Southern Bookman

Farewell, Ernest Gaines

Many writers look back from exile at their origins. Ernest Gaines was different. To tell the stories of the illiterate, impoverished black people he knew growing up in rural Pointe Coupee Parish, he had to return to his native Louisiana.

Gaines, who gained international recognition for his books about his small plot of earth, died in his sleep Tuesday at his childhood home. The revered Louisiana author was 86.

As a child,  he worked in the fields among people a few generations removed from slavery. From his meager schooling, he'd learned to read and write, and composed letters for his co-workers and family members.

Along with many other blacks fleeing the South's racial violence, he moved to California as a young man. For the first time, he found himself free to read in a public library, and discovered Turgenev and other 19th century Russian novelists.

Loving the bohemian life of San Francisco, he graduated from San Francisco State, then received a prestigious Stegner fellowship to study writing at Stanford. The voices he knew in childhood remained with him.

Struggling in California to finish a book based on the strict, wheelchair-confined aunt who raised him, Gaines returned to Louisiana at the height of the civil rights movement. Back in Louisiana, he gained a clear vision of the plantation life he knew growing up and quickly finished "The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman," his breakthrough novel.

Tracing how history echoed in a life of quiet dignity, the book gave the world one of its most enduring characters, a woman raised in slavery who lived to 101 and saw the changes of the 1960s. Cecily Tyson gave a memorable performance as Miss Jane Pittman in a TV movie that won nine Emmy Awards.

Gaines further drew upon his memories of the black community in "A Gathering of Old Men," "A Lesson Before Dying" and other lauded books. He received a MacArthur "genius grant," and traveled the world. He always returned to his childhood home close to a body of water known as False River that had once been part of the Mississippi.

A genial, warm-hearted man who spoke with Louisiana's French-inflected cadences, Gaines revealed how the love of family and community overcame bitterness.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As reading declines, Philip Roth's $2 million bequest to Newark Library supports books

Philip Roth in his novels wrote about Jewish life of his youth in Newark. Honoring that heritage, Roth left $2 million to his hometown's public library, The Wall Street Journal reported.

The bequest from Roth's $10 million estate shows his faith in reading and literature. Roth stipulated that the money be used to purchase books, not for capital projects. The gift will be placed in an endowment, and $80,000 a year in interest will go to the library to add to its selection of new books.

Before his death, Roth left his extensive book collection to the library. The books, with Roth's annotations, are housed in a dedicated room open to the public.The library also sponsors special events to honor Roth.

Growing up in a prosperous, middle-class Newark, Roth was dismayed by the city's decline in the 1960s and 1970s. During his youth, he often visited the city's public library, which opened the literary world to him.

Fewer children are discovering that world, according to an alarming report from the National Assessment of Educational Progress. National tests showed a 3 percent decline in reading ability among eighth graders and 1 percent falloff among fourth graders. Math tests showed a 1 percent gain for fourth graders and a 1 percent drop for eighth graders.

Struggling students keep falling further behind, while those at the top are regressing, the report found.

The declines reverse significant gains in test results from 1990 to 2015, according to reports. Now, as China and other countries tout educational achievements, American students fall behind

Some commentators blamed the reversals on students' dependence on mobile phones, television and computer screens. Others said more and more parents don't read to their children from an early age. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos predictably called for more "school choice" and tax breaks for private schools rather than spending more on public education.

Like Philip Roth, children deserve the gift of reading.

 

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Farewell, Harold Bloom

Harold Bloom cashed in on middle-class Americans' hunger for literary culture.

The Yale professor and prolific author of best-selling books on Shakespeare and other great Western writers died Monday at age 89 in a New Haven hospital, according to a New York Times front-page obituary.

Like Clifton Fadiman, Mortimer Adler and the Harvard "Great Books" collection, Bloom sought to impart literary knowledge to average readers. While previous workers in the trade published great-book editions for home libraries, Bloom attracted those who wanted literary wisdom without reading the books. Dwight MacDonald called the earnest desire for self-improvement "middle brow."

With his wild hair, hound-dog eyes and portly figure, Bloom was a living academic charicature. Reveling in his resemblance to the comic actor Zero Mostel, Bloom was known for his florid lectures, among Yale's most popular.

A few of Bloom's female students. including author Naomi Wolf, accused him of sexual impropriety, which he denied. Wolf said he placed a hand on her thigh.

From his perch at Yale, Bloom defended the white-male-dominated Western canon, mostly British and American. He issued thunderclaps against ethnic and women writers, whom he disparaged as the "school of resentment."

In one of his controversial books, he found that a woman at King Solomon's court had written the Jewish bible. He also claimed that Shakespeare had "invented the human," or formed the modern consciousness.

Bloom possessed a photographic memory and could recite all of Shakespeare, Romantic poetry, "Paradise Lost" and "The Fairie Queen,"according to the Times. That seems more insane than laudatory.

A literary factory, Bloom also edited a number of critical books on American and British authors, handy tools for English teachers and students.

As a critic, he ruined several writers' reputations, including Robert Lowell's. The poet's standing has rebounded in recent years.

Many who picked up Bloom's books seeking a guide to literature were left mystified. His Yale colleague, the poet John Hollander, criticized Bloom for his unclear writing, according to the Times. Bloom was notorious for using obscure literary terms.

Bloom made his mark with "The Anxiety of Influence," a ground-breaking book that asserted that young writers seek to overthrow their literary forebears through misreading their works. That was a blow against the prevailing New Criticism, which focused on texts without examining their historical and biographical contexts.

Some considered Bloom a charlatan. His unmistakable Bloomian style of bombast and encyclopedic knowledge intimidated many readers who bought his missives. Many undoubtedly were inspired to go on and read the books, using him as a guide. He began a mini-boom in Shakespeare studies issued by other academics, which continues unabated.

He championed the traditional Western book culture as elite schools like Yale instituted programs in gender studies, film, TV and even cartoons. His pronouncements were the dying cries of a a long-established literary hegemony. That his literary elitism produced so many best-sellers is amazing. In the age of Twitter-short attention spans, such success is unlikely to be duplicated.

 

 

 

 

 

Thinking about climate change at a luxury beach resort

I tried to enjoy our visit to a resort on the Atlantic Ocean last weekend.

Before our trip through Georgia to north Florida, a U.N. report said that the world's oceans are endangered by climate change. The oceans have exhausted their capacity to absorb carbon. As the oceans warm, acidity rises, threatening sealife. Melting ice will raise sea levels, eventually flooding the luxury condos and hotels at places like Amelia Island, where we stayed.

Witnessing the Atlantic's majesty gives the illusion that the ocean is invulnerable to human activity. But Islands of plastic foul the Pacific. The Atlantic is warming. Coral reefs and fish are dying.. Already, cities like Miami experience regular flooding. Unable to break my habit of reading a newspaper, I saw something about right whales dying after hurling themselves onto dry land.

Like the other guests, we enjoyed the ocean, the swimming pools, the restaurants, the luxury shops. We walked along the golf course, which requires gallons of water to stay green.

On a cruise to Cumberland Island, we saw dolphins, a shark, ospreys and other birds, and Cumberland's feral horses. The tour guide said wild shrimp flourish. Long polluted, the Amelia River is now clean, and oyster beds have returned.  Nature seemed fine.

Looking at the waves crash against the beach, I couldn't stop thinking about that U.N. report.  The ocean, from where human life emerged, is in serious trouble.

We kept seeing small children, newborn babies and pregnant women. Congratulating a mother with a 4-week-old infant, I realized that the child likely wil live until 2100. If the world doesn't act soon to stop climate change, the baby during her life will experience a far more desolate world than ours.

I did well enjoying the luxury surroundings until I saw sprinklers spraying an abandoned tennis court, which received more water than the surrounding shrubbery. Gallons of water wasted.

Before heading home, we filled up with gasoline. As we reached Atlanta, the gas tank was almost empty. Along with the others hurtling down the highway, we had sent emissions into the atmosphere. A radio talk show said that a country plans zero carbon emissions by 2050. I said to myself, "2050? We don't have that much time."

The 90-degree days march into October.

 

 

Nashville's literary scene more vibrant than Atlanta's

Nashville boasts a better literary scene than Atlanta's.

The recent death of popular novelist Anne Rivers Siddons highlighted that writers often leave Atlanta after launching their careers here. A writer for Atlanta magazine early in her career, Siddons examined Atlanta in her best-selling "Peachtree Road." But she left Atlanta behind and called Charleston home.

The late Pat Conroy returned to Atlanta for a while, but soon left for South Carolina. A couple of years ago, Tayari Jones, author of the acclaimed "An American Marriage," came back to her hometown. But the novelist recently accepted a professor's post at Cornell, according to the university's web site.

Georgia State professor David Bottoms and Emory's Jericho Brown are nationally known poets. But Atlanta was hurt by the departures of poets Natasha Trethewey and Kevin Young.

Nashville receives mega national attention from the presence of acclaimed novelist Ann Patchett, co-owner of the overrated independent bookstore Parnassus. Publication of Patchett's newest novel, "The Dutch House," brought a new burst of features about Patchett and Parnassus, including the obligatory mention of the dog who roams the store.

Accomplished short story writer and novelist Lorrie Moore is the star of Vanderbilt's creative writing faculty. Poet and critic Mark Jarman is a longtime pillar of the school's program.

Though her "our old silver" and Southern mists pieces make me shudder, Nashville-based Margaret Renkl frequently writes for The New York Times op-ed page.

A few miles south of Nashville, Sewanee boasts one of the nation's top summer writers' conferences, directed from the start by nationally regarded poet and critic Wyatt Prunty.

Noted novelist and short story writer Jamie Quarto stands out among the University of the South's faculty. Biographer, presidential historian and TV pundit Jon Meacham, a University of the South alum, lives in Sewanee.

The university also publishes the venerable Sewanee Review, which recently received a long overdue facelift and jolt of new energy from Editor Adam Ross, author of the novel "Mr. Peanut." Bottoms a few years ago established the literary journal Five Points, which publishes nationally known writers. But it lacks the stature of the Sewanee Rivew.

On a recent visit to Nashville, reading the weekly news magazine Nashville Scene, I wondered why Atlanta can no longer support such a publication that strongly covers politics, arts, books, food and music. Nashville's many local music venues give Nashville Scene a strong advertising base. Atlanta's once vibrant Creative Loafing is now a fading monthly, while Atlanta magazine's features show more desperation than creativity.

I'm sure Atlanta has a flourishing literary scene of which I'm unaware. The annual Decatur Book Festival brings out a huge population of readers, and a couple of independent bookstores seek to maintain the legacy of Oxford Books.

But the smaller Nashville outshines Atlanta.
 

 

 

 

The 200th anniversary of Keats' "To Autumn"

Refreshed by a pleasant breeze as I walked in my neighborhood last evening, I thought about John Keats' "To Autumn."

After observing freshly cut cornfields during a walk, Keats wrote the poem on this date 200 years ago. Each year, I reread the poem on one of those mild autumnal days like the one that inspired Keats.

I never realized until reading Garrison Keillor's now emailed "Writers' Almanac" this morning that Sept. 19 was the day Keats wrote "To Autumn," his last major poem. It was a revelation that the ode to autumn was written in late summer.

Many of the poem's images are more like summer, adding to the sense of longing for a new season. The evocation of summer adds to the poem's foreshadowing of death. Keats died a little more than a year after writing the poem.

"To Autumn" was the last of the great odes he produced beginning in the spring of 1819. Despite that astonishing outpouring, Keats grew despondent  over financial worries, the belief that he'd failed as a poet and the realization that he was dying from tuberculosis.

I, like others, believe the poem the most perfect in the English language. What appears a simple celebration of the arrival of autumn has received many interpretations, the coming of death the most prevalent. Noted critic Helen Vendler sees it as a metaphor for artistic creation. Somehow, it's been linked to the Peterloo Massacre, which happened the same year. Difficult to see that connection.

What haunts me about the poem is its understanding of the impermanence of human experience. A young poet knew the reality of walking, the vision of the cornfield, the writing of the poem. He was there 200 years ago, giving us a gift that has spoken to generations.

To Autumn

Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness

Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun

Conspiring with him how to load and bless

With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;

To bend with apples the moss'd cottage-trees,

And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;

To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells

With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,

And still more, later flowers for the bees,

Until they think warm days will never cease,

For Summer has o'er-brimm'd their clammy cells.

Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?

Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find

Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,

Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;

Or on a half-reap'd furrow sound asleep,

Drows'd with the fume of poppies, while thy hook

Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers:

And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep

Steady thy laden head across a brook;

Or by a cider-press, with patient look,

Thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours.

Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they?

Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,–

While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day,

And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue;

Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn

Among the river sallows, borne aloft

Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;

And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;

Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft

The red-breast whistles from a garden-croft;

And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.

Harper Lee loved Bear Bryant's Alabama Crimson Tide

"To Kill a Mockingbird" author Harper Lee had catapulted to fame when the Saturday Evening Post in March 1963 published an article alleging that Georgia athletics director Wally Butts and Alabama football coach Bear Bryant had fixed a game.

A  friend of Bryant and a rabid Alabama football fan, the author of the 1960 best-selling novel was consumed by the charges, along with football followers around the Southeast.

Lee in a letter to her agent, Maurice Crain, wrote a detailed account of the scandal, according to reporter Ben Cohen's fascinating article in Friday's Wall Street Journal. "A wonderful letter from Nellie Harper Lee," Crain scribbled on the envelope. The letter is at Columbia University, Cohen said.

The Saturday Evening Post's article was based on Atlanta businessman George Burnett's claims that he had overheard a telephone conversation in which Butts disclosed Georgia Bulldog plays and formations to Bryant before a 1962 game won 35-0 by the Crimson Tide. Burnett said that while trying to make a long-distance call, he had somehow gotten connected to the former Georgia football coach and Bryant.

Butts won a $3.06 million judgment in a libel suit against the Post, while Bryant reached an eventual settlement of $460,000. The case, which advanced to the Supreme Court, reportedly played a role in the Saturday Evening Post's demise.

While the controversy transfixed the South, as reported in this 1963 article by famed Sports Illustrated writer Dan Jenkins, Lee's had received greater fame from a 1962 movie based on the now-classic novel. Gregory Peck won the Academy Award for his portrayal of lawyer Atticus Finch and his heroic defense of a black man accused of rape in a segregated small town in Alabama.

Cohen's article says that Lee followed college football all of her life, even listening to Paul Finebaum's Alabama-biased college football talk show. Along with her allegiance to Alabama, Lee rooted for Auburn when the Tigers weren't battling the Crimson Tide in the annual Iron Bowl.

Lee was also a close friend of former Auburn coach Pat Dye, to whom she wrote a number of letters. Dye, who once called her book "To Kill a Blackbird," refused to disclose the letters' contents to Cohen.

Other famous names of Alabama football lore rise in the article. Lee believed in Bryant's innocence because scrappy All-American linebacker Lee Roy Jordan supported his coach. Jordan came from a town near Lee's Monroeville, and Lee believed in Jordan's honesty.

Lee remained a prolific letter writer, while not publishing another novel during her lifetime. The posthumous "Go Set a Watchman" was an early version of "To Kill a Mockingbid." A recent book says that Lee never finished a planned nonfiction book about an Alabama minister accused of several murders.

The new revelations enhance Lee's renown as a writer of letters. Her gifts in the genre were revealed several years ago in retired Auburn professor Wayne Flynt's collection of letters between him and Lee. Giving an endearing portrait of the author, the collection presents her views on religion, politics, Hollywood, the South, writing and fame.

Perhaps Cohen's piece will lead to the publication of a collection of Lee's college football letters. The writer of a masterpiece that inspires new generations of readers, she's also worthy of a complete letters collection.

A woman who during her life counted as friends Truman Capote, Maurice Crain, Bear Bryant, Gregory Peck, Pat Dye and Lee Roy Jordan had an expansive, intellectually adventuresome personality that such a collection would honor.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Farewell, Kathleen Blanco

Former Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco was blasted for the state's inadequate preparation for Hurricane Katrina.

In the 14 years since Katrina's flooding devastated New Orleans, Blanco's performance has received higher marks. Blanco, who died from cancer over the weekend at the age of 76, had to fight George W. Bush's dysfunctional administration over aid delays, according to the New York Times obituary Monday. She also had to deal with the incompetent and corrupt administration of New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin, who ended up in prison.

A month after Katrina struck, Blanco led the state's response to Hurricane Rita, which struck the southwestern part of the state. She rose to political prominence in the Cajun parishes around Lafayette that received the brunt of Rita's fury. Her response to the hurricane drew praise.

But Blanco decided to step down after one term, leading to the election of Republican Bobby Jindal, whom she'd defeated to become the first female governor of the state. Following the path blazed by Huey Long, she raised her state profile as a member of the powerful state Public Service Commission. She was also the first woman elected to the PSC.

Jindal's budget cutting following the 2008 recession was more disastrous for the state than Katrina. His two terms marked the Republican Party's total control of the state, bringing deep tax cuts and spending reductions for social programs and higher education.

But John Bel Edwards, like Blanco a conservative, anti-abortion Democrat, took over for Jindal, and has slowly restored the state's financial health. Edwards, running for re-election against a slate of Republicans, announced Blanco's death.

Blanco, unlike Louisiana's many flamboyant and corrupt male governors, ran a solid, professional administration that could have made significant gains for the state. Unfortunately, her success was hampered by Katrina.

J.D. Salinger's books enter the digital age

J.D. Salinger's books will be published digitally for the first time, according to a front page article in Monday's New York Times.

Salinger's works are the last major literary estate to enter the digital world, according to the Times. Although the reclusive Salinger hated technology, the J.D. Salinger Literary Trust decided that his work is being forgotten by a new generation geared to reading on smartphones and computer screens.

"The Catcher in the Rye," "Nine Stories," "Franny and Zooey" and "Raise High the Roof Beam Carpenters and Seymour, An Introduction," will be converted into e-books, but not audio recordings, Salinger's son, Matt, announced. The estate also will continue its ban on movie versions of the books.

Matt Salinger also told the Times that more of Salinger's writing will be published in the next few years. As rumored, Salinger, who died at age 91, kept writing until the end of his life and produced a voluminous amount of new material.

A lot of the unpublished work concerns Salinger's mystical Glass family, his son said. Unable to find reliable software to convert Salinger's handwritten work into print, Matt Salinger is painstakingly typing the manuscripts.

Long a favorite of middle-school and high school classes, "The Catcher in the Rye" is seen as outdated by young readers today. Girls especially find the book unrelated to their concerns. Black readers also don't find the book relevant.

Yet, Salinger's Holden Caulfield and his memorable portrait of New York City surely will draw younger fans attuned to the beauty of language and Holden's quest for meaning.

I'll be happy to have an e-book copy of "Nine Stories" available for convenient reading. "For Esme in Love and Squalor" is one of those stories I must reread, along with "A Perfect Day for Banana Fish" and "Just Before the War With The Eskimos."

Along with many other male Salinger fans, I fell in love with Franny Glass, imagining myself also dating her on a crisp Ivy League football weekend. But when I reread the novella a few years ago, it seemed overwrought and treacly.

I consumed "Raise High the Roof Beams, Carpenters," and "Seymour: An Introduction," but they show a decline in Salinger's writing, with too much exposition at the expense of artistry. Still, narrator Buddy Glass, Salinger's alter-ego, is a good companion.

While I welcome the e-book publication of Salinger's classics, I can't wait to see what he was working on all of those years hiding away in New Hampshire. Perhaps brilliant new masterpieces will arrive, or disappointing, unrealized work. Either way, Salinger fans will greet them in a frenzy.

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Treasures found at new Sandy Springs library: Joy Williams stories, and a study of George Orwell's "1984"

The new Sandy Spring library feels like stepping into the Starship Enterprise.

With shiny metallic shelves, new carpet, digital screens and high-tech gear, the Atlanta-Fulton County library branch is like Oz to the old building's Kansas, if I may mix my cultural metaphors.

Teens have a special room for studying, or searching the Internet. An ample computer bank and a row of meeting rooms with televisions rival the amenities at one of those incubators for business startups A huge new public meeting room has been added, and let us not forget the renovated bathrooms. Not unisex, as yet.

Perhaps the library could raise funds with a sideline as a meat locker. The air conditioning was frigid. And, I assume solar power wasn't considered in the big makeover?

The children's section appears larger, with a magnitude of books for our new generations of readers. The Friends of the Library also has a separate room for book sales. The shelves are empty for now.

As suspected, the librarians no longer check out books. Patrons must go to high-tech self-serve stations, where electronic beams and bar codes come into play. A full library staff remains, for now mainly occupied with showing people how to use the new book checkout machines.

Staffers stand behind a couple of small desks, equipped with laptop computers, to issue library cards, or give answers to homework questions.Siri-styled robots probably will be arriving in the not too distant future.

Nor do the librarians accept returned books. To return books, a person presses a square on a digital screen, and doors of an electronic passageway slide open. Placed on a platform, the books are whisked away, as in an old Buck Rogers movie when the hero finds himself transported into the evil ruler's sanctum.

The good news is that the emphasis remains on books. On the other hand, the periodical sections appears to have diminished, and, sadly, I didn't see the presence of a newspaper anywhere.

But let's be glad for the books. The renovated space contains rows of shiny bookshelves, of much lower height than before. It appears that there's a larger selection of novels, non-fiction, history and biography, especially new arrivals.

And the books are attractively displayed. Many of the previous library's, older, less checked out books apparently have been removed and replaced with new stock. But I still noticed some of my favorite old tomes from the past. But the poetry section seemed smaller.

I was thrilled to see outside of the teen lounge a large Young Adult section. The surging popularity of young adult novels in recent years gives hope that books might survive after all.

Searching the enticing fiction section, I was thrilled to find a book I've been wanting to read for a while: Joy Williams' "The Visiting Privilege: New and Collected Stories." Williams was praised as a master of the short story when the book came out, and I'm looking forward to delving into her work.

I also found another Williams collection, "99 Stories of God," a small volume published by Tin House Press. The stories of no longer than a page and a half, some only a few paragraphs, are like mystical riddles, or metaphysical parables. God is a frequent character in the stories, showing up unobtrusively at everyday places.

Exploring further, I came upon another treasure, the recently published "The Ministry of Truth: The Biography of George Orwell's 1984." Written by the British author Dorian Lynskey, known primarily as a music journalist, the book examines the biographical and cultural background of Orwell's famous dystopian novel, which seems all too relevant in Donald Trump's alternative fact era.

Shooing away a hovering librarian, I learned how to check out my book treasures all by myself. But that laser beam seemed a bit Big Brotherish.