After dipping into the works of John Cheever, I think it’s
safe to say that he has a style all of his own (coined the 'New Yorker Style' –
which is coincidentally where he died). His themes of good versus evil; light versus
dark, might actually show a lot about how conditions were in New York in the period
in which he was there. It was certainly an eventful time to be there with all
of the economical and social changes that were happening. But then I started to
wonder; do I even have a writing style, and if not, why not?
Sure, in my first year of university, I played it safe. I
went about writing creative pieces as best as I could, whilst making my
critical essays sound like I was possibly related to the queen (okay, maybe not
THAT far). However I’m in my second year now, and I’m still not entirely sure if I have one.
Maybe it’s just that I can’t see it and others can, after all, you’re not conscious
about how you appear to others around you, are you? So why would you be when writing? If
somebody was to ask me to name my five best personality traits, I’m not sure it
would align with other peoples’ opinions.
That’s not to say that I won’t end up having a writing style
(hopefully – albeit probably one that makes people want to jump off of a bridge FOR
me), but I think that really depends on the writer.
I really like what you've done here. It's an interesting idea that Cheever's experiences played a part in his tone and his voice within his stories, and I bet if a linguist went through his story collection they'd find evidence to prove you right!
ReplyDeleteI hope so. It certainly comes across like that to me at least. It'd be interesting to see what the linguist would come up with; maybe they'd find even more things that we can't see yet.
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