Once Upon a Time: Reading 'The Family Man' by V. S. Pritchett
Details
The story of the month: 'The Family Man' by V. S. Pritchett
Link to the story:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1UAxi-A-YZ0TWgW8NRajG-7l-2bXXPwzg/view?usp=sharing
Link to the Google Meet: https://meet.google.com/tnt-fnkp-uhp
The meeting room will open 5 minutes before the session.
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"A short story must have a single mood and every sentence must build towards it."
~ Edgar Allan Poe
Despite unwarranted reports of its demise at various times, the short story has been robust and thriving. The form itself has constantly changed, always reflecting the times it came out of, unlike the novel.
From the great short story writers – Guy de Maupassant, Anton Chekhov, Henry James, O’Henry, and Saki – we moved to the more modern writers who brought a change in the middle of the twentieth century – Flannery O’Connor and Raymond Carver were at the forefront of this.
Once Upon a Time is a session in which we try to familiarise ourselves with the world's best short stories. Shankar will read the story aloud in the session. After the reading, we will analyse it together to learn from it.
But if you can, please read the story beforehand.
THE STORY: 'The Family Man' by V. S. Pritchett
The Family Man, first published in the mid-20th century and later collected in his mature story collections, belongs to Pritchett’s long fascination with marriage, self-deception, and moral compromise. The story examines a man whose sense of duty and respectability masks emotional inertia and quiet cruelty, revealing how family life can become a performance sustained by habit rather than feeling.
Link to the story:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1UAxi-A-YZ0TWgW8NRajG-7l-2bXXPwzg/view?usp=sharing
THE AUTHOR:
V. S. Pritchett was one of the major English men of letters of the 20th century—an acclaimed short-story writer, critic, essayist, and biographer, best known for his acute observation of ordinary lives and his quietly ironic prose. Alongside stories collected in volumes such as The Gentle Barbarian and The Voice of the Serpent, he also wrote highly regarded biographies of figures like Balzac, Chekhov, and Turgenev, and served for many years as a leading literary critic.
THE HOST:
Shankar is living in Pune and has been a lifelong reader and was bitten by the writing bug after reading stories by Tobias Wolff, Anton Chekhov, and William Trevor. While he loves novels, especially by the Russians, he always has a particular fondness for short stories.