Books I have read over the last month or so...

Head Wankee Gender: Number of posts: 1569 Registration date: 2008-06-09

The "canon" of giants in the literary field keeps changing, and old favorites get dumped for new heroes - and heroines - all the time. It's as much political as anything else; dead old white guys go to the wall, bright young females get centre-stage for the time being, along with their mentors and heroines - Jane Austen, Virginia Woolf, for example - who may well be long overdue for their temporary place in the sun, after all (turnabout being fair play, right?) Thomas Wolfe is probably as much a victim of this kind of politics as he is of actual re-evaluation of his literary worth. He's certainly worth digging up, if you like his link to Jack Kerouac, whose place in the sun seems to be fading a bit, apart of course from the best-known work, "On the Road," which keeps getting re-discovered.

In the meantime, here's a link to the official Thomas Wolfe website, where his fans foregather to celebrate his life and work:

http://library.uncwil.edu/wolfe/wolfe.html

Head Wankee Gender: Number of posts: 1569 Registration date: 2008-06-09

You could get an argument, maybe it's not literature, but I just got a book I'm handing along to a student who gave me one of those "Webster's Dictionary says" papers; this is a one-volume edition of the Oxford English Dictionary, that wonderful 13-volume monster that makes library shelves groan as it approaches.

The Oxford Dictionary of Word Histories: The Life stories of Over 12,000 Words, ed. Glynis Chantrell (Oxford University Press, 2002).

OTOH, he could just Google OED, and he'd be lost in the forests of language forever. If you're gonna quote a dictionary, make it a good one.

Gender: Number of posts: 614 Registration date: 2008-11-14

I just finished reading The Wars by Timothy Findley for my Canadian Literature class. Being a Canadian novel, and the fact that I had to read it for school made me think that I'd hate it, but I was very surprised to find how much I really liked the novel.

Gender: Number of posts: 154 Registration date: 2009-08-23

John McLaughlin wrote:

The "canon" of giants in the literary field keeps changing, and old favorites get dumped for new heroes - and heroines - all the time. It's as much political as anything else; dead old white guys go to the wall, bright young females get centre-stage for the time being, along with their mentors and heroines - Jane Austen, Virginia Woolf, for example - who may well be long overdue for their temporary place in the sun, after all (turnabout being fair play, right?) Thomas Wolfe is probably as much a victim of this kind of politics as he is of actual re-evaluation of his literary worth. He's certainly worth digging up, if you like his link to Jack Kerouac, whose place in the sun seems to be fading a bit, apart of course from the best-known work, "On the Road," which keeps getting re-discovered.

In the meantime, here's a link to the official Thomas Wolfe website, where his fans foregather to celebrate his life and work:

Aphra Behn seems to be one who has received more attention due to her gender and place in time rather than her talent. I think Kerouac has suffered because a lot of his work was hastily released after the eventual publication and success of "On the Road", a lot of which could have done with some futher consideration.

Thanks, for the link. I found a copy of "The Hills Beyond" in a second hand bookstore today. After reading William Faulkner's opinion on Wolfe, I look forward to reading it.

The Boss Gender: Number of posts: 990 Registration date: 2008-04-28

Madame Bovary. Emma is so irritating!

Head Librarian Gender: Number of posts: 2308 Registration date: 2008-07-30

Re-reading "Helter Skelter", prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi's account of the Manson case.

Horrific and riveting in equal measure. The 60's ended here.

_________________
The salmon-falls, the mackerel-crowded seas

Head Wankee Gender: Number of posts: 1569 Registration date: 2008-06-09

See also Jonathan Eisen's Altamont: Death of Innocence in the Woodstock Nation (1970), and of course the movie with the Rolling Stones' side of the events, Gimme Shelter (?) - Meredith Hunter being killed at the free concert at the Altamont Speedway, by a Hells' Angel armed with a pool cue because he was pulling a gun on Mick Jagger.... Pretty sobering response to the Sixties, all in all. There's a pretty full Wikipedia page on the entire event.

Gender: Number of posts: 154 Registration date: 2009-08-23

The Immoralist - Andre Gide
The Hills Beyond - Thomas Wolfe

Head Wankee Gender: Number of posts: 1569 Registration date: 2008-06-09

I followed up on the Wolfe novel, The Hills Beyond, and came across a fascinating article, "Who Wrote Thomas Wolfe's Last Novels?" by a John Halberstadt, at www.nybooks.com/articles/7090 - his argument being that Wolfe's last editor, Edward Aswell, kept on doing the same kind of slash-and-burn editing to Wolfe's posthumously-published novels that Maxwell Perkins had done to the novels he had published during his lifetime. The claim is that Wolfe's work was bursting with energy and shapeless rambling, and was reduced to coherent shape by the editor. H'm.

Closed 3:00-3:15pm Gender: Number of posts: 3998 Registration date: 2008-04-28

I just found 'The Godfather', think I might read it.

Head Librarian Gender: Number of posts: 2308 Registration date: 2008-07-30

twooder wrote:

I just found 'The Godfather', think I might read it.

Mario Puzo's novel? It's very good.

Staying with the "Books-of-the-film" theme, so too is William Peter Blatty's "The Exorcist". In some ways, it's actually better than the movie.

_________________
The salmon-falls, the mackerel-crowded seas

Closed 3:00-3:15pm Gender: Number of posts: 3998 Registration date: 2008-04-28

Yes, the novel. I'll let you know how I get on!

Gender: Number of posts: 154 Registration date: 2009-08-23

John McLaughlin wrote:

I followed up on the Wolfe novel, The Hills Beyond, and came across a fascinating article, "Who Wrote Thomas Wolfe's Last Novels?" by a John Halberstadt, at www.nybooks.com/articles/7090 - his argument being that Wolfe's last editor, Edward Aswell, kept on doing the same kind of slash-and-burn editing to Wolfe's posthumously-published novels that Maxwell Perkins had done to the novels he had published during his lifetime. The claim is that Wolfe's work was bursting with energy and shapeless rambling, and was reduced to coherent shape by the editor. H'm.

Thanks, for the link John. A very intriguing state of affairs.

"Aswell wrote a long essay about Wolfe in which he skillfully created the misleading impression that Wolfe had left behind a relatively complete manuscript, and if one removed its excesses, the remainder cohered "like a jigsaw puzzle." One could not easily tamper with Wolfe's prose, he wrote, "By just a little injudicious tampering, those sonorous sentences [of Wolfe's] which have the majestic swing and roll of mighty music can be reduced to limping dissonance." Aswell not only misleads the reader but cites Randy Shepperton as proof Wolfe wasn't always autobiographical but was capable of "free invention." "Randy represents another imaginative projection of the close contemporary—sympathetic, understanding, loyal—whom Tom desperately needed…but did not have.""

This essay by the editor Edward C. Aswell was included in the book. I sadly can't seem to find it on the interweb but it makes interesting reading in comparison to the article above. I'd sure like to be able to read the original manuscript.

Head Wankee Gender: Number of posts: 1569 Registration date: 2008-06-09

Writing's a lonely craft, from all you read about it, isn't it? So few real friends of writers around!

Gender: Number of posts: 154 Registration date: 2009-08-23

John McLaughlin wrote:

Writing's a lonely craft, from all you read about it, isn't it? So few real friends of writers around!

Yes, Mr Wolfe was apparently a very lonely person:

"The Whole conviction of my life now rests upon the belief that loneliness, far from being a rare and curious phenomenon, is the central and inevitable fact of human existence.”