A Depressing Interlude

I have been muscling my way through Let Us Now Praise Famous Men, by James Agee.

A tough slog but worth the effort. 

Until the last 4 or 5 chapters. In those chapters he describes - in excruciating detail - the houses these Alabama sharecroppers lived in in 1936. And I emphasize - excruciating. From how the house is built to the dishes they eat off, the condition of the utensils they use, the clothes hanging in closets, the sad collection of things they collect, the conditions of the beds and mattresses, chairs, and on and on and on.

Agee and Walker lived with and interacted with three families. He describes all three houses in infinte detail.

I understand where he is coming from. He is trying to paint as accurate a picture as possible illustratiing the horrible lives these people were forced to live. But he goes too far.

Too much. I couldn't take it. I stopped reading the book.

I hate doing that. The last time it happened was with H.L. Mencken, about a year ago. He was a journalist and satirist with a biting sense of humor. I was reading a collection of his essays and was thoroughly enjoying them - until I wasn't. I came up against a wall and put the book down. Still haven't picked it back up.

However, I recently read a passage from Let Us Now Praise Famous Men that was mind blowing in its truth and its beauty.

He described the shock of birth into the inescapable cruelty of the world. He described the assault on the senses - you are floating in serenity and peace until you are born, then your senses come under a relentless assault that does not end until you die. Which I completely agree with - information, lessons and feedback come at you at a greater volume and exponentially increasing speed as you get older. Until you become overwhelmed and die.

He takes it a step further, implying that it is more than the five senses that are under assault. He implies that "senses" include everything a human being has to do to survive, to fight back, in self-defense, to make sense of...................to just fucking get through life.

I am not doing it justice, but his words had an originality and brutal truth to them that went straight to my soul.

I had a brief, depressing interlude because giving up on a book feels like death to me. But I moved on.

I am reading Outliers - The Story of Success, by Malcolm Gladwell.