THE BOOK OF THE GROTESQUE
39
stories, and there was a remarkable consistency of mood that carried
over
from story to story. Consequently when Anderson prepared
them for book publication in 1919, he had only to make a few minor
changes, mostly insertions of place and character names as con–
nectives, in order to have a unified book.
Particularly if approached along the lines that have been sug–
gested here,
Winesburg
seems remarkably of a piece. The only stories
which do not fit into its pattern are the four-part narrative of Jesse
Bentley, a failure in any case, and possibly "The Untold Lie," a
beautiful story measuring the distance between middle-age and youth.
Of the others only "Tandy" is so bad that its omission would help
the book. On the other hand, few of the stories read as well in isola–
tion as in the book's context. Except for "Hands," "The Strength
of God," "Paper Pills," and "The Untold Lie," they individually
lack the dramatic power which the book has as a whole.
Winesburg
is an excellently formed piece of fiction, each of its
stories following a parabola of movement which graphs the book's
meaning. From a state of feeling rather than a dramatic conflict there
develops in one of the grotesques a rising lyrical excitement, usually
stimulated to intensity by the presence of George Willard. At the
moment before reaching a climax, this excitement is frustrated by a
fatal inability at communication and then it rapidly dissolves into its
original diffuse base. This structural pattern is sometimes varied by
an ironic turn, as in "Nobody Knows" and "A Man of Ideas," but
in only one story, "Sophistication," is the emotional ascent allowed
to move forward without interruption.
But the unity of the book depends on more than the congruous
design of its parts. The first three stories of
Winesburg
develop its
major theme, which, after several variations, reaches its most abstract
version in "Queer." The stories following
"Queer"
seem somewhat
of a thematic afterthought, though
they
are necessary for a full dis–
posal of the characters. The one conspicuous disharmony in the book
is that the introductory "Book of the Grotesque" suggests that the
grotesques are victims of their willful fanaticism, while in the stories
themselves grotesqueness is the result of an essentially valid resistance
to forces external to its victims.
Through a few simple but extremely effective symbols, the stories
are both related to the book's larger meaning and defined in their
