Spirituality as Quest, Pt. 9 -- Hermann Hesse's "Siddhartha"; Reading a Story, Pt. 13 -- Short Story

Our passage from the Word of God today is 1 Chronicles 29:29 which reads: "Now the acts of David the king, first and last, behold, they are written in the book of Samuel the seer, and in the book of Nathan the prophet, and in the book of Gad the seer."

Our quote today is from F. Scott Fitzgerald. He said: "That is part of the beauty of all literature. You discover that your longings are universal longings, that you're not lonely and isolated from anyone. You belong."

In this podcast, we are using as our texts: "Literature and Spirituality" by Yaw Adu-Gyamfi and Mark Ray Schmidt, and "Literature: An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, Drama, and Writing" by X. J. Kennedy and Dana Gioia. If you enjoy this podcast, please feel free to purchase any one of these books from our website.

Our first topic for today is "Spirituality as Quest, Part 9" from the book, "Literature and Spirituality" by Yaw Adu-Gyamfi and Mark Ray Schmidt.

We are continuing our selection from Hermann Hesse's Siddhartha:

The Ferryman (Part 2)

Vasudeva listened with great attention. Listening carefully, he let everything enter his mind, birthplace and childhood, all that learning, all that searching, all joy, all distress. This was among the ferryman's virtues one of the greatest: like only a few, he knew how to listen. Without him having spoken a word, the speaker sensed how Vasudeva let his words enter his mind, quiet, open, waiting, how he did not lose a single one, awaited not a single one with impatience, did not add his praise or rebuke, was just listening. Siddhartha felt, what a happy fortune it is, to confess to such a listener, to burry in his heart his own life, his own search, his own suffering.

But in the end of Siddhartha's tale, when he spoke of the tree by the river, and of his deep fall, of the holy Om, and how he had felt such a love for the river after his slumber, the ferryman listened with twice the attention, entirely and completely absorbed by it, with his eyes closed.

...

Our second topic for today is "Reading a Story, Part 13" from the book, "Literature: An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, Drama, and Writing" by X. J. Kennedy and Dana Gioia.

The Short Story

The teller of tales relies heavily on the method of summary: terse, general narration. In a short story, a form more realistic than the tale and of modern origin, the writer usually presents the main events in greater fullness. Fine writers of short stories, although they may use summary at times (often to give some portion of a story less emphasis), are skilled in rendering a scene: a vivid or dramatic moment described in enough detail to create the illusion that the reader is practically there. Avoiding long summary, they try to show rather than simply to tell, as if following Mark Twain's advice to authors: "Don't say, 'The old lady screamed.' Bring her one and let her scream."

A short story is more than just a sequence of happenings. A finely wrought short story has the richness and conciseness of an excellent lyric poem. Spontaneous and natural as the finished story may seem, the writer has crafted it so artfully that there is meaning in even seemingly casual speeches and apparently trivial details. If we skim it hastily, skipping the descriptive passages, we miss significant parts.

...