TELL ME, IS IT SHOW?

In another place we have been discussing what the locals call show-tell.

Oh, God, how I hate that old adage!

Nevertheless I went to a passage from The Ballad of the Sad Cafe by Carson McCullers.

The whole piece it "told" to us (using told in the lay sense of the word) but is it TELL in the literary sense of the word?

Here it is:

That autumn wa a happy time. The crops around the countryside were good, and over at the Forks Falls market the price of tobacco held firm that year. After the long hot summer the first cool days had a clean bright sweetness. Goldenrod grew along the dusty roads and the sugar cane was ripe and purple. The bus came each day from Cheehaw to carry off a few of the younger children to the consolidated school to get an education. Boys hunted foxes in the pinewoods, winter quilts were aired out on wash-lines, and sweet potatoes bedded in the ground with straw against the colder months to come. In the evening, delicate shreds of smoke rose from the chimneys, and the room was round and orange in the autumn sky. There is no stillness like the quiet of the first cold nights in the fall. Sometimes, late in the night when there was no wind, there could be heard in the town the thin wild whistle of the trainthat goes through Society City on its way far off to the North.

Let's see. Please note this is on the fly, not some academic essay spread over days.

That autumn was a happy time.

This isn't "It was autumn and everyone was happy." For me there's a voice here and lots unsaid. We have to expand on the minimum, see red-faced wifes talking over fences, kids with hoops.

The crops around the countryside were good, and over at the Forks Falls market the price of tobacco held firm that year.

Why "good" and not a more specific word? 

IMO it's a narrator's voice, the town voice. Forks Falls, OTOH is a specifc name, definite, but we actually are told nothing. We have to imagine some place with a cute name, imagine a market.

And what does the price line tell us?

It tells us that some years the price falls or crashes. We have to work that out. It's in the shadow of the words.

After the long hot summer the first cool days had a clean bright sweetness.

The first is maybe stockish these days, but it might have been original then, but "long, hot, summer," faintly poetic, representative of a type of summer. 

IMO we go to our databanks and think, "summer, hot, not short, this one, ah-hah." It's not REALLY described, is it? WE decide what a long hot summer is. The first cool days (the same) and the end is actual poetry, the words are not LITERAL. 

Days aren't clean or sweet. And look

After the long hot summer

the first cool days

had a clean bright

sweetness

It's poetry.

Goldenrod grew along the dusty roads and the sugar cane was ripe and purple.

Again, evocative but open for our interpretation. 

As the previous sentence, it starts relatively plainly but is "open" and moves into near-poetry. I can imagine a negro worker of the day singing and the sugar cane was ripe and purple.

The bus came each day from Cheehaw to carry off a few of the younger children to the consolidated school to get an education.

Ah-hah, a nice picture but it's more than that. 

We have the lovely name Cheehaw (specifics again, but just a name. We have to paint our own picture.) Then it's not just "the school bus arrived." We have "carried off" (not accidental). 

Have you ever thought of the yellow school bus in the city "carrying off" the kids? 

It's voice and attitude, it's indirect speech representing the town's way of seeing. And notice A FEW of the younger kids showing us when we think about it that a lot miss school.

And the ending. Surely "to get an education" is redundant? 

But this is a brilliant author, so why have it? It's that old straw-chewing guy saying it, or the bar-keep, someone. It's what any/all/one local would say.

Boys hunted foxes in the pinewoods, winter quilts were aired out on wash-lines, and sweet potatoes bedded in the ground with straw against the colder months to come.

Very evocative, and though it's a statement it requires the reader to expand and "see" or imagine the boys, their dress, their manner. 

The quilts clause is lovely, a beautiful direction to see the scene (but we have to draw it)... the sweet potatoes line is something we can see, imagine, but it also foreshadows the longer slower times coming.

In the evening, delicate shreds of smoke rose from the chimneys, and the moon was round and orange in the autumn sky.

The cadence her, the rhythms, ALONE evoke a feeling (I mean if they were UMMS) and they add to the poetry. 

Try moving "in the evening" further into the sentence and it clangs like a cracked bell. And smoke as "delicate shreds" is not just evocative, but fresh, special, making us think differently the last third - the MOON - is lovely.

Interestingly I keep looking for a two syllable extra word before autumn

In the evening,

delicate shreds of smoke rose from the chimneys,

and the moon was round and orange in the uh-uh autumn sky.

Doesn't matter if I'm right or wrong here. The point is the author is making me sing the words not flatly read them. 

It's prose poetry and the rhythms and feelings are part of the whole experience. The extra is the rightness, the earthy specialness she's evoking, like the "Hovis Ad" in the UK.

There is no stillness like the quiet of the first cold nights in the fall.

How beautiful is that? What a sentence! It's far more than the semantcs, the bare meaning

There is no stillness like the quiet

of the first cold nights in the fall.

POETRY!!

and it finishes good enough to make me want to cry

Sometimes, late in the night when there was no wind, there could be heard in the town the thin wild whistle of the train that goes through Society City on its way far off to the North.

Sometimes, late in the night when there was no wind,

there could be heard in the town

the thin wild whistle of the train that goes

through Society City on its way far off to the North.

Almost a poem again

I can hear the train and the last line is the train's clatter. 

The author gives us WILD whistle, not "shrill" or "loud" but a fabulous evocative word, and the whole paragraph fairly REEKS of atmosphere. 

If I had six pictures amd one was off this town I think you'd pick it. 

It has "THE ACHE", close to poetry, evocative throughout, the sounds and rhythms and implications mean we know or feel or sense or intuit far more than the bare words.

One great trick to distinguish between show and tell is to write a factual report of what you know with more or less certainty from a passage, what you feel you know or feels probable, what you think is likely.

If you get considerably more than a computer rendering of the original facts then it's show. I would say this is 100% show, and very very good at it, near-poetic

====================

I was then emailed:

There is a mystery to all great art otherwise everyone would be able to do it equally and there would be no such thing as greatness Alex... as the Bard himself says... There is nothing as common as the desire to be remarkable.

Do you believe it is quantifiable at every step?

I answered, YES I DO

(Why should it NOT be measurable? 

Do we think the writer (artist) gets it right but doesn't know how?

The greater the art the more subtle it gets but it's just craft at the exquisite end

Look at this for example (original first)

In the evening, delicate shreds of smoke rose from the chimneys, and the moon was round and orange in the autumn sky.

Delicate shreds of smoke rose from the chimneys in the evening, and the moon was round and orange in the autumn sky.

That's not TERRIBLE and the meaning is identical, so why isn't it as good?

OR

In the evening, delicate shreds of smoke rose from the chimneys, and the moon was orange and round in the autumn sky.

OR

Delicate shreds of smoke rose from the chimneys in the evening, and the moon was orange and round  in the autumn sky.

In the good passage "in the evening" begins and steps aside for the artistic image,

But when it comes later it clinks and DILUTES the artistic line.

Round and orange works far better (in this case) than orange and brown