Prose that leaves room for sadness
June 12, 2022 12:46 PM Subscribe
I'm looking for prose featuring interior sadness & emotional complexity where the text also makes space for and around those feelings.
It's hard to describe exactly what I mean, but the best examples I can think of are the space and silence that Neon Genesis Evangelion gives to Shinji and the other characters' sadness, or the emotional tone of some Wes Anderson characters (I'm thinking specifically the scene with Suzy and Mrs Bishop in the bathroom from Moonrise Kingdom, also Bruce Willis' performance in that movie, and pretty much every Wes Anderson character Bill Murray has ever played). The best prose example I can think of is Kazuo Ishiguro, espescially The Remains of the Day and Never Let Me Go.
Prose where the narrative hints and then leaves room, rather than spelling out the sadness and/or emotional complexity explicitly. Where emotions like regret, resignation, alienation are portrayed with interiority. The kinds of feelings that someone could choose to conceal, and then deal with the long-term consequences of the concealment as well as the emotions. Quiet, introspective sadness.
Ideally I'm looking for short fiction, though novel & poetry recommendations are both welcome too.
It's hard to describe exactly what I mean, but the best examples I can think of are the space and silence that Neon Genesis Evangelion gives to Shinji and the other characters' sadness, or the emotional tone of some Wes Anderson characters (I'm thinking specifically the scene with Suzy and Mrs Bishop in the bathroom from Moonrise Kingdom, also Bruce Willis' performance in that movie, and pretty much every Wes Anderson character Bill Murray has ever played). The best prose example I can think of is Kazuo Ishiguro, espescially The Remains of the Day and Never Let Me Go.
Prose where the narrative hints and then leaves room, rather than spelling out the sadness and/or emotional complexity explicitly. Where emotions like regret, resignation, alienation are portrayed with interiority. The kinds of feelings that someone could choose to conceal, and then deal with the long-term consequences of the concealment as well as the emotions. Quiet, introspective sadness.
Ideally I'm looking for short fiction, though novel & poetry recommendations are both welcome too.
The Shipping News, by E. Annie Proulx
Am I a Redundant Human Being, Mela Hartwig
House of Mirth, Edith Wharton
posted by Maxwell_Smart at 1:27 PM on June 12, 2022
Am I a Redundant Human Being, Mela Hartwig
House of Mirth, Edith Wharton
posted by Maxwell_Smart at 1:27 PM on June 12, 2022
Some short novels:
Me Against the World by Kazufumi Shiraishi
The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes
Losing is What Matters by Manuel Perez Subirana
posted by perhapses at 5:05 PM on June 12, 2022
Me Against the World by Kazufumi Shiraishi
The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes
Losing is What Matters by Manuel Perez Subirana
posted by perhapses at 5:05 PM on June 12, 2022
City of Trees, by Oda Sakunosuke, fits this feeling for me.
posted by emmling at 1:35 AM on June 13, 2022
posted by emmling at 1:35 AM on June 13, 2022
If reasonably subtle magical-realism is of interest, much of Kōbō Abe's fiction might qualify. John Cheever also sometimes hits the same notes for me; there are often significant, life-changing events, but the characters are reserved and the emotions internal in a way that is unlike much fiction.
(If you're also interested in more film, Krzysztof Kieślowski does this better than anyone, if you ask me. Every fifth scene in the Dekalog might count.)
posted by eotvos at 7:02 AM on June 13, 2022
(If you're also interested in more film, Krzysztof Kieślowski does this better than anyone, if you ask me. Every fifth scene in the Dekalog might count.)
posted by eotvos at 7:02 AM on June 13, 2022
Partly prompted by your examples, but what leapt to mind was the excellent Makioka Sisters by Junichirō Tanizaki. It’s an absolutely remarkable novel, that mostly takes place on inside surfaces, the interiors of rooms, and in the emotions of its protagonists. That said, Tanizaki never dwells on scenes, but events happen at a fairly regular pace, small though they often are. From what I understand, it was his attempt at blending together the European realist novel with the monogatari tradition springing from the Tale of Genji.
Come to think of it, this is also something you find in the Tale of Genji, though in a fairly weird way, given the millennium of distance between us and Murasaki Shikibu.
Actually, speaking of medieval literature, the best Icelandic sagas (Egils Saga, Laxdæla Saga and Njáls Saga are examples), has a lot of realistic characters with emotions so big that they warp the narrative around them, and they express their emotions either in gnomic utterances, through action, or in knotty poetry (English editions usually have good glosses of the poetry).
Now that I’m thinking about it, in general that feature you seek, of characters with depths of sadness and emotional complexity, and yet narrators keep a respectful distance, is something fairly common in pre-modern literature. I don’t know why novels tend to worry away at their characters’ emotions so much. If I had to offer a guess, it would be that because so many classic novels from the 18th century took the form of letters or journals, having characters describe their emotions came naturally, and the omniscient narrators of subsequent centuries kept that feature.
Uh, I’ve really wandered off track here. But read The Makioka Sisters, it’s absolutely brilliant.
posted by Kattullus at 3:22 AM on June 14, 2022
Come to think of it, this is also something you find in the Tale of Genji, though in a fairly weird way, given the millennium of distance between us and Murasaki Shikibu.
Actually, speaking of medieval literature, the best Icelandic sagas (Egils Saga, Laxdæla Saga and Njáls Saga are examples), has a lot of realistic characters with emotions so big that they warp the narrative around them, and they express their emotions either in gnomic utterances, through action, or in knotty poetry (English editions usually have good glosses of the poetry).
Now that I’m thinking about it, in general that feature you seek, of characters with depths of sadness and emotional complexity, and yet narrators keep a respectful distance, is something fairly common in pre-modern literature. I don’t know why novels tend to worry away at their characters’ emotions so much. If I had to offer a guess, it would be that because so many classic novels from the 18th century took the form of letters or journals, having characters describe their emotions came naturally, and the omniscient narrators of subsequent centuries kept that feature.
Uh, I’ve really wandered off track here. But read The Makioka Sisters, it’s absolutely brilliant.
posted by Kattullus at 3:22 AM on June 14, 2022
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posted by misteraitch at 1:27 PM on June 12, 2022