let us now praise james agee

We are talking now of summer evenings in Knoxville, Tennessee, in the time that I lived there so successfully disguised to myself as a child. . . . There was still daylight, shining softly and with a tarnish like the lining of a shell; and the carbon lamps lifted at the corners were on in the light, and the locusts were started, and the fireflies were out, and a few frogs were flopping in the dewy grass . . . from low in the dark . . . the regular yet spaced noises of the crickets, each a sweet cold silver noise, threenoted, like the slipping each time of three matched links of a small chain. ...

one of the great tennessee natives, no doubt. unfilfilled promise, i'd say. but he did a lot--along with otis ferguson, one of the great early film critics in america. too much drinking and womanizing, though--he sure could've done a lot more. but what can you say, agee really loved movies and life too.

i need to re-read "death in the family" after seeing this thread...

Eddie he had a day job with Fortune, too, give the guy a break!

As for Agee: I'm tempted to file him under minor, as a novelist, and consider his Pulitzer win something of a fluke. Great chops, for sure, but I find a lot of the italicized passages in "A Death in the Family" a little precious, and it does read sometimes like an unfinished novel. But when you consider his whole messy body of nonfiction, as I think has been the case the last few years -- then, wow. Some great writing on its own terms, and also an impressive significance.

(I will admit that I probably like John Hersey's sketch of Agee in the forward to "Let Us Now Praise Famous Men" as much as almost anything by Agee. And among Agee's writing, his own scabrous, almost self-loathing introduction to "LUNPFM" should be read by all practicing and prospective journalists. Maybe not taken too close to heart, but read and understood.)

roxy the marker is set into the ground just in front of the bandstand thing or whatever it is, close to one end of the square but equidistant from the shops on either side. when you read it you're facing towards the Bijou (I think?)

my idol

And among Agee's writing, his own scabrous, almost self-loathing introduction to "LUNPFM" should be read by all practicing and prospective journalists. Maybe not taken too close to heart, but read and understood.

OTM. OTMFM.

my biggest problem with him, really, is how neatly he fits into that self-destructive macho mode of 20th century american male writers. he'd be a lot more useful and interesting if he'd lived to 80. not so doomed-romantic, i guess, but there's a lot of things i wish he'd stuck around to write.

Helped put this thing together the other night. This is a nice little video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZOp5WUoVCYk

nice