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3.7 AVERAGE
3.7 AVERAGE
A classic, an important read in the canon of nonfiction. Agee is a master poet who takes the reader thoroughly into his experience with southern tenant farmers, dissecting his own role which he acknowledges as self-serving as much as he wishes to expose and enlighten the tenant Farmer existence. His digression into fake news and the role of media is even more poignant today, and while his examination of his role sometimes strays into beating that subject to a pulp, it’s an important “discussion” to have- one that is again made more poignant when read today when many are having the same conversation (who gets to tell other people’s stories and why?). Not an easy read, but a very important one.
This was such an interesting book. In 1936, Agee was on assignment to document the plight of poor, white share-croppers in Alabama. Walker Evans was assigned as his photographer. Together, the work they did vividly portrays in artistic detail the lives of "the common man [and woman]." The book requires slow wading and thought, as it is sometimes difficult parse his styles. At times, he seems an objective observer; however, this role is overshadowed by his genuine Christian love and compassion for the poor, who he very much wishes he could help on a more practical level, his despair knowing that he is among them but not of them. He's at his best when he paints portraits of his subjects and describes their lives and surroundings. At his worst, he is highly politically charged and maybe even a bit melodramatic. He definitely throws in an existential punch now and again. The work is definitely a product of its time, in that he was on assignment and unable to follow-up on several other issues that could have been addressed, including the Jim Crow South. However, I believe his work along with the work of contemporaries such as John Steinbeck, Woody Guthrie, Dorothea Lange, William Faulkner, Zora Neale Hurston, to name a few paved the way for the awareness of rural poverty and civil injustice that led to the plays of Tennessee Williams in the 50s, and the protest movement of the 1960s. Those who teach To Kill a Mockingbird (1964), for example, will discover sympathy for the Ewells and Cunninghams. I've seen Walker Evans' photographs from this period licensed for archival work and used as covers for books set in the Depression era (Out of the Dust by Karen Hesse, for example). For this reason, I would study parts of it as a seminal work in several disciplines and courses. I'd have another copy of it on my nightstand for reading and contemplation. This book will leave the same quiet resonance within you as it has in modern American literature, arts and culture.
I have alternately wanted to rate this as 4/5 and 5/5. This is less from a proper judgment of the book's worth and more from a confused sense of whether or not I was able to properly respond to the book. I have decided on rating it based on my intuition that this is a valuable book which requires that I at least plan to return to in order to come to a fuller appreciation, but which will nonetheless present repeated images and meanings to me in the meanwhile as the small parts I have grasped gradually turn themselves around in my head.
Agee, in dispersed sections of the book, lays out in fairly plain terms (or at least terms made understandable through dogged repetition) what the aim of his book is. It is intended as a study of the lives of three Alabama sharecropper families in the mid-1930's. It is a study that doesn't dare to consider itself even partly objective, but rather pursues totally to relay Agee's perception of these families. It attempts to instill the idea of these people as extant, living, transcendental beings who cannot be reduced to either a conservative's dregs of capitalist meritocracy, nor to a liberal's bundle of suffering in need of patronization. It is written in a style which forgoes, even resists, narrative telling in favor of incredibly detailed descriptions of living conditions, clothing, methods of working, cooking, learning, etc.
It is difficult to both progress through the text at a convenient pace and to feel satisfied in giving these still descriptions justice. Agee is Proustian, in his flowing but interminable metaphorical sentences and intense focus on the smaller components of living, but seems Proustian via Whitman in his zest for overwhelming the reader with the sheer muchness of existence, and the inexhaustible nouns and verbs that uniquely capture this muchness. In a compromise between progression and focus, I read the book while listening to a slightly sped up audiobook. In reading by itself, my eyes would conveniently glide over the words and my mind would preferably work through my own unrelated daydreams or memories. In listening to the audiobook by itself, my brain would all too easily tumble down from focus to meditation, from meditation to napping. This was somewhat better than reading, since my naps were still tangled with images of wooden walls or the sounds of whippoorwills.
It's easy to call this a boring book, and the author explicitly does not excuse himself from causing boredom, but it's a misleading description. To call a story boring is to judge that it fails in its presumed aim to be exciting or engrossing. This book is not intended for those who, and should not draw anyone who, want to be entertained and miraculously also come out a little more improved, a little more knowledgeable, a little more empathetic. Rather, it is for those who are willing to put effort into coming to terms with the often dull but truthful perception of another human being. I suspect that when I return, equipped with the familiarity that breeds appreciation and the appreciation that breeds focus, I will strike into a rich vein. I suspect that, with a book's inherent passivity, this is a text that cannot force its meaning onto you as other art media will do, but can, with a book's subtle talent, respond with forcefulness in proportion to the attention and care you bring to it.
For now, I possess disparate image and brief but deep vignettes from the text. I feel a spiritual companionship with Agee's book and am confident that I have grasped at least the tenor and the timbre of it. I have a trust that what little I have taken is still chiefly good, and a presentiment that what remains to gather is even better.
Agee, in dispersed sections of the book, lays out in fairly plain terms (or at least terms made understandable through dogged repetition) what the aim of his book is. It is intended as a study of the lives of three Alabama sharecropper families in the mid-1930's. It is a study that doesn't dare to consider itself even partly objective, but rather pursues totally to relay Agee's perception of these families. It attempts to instill the idea of these people as extant, living, transcendental beings who cannot be reduced to either a conservative's dregs of capitalist meritocracy, nor to a liberal's bundle of suffering in need of patronization. It is written in a style which forgoes, even resists, narrative telling in favor of incredibly detailed descriptions of living conditions, clothing, methods of working, cooking, learning, etc.
It is difficult to both progress through the text at a convenient pace and to feel satisfied in giving these still descriptions justice. Agee is Proustian, in his flowing but interminable metaphorical sentences and intense focus on the smaller components of living, but seems Proustian via Whitman in his zest for overwhelming the reader with the sheer muchness of existence, and the inexhaustible nouns and verbs that uniquely capture this muchness. In a compromise between progression and focus, I read the book while listening to a slightly sped up audiobook. In reading by itself, my eyes would conveniently glide over the words and my mind would preferably work through my own unrelated daydreams or memories. In listening to the audiobook by itself, my brain would all too easily tumble down from focus to meditation, from meditation to napping. This was somewhat better than reading, since my naps were still tangled with images of wooden walls or the sounds of whippoorwills.
It's easy to call this a boring book, and the author explicitly does not excuse himself from causing boredom, but it's a misleading description. To call a story boring is to judge that it fails in its presumed aim to be exciting or engrossing. This book is not intended for those who, and should not draw anyone who, want to be entertained and miraculously also come out a little more improved, a little more knowledgeable, a little more empathetic. Rather, it is for those who are willing to put effort into coming to terms with the often dull but truthful perception of another human being. I suspect that when I return, equipped with the familiarity that breeds appreciation and the appreciation that breeds focus, I will strike into a rich vein. I suspect that, with a book's inherent passivity, this is a text that cannot force its meaning onto you as other art media will do, but can, with a book's subtle talent, respond with forcefulness in proportion to the attention and care you bring to it.
For now, I possess disparate image and brief but deep vignettes from the text. I feel a spiritual companionship with Agee's book and am confident that I have grasped at least the tenor and the timbre of it. I have a trust that what little I have taken is still chiefly good, and a presentiment that what remains to gather is even better.
I have no idea how to begin to review this book. It is a work of stark journalism, an inside look into the lives of three tenant and sharecropper farming families in the deep south during the 1930s. The photography alone would be worth the cost of the book. Agee's writing attempted a grandiose artistic work that honored the lives of the families he documented; it certainly was ambitious and didn't shy away from making the reader feel utterly inadequate to read his work. Ultimately, his prose clothed the realism in esoteric, poetic stream of consciousness that even Faulkner and Joyce would envy. Do I give it 4 stars for the artistic vision? Or 2 for its obtuseness and pretentiousness? I guess I have to settle on a 3: worth reading, if you're up for the undertaking. Reading this one is a marathon-like task.
Agee has the weirdest writing style, but I love it. His moralizing, like Louisa May Alcott's, is not remotely subtle. But it's that particular fervency and passion, queerly suited to the written word, that makes it work for me. I don't think everyone would like it, but I loved it. I don't go to church, maybe that's why I'm generally down for some preachiness in my books.
informative
reflective
slow-paced
Content Warnings
Minor: Racial slurs
It's challenging to articulate what prevented James Agee's Let Us Now Praise Famous Men from offering the reading experience that it's subject matter and backpage blurb promised. On the one hand, it does exactly what is expected, offering a comprehensive picture of life in the Dustbowl, during the Great Depression of the 1930's. Agee tells us everything we need to know, about the dwellings inhabited by the three families of sharecroppers with whom he lived, about the clothes they wore, about the work they did. He was accompanied by legendary documentary photographer Walker Evans, both being on assignment for Fortune magazine.
So what did prevent this book from delivering? In short, it was more or less unremittingly dull. Agee's penchant for literary flourishes was employed when it was least needed and was not employed when it was most needed. One of the most tiresome sections of the book was that which described the dwellings which the tenant farmers lived in...in absolute mind-numbing detail. Agee stopped just short of relating every fingerprint. On every surface. It was tedious. And it was by and large written in a dry, documentarian style. Occasional (and I do mean very occasional) poetic flourishes are seen in these descriptions. But there is only so much poetic prose that can be brought to the fore when describing the pattern on some discarded sweet-wrappers found in a drawer. And yes, he really does go down to that level of detail.
Sometimes Agee's prose really is impressive, showing touches of genius. Invariably though, this is when he is writing of something that is at best tangentially related to the subject matter at hand - often, it is completely unrelated. Musings on something-or-other, that whilst of some interest, in some book, just don't fit particularly well within the pages of a book that sets out to convey the environs and lifestyle of Depression-era tenant farmers. A baby having a semi-erect penis, for example.
As I said earlier, Agee's book can hardly fail to convey something of what is expected of it; it flings the proverbial kitchen sink at the topic at hand. The prose, rather than being clinical in terms of it's precision, attempts to be exhaustive in it's coverage. As a result, it proves exhausting to read. I was glad to finish it.
So what did prevent this book from delivering? In short, it was more or less unremittingly dull. Agee's penchant for literary flourishes was employed when it was least needed and was not employed when it was most needed. One of the most tiresome sections of the book was that which described the dwellings which the tenant farmers lived in...in absolute mind-numbing detail. Agee stopped just short of relating every fingerprint. On every surface. It was tedious. And it was by and large written in a dry, documentarian style. Occasional (and I do mean very occasional) poetic flourishes are seen in these descriptions. But there is only so much poetic prose that can be brought to the fore when describing the pattern on some discarded sweet-wrappers found in a drawer. And yes, he really does go down to that level of detail.
Sometimes Agee's prose really is impressive, showing touches of genius. Invariably though, this is when he is writing of something that is at best tangentially related to the subject matter at hand - often, it is completely unrelated. Musings on something-or-other, that whilst of some interest, in some book, just don't fit particularly well within the pages of a book that sets out to convey the environs and lifestyle of Depression-era tenant farmers. A baby having a semi-erect penis, for example.
As I said earlier, Agee's book can hardly fail to convey something of what is expected of it; it flings the proverbial kitchen sink at the topic at hand. The prose, rather than being clinical in terms of it's precision, attempts to be exhaustive in it's coverage. As a result, it proves exhausting to read. I was glad to finish it.
not really a review i just want to mark my immediate reactions to this book- i’ve wanted to read it for years without knowing much about it because i had thought it was more straightforward labor history/journalism…was way more personal and poetic than i was expecting, not necessarily a positive thing for me, but it was harder to put down and stop thinking about the further i read.
a similar experience to reading Walden, which i also struggled with at first but ended up loving; i’m definitely not the first to make this comparison so it might be helpful in deciding if you want to commit to either of these books. usually my least favorite type of writers are horny male memoirists (can definitely see how Agee influenced the beat poets, for better or worse), and there are definitely some weirdly voyeuristic moments i didn’t love, but i think the potential self-indulgence of Agee’s writing was really tempered by the fact this started out as a journalistic project focusing on the tenant farmers rather than the author himself. The introduction states that Agee wanted his descriptions to feel as life-like, or at least photorealistic, as possible so that the reader wouldn’t be able to look away and turn their back on the plight of the farmers and even if it was difficult to read I think he absolutely succeeded.
a similar experience to reading Walden, which i also struggled with at first but ended up loving; i’m definitely not the first to make this comparison so it might be helpful in deciding if you want to commit to either of these books. usually my least favorite type of writers are horny male memoirists (can definitely see how Agee influenced the beat poets, for better or worse), and there are definitely some weirdly voyeuristic moments i didn’t love, but i think the potential self-indulgence of Agee’s writing was really tempered by the fact this started out as a journalistic project focusing on the tenant farmers rather than the author himself. The introduction states that Agee wanted his descriptions to feel as life-like, or at least photorealistic, as possible so that the reader wouldn’t be able to look away and turn their back on the plight of the farmers and even if it was difficult to read I think he absolutely succeeded.
challenging
reflective
slow-paced