Sad Bastards: Sherwood Anderson

Sad Bastards is our (not regularly scheduled) feature wherein I tell you Five Things You Should Know About An Author To Sound Smart At Dinner Parties. 

...aaaaannnddd the comb-over

I'm currently reading (ok, I haven't started it but it's IN MY PURSE AND THAT COUNTS) The Egg and Other Stories by Sherwood Anderson. It's great! she says without having actually opened the book yet OK FINE. But Winesburg, Ohio IS actually great and I HAVE actually read that one so there. 

Moving on. Factoids de Sherwood Anderson:

1. He died because he swallowed the little toothpick that holds olives in a martini. It perforated his colon, caused peritonitis, and yeah. There you go. Actually, this is really all you need to know- death by martini toothpick.

2. The other Dead White Guys You Read in High School owe their careers to Anderson. His realist and sorta-minimalist style influenced Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Faulkner, et al. In fact, he was good friends with Faulkner. When William wrote his first novel (in his characteristic stream of whatthehellareyoutalkingabout style), Anderson promised to get it published for him- as long as he didn't have to read it. He also helped get Hemingway published when he was starting his career.

3. Faulkner and Hemingway both parodied Anderson's work in their own later novels. Anderson and Hemingway never reconciled and even went so far as to publish short stories about what asses the other was- but Anderson and Faulkner did eventually reconcile.

4. Norman Mailer called Winesburg, Ohio "one of the most important books in my developing life." Having never read Mailer, I can't tell if this is a compliment or not.

5. He really was a sad bastard. In 1912, he suffered from a nervous breakdown and wasn't seen for four days. Turns out he had walked the 30 miles to Cleveland and was found in a drugstore. Just after this, he left his wife and their three young kids to be a writer. You know how a family interferes with your ability to be creative. Always gumming up your keyboard with Jell-O and shit.

The Redemption of HAMLET

My thoughts on Hamlet, beginning when I read it in high school and lasting until yesterday at 5:45 p.m:

Ugh, Hamlet. Your whining knows no bounds- not the bounds of decency, or love, or not-killing-people's-fathers, or not-killing-innocent-and-well-intentioned-friends. You will have your whine, and whine it too! I want to punch you in your whiny face. I want to put you and Holden Caulfield together in a room and see which one of you whines the other to death, at which point I will let loose mad dogs on the survivor. You are the bane of my sophomore (junior?) year.

AND THEN! I saw the American Shakespeare Center's performance of Hamlet yesterday, and all was redemption and light *ok maybe not light there are after all skulls and deaths and many corpse type things* and joy *ok still maybe not the joy (see previous) but definitely appreciation* end scene.

The ASC's Hamlet is just another notch in the bedpost of my theory that Shakespeare must be seen performed (LIVE NONE OF THIS SHODDY VIDEO TAPED VERSION BUSINESS) in order to be not totally boring or at least enjoyed properly. Seeing a talented actor perform Hamlet gives nuance and complexity to a character that seems churlish and irritating on the page. The facial expressions, the unexpected comedy- the ASC's Hamlet actually strips at one point and then ties his cravat around his head like a ninja thing- make the damned thing sparkle. Ophelia is no longer a melodramatic nimnod singing weird little songs- seeing an actress with tears streaming down her face and actually singing with a broken voice and mascara everywhere (anachronism duly noted and ignored) and insanity. Man. And Hamlet's MOTHER- heartbreaking.

It was the SHIT. The "welcome to our show" guy at the beginning called Hamlet the crowning artistic achievement of Western civilization and after seeing it performed in front of me for the first time, I would have to agree.

(Sidenote- Bloom is both right and wrong- everything doesn't just come from Shakespeare, everything comes from Hamlet. So many times I caught myself going, huh. So that's where that title/line/plot comes from.)

Anyway. Go see some Shakespeare. Go go.

Five stars out of your mom for this specific performance at this specific theater, so don't blame me if you go to your local high school's production and it sucks monkeys.

Hard Times by Charles Dickens; Or, People With Money Are Satan

I'm usually *eye-rolling* and *sticking out tongue* about Books With a Message (not to be confused with Books With a Theme, which is all of them). This book doesn't just have a Message, it has such a thinly veiled and depressing message that it's almost a fable.

Hard Times is Dickens' railing against the evils of Victorian industrial capitalism, materialism, and the condescension of the rich. It's not subtle, or funny, or witty. It's nothing that you (I) love about Dickens, and much angrier than his other works, to boot. This world is black and white- there are the rich (evil) people who sound a lot like a few Presidential candidates I've heard speak recently, and then there are the industrious and pious poor. People A trod upon and mistreat People B, someone has a change of heart somewhere, there is a Moral. The Moral is stated by a dying man. At which point I literally pounded my head into my desk at the cheesiness of it all.

It's as if Dickens heard a Sarah Palin speech and then wrote an angry blog post where people who disagree with him are Satanic and it is his job to show you why so he can protect the poor, poor, poor people. It's condescending to both the wealthy industrial class and the working class, somehow. In fact, there were several points where the book reminded me of Ayn Rand's sledge-hammer style political discourse. This? This is not a compliment. And like Rand, Dickens' own bitterness about his childhood screams through, coloring any ability he has to be objective about the subject of industrial business.

The Angry Blog post does have some thoughtful moments, though. In fact, one of the Industrious Poor characters gives a speech that is one of the best explanations of compassionate capitalism and harmony between workers and business owners I've ever heard- which says a bit, since it was the 19th century. And the story itself is heart breaking and tragic- and it's one of the shorter of Dickens' works...probably because yelling and fist-pounding on the page can only last but so long when you're a middle aged man.

Summary: angry, overblown, hysterical to the point of being a bit laughable, depressing, DOES NOT HAVE A HAPPY ENDING (no one gets married, which is new for my experience in Dickens), political treatise that should have been an essay

Three stars out of your mom for story, two stars out of your mom for everything else (mostly the speeches)

But MMMOOOMMM, it's a GIIRRRLL book

I was at (I don't remember where, but there were books), looking for new books for the twins. Granted, they're only six months old so my selections are light on the content and heavy on the is-this-short-and/or-partially-edible? BUT. They're starting to show signs that they understand when I speak to them, like turning when I say their names and lighting up at the mention of food (ah, sons after my own heart), so I'm becoming more focused on reading them Good Kiddy Books, as opposed to This Book Is Drool Proof.

So, back to the (I don't remember the store name) incident. I was looking at a book about a pig ballerina...Olivia...? It looked cute. I like talking pigs. The drawings were brightly colored, something babies seem to appreciate. Cue old lady..."what adorable little boys!"

Me: Thankee.
OL: Do you read to them often?
Me: I do, yes.
OL: Oh, Olivia. My granddaughter loves that book. But it's a girl's book! They won't like that!
Me: ...they're six months old...I don't think they care what it's about as long as the corner fits in their mouth...
OL: .....
Me: ..... *smiles, scoots away*

Now, this lady wasn't rude or even critical- she was very sweet in that Neighborhood Grandmother Who Makes You Cookies sort of way. But the encounter left me thinking about a NYT article I read a few months ago that made the claim that boys aren't reading YA because most YA is written to/by/about ladies, and boys don't like reading about ladies. It also reminded me of when my husband read Gone With the Wind, which was back when I was pregnant. His coworkers ribbed him for reading a "girl" book- which he ended up loving so much we named our oldest twin Rhett. (Also, what the hell? No one ever gives ME crap for reading a "man's" book).

Thinking back on my own childhood reading experience, it was pretty Little House on the Prairie, Anne of Green Gables, Babysitter's Club, Nancy Drew heavy. Neither my parents nor my teachers ever suggested that I read a book with a male protagonist extracurricularly, though we were assigned several. It was only when I was old enough to have a feeling about what books are considered Important that I started purposefully seeking out novels with male protagonists. And this wasn't purposeful, I wasn't thinking "icky boy books, no me likey." It was the result of a guided reading experience combined with what I was expected to like, as a girl.

I don't really want that for my boys. I don't want them to shy away from picking up a book because they're expected to like something else, or because the protagonist is Other Than Me. I don't want them to turn down Island of the Blue Dolphins, which kicks MAJOR ADVENTURE ASS, just because they main character is a girl. I don't want to make assumptions about what they'll be interested in based on the fact that they are male. But, on the other hand, I'm not going to raise them without any concept of being boys. If they end up wanting to chase each other around pretending sticks are guns, and playing cops and robbers, whatever. I think there's a balance, and it stems from not expecting them to be x, y, or z, just because of their sex. But I do want to expose them to books with girls, and books with main characters that aren't white, and books with main characters that aren't human, and books about...everything.

I WANT THEM TO KNOW EVERYTHING.

I guess what I'm trying to say is, my son isn't going to "catch girliness" from reading a book with a pink cover. In fact, reading books with characters that are unlike him will probably make him more open minded and accepting of others- which is important in a time when bullying is a big issue. So if my kid wants to read Olivia, awesome. If he wants to read Huck Finn and The Red Badge of Courage over and over, awesome. I just might slip a copy of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe between the pages because...go Lucy.

Anyway, what are your thoughts? Can/Should kids read books that are obviously made for the other gender? Why are some people made so uncomfortable by the sight of a little boy reading something intended for a female audience? Are they that uncomfortable with femininity? Discuss.

Brave New World; Or, B-Movie Sci Fi For Intellechsuals, Mmkay.

Oh man. Intense re-read disappointment? Thy name is Brave New World. I read this in high school, like many of you, and I just loved it so giddily. Everyone in the book had lots of SEX (giggle giggle) and there's a character who is smart but QUESTIONS AUTHORITY (damn the man save the empire) and they take a lot of DRUGS (puff pass this book is aawwweeesssoommee) and there you have it. The capitalized words that are all that are necessary to make a teenager love you for eternity.

If "for eternity" actually means "until she grows up and reads better things and gets a functional brain-piece." Except not really because I can still read things that are about sex and drugs and questioning authority and not be all PSHAW. I am a Grown Up and therefore too good for this. But Brave New World is full of problems and lacking in the things that would make those problems acceptable.

Obligatory plot summary so everyone is up to speed on the griping I'm about to do: It is the future. People are engineered to fit in a caste system based on intelligence. Promiscuity is encouraged. People take drugs and watch a lot of porn in public. An uncivilized savage comes and has read Shakespeare and therefore hates all of the above things.

Problem 1. One of my least favorite literary devices ever in life ever is the Characters Having a Philosophical Dialogue so the Author Can Espouse Thoughts Better Kept in Essay Form. See also: Foutainhead, The. The Savage has a lllooonnnngggg long long conversation with the Leader of the Bad People wherein they quote Shakespeare back and forth to each other so that Huxley can argue about how pain and choice are good. This is fine, except it's clumsy and lazy and predictable...so maybe it's not fine. Just kidding. It's the ANTI-FINE.

Problem 2. The world building is shallow, flat, and colorless and the world that Huxley does build is...well...silly. Aside from lots of sex and mind-numbing drugs and a few scenes involving child rearing, there's actually very little insight into this dystopia. You met a couple government officials, but that's about it. There's no real explanation of the differences between the various castes, and it's so hard to visualize what this world really looks like. Which is why my brain filled the vacuum by inserting scenes from B sci-fi movies. Very "take me to your leader." This would have been better as a short story.

Problem 3. This is a one word problem: 1984. You can't help but compare the two if you've read both, and it's a comparison that does not serve Brave New World well. The entire time I'm thinking, "yeah, but Orwell's vision was so much more believable." And, "yeah, but Orwell's world was so much richer and more violent and more scary and the characters were so much more three dimensional and ARGH IT'S JUST SO MUCH BETTER." Maybe this isn't fair to Huxley, or maybe he just should have written a better book.

Things That Were Not Super-Sucktastic: It's entertaining, I guess. You can see where Huxley sat down and drew aspects of his societal vision by just taking the opposite of the morality that existed at the time. The ideas of monogamy and family are not just faded, they're EEVVVIIILLL. The concept of worshipping a God is replaced with the worship of Henry Ford. It's so ridiculous that you're bound to keep reading...almost like a train wreck, but with less death and more aromatherapy (seriously- what's with all the smelly bits?).

Summary: Poorly executed, wrong medium for the message, more appropriate for teenagers than adults, takes itself too seriously, just read 1984 and pretend this doesn't exist- unless you want to treat it like cheesy science fiction.

Two stars out of your mom.

Things Which Are New

Announcement Uno! The Book Riot has begun, and is up and running! For those who have been waiting in antici..(SAY IT!)...pation, you won't be disappointed. The site looks great and I'm really pleased to be able to say that I'm involved. I'll be contributing to Book Riot, and will keep you posted as new things come around over there. For those who don't have a flippin' flappin' clue what I'm talking about, I TELL YOU: Book Riot is a book news and commentary site that capitalizes on the democratization of the book world; i.e, gives the tomes back to the people (anarchy in the UK, etc..)(not really). The Reading Ape, one of the co-founders, puts it best when he calles it "somewhere between your higher quality book blog and a mass market site like The Huffington Post (but, you know, good)." Book Riot will collect high quality book schtuff so you don't have to schlepp around the interwebs in search of entertainment. It is, in short, the shit.

Anouncement Two! The winner of my Banned Classics giveaway isssss.....@chrisbookarama! So go ahead and select your two books from the list in the previous post and email me your mailing address at deadwhiteguysblog (at) gmail (dot) com. Congratulations, and thanks for participating, everyone! I did reach 800 Twitter followers, but then I lost a few when I said something smart-assy about the New York Jets. Don't want Jets fans around these parts, anyway. Shoo! (I kid)

Anouncement Tres! Guys. This one's really big. I read and HIGHLY ENJOYED....The Hunger Games. That's right, I liked a YA novel. I still thought it had some pretty glaring problems, but on the whole Katniss was kick ass and I didn't think it pandered to its audience. I read it in one sitting and was so happy about it that my husband is reading it now. So there you go, YA fans. Miracles still happen.


Summary- Book Riot should be your new favorite website (because I'm floating around on there somewhere [and also because it's smart and funny and bookish]), Chrisbookarama is annointed, The Hunger Games does not suck.