Constant Reader discussion

Among my finds from today's book fair, is the Collected Short Prose of James Agee. I have never read anything of his before, and my knowledge of American mid-century writers is fairly limited.

What do people have to say about his work? From the community reviews, it seems his short prose may not be the best place to start!

[Forgive me if Agee has been covered before. The GR search function is one of the worst I've encountered]

I think CR read A Death in the Family, but I can't find the discussion, either.

I haven't read Agee's short prose, only "Knoxville - Summer 1914" which is included in A Death in the Favmily. I thought "Knoxville" was gorgeous.

I know Agee only wrote one other novel, The Morning Watch, which revolves around a boy who's been sent away to school in the mountains of Tennessee.

I think Agee is rather overlooked in the US, or else celebrated as a cult figure, one or the other. He's intensely poetic, and he died a tragic early death, both of which lend themselves to the perception of "cult figure."

I loved Death in the Family. We discussed it in Classics years ago. Here's the link:

http://web.archive.org/web/2006110201...

Oh. Wow. Thanks for posting that, Sherry. That sounds right up my alley. I'm keen to get straight into the book now.

Gabrielle, thanks for the background on Agee too. I do tend to gravitate to those types of writers!

With so many books on my shelf at the moment, it's really useful to get this kind of commentary to help figure out what to read next, particularly with authors that are new to me. With a lot of books I think you have to be in the right frame of mind when you read them to get the most out of them. I can imagine that James Agee may not be quite the right thing to read if you're feeling a little down, for example!

We also read Let Us Now Praise Famous Men, nonfiction, of course. I think many who read it thought it was powerful. I did also, but couldn't get through it as I was not able to abide the many times Agee let his personal issues dominate. I thought the people who were the focus of the study deserved center-stage all the time, disturbing as many aspects of their lives were. On the other hand, the issues Agee raised, in particular his ongoing sense that he was about to betray of these people who thought of him as friend, by exposing their lives to the world as journalist, certainly have resonance today. We discussed this here on GR.

Thanks for mentioning that Mary Ellen. I just looked up Let Us Now Praise Famous Men, since I didn't know anything about it. From the GR summary, it sounds a lot like Gonzo journalism. I'm now really keen to get hold of a copy. I've read a bit of Hunter S Thompson, since he is my partner's favourite writer.

I've been working in social policy for a long time, and I think being able to relate to certain issues is particularly useful in terms of being able to design, give input to, or analyse certain studies. Obviously, I use my experiences to guide my own input, rather than writing about them (particularly to the exclusion of research participants!), but I'd be intrigued to see what that kind of internal monologue looks like on paper.

Are you able to find the link to the GR discussion? I've given up on the GR search function.

Here is the discussion of Let Us Now, Ruby:

http://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/3...

Wow. Just... wow. I have ordered a copy from Book Depository. I'm so keen to read this now!

I would really like to be able to look at it from a community development perspective also - with what we now know about cross-cultural participatory research. I note from some of the discussion comments that Agee apparently highlighted the positives, eg strength of the family unit - we would now call that a strength-based approach, but it was a new thing at the time Agee wrote this, and he would have come in without that sort of social science background.

Intriguing! Thanks again :)

Let Us Now Praise Famous Men is my favorite book. Mom and dad worked with Agee. Gonzo he is not. Of course that depends on your definition of gonzo. Brilliant, yes. Hunter Thompson's writing was hard to understand. Agee was incredibly perceptive and wrote with extreme clarity.

Thanks Monica. I'm really looking forward to it. What did your parents work with Agee on?

They worked at TIME when he did.

At Time? How fascinating. I bet they had some interesting stories to tell.