Okay, fine, I didn't like it. I believe I had a crisis of faith whilst reading Winesburg, Ohio. One of the bestest reasons for GR is that I've been exposed to writers that I'd never heard of and to reviews that made me sit up and say 'To the library, NOW' and I really wanted to believe that I'd benefit from reading this. I really did. So, uh... what went wrong? Where is this crisis of faith? Okay, maybe not faith---maybe foundation is a better word. See, I always sort of thought of myself as an equal opportunity hater, you know in the whole misogyny/misandry angle was never my thing. But, as I read Winesburg, I started to understand why Valerie Solanas penned her manifesto.Okay, that's a bit harsh. I admit. But, still I don't like going there and unfortunately dear Sherwood made me question my misanthropy. There are just a handful of women in Winesburg. I couldn't find one that I felt was justifiably written, in the sense of being 'real'... and represented. You have Elizabeth Willard, who has such a chip on her shoulder and such regret that she declares such statements as 'If I am dead and see him becoming a meaningless drab figure like myself, I will come back...I ask God now to give me that privilege. I demand it. I will pay for it. God may beat me with his fists. I will take any blow that may befall if but this my boy be allowed to express something for both of us.” Way to go, Mom. So, she sits in her room with her son and they don't talk and it's awkward and does she say anything to George? Tell him how she has faith in him, thinks he's this great force to be reckoned with? (Bit, of an Elektra complex, maybe?) No... but she was dang passionate about it. Then there's Louise Trunnion who is supposed to drop everything to walk with George (I begin to think here that has a bit of an ego thing going on... one of those qualities that just make me want to kick him in the shin, btw) and you know as Sherwood writes "She was not particularly comely and there was a black smudge on the side of her nose. George thought she must have rubbed her nose with her finger after she had been handling some of the kitchen pots.” Good old woman's work, thanks for taking one for the team, Weezie. But, hey she puts out... so we can forgive her lack of comeliness. We've got Alice Hindman and her Adventure. You know, being used and thrown out by Ned Currie before he moved to Cleveland and bigger and better places East. She just knows that he'll be back, right? I mean, she was a weaver of carpets... such a catch. But, you know... years pass and she starts to feel like the spinster she has become and decides one night to run naked in the rain. ”She thought that the rain would have some creative and wonderful effect on her body. Not for years had she felt so full of youth and courage. She wanted to leap and run, to cry out, to find some other lonely human and embrace him. On the brick sidewalk before the house a man stumbled homeward. Alice started to run. A wild, desperate mood took possession of her. 'What do I care who it is. He is alone, and I will go to him,' she thought; and then without stopping to consider the possible result of her madness, called softly. 'Wait!' she cried. 'Don't go away. Whoever you are, you must wait.' The man on the sidewalk stopped and stood listening. He was an old man and somewhat deaf. Putting his hand to his mouth, he shouted. 'What? What say?' he called. Alice dropped to the ground and lay trembling.” So, instead of snagging Brad Pitt she ends up with Red Skelton. We have Tom Hard's daughter. Doomed with a calling and a new name before her 6th birthday. She lives in this pit of a town with her faithless dad and a stranger passing through gets drunk and ”...he dropped to his knees on the sidewalk and raised the hands of the little girl to his drunken lips. He kissed them ecstatically. 'Be Tandy, little one,' he pleaded 'Dare to be strong and courageous. That is the road. Venture anything. Be brave enough to dare to be loved. Be something more than man or woman. Be Tandy.'” Uh... 'Tandy' (stripper name???) be a good girl and go talk to Alice and Elizabeth and see what your future REALLY looks like, kay?Then there's Kate Swift. The 'teacher'. Yes, poor Kate... peeped on by the local clergyman as she reads and smokes cigarettes on a Sunday. Sinner. Poor Kate who is crushing hard on her former studly student, George. Who so wants to pull a Pam Smart except you know, she's not married and lives with her elderly aunt and all. ”At the age of thirty Kate Swift was not known in Winesburg as a pretty woman. Her complexion was not good and her face was covered with blotches that indicated ill health. Alone in the night in the winter streets she was lovely.”But, you know... after her wretched action of throwing herself at her former student she goes home and undresses and throws herself on her bed crying, beating her pillow and then begins to pray. So, of course good old peeping Minister Curtis is redeemed because Kate's become an instrument of God, bearing the message of truth.”. Yeah, that's it.Okay... so where am I going with all this? Who the fuck knows. I just know what I'm feeling and that's pissed off. And I'm pissed off that I'm pissed off. I'm not THAT person that finds the nitpicky crap and whines about it, you know? Like I said, the world is my dumpster. I don't see what the big deal is with this book. Maybe I'm missing out, obviously I am if I look at my friend's reviews of this. I did find it rather amusing that most of the ravings belonged to my male friends... hmmm... Maybe it was the whole 'this book represents Middle America' angle and well, I'm not all that interested in Middle America. But, I can't say that I'm all that blown away with the 'complex human beings whose portraits, rendered in Anderson's masterful prose, brought American literature into the modern age.' (back cover) So what, it was written in 1919. I don't think it was some great revelation that people make it out to be. Honestly... if I was interested in pre-industrial suburbia and it's dreariness, I'd read some Emily Dickinson. But, that's just me. Okay, I'm ready for the barrage... maybe.
Pretend that you are a beleaguered IT guy. OK, maybe you aren't as beleaguered as those in Third World countries who have no choice but to work in the Truck Nutz factory for sixteen hours a day while dying a slow death caused by meager wages, inhuman tedium, and constant exposure to airbourne faux testicular carcinogens, but you like to think that you understand their pain. Existential career crises are the new black for Americans living in the 21st Century. It is Friday afternoon and you storm away from the office like you are a Chicago gangster on the lam from the g-men. If only you can get home and grab a book, everything will be all right. Just you, your book, a velvet smoking jacket, cigar, and cognac* and the wounds on your soul will be salved. Moments after you arrive home a thunderstorm suddenly descends. The sound of a lightning bolt hitting the transformer at the end of the block is punctuated by your wife's shrill, Universal Studios monster movie era scream. The scream is scarier than the lightning. After the storm passes you go to check on the computer. Dead. Totally. With a defeated sigh you begin to sift through the detritus of the island of misfit computers (the basement) in an attempt to build some sort of Frankenstein's monster type computer that will possess something resembling Internet connectivity. Around 11pm you stop for the evening and mark the occasion with a defeated sounding "Fuck it!" Now you feel like you can finally sit down with a drink and a book, six hours after you had initially intended for the moment to arrive.At a time such as this when you are feeling like the biblical Job of the Information Era, perhaps this is not the book that you want to sit down with if you are in need of a spiritually uplifting tome.Here is the part where I pull together two totally disparate pop culture artifacts in a questionable attempt at wit/hipster-cornpone wisdom. Ready? This book is like...shit, I don't know...this book is like Andy Griffith's bucolic town of Mayberry if Ian Curtis was the mayor.Although this is a melancholy read, it is also very beautiful. Winesburg, Ohio is a collection of short stories or vignettes about the citizens of this small, fictional town. Anderson gives us amazing insights into their feelings of unrequited love, personal inadequacies, and the loneliness that claws at their hearts. I feel that it is safe to say that most everyone on this site ponders his or her own life much more often than the average person. Have you ever looked forward to some upcoming event in your life with such anticipation that you have mentally mapped out and prematurely relished each little moment of impending sweetness? When the event arrives it often never lives up to what you are expecting and the sadness of this realization ruins everything else that might have been. That is the emotion that Anderson poured into this book, only better.After every story I said to myself "Wow! That is going to end up being my favorite character." Mine was Kate Swift, for the record. My favorite story was the four-part Godliness, as I found it intriguing that it followed a family over multiple generations.A recurring character in many of these stories is young George Williard, who is a writer for the local newspaper. Williard seems to possess a certain prestige amongst most of the other residents. He is often sought out for conversations that take a turn towards the one-sided confession. He is viewed by others as someone with a future potential as a writer and the heroic local boy who has the wherewithal to one day escape from Winesburg and make it big in the city. I found this interesting because Williard seemed to me to be one of the more shallow characters in the book. He feigned a facade of wisdom through a sort of quiet ineptitude. Williard does succeed in leaving Winesburg in the end, but something tells me that if the story were to continue that he will return to Winesburg in a couple of years and join the ranks of the broken and defeated.I purchased my copy of this book at ye local used bookstore some time ago almost as an afterthought. It is a beautifully bound book that came from a collection of similar classics in what I assumed at the time was salvaged from an estate sale. Despite the beauty of this volume, the publisher is called International Collectors Library, which sounds unfamiliarly fishy to me in a generic sort of way. This edition also contains a forward by Malcolm Cowley. I am not sure if this forward is present in any other editions, but a summary of the forward is that Cowley paints Anderson as a moody writer of rather sporadic output who served as a mentor to numerous writers who followed (Hemingway, Faulkner) but ultimately managed to alienate them all. He goes on to say that while the rest of Anderson's work is very uneven, this collection is more or less pretty good. Fuck you, Cowley, and fuck you, International Collectors Library. It offends me that you chose to shit upon such a literary triumph over what is probably some long forgotten petty professional grievance. Despite whatever personal flaws Sherwood Anderson might have had as a person this work spoke to me on so many levels. I'm very thankful that I finally pulled it off of the shelf. *Or whatever the Southeast Missouri equivalent of these last three might be.
What do You think about Winesburg, Ohio (1999)?
If you ever want to engage in a fun experiment I suggest you do the following, which I've arranged in a convenient, step-by-step format.A) Fall in love with a girlB) This might be hard to arrange by yourself, but the girl has to move away from you- but not because you split or anythingC) Stay away from her for a whileD) Save up your money devotedly (i.e. stop smoking for a week) so you can afford to go visit her.E) Take a 7 hour bus ride to where she resides, which may or not be a hippy/freak/artist university in Northampton, MAF) Arrive. Greet. Be happyG) Take copious amounts of speedH) I mean, take a lot. More than you shouldI) Do not sleep. Do not eat. These are the activities of the plebeians; you need to be spending your time having long, engaging, profound and worldly conversations that connect you with everyone you meet. At least, you need to think thatJ) Keep going! You're only there for two and a half daysK) Leave in the morning. It's been....50 hours since you slept or ate. Say goodbye, hop on that busL) You haven't taken any speed in a while because you're not fucking made of money, man, so functioning as a human becomes difficult.M) The speed wears off. You're on a bus, you're going back home to a place that you don't particularly like, and you're leaving behind the girl that you love without knowing when you will see her againN) Lose hope. Embrace despair. Have daylight hallucinations. Feel every grain of anything resembling happiness drain out of your body.O) Read Winesburg, Ohio.P) See if you survive through the day!!The "big fans of existentialism" in my english class would have shat themselves over this book, because it seems like Mr. Anderson is the definition of the "life is devoid of meaning and full of hopelessness" idea they all wanted to believe so much. I don't want to ruin anything for you, but here's the general moral of these stories: pretty much everyone's hopes and dreams are just that, and they all end up dying, feeling like a failure.Cheery stuff. Enjoy with a heft dose of Coricidin Cough and Cold for optimal results.
—AJ Griffin
Introduction--The Book of the Grotesque--Hands, concerning Wing Biddlebaum--Paper Pills, concerning Doctor Reefy--Mother, concerning Elizabeth Willard--The Philosopher, concerning Doctor Parcival--Nobody Knows, concerning Louise TrunnionGodliness, a Tale in Four Parts:--I, concerning Jesse Bentley--II, also concerning Jesse Bentley--III, Surrender, concerning Louise Bentley--IV, Terror, concerning David Hardy--A Man of Ideas, concerning Joe Welling--Adventure, concerning Alice Hindman--Respectability, concerning Wash Williams--The Thinker, concerning Seth Richmond--Tandy, concerning Tandy Hard--The Strength of God, concerning the Reverend Curtis Hartman--The Teacher, concerning Kate Swift--Loneliness, concerning Enoch Robinson--An Awakening, concerning Belle Carpenter--"Queer", concerning Elmer Cowley--The Untold Lie, concerning Ray Pearson--Drink, concerning Tom Foster--Death, concerning Doctor Reefy and Elizabeth Willard--Sophistication, concerning Helen White--Departure, concerning George Willard
—Edward
zut, alors! i don't even know where to begin. i had such a complicated reaction to this book. am i the only person who didn't find this depressing?? this book is life - it is tender and gentle and melancholy and real. not everything works out according to plan here, but what ever does? that's not necessarily depressing, it's just a reality that can either be moped over and dwelled upon, or accepted and moved on from. this is the emotional truth of life - we don't understand our urges, we make bad decisions, we work hard to no great end and no one notices, but sherwood anderson noticed. this book is us - amplified. life gets all of us; it is the struggle to be understood, the struggle to not get lost in the crowd - to make a noise that someone hears. these characters are believed, cared for, delicately rendered by anderson to really get to the core of human shortcomings. i apologize in advance - this might become my most oddly formatted "book review" ever, just because i can't stop free-associating with the way i am feeling from this damn book that i didn't even like from the outset, but as the stories progressed, something in me kept brewing and growing and mutating, and now it is an unstoppable force in my heart-region.the plot is deceptively simple: it is a town full of people unable to express themselves properly clawing and clutching at the one person they feel has the power of expression and who will release them somehow from their mute longings and joys and limitations. and then in turn releasing him into the the wider world with all of their rage and suffering and love inside of him. my god, the pressure! i had to give it five stars because of how it made me feel at the end. the last sentence made me say (out loud, unfortunately) "oh my god, ridiculous", because it made the whole book perfect, despite several stories that i thought were only okay. but that's the trouble with short stories, even if they are part of a cycle like this - there are going to be some thin ones. but the ones that are good here are superfuckinggood. at the end of it all, it is like after reading dubliners or nine stories when this giant Dome of Connection just sort of drops over the whole thing, encapsulating it and preserving it as one exploration of the same problem - in this case, the spectacular inability to communicate and that sort of inarticulate mute howling we so often feel in the presence of emotions larger than ourselves; to know what to say, but to have it come out all wrong - too brassy, too wishy washy, or aggressive or too much bravado or too passive or pompous - just wrong... and then the aftermath of self-recrimination. i mean, we are all inarticulate grotesques sometimes; mine is appearing in the form of this book review.it's also this wonderful noble hopelessness that gives me the same feeling watching bubble gave me (which i think is also set in ohio - i will check) or the wayward bus, or donald harington's stay more cycle, or that oingo boingo song "sweat" which as a nostalgia song i always found more compelling than "jack and diane" or "summer of 69" as far as pure (north) american nostalgia songs go:The cool boys bit the dustThey couldn't take the pressureThe cool girls got knocked upThey only wanted to have fun(Where did they go?)They fell in love and suffered(Where did they go?)They picked up guns and hammers(Where did they go?) i mean, you can open this book pretty much anywhere, and find a beautiful phrase or a whole paragraph:-Only the few know the sweetness of the twisted apples.-"I want to fill you with hatred and contempt so that you will be a superior being."-"Let's take decay. Now what is decay? It's fire. It burns up wood and other things. You never thought of that? Of course not. This sidewalk here and this feed store, the trees down the street there - they're all on fire. They're burning up. Decay you see is always going on. It don't stop. Water and paint can't stop it. If a thing is iron, then what? It rusts, you see. That's fire, too. The world is on fire. Start your pieces in the paper that way. Just say in big letters 'the world is on fire.' That will make 'em look up. They'll say you're a smart one. I don't care. I don't envy you. I just snatched that idea out of the air. I would make a newspaper hum. You've got to admit that."-In an odd way he stood in the shadow of the wall of life, was meant to stand in the shadow. -It seemed to her that the world was full of meaningless people saying words.i mean, if i keep going, it will be nothing but quotes and none of you will ever have to read the book. but you should. because i have already reread several stories just to try to recapture it all inside of me, and this tiny little book has as many scraps of paper shoved in it as my prousts, just for well-turned phrases that gripped my heart.. it got me. i got it. makes me wanna werewolf at the moon a little...
—karen
