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A review by tzwolfer
Let Us Now Praise Famous Men: Three Tenant Families by Walker Evans, James Agee
2.0
James Agee's work offers an interesting discussion of the work of a documentarian and the limitation of language in capturing the candid nuance of others' lives. Through this diligent and detailed book, Agee attempts to capture the poverty stricken lifestyle of sharecropper families in the Southern United States. This book, as he explains, is not designed for reader comfort, but to shed a light into the hardship and dirtiness that defines these people's lives.
Though I recognize the merit of this work, I think that it just ultimately wasn't for me. Though many of the descriptions Agee shared were filled with beautiful language (such as the glow of a light equated to "wounded honey"), many of the details were thorough to the point of being exhausting—capturing Agee's sentiments of the difficulties of describing something perfectly with words, but rendering the book tiring to read. Many of the sentences continued for multiple pages without end, and I struggled to understand his choices regarding these meandering thoughts and the haphazard punctuation included within them. Though perhaps this negates Agee's purpose, I think that this book could have been shorter, or perhaps he could have focused on fewer main ideas. The subject material was also something that I am personally not very interested in, which I think also detracted from my enjoyment of the book. For what he aims to do, Agee inarguably hits the mark, but the style and subject matter were not my particular cup of tea.
Though I recognize the merit of this work, I think that it just ultimately wasn't for me. Though many of the descriptions Agee shared were filled with beautiful language (such as the glow of a light equated to "wounded honey"), many of the details were thorough to the point of being exhausting—capturing Agee's sentiments of the difficulties of describing something perfectly with words, but rendering the book tiring to read. Many of the sentences continued for multiple pages without end, and I struggled to understand his choices regarding these meandering thoughts and the haphazard punctuation included within them. Though perhaps this negates Agee's purpose, I think that this book could have been shorter, or perhaps he could have focused on fewer main ideas. The subject material was also something that I am personally not very interested in, which I think also detracted from my enjoyment of the book. For what he aims to do, Agee inarguably hits the mark, but the style and subject matter were not my particular cup of tea.