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The Book of the Grotesque

Page history last edited by David Hodges 14 years ago

The Book of the Grotesque

by Sherwood Anderson

 

Sherwood Anderson was an American writer born in Ohio in 1912. This story, "The Book of the Grotesque," is the first story in Anderson's most famous book, Winesburg, Ohio, which made him famous and celebrated for about 10 years, after which Anderson's reputation faded and he suffered a nervous breakdown. Winesburg, Ohio is a collection of stories, each a portrait of a particular character from a small town in Ohio, much like the town Anderson was born in.

 

After reading the story, make predictions about the rest of the book. What do you suppose the characters will have in common? What will Anderson's approach be to their lives and personalities? Who does the old writer with the white mustache represent? Why does the story begin by introducing the character of the carpenter?

 

 

The writer, an old man with a white mustache, had some difficulty in getting into bed. The windows of the house in which he lived were high and he wanted to look at the trees when he awoke in the morning. A carpenter came to fix the bed so that it would be on a level with the window.

 

     Quite a fuss was made about the matter. The carpenter, who had been a soldier in the Civil War, came into the writer's room and sat down to talk of building a platform for the purpose of raising the bed. The writer had cigars lying about and the carpenter smoked.

 

     For a time the two men talked of the raising of the bed and then they talked of other things. The soldier got on the subject of the war. The writer, in fact, led him to that subject. The carpenter had once been a prisoner in Andersonville prison and had lost a brother. The brother had died of starvation, and whenever the carpenter got upon that subject he cried. He, like the old writer, had a white mustache, and when he cried he puckered up his lips and the mustache bobbed up and down. The weeping old man with the cigar in his mouth was ludicrous. The plan the writer had for the raising of his bed was forgotten and later the carpenter did it in his own way and the writer, who was past sixty, had to help himself with a chair when he went to bed at night.

 

     In his bed the writer rolled over on his side and lay quite still. For years he had been beset with notions concerning his heart. He was a hard smoker and his heart fluttered. The idea had got into his mind that he would some time die unexpectedly and always when he got into bed he thought of that. It did not alarm him. The effect in fact was quite a special thing and not easily explained. It made him more alive, there in bed, than at any other time. Perfectly still he lay and his body was old and not of much use any more, but something inside him was altogether young. He was like a pregnant woman, only that the thing inside him was not a baby but a youth. No, it wasn't a youth, it was a woman, young, and wearing a coat of mail like a knight. It is absurd, you see, to try to tell what was inside the old writer as he lay on his high bed and listened to the fluttering of his heart. The thing to get at is what the writer, or the young thing within the writer, was thinking about.

 

     The old writer, like all of the people in the world, had got, during his long life, a great many notions in his head. He had once been quite handsome and a number of women had been in love with him. And then, of course, he had known people, many people, known them in a peculiarly intimate way that was different from the way in which you and I know people. At least that is what the writer thought and the thought pleased him. Why quarrel with an old man concerning his thoughts?

 

     In the bed the writer had a dream that was not a dream. As he grew somewhat sleepy but was still conscious, figures began to appear before his eyes. He imagined the young indescribable thing within himself was driving a long procession of figures before his eyes.

 

     You see the interest in all this lies in the figures that went before the eyes of the writer. They were all grotesques. All of the men and women the writer had ever known had become grotesques.

 

     The grotesques were not all horrible. Some were amusing, some almost beautiful, and one, a woman all drawn out of shape, hurt the old man by her grotesqueness. When she passed he made a noise like a small dog whimpering. Had you come into the room you might have supposed the old man had unpleasant dreams or perhaps indigestion.

 

     For an hour the procession of grotesques passed before the eyes of the old man, and then, although it was a painful thing to do, he crept out of bed and began to write. Some one of the grotesques had made a deep impression on his mind and he wanted to describe it.

 

     At his desk the writer worked for an hour. In the end he wrote a book which he called "The Book of the Grotesque." It was never published, but I saw it once and it made an indelible impression on my mind. The book had one central thought that is very strange and has always remained with me. By remembering it I have been able to understand many people and things that I was never able to understand before. The thought was involved but a simple statement of it would be something like this:

 

     That in the beginning when the world was young there were a great many thoughts but no such thing as a truth. Man made the truths himself and each truth was a composite of a great many vague thoughts. All about in the world were the truths and they were all beautiful.

 

     The old man had listed hundreds of the truths in his book. I will not try to tell you of all of them. There was the truth of virginity and the truth of passion, the truth of wealth and of poverty, of thrift and of profligacy, of carelessness and abandon. Hundreds and hundreds were the truths and they were all beautiful.

 

     And then the people came along. Each as he appeared snatched up one of the truths and some who were quite strong snatched up a dozen of them.

 

     It was the truths that made the people grotesques. The old man had quite an elaborate theory concerning the matter. It was his notion that the moment one of the people took one of the truths to himself, called it his truth, and tried to live his life by it, he became a grotesque and the truth he embraced became a falsehood.

 

     You can see for yourself how the old man, who had spent all of his life writing and was filled with words, would write hundreds of pages concerning this matter. The subject would become so big in his mind that he himself would be in danger of becoming a grotesque. He didn't, I suppose, for the same reason that he never published the book. It was the young thing inside him that saved the old man.

 

     Concerning the old carpenter who fixed the bed for the writer, I only mentioned him because he, like many of what are called very common people, became the nearest thing to what is understandable and lovable of all the grotesques in the writer's book.

 

Comments (11)

NOURHAN IBRAHIM said

at 10:03 pm on Mar 16, 2010

This book is about the many truths in man's life, which convert each man in a grotesque. For that reason,I have many prediction about the rest of the book such as an solitary person who has a different feeling, habits,nervous.A person has never became close to anyone.Maybe,the book discribes a specific problems or jobs.Also,women who plays important role in the writer's life like mother, wife ,girl friend,and so on.The charcters were old man and carpenter.They tolk about the subject of the war, and they had white
mustaches.Anderson's approach be to the their lives and personalities where thier lives have been distorted and disfigured.These men have became grotesques because they were unable to communicate thier problems.The old man is main charcter as the story revolves around his thinking pattern.The story begin by introducing the character of the carpenter because an old man with a white mustache who has trouble out his windows.Which are too high.For this purpose a carpenter has been sent requested,raise the bed to a level with the window.

Maria A said

at 2:18 pm on Mar 18, 2010

• Make up some predictions about the story:
The author continues to describe fragments from the lives of his characters. In one (scene, part, fragment, whatever) of the book he presents the story of a beautiful married woman who was in love with another man who was not the father of her child. She is sacrificing her happiness to make her son happy, (and her husban look stupid… just kidding) while hiding her true feelings. In another part of the book the author portrays the life of a man who is happily married with a beautiful woman. They have a little boy and every thing appears perfectly normal except for some ordinary not so pleasant random situations at work on which the author focuses.
These two different situations merge together at the end of the book making of themselves a grotesque mix of truths and writing.
• What do the characters have in common?
They are all grotesque portrayals of the truth as seen by the author or narrator.

• How does the author describe the characters? What is his style?
He is underestimating the characters by applying his idea of the truth to their identity in a way that brings humor and irony to the events in the story.

• Who does the old writer with the white mustache represent? (AUTHOR)
He represents a grotesque of the author and the mustache represents time and experience.
• Why does the story begin by introducing the character of the carpenter?
The carpenter serves as an innocent and personal story for the reader to sympathize with before introducing the more grotesque characters.

David Hodges said

at 5:01 pm on Mar 18, 2010

Oh, good. I was afraid Nourhan would get lonely here all by herself.

Thank you, Nora, for getting us started with your excellent introduction. I love your predictions about the types of characters Sherwood Anderson might encounter and describe in his book. You'd be surprised (or would you?) how many of your predictions are accurate!

Maria, you've done a beautiful job here, too! What you say about the grotesques (especially the introduction of an "innocent" in the introduction) is very apt. I'm not sure I entirely understand what you mean by a grotesque mix of truths and writing, but I'm not sure I need to. Your plot lines might be a bit modern for Anderson's time and place, but—who knows?—husbands have looked stupid and wives have hidden their feelings for centuries. :)

The two of you have given us a wonderful start and a high standard for later commenters. Congratulations and thank you.

Fati said

at 11:06 pm on Mar 20, 2010

The story begin by introducing the the character of the carpenter because the carpenter and the writer look alike and have things in common.

I think the book will talk about how people are different but at the end they are all the same. Everything people are living is just a state of mind. People have many things in common whether they recognize it or not and everyone has something that drives him/her with the person's approval or not.

Hoa Quach said

at 5:51 pm on Mar 21, 2010

For the rest of the book, i think that it goes on to describe what the characters see as grotesque. The story begin by introducing the character of the carpenter because the carpenter does not represent anything grotesque. In doing so, it makes the reader wonder and keeps on reading to find what is the thing that is grotesque.

dicko said

at 7:21 pm on Mar 21, 2010

I think the book will say a little bit more about the carpenter,and will show that the carpenter also,has those grotesques thoughts..

David Hodges said

at 9:02 pm on Mar 21, 2010

That's amazing. Fati, Hoa, Albachir: you've identified three very different possibilities. In fact, it's hard to imagine how your points of view could be much different!

So far, nobody has clearly defined "grotesque," or described what you think the author means by grotesque characters. Does he mean hideously ugly and deformed, physically disturbing, or extreme? These are some possible meanings if the word grotesque is used as an adjective. In this story, though, the author uses grotesque as a noun (we can tell because he uses the plural "grotesques"). What's "a grotesque"?

chouchou said

at 10:04 pm on Mar 21, 2010

the book talk about people's personal truths,many type of baeutiful truths about passion or wealth or poverty,which people take inside of themselvesand make them grotesques.

Wipawan said

at 10:17 pm on Mar 22, 2010

After reading the story, I think the rest of the book is about people who the writer have ever known and he think they are grotesques. not all of them. The author picks some the interesting grotesques.

- What do you suppose the characters will have in common?
I think the writer's family, friends, and neighbors will have in common. But some truths make them grotesques.

- What will Anderson's approach be to their lives and personalities?
From the writer's lists which are the truths and the writer's notions.

- Who does the old writer with the white mustache represent?
I think as same as Maria A that the old writer with the white mustache represent the old man was past sixty (long time) who, has a lot of experiences and notions.

- Why does the story begin by introducing the character of the carpenter?
Because the author think that the carpenter is like many of what are called very common people, became the nearest thing to what is understandable and lovable of all the grotesques in the writer's book.

Roky said

at 12:55 am on Mar 25, 2010

Well,I think rest of the book about grotesques which is writer's imagine characters.The writer and carpenter had some common thing like smoking habit and both suffered by sorrow. Anderson approach will be to their lives and personalities are the truth's and writer's notions.By the white mustache the writer's represent he getting old and he has lots of experience.The old writer so cleaver that's why he use carpenter character at the begin as like topic sentence, but his character was unclear that's why reader try to figure out in rest of story is he grotesque character or real. whatever, it make interested to reader about story.

Sagar Shah said

at 9:19 am on Mar 29, 2010


The author describes about the parts of the lives of the people.I think woman plays an important part in the writer's life.The author keeps on picking some interesting grotesques.
The author and the carpenter have many things in common including their appearance as described.Eventhough their stories are different but at the end the emaning comes out to be the same.

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