Style
Howard used understatement and misdirection to create humor. He established Costigan as a most unreliable narrator, a sailor who can’t admit when he’s had a lot to drink, doesn’t realize he is a terrible judge of character, and acts before he thinks. These character flaws are the heart of the boxing series and make Costigan as sympathetic as he is hilarious. Told in a jaunty first person style and in the past tense, the Costigan stories are presented in a slang-riddled, colloquial fashion. Howard grew up in the story telling tradition of the Southwest and the narrative structure of the Costigan stories mirrors this, especially in the endings, with their humorous stings, inappropriate life lessons, and outright punch lines.
Read more about this topic: Sailor Steve Costigan
Famous quotes containing the word style:
“Switzerland is a small, steep country, much more up and down than sideways, and is all stuck over with large brown hotels built on the cuckoo clock style of architecture.”
—Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961)
“Always, however brutal an age may actually have been, its style transmits its music only.”
—André Malraux (1901–1976)
“New is a word for fools in towns who think
Style upon style in dress and thought at last
Must get somewhere.”
—Robert Frost (1874–1963)