Jonathan EmmesediTen pages into "Lonesome Dove" by Larry McMurtry and I'm already hating the yeehawness..
Another 820 to go...🙁
#Books #LonesomeDove #LarryMcMurtry #3Western #USLiterature #1980s #Texas
I've read about Ayn Rand, and I've read short extracts from "Atlas Shrugged", supposedly her magnum opus.
Those extracts did not inspire me to plough through the whole of "Atlas Shrugged", but I thought to be fair I ought to read a complete work of hers, so I picked up a copy of her 1938 novella "Anthem".
In a repressive, techophobic, collectivist dystopia, a young man rebels, rediscovers electricity, and then escapes from captivity to be joined by his female lover. He hopes to rebuild a society based on individualism -- "Anthem" concludes with the protagonist determined to carve into the stone portal of his fort the "sacred word EGO".
Rand's writing is lifeless, with both characters and setting being little more than vehicles for the author's ponderous didacticism. The slight romance narrative smacks of sub-Hollywood teenage fantasy, with the protagonist renaming his lover "The Golden One", followed by her dubbing him 'The Unconquered".
The concluding pages are supposed to be a poetic invocation of egoism. Instead, they come across as Rand attempting to club the reader into submission.
I am pained to learn that this book is frequently assigned in US high schools, as it is devoid of literary merit and of no great significance in literary or cultural history. If teachers or school districts want to assign a mid 20C "antitotalitarian" work, why not press copies of "1984" into students' hands?
Nevertheless my afternoon was not entirely wasted, as I can now get through the rest of my life without having to read another word of this tiresome crank, yet have a clear conscience when I describe her as possessing not a shred of literary talent, because my judgment is based on a first hand acquaintance with her writing.
#Books #Literature #USLiterature #AmericanLiterature #AynRand #Anthem #RightWing
From Flummery Dis Honor's short story collection A Good Fan Is Hard to Find
"The Light You Wave May Be Your Phone".
Khurram Wadee ✅Time for a new #BookAtBedtime. So, tonight I will be starting #OfMiceAndMen by #JohnSteinbeck.
Dawn Powell
>> "New Yorker" ... film critic Richard Brody became the latest media figure to celebrate Powell, declaring her nine novels written from 1929 to 1948 (including three about Ohio) “one of the most extraordinary outpourings of sustained literary artistry that the United States can boast.” <<
#Books #DawnPowell #USLiterature #AmericanLiterature #20thCenturyLiterature #NewYork #Ohio
Earlier this evening I enjoyed the satisfaction of coming to the end of a book I enjoyed very much, Dawn Powell's 1948 novel "The Locusts Have No King".
I've posted about this author before; this is the fifth novel of hers I have read, and it impressed me as possibly the best so far. Beneath the sharp observation of literary New York and mid-century Manhattan mores lies a tale full of insight about the relations between men and women. The author provides plenty of amused skepticism about what we tell ourselves and others about our motives and hopes in the ups and downs of love and friendship, but this skepticism never lapses into a shallow cynicism about human nature. Instead, as happens with a comedy at its best, we are left both amused and moved.
Andrew Wheeler had a slightly different but thoughtful take on the book here:
https://antickmusings.blogspot.com/2023/11/the-locusts-have-no-king-by-dawn-powell.html
As Wheeler notes, "The Locusts Have No King" is not a book for everyone; you must have a taste for adult satire that is never coarse but which can sting at times. If you are, or aspire to be, that adult, I would strongly recommend that you hurry along to your library or bookshop now!
#Books #DawnPowell #TheLocustsHaveNoKing #Fiction #Novels #AmericanLiterature #USLiterature #NewYork #LiteratureInEnglish #1940s
https://brevitymag.com/nonfiction/solstice/
Usually classified as memoir, Joanne Lozar Glenn's "Solstice" could also be appreciated as short fiction.
In any case, it's an affecting piece of writing that takes minutes to read but will stay with you for days, weeks, months...
Image: Joanne Lozar Glenn -- https://muffin.wow-womenonwriting.com
#USLiterature #Nonfiction #Memoir #Solstice #JoanneLozarGlenn
One of my greatest pleasures recently has been discovering the writing of Dawn Powell.
I've just finished her 1942 novel "A Time To Be Born", which combines both her first hand understanding of the journalistic and literary New York of her time with a midwesterner's skeptical amusement at metropolitan self advancement and snobbery.
The novel also provides insights into American women's distinctive struggles with ambition, competition, and love in the opening years of the Second World War.
#Books #Fiction #DawnPowell #USLiterature #20thCenturyLiterature #LiteratureInEnglish #Novel
https://marissavivian.substack.com/p/hidden-voices-004-dawn-powell
James Baldwin's "Giovanni's Room" impressed me both for its exploration of love, sex, and sexual identity and for the skill with which the author has the narrative unfold; I was gripped from beginning to end.
Although the protagonist is white, I know that some critics believe that the theme of race is obliquely present by virtue of the salience of various kinds of minority identity throughout the novel.
Quite aside from it being a "good read", I would recommend it to anybody interested in the literary treatment of bisexuality.
Expatriation also figures as an important theme. These words hit home with this migrant:
>> You don't have a home until you leave it and then, when you have left it, you never can go back. <<
"Home", of course, can be more than a geographical location.
#Books #GiovannisRoom #JamesBaldwin #Fiction #AmericanLiterature #USLiterature #AfricanAmericanLiterature #QueerFiction #LiteratureInEnglish #Sexuality #Bisexuality #20thCenturyLiterature #1950s #Homosexuality #Gay #Expatriates #Migrants
I read some of Baldwin's essays a while ago, but I'm a mite embarrassed to say that I have only just finished my first Baldwin novel, "Go Tell It on the Mountain".
Did I love it? No.
Did I admire it? Yes, there is some powerful writing there. I was particularly impressed by Baldwin';s ability to encompass both African American vernacular and elevated biblical cadences without ever descending into hokiness. The psychological insight and narrative organization shown in the account of Esther's liaison with Gabriel struck me as brilliant.
The book also interested me as a document of midcentury US culture -- a social history approach that I'm sure Baldwin would have despised as reductive and unliterary!
I wonder if I might enjoy "Giovanni's Room" more, in part because I want to explore sexual rather than spiritual identity.
Image: James Baldwin at the Albert Memorial in 1969 -- Allen Warren -- Wikimedia Commons -- https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#Literature #JamesBaldwin #USLiterature #AfricanAmericanLiterature #Books #Fiction #Novel
