Harchi's slim memoir captures many things: love of devoted parents, the first/second-generational immigration experience (Morocco to France), the tendHarchi's slim memoir captures many things: love of devoted parents, the first/second-generational immigration experience (Morocco to France), the tender friendships of youth, and the racism, sexism, and police brutality in France. She notes several assaults on Arab and Muslim youth in France during her teenage years (brutal beatings of young men, young women attacked for wearing hijab), and how these experiences shaped her life and led to work in sociology.
Not a groundbreaking memoir, but a unique voice. I picked this up because I have long enjoyed Emma Ramadan's translations, and this work continued my respect and appreciation for her work in bringing more North African/French literature to a global audience....more
Unparalleled close study of William Buckley and James Baldwin's careers and writings, leading up to their public debate "Is the American Dream at the Unparalleled close study of William Buckley and James Baldwin's careers and writings, leading up to their public debate "Is the American Dream at the the expense of the American Negro" at the University of Cambridge in February 1965. The full transcript of the debate is appended in the book, and also available in several permutations on YouTube, most recently re-cast and scripted by two orators at Cambridge playing each part in the same meeting hall as the original debate.
While the debate is the crux of the book, it is also a dual biography, and a post-mortem of sorts. Buccola compares and contrasts Buckley and Baldwin's upbringings and their tandem rise to the cultural icons that they became in the 1960s-1980s, and their copious writings during the Civil Rights era. Buckley's long shadow on American conservatism continues today, and the book notes Buckley's transitions in messaging over time, and his (convoluted) opinions on political and cultural icons of this era, from George Wallace to Ayn Rand.
I recently read Baldwin's collection Nobody Knows My Name, and this book gave rich context behind many of those essays ("Faulkner and Desegregation", "Fifth Avenue, Uptown", "Fly in the Buttermilk"), and made me eager to continue reading more of his work, and revisit some I've already read.
Really loved this. The memoir was contained to a certain number of years of his life - before and after the murder of Ken, his friend in college - witReally loved this. The memoir was contained to a certain number of years of his life - before and after the murder of Ken, his friend in college - with older self revisiting diaries, journals, and zines from the time.
Some favorite things:
- Hua's faxes with his dad in Taiwan. Substance, humor, love. The way his dad always signed off with "What do you think?" encouraging more conversation with his son. - 80s/90s music and film nostalgia galore. Hsu and I are around the same age +/- a few years, but very much same milieu and scene. The familiarity and nostalgia definitely added to my enjoyment of this book. - Discussion on philosophical particulars of friendship from Derrida (learned that the author also wrote a New Yorker piece on Derrida's friendship writings in 2019) - Hsu's volunteering with Mien diaspora teens in Oakland and with the incarcerated at San Quentin
"No other author, Covici [Steinbeck's long-time editor] believed, could get so mad at the world with such grace."
"The critics saw book to book, but fa"No other author, Covici [Steinbeck's long-time editor] believed, could get so mad at the world with such grace."
"The critics saw book to book, but failed to detect that a link among all of them was Steinbeck's anger. He was America's most pissed-off writer. All his work steams with indignation and injustice, with contempt for false piety, scorn for the cunning and self-righteousness of an economic system that bridges exploitation, greed, and brutality."
William Souder's biography uses countless letters (to/from), diaries, and media to tell the story of one of the US's most well-known literary figures.
The quickest way for me to DNF a biography is when the author takes on a hagiographic tone about the subject; thankfully Souder didn't do that here, noting the full breadth of Steinbeck's shortcomings, faults, neglects, and vices. Souder quotes Steinbeck's eldest son Thomas that one of his early revelations as a child was that his father was "an asshole". Souder does not gloss over some of those [ ] moments, noting his heavy alcohol consumption, his mood swings and depressive / abusive episodes with his wives and children - with some speculation that this may have been a result of traumatic brain injuries he sustained as a war correspondent - and his constant self-doubt and self-loathing as a writer, growing even stronger the more popular and well-known he became.
Steinbeck was not interested in school, but wanted to write from an early age. He completed many classes at Stanford, but left without graduating, and kept up with many friends he met there through his life. Souder's biography describes the writing process and Steinbeck's strife over getting published, only to lead to more self-doubt and fear of failure once he was published and started having more demands for material and success.
Perhaps it was the California setting alongside the Golden Age of Hollywood, but many of Steinbeck's works were quickly adapted to the screen or stage, some within the first year after the book's release (the stage and screen for Of Mice and Men, and of course the well-known film adaptations of The Grapes of Wrath and East of Eden). Steinbeck was involved with many screenwriting projects for his own work, as well as documentaries and other feature films for all sorts of venues - educational, political, entertainment.
One aspect of the biography that I did not like was Souder's inclusion of a summary and major plot points of (nearly) every single book and short story that Steinbeck wrote - some are books I am still planning to read (namely The Pastures of Heaven, In Dubious Battle, and The Moon is Down, so once I knew that Souder was going to spend paragraphs spoiling the books and characters, I would skip ahead to the next section. It was a lazy biographical tactic to rehash numerous plot points of fictional books within an author's biography - larger themes and concurrent issues in Steinbeck's life and world, sure - but anything else is spoilerific, even if these books were published 80+ years ago.
Often assigned for school reading, it's obvious that Steinbeck's works and their larger social, economic, and political themes are likely lost on the young, but could plant the seed to revisit later in life. That's what happened for me. I read Of Mice and Men, The Red Pony, The Pearl, and The Grapes of Wrath through middle and high school in the 1990s, but only returned to his work with East of Eden about 3 years ago, and read this biography concurrently with a reread (25 years later) of The Grapes of Wrath. Souder's biography has made me all the more eager to read more of his stories, nonfictions and travelogues, and the "lesser"/shorter novels early and later in his prolific career.
**Other interesting tidbits learned through Mad at the World:
- Before his professional writing career, Steinbeck worked on a cement crew that built Madison Square Gardens in NYC in the inter-war years. He wheelbarrowed cement mixtures up countless ramps, and saw many workers injured and fall to their deaths.
- The Grapes of Wrath title (and according to Souder large portions of the book) were created or heavily influenced by his first wife, Carol. She thought of the title when reading the first verse to The Battle Hymn of the Republic.
- Steinbeck traveled and visited many migrant camps in the rural areas of California, meeting the Okies and other migrants who came to California on the false promise of work during The Great Depression. Other writers and journalists were also there at the time, and while some of them published their work, many were rejected after Grapes came out thinking it was too close to Steinbeck's material.
- There were various threats by "corporate entities" who did not like the pro-union and labor stance of his writings (Grapes and In Dubious Battle), and Steinbeck was encouraged to always travel with a trusted companion / alibi to avoid any scandal or threats on his life.
- Charlie Chaplin was a neighbor when Steinbeck lived in LA and frequently visited. He was also a big fan of his books.
- The well-known mythologist and writer Joseph Campbell was a friend, but he and Steinbeck had a serious fracture after Campbell declared his love for Carol, Steinbeck's first wife.
- Ed Ricketts, Steinbeck's best friend and the inspiration behind some of his fictional characters ("Doc" in Cannery Row, was a marine biologist, and worked in a lab in Monterey, California that Steinbeck frequently visited. He set one of his short stories "The Snake" in this lab....more
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