Right Brain, Left Brain, Red Brain, Blue Brain
[Not worth its own post, since only the 10 most recent show, but: the 3½-month-old has a Nixon nose in profile, and from the front looks like Anthony Hopkins in baby form.]
I've been reading Sinclair Lewis' Main Street for the past several days. It's slow going, because it's one of the richest books I've read in ages. I don't know if it's the book, the Prozac, or me, but I'm having a full-on literary engagement with it. I'm constantly backtracking to previous passages relating to, or unexpectedly illuminated by, one I've just read. Thank god Project Gutenberg has the text on-line, because it makes finding vaguely remembered passages much easier.
It's a used book. The marginal notes of at least one previous reader floor me. At a minimum, she did not appreciate the satire of the book; she may have even resented it, although she seems to fault the protagonist rather than the author. Because of her comments, though, I found myself thinking the book is still resonant. Surely the town & country opposition is too facile today (and, for all I know, was even then), but the idea of a "cultural élite" is fed by the same collision of values that drives the book.
I find it personally interesting because I identify with the protagonist in several respects, particularly in the right-brain aspects of life; and I dwell upon the difficulty of meeting people who pursue such interests (it's hard enough for me to meet people in general). I have friends who take pride in not caring about such things; ironically enough, they also take great umbrage at Main Street-like characterizations. (I will credit that previous reader for troubling to read it!) The more I think about it, the more similarities I see between the fictional townies and my real friends. What's most depressing is that they share those similarities despite being reasonably well-educated and having left-of-center politics. For all that we're supposed to be in the 'Information Age,' it sure does appear that our culture has been under a strong stabilizing-selection influence for quite a while.
Not having much opportunity in the way of literary discussion available to me, I've taken to reading the Cliffs Notes (whenever available) along with the book. The Notes for Main Street are just atrocious. They're even more superficial than is often the case, and underplay the critique of rural town life that is at the core of the book. They do a severe disservice to Lewis' work.
(Question: why don't the "red states" get called commies? Because you know that's what would happen if the colors were switched.)
I've been reading Sinclair Lewis' Main Street for the past several days. It's slow going, because it's one of the richest books I've read in ages. I don't know if it's the book, the Prozac, or me, but I'm having a full-on literary engagement with it. I'm constantly backtracking to previous passages relating to, or unexpectedly illuminated by, one I've just read. Thank god Project Gutenberg has the text on-line, because it makes finding vaguely remembered passages much easier.
It's a used book. The marginal notes of at least one previous reader floor me. At a minimum, she did not appreciate the satire of the book; she may have even resented it, although she seems to fault the protagonist rather than the author. Because of her comments, though, I found myself thinking the book is still resonant. Surely the town & country opposition is too facile today (and, for all I know, was even then), but the idea of a "cultural élite" is fed by the same collision of values that drives the book.
I find it personally interesting because I identify with the protagonist in several respects, particularly in the right-brain aspects of life; and I dwell upon the difficulty of meeting people who pursue such interests (it's hard enough for me to meet people in general). I have friends who take pride in not caring about such things; ironically enough, they also take great umbrage at Main Street-like characterizations. (I will credit that previous reader for troubling to read it!) The more I think about it, the more similarities I see between the fictional townies and my real friends. What's most depressing is that they share those similarities despite being reasonably well-educated and having left-of-center politics. For all that we're supposed to be in the 'Information Age,' it sure does appear that our culture has been under a strong stabilizing-selection influence for quite a while.
Not having much opportunity in the way of literary discussion available to me, I've taken to reading the Cliffs Notes (whenever available) along with the book. The Notes for Main Street are just atrocious. They're even more superficial than is often the case, and underplay the critique of rural town life that is at the core of the book. They do a severe disservice to Lewis' work.
(Question: why don't the "red states" get called commies? Because you know that's what would happen if the colors were switched.)
posted by Dr. Bubbles at 13:00
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