In "Anton's Album," Janet Kauffman gives the reader, in five short pages, a full look at an old friend/boyfriend(?) of the narrator, whose name was Anton. This look is done through descriptions of photographs that she is explaining to somebody. There are sixteen of these descriptions.
1--All right. In the grape arbor, and in the shadows, you can see me. he put me in there, just to look out. This is September, and he had forgot to prune in the spring. Look at the tangle.
It takes maybe two or three of these entries before the reader completely understands what the narrator is talking about; the fact that they are looking at photographs. It's also not until later, maybe the sixth or seven such description before Kauffman really starts to let some of Anton, and who he was, slip into the descriptions.
8--Another picture of Anton's mother and me. Anton never made excuses--he wasn't a photographer. If somebody turned and the face washed out, that suited him. He said what he wanted was evidence.
"You two were here," he said about this one. "Here's the evidence."
Kauffman came up with an interesting way of bringing her story to life through these photograph descriptions. It's another story I'm glad I took the time to read from this issue so far.
MMM - sounds like an interesting and original idea. Glad I chose to read here - from bloglovin. Shah wordsinsync.blogspot.com
Posted by: Shah Wharton | March 31, 2011 at 07:53 AM