and were
and Sargeson wrote. Small
settler
'civilization'
in the wilderness
'incompleteness,
anticipation
of
and...practice',11
as
they
grew
into
larger cities, rather than places offering
stability or any kind of
solution to the problems
of settlement. Large towns and cities
to develop
to be
into new
that needed
seemed
frontiers
27
Zealand Literature
Journal ofNew
in turn, and any sense of a rational,
in the chaotic tangle of urban space.
self disappeared
and
negotiated
knowable
tamed
a
ideas of the city, of course,
then generated
negative
an
a
sense
romantic nostalgia for
of unity that
agrarian past and
may never have existed in the first place.
More
In
the borders
between
these
the
realms,
emphasizing
to
or
extent
not
divisions within them, and the
which
do
they do
both
Anderson
and
take
familiar,
effectually
overlap,
Sargeson
knowable
of
landscapes?that
the
rural,
town
agrarian
and
the
de-familiarize
city?and
developing
on the irrational and
their
them through their emphasis
of oppositions
and
highlighting
to the reader's
contributes
resulting
or
of
his
her
of
these
spaces and to the
questioning
conception
of a destabilized world
in transition.12 Perhaps
acknowledgment
The
changes.
discomfort
not
this spatial discomfort
and the uneasiness
surprisingly,
characters
caused by the excess and irrationality of the grotesque
in his study of literature and
Franco Moretti,
goes hand-in-hand.
that
concludes
space,
are often
'borders'.
'comic
spatially oriented,
In
this
sense,
and
generally
acts
'space
characters'
"tr?gico-sublime"
being
in proximity
found
upon
style,
producing
to
a
towards
the
deviation
(towards
tragedy and comedy:
a
In
Ohio
Peon
the
and
Memoirs
and
"low")'.13
Winesburg
of
"high"
double
such
comic,
tragic
characters?grotesques?are
there are borders
everywhere; borders between
and New.
low
and
culture, Old World
high
Mapping
everywhere,
as
rural and urban,
Irrationality
centred around a
Anderson's
novel
is obviously
Although
a
town
in
rural
is
Ohio
which
small,
given
physical presence
a
many editions of the book through the inclusion of
simple map
the town, and the city is, for the most part, a distant focal
are increasingly
oriented
activities
all of Winesburg's
point,
of
28
The Art
of Becoming
the 'privileged setting' of the city, an ideal and simplified
lines of sight and projects of
'toward which
vanishing
point
'lines of sight'
every kind converge'
(Fisher, 1985, 9). The
toward
toward that setting are made rather explicit in the image
the two places. The train is the
of the train tracks that connect
most pervasive
of the outside
indication of the encroachment
directed
on Winesburg,
and in several stories its noise is noted in
It is explicitly described as a tool of developing
the background.
commerce
and of migration,
'twisted little
taking the town's
to 'apartments that are filled with books,
apples', to the cities
and
furniture,
(36). The city is, then, a space
magazines,
people'
world
both its products
that is in the process of consuming Winesburg,
and people, its ways and values, and is rarely described positively.
never
either
People
return
from
its
or
clutches,
come
they
forever changed.
hurrying back toWinesburg
the city is only a shadowy presence,
its influence is
Although
not only
in taking people
and things away from
evident
but in the transformations
that the town itself
Winesburg,
in
and
undergoes
the
In one of the book's most
its residents.
alienation
and
grotesqueness
increasing
overt
indications
of
of these
'The farmer by the stove is brother to
writes,
the men of the cities, and if you listen you will find him talking as
glibly and as senselessly as the best city man of us all' (71). With
trends Anderson
statements
such
seems
Anderson
to
merge
the
of
space
city
and
does remain a
town, physically
socially. While Winesburg
a
more
little
than
small
distinct space, boasting
general store, a
it from outside
the line separating
and three doctors,
hotel,
are joined
and
values
is
The
realms
blurred.
spaces
increasingly
and
by
the
of grotesques
procession
shaped to varying degrees
carnivalesque
the book,
through
the
frontier,
community's
puritanical
and
materialism,
overpowering
industrialization
and urbanization
from
farm
to
town
to
29
by
background,
the
forcing
city.
that marches
encroaching
a temporal
the harsh
a
related
forces
progression
of
Journal ofNew
Zealand Literature
of a Peon, on the other hand, centres around the
but Michael's wanderings
take him
city of Auckland,
developing
a range of other spaces that stand in opposition
to the
through
Memoirs
young
the grotesques
who
those
populate
as the
the novel begins,
is portrayed
at the time of
town
that it was
service
and
city,
through
where
spaces. Hamilton,
small agricultural
is feeling the
birth, but a place that, like Winesburg,
industrialization
and change. Rotorua, which Michael
Sargeson's
effects of
visits
a social
seems
the Gower-Johnsons,
space of
one
to
size
but
filled with the leisure and
Hamilton,
with
comparable
resources
boundless
the
collide.
in contrast
Standing
that remain
class; a space where
of the upper-middle
new and old world
to these developing
towns are the places
rural and associated with agrarian values.
The most
isolated,
notable of these
basement
of
is the family farm where Michael was
the rural space and the small town is
while
both
born,
opposing
moves
the city itself. As Michael
spending
through Auckland,
to the
from a downtown
time everywhere
boarding-house
of
parade
Meiklejohn
her
a
former
daughter
a
with
caresses
who
cheek,
reaches
grotesques
in Freeman's
maker
doll's-eye
its
climax.
strawberry
prominent
coos
and
From
over
the
Bay,
the
Lolly,
birthmark
Michael's
on
threadbare
to the Richies, the seemingly perfect young couple who
overcoat,
are founding an organization
for the defence of the married state
the idiosyncratic
characters
their
abusive
relationship,
despite
that
in
flit
out
and
of
the
narrative
it with
sprinkle
force the reader
sense of irrationality
and
overwhelming
or
sense
its dynamics.
his
of
this
and
her
space
question
characters within
The physical
locations of many
space
are
thoughtfully
discrepancies
contrast
which
with
Ponsonby.
each
by his
with
stint with
Placing
Moira's
grotesque
time
others. Michael's
is associated
followed
to emphasize
juxtaposed
to make
and
the pretentious
the proletarian
flat,
30
seem
in Remuera,
in which
to
this city
ironic social
more
so
in
for example,
Gower-Johnsons,
Meiklejohn
Michael
an
is
in
family
is literally
The Art
reduced
of Becoming
to an animal crawling on his belly, in close proximity
to
Street house where he first developed
his sense of
and language emphasizes
the constant conflict between
the Wynyard
culture
the bodily and the intellectual, and also contrasts the progressive
feminist Moira's world of outcasts with the Old World
gentry
and his Uncle Hilary
by Michael's
represented
grandparents
(Ower, 315). Situating both in an area which was, at the time
the novel, being taken over by university
when Sargeson wrote
and
further contrasts Old and
student
boarding-houses
buildings
of values
learning and culture. Such juxtapositions
and desires, of spaces and borders, and of the grotesques who
sense of a society in
inhabit them, further reinforce the novel's
New World
transition.
Transcendence
Ultimately,
the incomplete
status of
these
and
grotesques
inhabit combine
the
to
that they
spaces
carnivalesque
episodic,
indicate what Philip Fisher has termed a 'damaged social space'.
In discussing
the spatial structure of slavery in Harriet Beecher
Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin, Fisher writes of 'a nation of patches
and islandlike worlds
of differential
of life... islands and patches
of
emptiness
flight....'
laws, social codes, and ways
of social fact scattered across a great
Both
Anderson's
Midwest
and
seem
Zealand
New
with
similarly
fragmented,
that operate within what Fisher describes as island-like
scenes and brief stories [that] make up a narrative
'disconnected
structure of glimpses',
and within worlds where
social norms
Sargeson's
characters
seem not
to exist. These
their episodic nature,
novels?through
ensure
of
borders
that everyone
which
is an
their proliferation
are
their characters who
outsider
and an observer,
through
themselves
damaged,
becoming?emphasize
unfinished
and in the act of
perpetually
the absence
of idealized,
undamaged
31
Zealand Literature
Journal ofNew
democratic
to
place
space which
achieved
founders,
but
each
are
rather
are
These
from
not
places
ideals set out by their
Utopian
'raw',
identical
being
transparent.
the egalitarian,
character may
as
defines
and
unbounded,
place,
that have
while
Fisher
and
'hostile',
Yet
problematic.
reflect
the disorienting
conditions
of
collision of older puritanical values
his or her surroundings?the
with modern
realities, the gaps between
city and country, Old
and New?and
while
each character may find him or
World
in some way
herself
limited or confined
by these factors,
transcend
these
their
borders
ultimately
they
through
grotesqueness,
inhabiting a constantly
shifting world that cannot
it.
contain the figures that move
through
Fisher writes that the function of an artist can be to take what
is
that
they
present
their
of
fragmentation
of a 'damaged
as
contrary,
their
as
and
metamorphosis,
are
grotesques
are
to
entirely
space'
space
alleviate
the
are
their
On
pessimistic.
of
images
out
spread
by
nor
social
neither
environments,
social
they
a coherent
in order
emulated
social
'a composition
Anderson
neither
for
suggestions
be
will
hope
depictions
the
to
seek
to
it
subject
While
90).
1988,
(Fisher,
reassembly'
Sargeson
and
scattered'
'socially
an
over
incomplete
open,
equally
and
unfinished,
space, they are constantly
expanding
developing
a
a
seems
to
not
horizon
that
if
toward
offer,
moving
conceptual
some sort of alternative.
degree of hope, then at least
Both Anderson
America
and
spoke of an emptiness
and Sargeson
New
an
Zealand,
can
that
emptiness
to life in
be
as
seen
intellectual and emotional.
Sargeson once commented,
physical,
at that where you have an
'Now it is surely not to be wondered
in
the modern
sense, you will find many
aggregation of people
for
the
absence of a central core
substitutes, which
compensate
of belief.
... The
positions
in New
vacant....'15
'central
Sargeson
distressing
Zealand
these
While
core
of
speaks
belief
of,
fact of
are
grotesques
with
the space
which
the matter
usually
to
discovered
certainly
to fill
is taken up by
32
is that central
do
the
not
be
a
offer
absence
that
their unresolved
The Art
of Becoming
and words,
toward
constantly
moving
thoughts
never
Stasis
but
but
resolution,
arriving.
might inspire pessimism,
of voices and images overflowing
with
the cacophony
life, the
bodies,
at their seams,
and imploding,
exploding
bursting
or
enclosure
boundaries,
escaping
seeking it, that these
crossing
a
of
novels
kind
present
joyous insanity. Poignant
provide
bodies
in the
of damage and frustration are embedded
in
and
distorted
bodies
of
and
these
characters,
fleeting images
the fragmented
social spaces they inhabit, but there is also a
manifestations
a comedie
respect,
to offer
something
contain
and a belief that they have
appreciation,
to the art form that cannot quite manage
to
them.
Anderson
While
in light of
prose
and Sargeson have typically been compared
the older writer's
influence on the younger's
early
there
style,
are,
then,
respective
artistic visions.
grotesque
transitions
aesthetic
in
and
alienation
That
authors
the
tensions
hostile'
'raw, aesthetically
as
a result
the materialism
seem
resonances
both
to capture
frustration
and
past
puritan
deeper
of
of
turn to the
should
and dynamics
societies
of
experiencing
modern
a
between
caught
being
a more
their
between
age
not
does
in
open
space
entirely surprising.
are composed
of fleeting
characters
and
images
an
world, is an
incomplete flashes of humanity in
ever-expanding
ideal forum for presenting
such issues. In a more
unlikely
The
of
the carnival,
which
manner,
the
however,
between
these
characters
spaces
permeable
and
the
spaces
within
existing
of
the
country,
and
town
that epitomize
and city that they inhabit, create dialogic works
or their worlds,
the problems of ever 'knowing' these grotesques
while
the
the faith these
simultaneously
evincing
of their art to offer boundless
power
improbable
frustrations
manner.
sense,
the
life
placed in
in a most
specific tragedies and
are not as critical as the
of their individual grotesques
life the characters offer to the
texts, the literary
and
the redeeming
excess,
suggest
are
it
that
embedded
somewhere within
all.
overflowing
control
required
qualities
In that
authors
to
that
33
Journal ofNew
Zealand Literature
Notes
1
2
Sherwood Anderson,
1.
Frank
(v.2,
'Sherwood
Sargeson,
14-15.
no.2),pp.
part,
a
by
of
sketches
being
sketches
I would
Anderson'.
His
that
Sinclaire
chatty
an
'For
had
of
on
prompted,in
one
of
the
re-reading
Sargeson
behind
spirit
or
the
Sherwood
a month
appeared
in
Sargeson's
response,
of Whitman,
Anderson
1935
of Tomorrow,
edition
In
autobiography.
a
was
essay
accused
understanding
suggest
essay
this
1960), p.
6 November
Tomorrow,
in an earlier
appearing
Frederick
that
suggested
Anderson',
It is
possible
commentary
Professor
which
Winesburg Ohio (New York: Viking,
later.
Michael King, Frank Sargeson,A Life (Auckland: Penguin,
See
1995), p.
154.
3
Sherwood
'An
Anderson,
University
of Illinois Press, 1985), p. 333.
Lawrence
Jones,
'Frank
David
Hayman,
Great
(Urbana:
New
Zealand
(16) 1998, pp. 72-85 (p. 77).
a Mechanics
Toward
the
and
Sargeson
New ZealandUterature
Novel', Journal of
5
in Utters
reprinted
toMarietta D. F inky, 1916-33
to Bab: SherwoodAnderson
4
for Crudity',
Apology
of Mode:
Bakhtin',
Beyond
Novel (Winter 1983) pp. 101-120 (p. 105).
6
See
M.M.
Rabelais
Bakhtin,
and His
World,
translated
by
Helene
the
Moral
Iswolsky (Cambridge, Mass: M.I.T. Press, 1968), p. 316.
7
8
Sherwood
David
Anderson,
D.
p. 22.
Ohio,
Winesburg
'Sherwood
Anderson,
Anderson
and
Geography of Ohio', Societyfor the Study ofMidwestern Uterature, 23:
Fall 1993, pp. 8-16 (p. 9).
9
'Wrzard's
J.B. Ower,
Landfaim-. Dec
10
Claudio
Wiebe,
and
Multidisciplinar^
Frank
Frank
Essays
Voice
Concealed
on Canada,
34
a Peon'",
Experience:
in Robert Kroetsch,
in Regionalism
Sargeson',
of
(p. 308).
the
'Confronting
and the National
"Memoirs
Sargeson's
1972, pp. 308-321
Gorlier,
Regionalism
Brew:
Australia
and National
and New
Rudy
Identity:
Zealand,
ed.
The Art
Reginald Berry and James Acheson
Canadian
in Australia
Studies
of Becoming
(Christchurch: Association
and New
Zealand,
pp.
1985),
for
495-503
(p. 501).
11
12
Philip Fisher, Hard Facts: Setting and Form in theAmerican Novel
York: Oxford University Press, 1985), pp. 60-101 (p. 129).
In
critics
contrast,
societies
and
seen
have
'without
use
of
of
very
familiar
the
in
to
other
any
'this
Both
and make
a discussion
of
Cather
'Landscapes
of
the
and
the
Cather
start
Sargeson
For
comfortable.
and
a
to
itself
see Manuel
grotesque
in Willa
Magical',
less
States.
to lie
beyond
lends
and
a bit
but
space
United
seems
thus
Anderson
them
settler
unique
the
landscape
and
mind,'
grotesque.
spaces
of
the
them,
shape
mythical,
region
Broncano,
the
a
of
developing
that
processes
as
use
Cather's
indicate
Southwest
rational
the
of
Willa
carnivalesque
to Manuel
reach
identified
transformative
referents'
development
with
the
her
According
the
the
and
grotesque
have
(New
Broncano,
the American
Southwest (University of Nebraska Press, 2002).
13 Franco
New
14
Philip
Promise
Special
Atlas
Moretti,
York:
Verso,
Fisher,
of
Issue:
of the European
1998),
'Democratic
Social
American
America
1800-1900
Novel,
(London,
p. 43.
Space:
Transparency',
Whitman,
Melville
and
No.
Representations,
Reconstructed,
1840-1940
in Kevin
Cunningham,
(Autumn,
the
24:
1988),
p. 77.
15 Frank
Sargeson,
interview
ed. Conversation
a Train And Other Critical Writings (Auckland: Auckland
Press; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1983), p. 96.
35
University
in