‘Home Sickness’ by George Moore

Home Sickness by George Moore, 1903

The magic trick:

Stretching and contracting as need be to tell the story it wants to tell

What a great story.

It may surprise you as you read it. Certainly, it surprised me. Its structure is weird – almost amoeba-like. It stretches in places to include detail to what seems a near-mundane level. We stopped the story’s pace to talk about what they ate for breakfast?

But in other places – just as you’re settling into the slow pace – it takes giant steps forward in the plot. Our protagonist makes huge decisions without us being privy to the thought processes that led up to them.

The result is a story that is able to give us specific images and scenes from a life, while also covering enough time to comment on that life in total.

And that’s quite a trick on Moore’s part.

The selection:

He was sorry he did not feel strong enough for the walk, the evening was fine, and he would meet many people coming home from the fair, some of whom he had known in his youth, and they would tell him where he could get a clean lodging. But the carman would be able to tell him that; he called the car that was waiting at the station, and soon he was answering questions about America. But he wanted to hear of those who were still living in the old country, and after hearing the stories of many people he had forgotten, he heard that Mike Scully, who had been away in a situation for many years as a coachman in the King’s County, had come back and built a fine house with a concrete floor. Now there was a good loft m Mike Scully’s house, and Mike would be pleased to take in a lodger.

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