A Story Teller's Story by Sherwood Anderson
"A Story Teller's Story" by Sherwood Anderson is a semi-autobiographical work that delves into the complexities of human experience, reflecting the author's keen interest in the psychological depths of his characters. The narrative is presented through a series of loosely connected stories that blend fact and fiction, showcasing Anderson's childhood memories and the influence of his family, particularly his father—a dreamer whose storytelling captivates those around him. The book illustrates Anderson's perspective on society, where he views artists and dreamers as the true heroes, in contrast to the pragmatic money-makers he regards as villains.
Throughout the text, Anderson explores themes of frustration, isolation, and the lives of misfits—characters he refers to as "grotesques." These characters embody the struggles of individuals who feel alienated in a conformist world. The work also provides insight into Anderson's writing process, where he emphasizes the importance of capturing impressions and the fluidity of storytelling over rigid plot structures. His prose invites readers to engage with the tales as if they were part of a conversation, rather than traditional storytelling.
Significantly, Anderson critiques societal standardization, warning against the loss of individuality in creative expression. "A Story Teller's Story" stands as a testament to the art of narrative, blending personal recollections with profound observations about life and creativity. This layered approach positions Anderson as a pivotal figure in American literature, whose works resonate with the complexities of human emotion and experience.
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A Story Teller's Story by Sherwood Anderson
First published: 1924
Type of work: Autobiography
Critical Evaluation:
During his career Sherwood Anderson wrote three semi-autobiographical studies, of which A STORY TELLER’S STORY is the first and in some ways the most revealing of the man to whom the life of fancy was always as real as the world of fact. As in his fiction, he showed in his account of personal experience the same interest in troubled inward states and psychological depths that he presented in his short stories and novels, compassionate insights into the twisted, distorted lives of the world’s misfits. In this respect he was a pioneer in American literature, interested in uncovering the frustrations, anxieties, fears, and desires of people. He did not present characters; he gave us live, moving human beings. Anderson called his figures “grotesques.” This grotesqueness was a guard against a deformity, but it was also a projection of misshapen emotion. A STORY TELLER’S STORY is presented on at least two levels: on one a series of enjoyable loose-jointed stories—true in one sense, fiction in the manner in which they are expanded—and on another a study of grotesques.
The book is filled with Anderson’s memories, beginning with his recollections of his early boyhood in Ohio. The first and one of the most interesting sections tells of the Anderson family. Sherwood Anderson’s father, an American dreamer who could tell a marvelous story but could not be a practical man, dominates this section. Anderson often compares himself to his father on the grounds that both were meant to be dreamers, not practical men. There is a tale told by his father while he is traveling with a half-baked actor about the time he escaped from Confederate soldiers escorting a number of prisoners to a prison camp. The tale is dramatized to the fullest extent and Anderson’s relating of this tale, along with the reactions of the people listening to it, is amusing and interesting. His father told the story with perfect timing in order to get the proper reactions from his audience. The fact that Anderson can reproduce the same feelings that his father produced by using all of his senses is a great attribute to his talent and skill as a writer. The idea that none of this may have happened is further proof of Anderson’s skill.
Dreamers, artists, and craftsmen are the salt of Anderson’s earth—the heroes. The villains of America are the money-makers. When Anderson was running a moderately successful paint factory, he decided to become a free agent. While dictating a letter to his secretary praising the qualities of his product, he decided to walk out. As an excuse, he feigned insanity and simply walked into the world and became a writer of fiction.
A STORY TELLER’S STORY contains some of the real models for the sympathetic failures, misfits, and the frustrated artists found in Winesburg, Ohio. Old “Judge” Turner is one of these misfits. He is now a respected citizen in a town in Northern Ohio. In his youth he had attended a college in the East. While there he had become attached, from a distance, to one of the college heroes. This student had the attributes the judge desired. If he had been content to admire from a distance, the judge’s life would have been different, but unwisely, even innocently, he had chosen to write a note to the student describing the relationship they could have together. This foolish move caused the ruination of the judge’s promising life. The student showed the letter around and the judge was tagged with the word pervert. The judge stayed at the college and was graduated, but his life had been radically changed by this incident.
Alonzo Berners, another of Anderson’s Ohio friends, is an invalid who lives in constant pain and drinks himself into oblivion twice a year. He leaves the town to do so; when he returns he is calm and relaxed for a time. In spite of his affliction, Berners has some great attraction. Anderson cannot understand this attraction, but people from all over the country—judges, ministers, bums, any type imaginable—come to Berners for advice. Anderson marvels at this odd magnetism Berners holds for so many people. Berners has something greater than obvious magnetism.
Anderson reveals a few of his writing methods and criticisms in A STORY TELLER’S STORY. As a writer, he compares himself to a mother giving birth and tells of the difficulty in cutting the umbilical cord. Once a story has been told it lives outside the teller. It sometimes happens that the story has more life than the man from whom it was born. He speaks of incessantly scribbling on always ready sheets of paper, no matter where he is, and he says that he composed “The New Englander,” one of his most famous stories, while sitting in a crowded railroad station in Detroit. An episode in POOR WHITE was written in a bootlegger’s establishment in Mobile, while at a table close by three drunken sailors argued over the divinity of Christ. The process of writing a story was always a wonderful experience for Anderson.
He frankly expresses a devotion to the style and ideas of Gertrude Stein, a desire to emulate her in her manipulation and teasing of words. He is, he states, an impressionist, and he flaunts what he calls the wandering formlessness of his recorded expressions, but he justifies his style by saying that through writing about important impressions he will get to the essence of things. Anderson’s stories are chopped up by references and other remembrances, but it is this style that creates in the final judgment a more detailed and firm story than the otherwise straight one might give. It is this sharing of all thoughts which makes the reader more closely related to the tales as though one is hearing a one-sided conversation, not reading a book. Anderson speaks or relates to the reader and then to himself.
A devotion to the “Poison Plot,” Anderson writes, is bad for the modern American writer, for the stricture of plot seems to ruin storytelling. Also, bad modern writers are likely to force their stories to show a moral or create people better than they show themselves in reality, effects which do not represent life, according to Anderson, in its true form. Anderson’s stories may teach, but instruction is not the main purpose of his writing. He tells the tale. What you derive from it is supposed to be enjoyment; other than that you must find out for yourself.
In reading A STORY TELLER’S STORY, one must remember that Anderson was taking actual happenings in his life and the lives of others and turning them into tales. Thus we are supposedly given facts which are sometimes buried, but they serve as a basis for some completely wild stories. Anderson explains near the beginning of the book that he is the man who waits for listeners. He feels that his real presence is something of a potpourri of men in different walks of creative life.
Sinclair Lewis felt that those who had criticized Anderson for an absence of morality were narrow-minded. The book contains little if anything that can be considered sensual. A STORY TELLER’S STORY is concerned with people whom Anderson attempts to present in the full light of reality, not as white-washed characters.
Rebecca West praised the book, especially the second section. The last part of this section, or “Note V,” is a discourse on the cry “Standardization! Standardization!” Anderson felt that standardization causes impotence, for the working man can no longer create new forms in materials with his hands. Standardization also means impotence for the creative mind. To be alive is to create new forms constantly: children are created by the use of the body; fresh and wonderful things are shaped from different materials and out of pure thought. People who do not create are dead. Ford and Tamerlane are compared; both, in Anderson’s mind, wanted to control man. As Tamerlane was for the ancients, so should Ford be for the modern man.
In this note there is also an ironic comment on the fact that people might as well live in houses that look alike, dress alike, eat the same food, and live on streets and in cities that look alike. Anderson states that people should be given constantly growing salaries, but that all individualism must be crushed out. Books, painting, and poetry should all be standardized. He speaks of a “great machine” which would move down a street depositing cement houses right and left, like an elephant with diarrhea.
It does not take one long to realize what Anderson is saying. The note is bitter and in it he wrote something which was tremendous, vital—a warning. Today we are very close to that machine depositing cement houses, if, in fact, we are not already there.
At his best, Anderson was anything but dull. He was clever and caught the meaning of ideas which are still lost to many writers today. A STORY TELLER’S STORY is what its title states. The book may be fact, fancy, or both, but first of all one must remember that Anderson was a master at telling a tale.