“Flash fiction” refers to a style of writing short fiction. An author uses extreme brevity in telling a story in order to be concise and meaningful. Every word, sentence, and paragraph has a distinct purpose in the story and must be carefully written so that the reader gets the full emotional impact without reading many words. This style of writing can be more significant to the reader than a long novel because it is abrupt and carefully constructed.
“Fatal Light” by Richard Curry is a fine example of flash fiction because the ideas presented in the novel benefit from the shortness of the chapters. Each chapter contains scenes that are not in immediate succession from each other. Especially in the chapters that involve the narrators experience in direct combat, the chapters are extremely short and choppy with incomplete sentences, signifying the intensity of battle.
The chapters that involve the homecoming of the soldier are also brief. The narrator feels disconnection with the world, which is accentuated by the harsh abruptness of the chapters. Curry uses this style so that the reader can get a short but considerable look at each aspect of the soldier’s life before the war, in direct battle, in Saigon, and returning home. Each description, because of its shortness, is directly honest and not glorified. Every idea in the novel is well represented in this short style. The soldier’s fear of leaving home, his terror as a medic in Vietnam, his detachment from the real world in Saigon and at home s the hectic, violent, and emotional roller coaster that he experiences.
“Flash fiction” refers to a style of writing short fiction. An author uses extreme brevity in telling a story in order to be concise and meaningful. Every word, sentence, and paragraph has a distinct purpose in the story and must be carefully written so that the reader gets the full emotional impact without reading many words. This style of writing can be more significant to the reader than a long novel because it is abrupt and carefully constructed.
ReplyDelete“Fatal Light” by Richard Curry is a fine example of flash fiction because the ideas presented in the novel benefit from the shortness of the chapters. Each chapter contains scenes that are not in immediate succession from each other. Especially in the chapters that involve the narrators experience in direct combat, the chapters are extremely short and choppy with incomplete sentences, signifying the intensity of battle.
The chapters that involve the homecoming of the soldier are also brief. The narrator feels disconnection with the world, which is accentuated by the harsh abruptness of the chapters. Curry uses this style so that the reader can get a short but considerable look at each aspect of the soldier’s life before the war, in direct battle, in Saigon, and returning home. Each description, because of its shortness, is directly honest and not glorified. Every idea in the novel is well represented in this short style. The soldier’s fear of leaving home, his terror as a medic in Vietnam, his detachment from the real world in Saigon and at home shows the hectic, violent, and emotional roller coaster that he experiences.
The flash fiction form of this novel also benefits the author’s intention of showing the loss of self that the narrator undergoes. The novel itself is a coming of age story, how the narrator “crosses over the bridge” from childhood to adulthood. The duty that he must perform forces him across this bridge and he loses himself in the destruction of the war, losing his emotions and feeling lost in the world he returns to back in the United States.