https://www.online-literature.com/forums/blog.php?30135-Q-s-Views The largest classic literature discussion forum on the Internet. Read Write Teach Share. en Fri, 05 Jun 2026 04:38:24 GMT vBulletin 10 https://www.online-literature.com/forums/images/misc/rss.jpg https://www.online-literature.com/forums/blog.php?30135-Q-s-Views https://www.online-literature.com/forums/entry.php?12279-Juxtaposition Wed, 07 Mar 2012 01:30:55 GMT In my last post, I was in the process of finishing up _The Prime Minister _by Anthony Trollope. Trollope is a very Victorian writer in that romance... In my last post, I was in the process of finishing up The Prime Minister by Anthony Trollope. Trollope is a very Victorian writer in that romance is conducted in very formal ways. Gentlemen call on young ladies in the presence of another adult, typically an adult female. The bulk of the action takes place among the peerage, or people of station, and very little of it engages the general unwashed masses. The stories are quaint and entertaining.

The next novel on my list was Germinal by Emile Zola. I have read a good share of works by American realists and naturalists, but nothing prepared me for the raw nature of this book. The earthy descriptions of women are a stark contrast to the prim descriptions found in Victorian romantic novels. What was really amazing was how much in the forefront sex was. The characters are members of coal-mining families. After coming out of the mines, males and females would pair up and copulate. The girls would end up pregnant. The girl's family would look for the father of the baby to marry the girl; the father's family would avoid the marriage in order to keep the son's income in the family. Motivations are very basal. Food, shelter, sex.

Zola's description of the mine owners, aristocrats, is almost comical. Not necessarily the men, who seem to be striving to make the best of bad situations in terms of their struggling businesses. However, their women, and in particular the daughters, are almost caricatures of the typical Victorian heroine. They ride around in carriages to look at the great unwashed masses, especially once the strike in the mines breaks out. One young woman's idea of charity is to give the miner's families her old dresses. She is prohibited from giving them money or food, items the families would prefer and are more greatly in need.

The sharp contrast between these two novels got me to thinking - have you ever read two novels back to back which provided such sharp contrast? Post a comment and let me know. ]]> PabloQ https://www.online-literature.com/forums/entry.php?12279-Juxtaposition https://www.online-literature.com/forums/entry.php?9646-Wow-Long-Time-No-Blog Wed, 06 Jan 2010 03:55:12 GMT Well, it has been way too long since I posted to my blog. First of all, Happy Gregorian New Year to all.

I'm still sticking to the reading of the American novels of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. In 2009, I completed the following:
Dos Passos
1919
The Big Money
Hemingway
The Sun Also Rises
Farewell to Arms
The Old Man and the Sea
Fitzgerald
The Great Gatsby
Steinbeck
East of Eden
The Grapes of Wrath
The Moon is Down (lesser known but read it)
The Pearl
Faulkner No thank you.
The Sound and the Fury
Flags in the Dust
As I Lay Dying
Sherwood Anderson's Winesburg, Ohio
Willa Cather
Death Comes to the Archbishop
O Pioneers!
My Antonia
Harold Fredric's The Damnation of Theron Ware

I particularly enjoyed my time with Hemingway and Steinbeck. I learned that it will be tough for me to hate Faulkner more than I hate Henry James, but it's darn close. I know, I know, many of you love Faulkner and hate Hemingway, but Faulkner really got on my nerves.

Along side all that, I found that I absolutely love Walt Whitman's voice. I have barely scratched the surface of Leaves of Grass, but what I've read just seems remarkable. It's wonderfully beautiful to me.

I have also resolved to write more this year. That was the original intent of this blog. I wanted to keep in the habit of writing and this blog was intended to keep my wit keen and my writing sharp. I managed to submit one short story for the competition last year. This year, my goal is to submit two. I'm also working on developing old Johnny Kickstool into a novel. Once I have some meat to it, I might post a sample chapter to get some feedback. I've already hacked the short story I posted hear to pieces and distributed its details across the novel.

Work, work, work.
Peace,
Q ]]> PabloQ https://www.online-literature.com/forums/entry.php?9646-Wow-Long-Time-No-Blog https://www.online-literature.com/forums/entry.php?7713-A-Thank-You-and-an-Apology Fri, 13 Mar 2009 03:31:05 GMT One of the things I enjoy about LitNet is the Short Story competition. I like to read the stories and vote. The choice is usually hard to make. ... One of the things I enjoy about LitNet is the Short Story competition. I like to read the stories and vote. The choice is usually hard to make. The first competition of 2009 was won by a story entitled "The Button War". Congrats to the author. We may never know who that may be. If the story wins at the end of the year, the author will be announced, but until then, we'll never know. Only the loser can announce themselves. I'm one of the losers.

I haven't written anything of substance in over 25 years. I flirted with a novel for about 8 years before I fnally decided it was crap. Since then, I've had ideas, but nothing of note. Finally, I started to have this idea. I think the idea is a novel, if I can sustain the voice for a major work. This idea was a character called Johnny Kickstool. Johnny was human for a time. He was going to go on some country wide rampage of violence and reckless behavior of all sorts. It felt a little too much like Natural Born Killers so he had go somewhere else.

I brought Johnny to life as an employee of Death, the senior vice president of the suicide division. I entered the story in the competition to see if it would draw any votes. My story got 9 out of 25 total votes cast.

Just a brief note on the number of votes cast. There are thousands of members of Lit Net and only 25 of them took the time to read the stories and vote. We've got thousands of posts, but 25 votes. For myself, I could care less. My purpose in competing to see if there would be any interest in my idea. There was. That's enough for me. The other writers deserved more.

Anyway, I want to thank dramasnot6, lugdunum, Neely, Pendragon, pussnboots, Virgil, Zippy, and ~Sophia~ for voting for my story. I'm flattered.

And now the apology. I voted for myself and I want to apologize to my fellow authors for doing that. After I did it, I felt bad about it. If I was going to vote, I should have voted for another story, but frankly I didn't feel that I could. My choice would have come down to the winner, which I feel has a wonderful voice to it but has what I perceive to be a flaw of detail I can't quite get past, and the story that got zero votes.

To the author of The Inheritance of the Meek: you tried to cram a novel into less than 2000 words. There was a lot going on, but it seems like a novel idea more than a short story.

Peace,
Q ]]> PabloQ https://www.online-literature.com/forums/entry.php?7713-A-Thank-You-and-an-Apology https://www.online-literature.com/forums/entry.php?7457-On-Poetry Fri, 13 Feb 2009 01:50:46 GMT The other day I had a terrifying (and random) thought. I fear poetry. I thought about it for a few moments because it seemed harsh. What I think I... The other day I had a terrifying (and random) thought. I fear poetry. I thought about it for a few moments because it seemed harsh. What I think I meant was that I fear I don't appreciate poetry the way I should. My reading history is predominantly the novel with a smattering of short stories and I find I don't understand poetry well enough to appreciate it. That lack of appreciation seems to inhibit my ability to really enjoy it.

I don't know much about art but I know what I like. This cliche seems to apply to me and poetry. I might like a poem, but I have no reason if I like it for the right reasons or whether my interpretation of what is says is actually what I'm supposed to take away from it. It's what keep me away from the poetry forums on LitNet.

I feel like I'm standing at the doorway of room in which a party is in progress. Everybody knows each other and have many things in common. As I step to the threshold, you all stop and look at me, one thought on your mind. He isn't coming in here is he? Not welcome. I feel completely unqualified to write a syllable about anybody's poems. I don't vote in the contests because I really can't discern the merits of one poem over another like maybe I could with a short story or chapter from a novel.

Overall I fell like I'm cheating myself of something beautiful. ]]> PabloQ https://www.online-literature.com/forums/entry.php?7457-On-Poetry https://www.online-literature.com/forums/entry.php?7400-Dos-Passos-II Sun, 08 Feb 2009 03:54:13 GMT In the foreword by E. L. Doctorow in my editions of USA, Doctorow indicates that the murals of Mexican artist Diego Rivera had an influence on Dos... In the foreword by E. L. Doctorow in my editions of USA, Doctorow indicates that the murals of Mexican artist Diego Rivera had an influence on Dos Passos' construct of USA. I find this interestingly appropriate as I continue to work my way through the work.

Dos Passos patches together the stories using four techniques. Each book has central characters, each of whom's stories are told from that character's perspectives. The characters may or may not eventually cross paths. In the 42nd Parallel, we meet 5 characters, the last of whom, Charley Anderson is a main character of The Big Money. Three of the characters from the 42nd Parallel are characters in the stories of the principal characters in 1919. The largest parts of the books are made up of the stories of these major characters. In the spaces between those stories, Dos Passos uses the other three techniques.

One technique he titles the Newsreel and Numbers them sequentially. These newsreels are made up snippets of song lyrics, real headlines from newspaper stories, portions of those stories, and in The Big Money advertisements and classified ads. They serve as short, sometimes obscure, sometimes enlightening, mirrors of what is relevant to the times of the story. The second technique is a stream of consciousness vignette he entitles Camera's Eye and again he numbers them sequentially. In the foreword, Doctorow suggests these are Dos Passos memories and experiences, but I'm not so sure I agree with that. There are times that I think these are memories and experiences of the main characters; there just isn't any indication whose memory it really is. The anonymity of the source makes the memory anybody's and I think that is what Dos Passos is doing, allowing the memory or exprience to strike a chord of familiarity with the reader that this memory can happen to anybody and if it happened to you or is similar to something that happened to you, they you are not alone.

The last technique is the mini-biography of famous people from the times. Some you've heard of (Edison, Teddy Roosevelt, Henry Ford) and some you have not. In the 42nd parallel, they were almost all obituaries, because the individual in the biography was always dead by the end of it. In 1919, it was mixed and in The Big Money, more of the individuals were alive than dead. If you think in terms of murals though, these techniques paint a picture of America and it's people.

The 42nd Parallel focuses very much on the labor movement and how America averts the rise of socialism and anarchy in the early part of the 20th century. I got a lot of feel of Upton Sinclair during this book. 1919 takes place almost entirely in Europe, which is odd for a book in the USA trilogy, but makes sense when you realize it follows the viewpoints of the American characters and their roles overseas during World War I and the peace negotiations. There is very little about the battles or the dismal life in the trenches, but the men are volunteers as ambulance drivers (both Dos Passos and Hemingway served in that capacity) and women volunteered in the Red Cross.

The Big Money, although I'm not quite done, is clearly leading us through the Roaring '20s to the Wall Street Crash of 1929. So I guess I'll sign off and make some more progress toward that end. ]]> PabloQ https://www.online-literature.com/forums/entry.php?7400-Dos-Passos-II https://www.online-literature.com/forums/entry.php?7331-Dos-Passos-I Fri, 30 Jan 2009 05:09:56 GMT Not quite done with the trilogy. I'm about a quarter of the way through the last book. It's been very hectic at work and I haven't much time to read or blog. I'll eventually have a longer blog on the interesting construct of this novel, but first I want to revisit the 600 pound gorilla.

I blogged a while back about how sex lurked in the periphery. You knew it had a role in the story, but it was never explicit or really discussed. It's just there. This struck me the most in reading Henry James and Fitzgerald. Although with Fitzgerald, the gorilla was inside the walls of the room and with James he might have been down the hall in the bathroom.

In USA, sex is a theme. As we meet some of the characters, we are introduced to each's attitude toward sex, their first experiences, etc. Boom, right there. It's an interesting step forward compared to evertything I've read to date.

Another interesting observation. Early in the 42nd Parallel, a character drops the f bomb. Whoa, that was another first, but the interesting part is that in 1919, swear words are depicted with the dash method -- you know when Dickens wrote d--n you instead of damn you. I'm wondering if Dos Passos' publisher decided that in the second and third books, they weren't going to shock America with the actual word. It hasn't appeared since that single dropping of the bomb in the first book.

A final tidbit. I read many books leading up to reading USA. In 1919, a character is regaled by a man telling a story about Death Valley and Sangre de Cristos mountains. It was a quick little paragraph, but if I hadn't read everything that I had, I would have never recognized this little tip of the hat to Frank Norris's McTeague. Maybe I'm learning something from this little journey after all. ]]> PabloQ https://www.online-literature.com/forums/entry.php?7331-Dos-Passos-I https://www.online-literature.com/forums/entry.php?7063-Bookstore-Angst Wed, 31 Dec 2008 04:41:35 GMT I know I'm not the first to express or confess this particular weakness, but I seem to have a real problem staying out of new and used book stores. Even worse, I can't seem to walk out empty handed. I want to start with the used book stores. Near where I live there are 3 used book stores, Mike's, Edward's, and Steve's.

Mike's is a fledgling storefront, clean and neat. It only has a little over one book case of "literature". I stop in from time to time, but rarely do I find anything of consequence, especially works that fit into my reading quest. However, the last time I was in there I found a copy of Drieser's Jennie Gerhardt and Zola's L'Assomoir. Had to have 'em, bought 'em. Didn't need 'em.

Edward McKay's is kind of a chain and I think it's rooted in the trade of college text books, but has expanded to other books, music recordings, videos, and game systems. The one near here is kind of clean and organized, but the two rows of "classics" usually produce reasonably priced collection fillers. The last purchase here was a while ago, but it included The Damnation of Theron Ware and a collection of short stories by Fitzgerald. Coincidentally, I heard about Theron Ware in This Side of Paradise.

Steve's is a whole different animal. This place claims to have over 1 million volumes inside and I believe them. This place is crammed with all sorts of published works, a lot of them theologically based (there's a seminary near here and loads and loads of Baptists). There are books on the floor of every row running down both sides of the aisle. The rows are at least 30 feet long. One aisle is dedicated to "classic literature". One of Steve's real charms is the smell; it has this musty atticky/basement smell of old books rescued from libraries and private collections, probably obtained from estate sales, library sell offs, and yard sales. It's hard to describe, but "crap everywhere" comes close.

I spent an hour in Steve's tonight just walking the classics aisle. I found some interesting things, but I find Steve's prices to be a little high in comparison to the quality of the volume. Somewhere along the line, ol' Steve has it in his head that every beat to hell, yellow paged book has appreciated in value. He rips off or blacks out the original price and pencils in his own. Now I can understand asking a high price for a mint condition, first edition of Moby-Dick, I get it. But when you have a reprint from 1940, yellowed pages, notes in the margins, etc. it is not worth $15 just because it's old. I have yet to spend a dollar with Steve, but it is inevitable. He has some less commonly available titles by Sinclair Lewis that I want, but very little else.

I ended up at Barnes & Noble from where I had a gift card burning a hole in my wallet. I ended up with a collection of Hemingway's short stories (I blame you people for that), It Can't Happen Here by Sinclair Lewis, and The Adventures of Augie March by Saul Bellow. I went way over the gift card amount and put several works back. I've got a problem.

My problem is the backlog. Keeping with the American novel pursuit, I have a question -- continue forward or circle back? In continue forward, I keep reading authors through the 20th century starting with Hemingway, Steinbeck, and Faulkner. Others I could include are Bellow, Mailer, Roth, Salinger, Kerourac(?), and others. I'm inclined to stop at Faulkner. In circle back, I go back and read additional works by authors I have already read and read some of the authors I missed the first time through. So here's what the shelf looks like (literally):
After I finish 1919,
The Big Money Dos Passos
The Sun Also Rises Hemingway
A Farewell to Arms Hemingway
East of Eden Steinbeck
Grapes of Wrath Steinbeck
The Sound and the Fury Faulkner
Flags in the Dust Faulkner
Snopes (The Hamlet, The Town, and the Mansion all combined) Faulkner
The Great Gatsby Fitzgerald
Winesburg, Ohio Sherwood Anderson
Death Comes to the Archbishop Willa Cather
My, Antonia Cather
The Damnation of Theron Ware Harold Fredric
The Pit Frank Norris
Jennie Gerhardt Dreiser
The Financier Dreiser
The Titan Dreiser
Three Soldiers Dos Passos
The Call of the Wild and White Fang Jack London
Daisy Miller, Washington Square, The Aspern Papers, and The Turn of the Screw James
You Can't Go Home, Again Thomas Wolfe.

Plus, I want to reread Moby-Dick and Huckleberry Finn. Plus, I've got two Zola novels I want to read -- Germinal and L'Assommoir. And I added two more tonight. On top of that I have short story collections by Fitzgerald, Hemingway, and Flannery O'Connor.

What's an old man to do?:bawling: ]]> PabloQ https://www.online-literature.com/forums/entry.php?7063-Bookstore-Angst https://www.online-literature.com/forums/entry.php?6999-Damned-for-All-Time Fri, 19 Dec 2008 23:08:39 GMT Q: Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned.
Father McCreary: Tell me what you've done, son.
Q: Well, I've committed a horrible crime.
Father: Murder? Rape? Robbery?
Q: Oh, no, Father, nothing like that. It's a crime against art.
Father: Art who?
Q: No, Father. Art - painting, sculpture, literature, music, stuff like that.
Father: Oh, well that can't be so bad son. Have you a forged a famous painting?
Q: No. I've, well, I own, well, I've got this (begins to cry)
Father: Ah, son, it can't be that bad. Just tell me what it is and you'll feel better.
Q: (big breath) I own a black velvet Elvis
Father: YOU WHAT!!!!!!!
Q: I own a black velvet Elvis and I need forgiveness.
Father: Ah, son, nobody can forgive that!!
Q: Our father who art...
Father: No, no, no. No amount of Our Fathers or Hail Marys can atone for what you've done. This goes far deeper than crime against art. This is blasphemy, sacrilege, eternal condemnation to the fires of Hell.
Q: But, dude, it was a gift.
Father: Hm, Young Elvis?
Q: Just the head of fat, bloated Vegas Elvis.
Father (resignedly): Can't help you.
Q: But
Father: Nope, that just grates against all that is decent and civilized. Can't forgive it.
Q: But I thought it being Christmas and all.
Father: Nope, can't do it.
(silent moment, smoke 'em if you got 'em , girls)
Q: I could regift it.
Father: Aye, lad, ya might.
Q: It being Christmas and all.
Father: But that's not an act of love you're talking about.
Q: Well, how about this...
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to All!!!
Father: That'll do, pig, that'll do. ]]> PabloQ https://www.online-literature.com/forums/entry.php?6999-Damned-for-All-Time https://www.online-literature.com/forums/entry.php?6955-Goooooooooooooooooooooooa-l!! Fri, 12 Dec 2008 05:45:11 GMT About 18 months ago, I set a goal for myself as part of a kind of mid-life crisis. Having been reading novels from all over the map classics to... About 18 months ago, I set a goal for myself as part of a kind of mid-life crisis. Having been reading novels from all over the map classics to mysteries to the occasional fantasy to Bernard Cornwell, I decided I was going to focus on a period of time in American literature. I thought about what I knew about American novelists and I found a gap between Mark Twain and the big 3, Hemingway, Steinbeck, and Faulkner. I completely forgot Fitzgerald and some others. For some unexplained reason, I ended up focusing on USA by John Dos Passos.

I did a little web research on Dos Passos and discovered he was considered a naturalist, among other things. Not knowing quite what that meant I found other realists and naturalists and just other novelists from the time period 1880-1930. I made a list. It's in the first entry of this blog. But now after 18 months, I'm at the door step.

That list of books was for the most part accidental. Even as I accumulated it, I would shuffle it around or add a second volume by a writer. I identified authors I'd never heard of (William Dean Howells and Frank Norris) and discovered some that I had (Sinclair Lewis, Theodore Dreiser, Edith Wharton). In almost every case, I read two novels by each author. Twenty novels in all. Only two that I really didn't enjoy and only one of those two which I have no appreciation of at all and would not read again for any amount of money. Not bad.

Out of blind luck, I think this was perfect. Each novel seemed to connect in certain ways with others, thematically or stylistically. I've read about 10 pages of The 42nd Parallel and I can already tell that had I jumped in with this book 18 months ago, I would have been reading it just to read it with little appreciatiation for it. Now, I can tell this is going to be fun because I have Tarkingtion, Wharton, Howells, Norris, Crane, Lewis, Sinclair (I've already located Upton's socialist hammer), Twain, Fitzgerald, and yes even James to thank for helping me to appreciate it.

Now I can savor the experience instead of gobbling it up, belching, and moving on to some schlocky piece of pulp fiction. ]]> PabloQ https://www.online-literature.com/forums/entry.php?6955-Goooooooooooooooooooooooa-l!! https://www.online-literature.com/forums/entry.php?6927-A-Real-Disappointment Mon, 08 Dec 2008 03:19:10 GMT I don't think it's much of a secret that I'm spending a lot of my time reading American novels. I'm having difficulty finding forums where I can see the American novel discussed. Just doesn't seem to be much call for it. A recent thread that I thought had promise was shut down today.

What started as a simple question about The Bell Jar and Gravity's Rainbow turned into a philosopical joust about universalism. The thread struggled to get on track, but deteriorated into an infantile discussion of economics, socialism, and nonsense. Thank you all.

If I were a vengeful person, I'd seek out some of these folks favorite threads and see if I could get them shut down by taking their discussion by a nonconsequential political argument a gazillion miles off topic. But that would be unfair. Just as unfair as what happened today.

I'd been thinking for day's on the role of wilderness in the American novel and my interpretation of what it means. Citing examples (odd concept). Maybe I'll save it for another day and post it here. Or maybe I'll just take my ball and go home. ]]> PabloQ https://www.online-literature.com/forums/entry.php?6927-A-Real-Disappointment https://www.online-literature.com/forums/entry.php?6894-The-Gorilla-Sequel Tue, 02 Dec 2008 00:51:27 GMT I'm beginning to love F. S. Fitzgerald. He acknowledges the gorilla and oh so subtly points in his direction. The evidence from The Beautiful and Damned:
"One night while her head lay upon his heart and their cigarettes glowed in swerving buttons of light through the dome of darkness over the bed, she spoke for the first time and fragmentarily of the men who had hung brief moments on her beauty."
OOK, OOK, big fella. I love that. Only white space precedes it and conversation follows, but that single sentence screams sex. It's just done so subtly and so beautifully. ]]> PabloQ https://www.online-literature.com/forums/entry.php?6894-The-Gorilla-Sequel https://www.online-literature.com/forums/entry.php?6865-The-Six-Hundred-Pound-Gorilla Tue, 25 Nov 2008 19:24:03 GMT I debated whether to make this thought a blog entry or try to start a discussion thread. My discussion threads wither and die quickly so I guess... I debated whether to make this thought a blog entry or try to start a discussion thread. My discussion threads wither and die quickly so I guess I'll discuss it here.
Today, in any entertainment media you select, we are under a barrage of sexual images. Sex predominates. Sex sells. No matter the outlet -- stage or screen (big or small), painting or sculpture, novels or poetry. Sex is woven throughout our modern culture and to an extent we have the glorious 1960's to credit for it.
What I find interesting is the treatment of sex in the novels that I've been reading (American, 1880-1930, blah, blah). These works are written before the liberalization of sex, but I'm becoming intrigued how it sits in the room (like you know who), but it's never explicitly called out or recognized. As I remember reading Henry James, there was always this underlying current in the relationships between characters. Every once in a while I would think, "Why did he say that?" or "What does that mean?" and then realizing it was you-know-who.
The attraction between individuals was always based on something simplistic on the surface -- beauty, intelligence, money -- but over the time relationships take on a complexity and that complexity seems to be lauded over by Mr. G.
In The House of Mirth, a girl is destroyed by a hint of impropriety. In Maggie: A Girl of the Streets, a girl is destroyed by impropriety as a profession, but you still have to understand the venacular of the time to understand the girl has taken to prostitution so that her family can eat. In Sister Carrie, the scandal is that a well-to-do married man throws it all away on a single girl and in the end dies a destitute and broken man. But the gorilla never stands and beats his chest and roars. We understand that when a married man calls on an unmarried woman or young girl and walks through that front door only to emerge hours later, it is inappropriate and we don't need the details of anything that happened behind that door.
I bring it up because as I'm reading The Beautiful and Damned by Fitzgerald, it strikes me that the gorilla is gaining weight. He seems to be everywhere, but Fitzgerald's not pointing at him, not talking about him, he's just there. And it intrigues me that the writing can bring this beast in, essentially make him a character, and never, ever acknowledge that he is there. I think it makes the writing of the time more enjoyable, more artistic, more poetic.
C'mon, buddy, let's give you a bath. Follow the dancing :banana: ]]> PabloQ https://www.online-literature.com/forums/entry.php?6865-The-Six-Hundred-Pound-Gorilla https://www.online-literature.com/forums/entry.php?6711-George-Babbitt-C-est-Moi Mon, 03 Nov 2008 18:49:34 GMT I'm lagging behind in my book reviews. On my ongoing quest to read and hopefully understand the American novel of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, I'm running into authors that I need to circle around and pick up on the other side of my objective - USA by John Dos Passos. I'm finding authors that intrigue me and I want to read more, but if I dwell on them too much, I'll bog down and never get to USA. Sinclair Lewis is one of those authors.

I read Main Street and Babbitt. I enjoyed both, but Babbitt I found to be particularly disturbing because it seemed to a great extent biographical -- of me!!:eek: George Babbitt is in his late 40s, he has a wife who he doesn't particularly love, but is highly comfortable, he has a middle class life, he has a job that he's good at but not particularly satisfied with, and three children that he worries over. George is middle everything. He promises to change aspects of his life, but lacks the strength, for example stopping smoking. He has dozens of acquaintances and neighbors, but only one true friend.

You get the sense that George is in a rut and at the same time he would like to change it he lacks the ambition to do anything about it. Once we learn this much about him, George has lunch with his best friend, Paul. Paul is sick of being hen-pecked by his wife. They plot to go off to Maine together on a camping trip prior to the rest of their families' joining them. It becomes a magical time for Babbitt, but his friend becomes even more miserable.

Eventually, Paul shoots his wife. He doesn't kill her, but he is sentenced to five years in jail. George realizes that in essence his friend and his friendship are dead. It leaves a hole in his life and opens his eyes to the possibilities of being a different kind of person, one who is a little less mainstream, who doesn't necessarily agree with every opinion that a man of his station is expected to hold and behave in a way that a man is of his station is expected to carry himself. He starts expressing some liberal political views and starts running around with a widow while is wife is away caring for her sister. He starts drinking to excess.

He starts to lose his acquaintances. Business opportunities start passing him by. People start to challenge the changes in him and rebels. His wife comes home and she knows that something is up. George runs away from it all and goes to Maine with the intention of never returning to his home in Zenith. The trip to Maine doesn't go well and he returns home with his tail between his legs and resumes the life he had always led. It seems sad, but you feel somewhat happy that George finally discovers that he was satisfied with his life just the way it was.

Now this novel isn't an exact parallel to my life story, but I sympathized with this man when he questioned working at the same job for so long and reflected on what might have been. When one has lived in the same location with the same woman for a long time you have similar thoughts. It's called a mid-life crisis. I had a mini-version when I went out drinking with single friends, acting as a flirtatious wing man. I flirted to the brink of infidelity and scared the crap out of myself. So I went back to the mundane, still wholly unsatisfied. When it boiled down to regrets, my biggest regret was leaving college early to take a job with the company I am working for 30 years later and abandoning my dream of becoming a writer or literature professor.

So I needed something that was uniquely mine and thus friends we have the road to Dos Passos. Which, by the way, I accidentally paved in an excellent way. I built the road with authors known for realism, naturalism, and setting a course to modernism. I've found authors that I want to explore more thoroughly, Dreiser, Norris, Lewis. I've discovered I'm not a Henry James fan. But the shelf of works on that road is almost clear, but you should see the mess on the backside of Dos Passos.

I think I'll turn to you good folks to help me organize that mess at a later time.
Q ]]> PabloQ https://www.online-literature.com/forums/entry.php?6711-George-Babbitt-C-est-Moi https://www.online-literature.com/forums/entry.php?6576-News-from-the-Front Fri, 17 Oct 2008 03:50:47 GMT Death to squirrels. Hunker down there soldier or you'll take one in the skull. As we speak here, so to speak, a commando unit of squirrels is continuing to pelt my home and my car with acorns.
Oh, you probably think like that wise guy up the street, Ike Newton. What goes up must come down, he says and then lays out some story about rotation and gravity. Gravity, smavity, I says, them little grey b*st*rds are throwing nuts at my house. Then ol' Ike says mighty oaks from little acorns grow and walks away. Oaks come from storks, I yell, just like all living things. Not so damn sure where storks come from though.
I hear 'em up there chattering. Rats with fancy hair dos is all they are. All night long; all day long. I fire BBs in there general direction but flip me tiny little fingers. They've started wearing little Kevolar vests too. Buck-toothed little death machines are what they are. Take an acorn to the head folks and you'll understand what a genius Chicken Little was. Meanwhile they chatter and hurl their little missiles at my house. I think I need a tank.
Until next time,
Sincerely
General Paranoia ]]> PabloQ https://www.online-literature.com/forums/entry.php?6576-News-from-the-Front https://www.online-literature.com/forums/entry.php?6460-What-s-Your-Opinion Thu, 02 Oct 2008 22:20:04 GMT I enjoy Lit Net. I don't post much because I don't consider myself that smart, but I sure do enjoy reading the opinions of others.

Opinions...hmmm.

In my youth, there was a group of us that would get together to drink beer and play Risk. We'd listen to rock music on the radio. We'd cut up. It was fun. I recall one instance where a song came on the radio and I stated that I really enjoyed that band. This fellow across the table says to me, "Opinions are like *holes, everyone has one" which I had heard before, but he added, "and yours stinks." I got really mad and my buddies had to break up a fight before it started because not only had this offended one of my favorite bands, he had upset a pretty important part of my anatomy. Most of all I couldn't fathom what qualified this guy to pass judgement on my opinion.

When I was in college, I had to read The Odyssey and The Grapes of Wrath in freshman English. Other classes were reading stuff like Cat's Cradle, Huckleberry Finn, and Lord of the Flies. We had this ancient professor and she loved these two books. We had to write an essay on what we thought Homer was trying to say, blah, blah, blah. I had been taught that you can have whatever opinion you want, but back it up with facts. I wrote and essay that was nearly flawless grammatically and spelling wise, but I got a B- because my opinion was wrong. I disagreed with the teacher's view. Huh? My opinion, substantiated as it was, was wrong? My next paper (mostly because the class was boring) I agreed with her opinion thoughout, but I massacred the language, misspellings, bad syntax, you name it. Yep, B-.

Now the lesson there was to write an immaculate paper and agree with teacher, but these two works (to me at that time) were absolutely loathsome. So being immature, I took the disagreement B minus.

Some of my favorite threads are these solicitations of a the "overrated" work or author. They really entertain me because some knuckle head will bring up someone like this Shakespeare fellow and declare him over-rated. Or Mark Twain. What? Some opinions expressed in these threads are just silly and I assume these might be younger members who don't really know what they're saying. There are some lively discussions regarding some of the polarizing writers whose works people generally either like or dislike. James Joyce is a great example. I've personally never read Joyce, but it seems to boil down to folks who get it and those who don't.

Inevitably, someone adds the "and yours stinks". I don't know why it's necessary, but it always happens. Feathers get ruffled. But it's an opinion. I loved Moby Dick. I loved the Old Man and the Sea. Some folks didn't enjoy them. I get that, but there's a difference between "I read Moby Dick and just found it boring and monotonous" and "Melville is a hack." Give me a break...

Oh, the point? Well, as we draw nearer and nearer to the American election, I am barraged by ads and commentaries that consistently tell me that my opinion "stinks". To this day, I still get my hackles up over that. It's an attack on personal hygiene. ]]> PabloQ https://www.online-literature.com/forums/entry.php?6460-What-s-Your-Opinion