Week 10
Class Ground Rules
Read all the assignments before class.
Keep yourself on mute unless called on.
Raise your hands electronically.
Focus your comments only on the question at hand rather than straying to other parts of the story.
Refrain from offering a review of the whole story or jumping to the end.
Try to support your comments by referring to details from the text.
Listen to and respond to others with respect.
READ (at least twice): Hilma Wolitzer – “The Great Escape,” (from Today a Woman Went Mad in the Supermarket, 2021, Bloomsbury Publishing). PDF posted below.
A woman contemplates her long marriage against the backdrop of the unfolding pandemic.
Think About:
The relationship between Paulie and Howard and how it evolves over the course of their marriage.
The main themes woven throughout the story.
Examples of clever imagery that Wolitzer uses to describe their aging.
The depiction of the pandemic.
The relevance of the Houdini substory.
The meaning of the title, "The Great Escape."
More to Think About: Summing Up Hilma Wolitzer
Though it is hardly fair based on only the two stories we've read and discussed:
What do you see as the strengths of Wolitzer's writing?
What do you see as the weaknesses?
Would you recommend Wolitzer to others?
AND Finally:
Which of the three authors did you like best and why?
“When I was in graduate school, Hilma Wolitzer, my most brilliant teacher, pulled me aside and told me that, when I’d finished a story, I should grade every sentence as either an A or a B. The great, glittery ones got A’s, the perfectly presentable ones got B’s. Then, said Hilma, I should go back and reconsider all the A sentences. Because they were the sentences that were more about their own power and beauty than they were in service to the story. They were the show-offy sentences, the demonstrations of my own precocity, and they needed to be calmed down a little. I’ve tried to follow Hilma’s advice ever since.” —Michael Cunningham, Pulitzer Prize winning author.
Wolitzer - Great Escape.pdfLink to Week 10 class recording: https://brandeis.zoom.us/rec/play/fYn42OZl0F0_gl5K2gc76-fr7HC7cTuZFhUXimvJhu-TtDp-meX_oyrYB4zI3KGUXjfyEU2kfAgziwg.aJYUyFqSO7KPDknd