What Are You Reading

[LizzieMaine]

The New Republic recently pointed out that the current debate over Atticus's legacy began long before the publication of GSAW.

“In the imagination he is much greater than he is in the actual books,” says Ann Engar, a professor at the University of Utah who has written about the novel’s influence on the legal profession: “In the book, for example, Atticus Finch is assigned to defend Tom Robinson. He doesn’t volunteer to do it.” Similarly Pryal found that “whenever I gave talks at conferences on he possibility that Atticus might not be the anti-racist hero everyone believes him to be, people would freak out because they hold Atticus very close to their hearts.”

This is something I used to think about, to be honest. Tom Robinson, in TKAM, is largely a plot device, rather than a real person. Part of that is due to the way the book is constructed -- told thru Scout's eyes, you could hardly expect her to have any particular insight into what Robinson is really like -- but part of it comes from the way Atticus himself approaches the case, as a legal problem less than a human one. He does the right thing because it's legally the right thing to do, but even at his most heroic it's impossible to imagine him sitting down at the same table to eat a meal with his client.

I think also that the movie of TKAM has influenced the modern-day view of Atticus even more than the book in one key respect -- as played by Gregory Peck, he comes across about twenty years younger than the age he's depicted as in the novel. Young and handsome in the shorthand of Hollywood tends to equal noble and forward-thinking -- it's hard to imagine someone who looks like Gregory Peck as being a hidebound reactionary.

 

[Fading Fast]

I read the piece that quote came from somewhere recently. While it makes its points - I thought the fact that Atticus was assigned the case - and didn't want it - makes him more of a real hero than Superman crashing through a wall. Sure, the perfect hero takes up every cause, fights every fight without being drafted - but those people tend to be brutal in real life - always angry, always looking of the next battle or, at minimum, always looking for their next cause.

But in real life, some heroes fight only when they have to. And let's be honest, Atticus could have found a way out if he really wanted to - I believe that point is made in TKAM (but my memory is not perfect on that scene and my copy is stored away right now). So he reluctantly takes up a case he didn't want to, but probably could have gotten out of, and then does everything he can to save Tom's life even risking his own (the porch scene in front of the prison). Yup, still a hero to me.

I am not dismissing all her points (I don't remember them all), but highlighting that the reluctant hero isn't a bad one in my mind.

And I agree completely that Gregory Peck's portrayal has had great influence as people (myself certainly included) see him, not as whomever you created in your mind when you first read the novel, as Atticus.

 

[Harp]

The New Republic recently pointed out that the current debate over Atticus's legacy began long before the publication of GSAW.

An author's literary craft often defaults the scribe, a la Aristotle's criticism of the Platonic forms lacking proper genus;
or simply a red flag protagonist such as Madame Bovary penned by the reclusive supposed misogynist Flaubert.
Henry James faulted Jane Austen; Wilde lampooned Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Walt Whitman;
and my favorite Flannery O'Connor called To Kill A Mockingbird "a child's book"....

Atticus Finch has served as a role model for a half century. I admire his character, courage, conviction.
And the chorus mockery emanating from the Ivory Tower recounted in Laura Marsh's New Republic piece recalls the late Simon Leys' observation:

"The need to bring down to our own wretched level, to deface, to deride and debunk any splendor that is towering above us,
is probably the saddest urge in human nature."

 

[MisterCairo]

I've finished Poe's one and only novel, The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym (an interesting ride, but I can see why the novel was not his forte). I'm reading again Dickens' The Old Curiosity Shop.

 

[Tiki Tom]

I am currently reading "Hemingway's Boat" by Paul Hendrickson. I was a big Hemingway fan as a young man, but I stopped reading biographies about him during the time when it was fashionable to (mostly) bash him and judge him against modern sensibilities. This book was recommended to me and I'm enjoying it. It takes a unique approach... the author thought that by intimately getting to know everything about the history of Hemingway's beloved boat, Pilar, he might be able to cut away the rhetoric and catch a glimpse of the real man. There is a strangely moving scene when the author travels to Havana and actually lays a hand on the hull of Pilar. I'm on about page 200 (out of 700!!!) and I can say this: so far it is balanced and a wealth of information that I had never heard before. Hendrickson is very sympathetic to Hemingway without ever losing sight of, or down playing, his faults. He paints a picture of a surprisingly complex man. The author goes into fairly minute detail as he paints a picture of what Key West and Havana were like in the 1930s and 1940s. It is quite evocative and beautifully written. At one point I swear I could see Hemingway's old Havana right before my eyes. However, be forewarned that the mood of the book tends toward melancholy. The author hauntingly ---and effectively--- paints episodes and events as foreshadowing the train wreck to come. I was a bit hesitant to buy the book due to its daunting thickness, but so far it has proved a wise purchase for someone who once was a big fan of the man and wanted to rediscover him with a more seasoned and mature eye. For anyone who dreams about what it must have been like to kick around Cuba and the Keys in the 1930s, and land some giant marlin with Hemingway in the process, this book is a good bet.

 

[Harp]

to cut away the rhetoric and catch a glimpse of the real man. It is quite evocative and beautifully written. However, be forewarned that the mood of the book tends toward melancholy. The author hauntingly ---and effectively--- paints episodes and events as foreshadowing the train wreck to come.

A melancholic soul, similar to Keats and Leopardi; Boethius imprisoned yet inwardly free, others physically free
yet confined within darkness.

 

[AmateisGal]

Battleground Pacific by Sterling Mace

 

[Touchofevil]

More Ross MacDonald. From 1959, The Galton Case.

 

[LizzieMaine]

"Broadcast Hysteria: Orson Welles' War of the Worlds and the Art of Fake News," by A. Brad Schwartz.

Released just this summer, this is a first-rate debunking of one of the Era's most persistent myths -- the belief that Welles' 1938 "War of the Worlds" sparked a full-scale nationwide panic. Schwartz taps a resource that no other author has accessed -- the complete file of letters sent to CBS and the Federal Communications Commission after the broadcast, which, along with a fresh reexamination of post-broadcast survey data accumulated by Princeton University researchers, proves conclusively that, although about a million people accepted some aspect of the program as "real," this belief did not translate into either widespread panic, or a belief that "Martians" were attacking New Jersey.

The meat of the book is Schwartz's examination of how and why the print news media deliberately created the myth of a nationwide panic, and how that myth has been perpetuated down to the present time by those with a financial interest in encouraging it. It's, at last, the definitive look at this bizarre episode in media history, and I'd say that even if I wasn't cited in the footnotes as one of Schwartz's sources.

 

[Fading Fast]

"Broadcast Hysteria: Orson Welles' War of the Worlds and the Art of Fake News," by A. Brad Schwartz.

Released just this summer, this is a first-rate debunking of one of the Era's most persistent myths -- the belief that Welles' 1938 "War of the Worlds" sparked a full-scale nationwide panic. Schwartz taps a resource that no other author has accessed -- the complete file of letters sent to CBS and the Federal Communications Commission after the broadcast, which, along with a fresh reexamination of post-broadcast survey data accumulated by Princeton University researchers, proves conclusively that, although about a million people accepted some aspect of the program as "real," this belief did not translate into either widespread panic, or a belief that "Martians" were attacking New Jersey.

The meat of the book is Schwartz's examination of how and why the print news media deliberately created the myth of a nationwide panic, and how that myth has been perpetuated down to the present time by those with a financial interest in encouraging it. It's, at last, the definitive look at this bizarre episode in media history, and I'd say that even if I wasn't cited in the footnotes as one of Schwartz's sources.

Kudos on the footnote mention. Away from the smart, fresh look at the event, how does the book read - dry and factual, or does he bring the history / period alive? I was tempted to get it when it came out, but thought (and clearly was wrong) it would just be a rehash of a subject I knew pretty well (as I've always enjoyed reading about that broadcast and its ramifications).

 

[LizzieMaine]

Very entertaining -- the first third of the book is a narrative account of the assembly and production of the broadcast itself, and there's quite a bit of backstage stuff that I haven't come across before about the Mercury Theatre and the people involved in it. The second part delves deeply into the political machinations that followed the broadcast, which might be a bit dry to anyone not interested in the politics of the radio industry, and then the end follows the story up to the current day, tracing its long-term impact on the careers of Welles, Howard Koch, and others involved in its production.

It's a lot more entertaining a read than Hadley Cantril's book, and is a lot less sensationalistic than Koch's.

 

[Fading Fast]

Very entertaining -- the first third of the book is a narrative account of the assembly and production of the broadcast itself, and there's quite a bit of backstage stuff that I haven't come across before about the Mercury Theatre and the people involved in it. The second part delves deeply into the political machinations that followed the broadcast, which might be a bit dry to anyone not interested in the politics of the radio industry, and then the end follows the story up to the current day, tracing its long-term impact on the careers of Welles, Howard Koch, and others involved in its production.

It's a lot more entertaining a read than Hadley Cantril's book, and is a lot less sensationalistic than Koch's.

Thank you - that does it for me, into the Amazon cart it goes.

 

[DNO]

Dashiell Hammett's The Thin Man. Whenever I tried reading this author's Maltese Falcon I found I couldn't get the Bogart film out of my head. As a result I never enjoyed the book. This one, however, is working out just fine...quite enjoyable.

 

[Harp]

Baseball's Loss of Innocence, The Chicago "Black Sox," 1919; Douglas Goetsch, The American Scholar, Spring 2011

Ring Lardner's disillusionment examined.

 

[ChiTownScion]

Now You're Logging, by Bus Griffiths. A graphic novel.

He worked as a logger in British Columbia for years, and his illustrations are based upon his experiences.

 

[LizzieMaine]

"The R. Crumb Handbook," by Robert Crumb with Peter Poplaski. This autobiographical overview of the career of the famous "underground" cartoonist might not seem like my usual sort of fare. But I've always been fascinated by Crumb, who despite being identified by the general public with the "hippie" generation actually repudiates most of the culture of that period and instead embraces the pre-WW2 Era. While his views weren't commonly known or understood when he was in his heyday in the sixties, he expressed them quite clearly in interviews at the time, and re-states them quite emphatically in this book, noting that he firmly rejected the consumption-driven mass culture of the Baby Boomer generation even when he was a kid in the fifties. His opening words in the first chapter of the book make his views absolutely clear:

As a kid growing up in the 1950s, I became acutely aware of the changes taking place in American culture and I must say I didn't much like it. I witnessed the debasement of architecture, and I could see a decline in the quality of things like comic books and toys, things made for kids. Old things had more life, more substance, more humanity in them.

Crumb was a child of the first television generation, and even then realized he was soaking up pre-digested, marketing-driven fantasies, which he found grotesque, inescapable -- and frightening.

You had this uneasy feeling as a kid that something was going on that you were not showing you -- something that was ugly. Adults were hiding something from us. And that's such a fascinating thing, the adult interpretation of the kid's world, a world artifically sweetened for kids, full of things kids are supposed to like and want. We sat in front of the television on Saturday mornings and looked at kid's stuff. The shows tell kids that life could be fun and exciting, but the unconscious message is that the adult world is strange, twisted, perverted, threatening, sinister...."

What we kids didn't understand was that we were living in a commercial, commodity culture. Everything in our environment had been bought and sold. As middle-class Americans we basically grew up on a movie set. The conscious values that are pushed are only part of the picture... We are living surrounded by illusion, by professionally created fairy tales. We barely have any contact with the real world.

Deep stuff for an artist the commercial world tried to reduce to "Keep On Truckin'" T-shirts. Much of Crumb's work is disturbing on many levels -- especially for women -- but there are many examples in the book that transcend the crude and vulgar and practically ache with nostalgia for a world unsullied by The Boys.

Crumb's musical activities also get extensive discussion -- he's well known as a leading collector of 1920s dance band records, and he talks about how discovering this music as a kid changed his life and kept him from becoming completely embittered. The book includes an excellent CD compendium of some of his favorite records, which make for excellent listening.

 

[dh66]

"The R. Crumb Handbook," by Robert Crumb with Peter Poplaski. This autobiographical overview of the career of the famous "underground" cartoonist might not seem like my usual sort of fare. But I've always been fascinated by Crumb, who despite being identified by the general public with the "hippie" generation actually repudiates most of the culture of that period and instead embraces the pre-WW2 Era. While his views weren't commonly known or understood when he was in his heyday in the sixties, he expressed them quite clearly in interviews at the time, and re-states them quite emphatically in this book, noting that he firmly rejected the consumption-driven mass culture of the Baby Boomer generation even when he was a kid in the fifties. His opening words in the first chapter of the book make his views absolutely clear:



Crumb was a child of the first television generation, and even then realized he was soaking up pre-digested, marketing-driven fantasies, which he found grotesque, inescapable -- and frightening.



Deep stuff for an artist the commercial world tried to reduce to "Keep On Truckin'" T-shirts. Much of Crumb's work is disturbing on many levels -- especially for women -- but there are many examples in the book that transcend the crude and vulgar and practically ache with nostalgia for a world unsullied by The Boys.

Crumb's musical activities also get extensive discussion -- he's well known as a leading collector of 1920s dance band records, and he talks about how discovering this music as a kid changed his life and kept him from becoming completely embittered. The book includes an excellent CD compendium of some of his favorite records, which make for excellent listening.

Thank you for sharing this. I enjoy some of Crumb's work, and will seek out this book. He was an interesting character, to say the least. Very counter to the counterculture. The man certainly flew his own flag.
A very interesting film was made about him in '94. I would assume, being in the industry, that you've seen it, but if not you should check it out.

 

[Fading Fast]

I know nothing about Crumb, but you have got me intrigued. His views of growing up in the '50s are incredibly insightful as are his views of the world that parents create for children.

I try to be honest about my Dad - and he was no easy man - but one thing he did that I am grateful for was not creating a "child's" world for me. I was raised as a little adult from an early age. I was aware of life's challenges, problems and struggles - I wasn't coddled or protected from this or that - and, IMHO, I was much more ready and prepared for adulthood - which I took on at 17 - than many of my friends who grew up sheltered, as was the cultural norm.

I like that my Dad stood completely outside the cultural norms of how to raise a kid, not, IMHO, because he made a conscious decision, but because his depression-era childhood left him with no other way to see the world or to show the world to his son. I know there are many who believe that childhood should be a time where kids are protected from many of life fears and risks and worries - and maybe that is the best way to raise a kid (I don't know) - but I am very glad I wasn't raised that way.

Did I enjoy my childhood - no; did it make me a better-able-to-succeed-in-the-world adult - unquestionably.

Back to Crumb - I'm confused by the last two panels in his cartoon. The third-to-last looks like some sort of apocalypse has occurred to the "modern" world, but what is he showing with the last two? Are they alternative futures - the first (second-to-last panel) being a very Jetson type of future and the second (last panel) being a return to a putative "simpler' time?

 

[LizzieMaine]

Correct. The final three panels are three possible futures.

The piece is called "A Short History Of America," and it's worth looking around online for a larger-format version -- the level of detail in each panel is extraordinary.

As far as Crumb's views on his childhood world are concerned, when he talks about "the real world," he doesn't mean the dog-eat-dog capitalist world -- which he completely rejects -- so much as he means the *real* world, the dirt and the rocks and the water. Like a lot of kids of his generation, he grew up in a manicured, pasteurized-process postwar suburb where nature was viewed as something to be subdued and shaped to man's will, not something that actually *produced* man in the first place. He believes that kids growing up in that kind of wholly artificial environment end up badly damaged on many levels -- and judging from his own experience, he has a point. I thank God every day of my life that I've never had to live in a place like that.

 

[ChiTownScion]

Correct. The final three panels are three possible futures.

The piece is called "A Short History Of America," and it's worth looking around online for a larger-format version -- the level of detail in each panel is extraordinary.

As far as Crumb's views on his childhood world are concerned, when he talks about "the real world," he doesn't mean the dog-eat-dog capitalist world -- which he completely rejects -- so much as he means the *real* world, the dirt and the rocks and the water. Like a lot of kids of his generation, he grew up in a manicured, pasteurized-process postwar suburb where nature was viewed as something to be subdued and shaped to man's will, not something that actually *produced* man in the first place. He believes that kids growing up in that kind of wholly artificial environment end up badly damaged on many levels -- and judging from his own experience, he has a point. I thank God every day of my life that I've never had to live in a place like that.

I trust that you've seen Terry Zwigoff's 1995 film Crumb? The message that you get is that he grew up in a very dysfunctional family. Scary as it may seem, compared to his mother and his brothers Charles and Maxon, he's clearly the normal one. The other highlight of interest in that film is when then pre-teen daughter Sophie remarks regarding the décor and collectibles in the home, "Everything always has to be old." The film shows how Crumb and his wife Aline Kaminsky, growing ever disillusioned with America, end up moving to France.

I've been a Crumb fan since the late 1960's. Even when he was in his full blown acid induced stage (late 60's and earl 70's) there was always that longing for the styles of the past. The most extreme of his cartoons in both the perverted sexual (Mr. Natural and the Big Baby, Mr. Snoid, The Simp & the Gimp, e.g.) and racist (Angelfood McSpade, Salty Dog Sam) realms have a noticeable element of cuteness reminiscent of the early animated cartoons- even if the subject matter wallows in thumbing its nose at taboos. As he settled down, the longing for those lost times of cultural innocence are presented in an ever more sophisticated manner.