rest in peace miss lee

I think there's just one kind of folks. Folks.

To Kill a Mockingbird -- Harper Lee (April 28, 1926 - February 19, 2016) 

the fountainhead's fascinating semi-sideliners

Today author and philosopher Ayn Rand (1905-1982) was born in St. Petersburg, Russia, with her major claims to fictional fame being 1943's The Fountainhead and 1957's Atlas Shrugged.  Interpretation of Rand's Objectivist philosophy and subtext can turn controversial -- discourse she probably would have enjoyed --  but it is interesting to note that Rand is rarely pigeonholed as a "female writer" and is generally referred to as just a writer.

For me The Fountainhead made a major impression when I first read it in college, but then some years passed and I started to think that Howard Roark and Dominique Francon were rather extreme and I also started feeling less pitiful contempt for Catherine Halsey and even Peter Keating.  Now I read it and get distracted by all the side characters in the many-peopled plot and wonder about their more detailed backstories.  (And kudos to Rand for making them resonate so vividly, whether she intended to or not.)  Like the weak-willed, porcelain-obsessed Lucius Heyer or wily newspaperman Alvah Scarret, or the misguidedly violent sculptor Steven Mallory.  Or the Chinese student artist who works with Roark at John Erik Snyte's architecture office.  The Chinese student never says a word because minorities don't really factor into The Fountainhead, but this nameless artist with no dialogue is as memorable as some of the novel's more heavy-handed characters.  Snyte has the student on staff to draw up plans for final presentation to clients.  In another scene, the Chinese artist steps aside "diffidently, in silence" when a client is brought into the drafting room by Snyte, then he returns to his desk and keeps on drawing unobtrusively, unacknowledged.  You have to wonder about this Asian man living in New York in the 1920s and his artistic training, and what it was like for him to work at a high-pressure Manhattan architectural firm where no one seemed to ever call him by -- or perhaps no one ever really knew -- his actual name.

And let's not forget Jules Fougler, New York drama critic, his voice "slow, nasal and bored."  Fond of wearing gloves and carrying a cane, he resembles two "sagging circles" set on top of each other in a beautifully tailored suit the color of goose shit or merde d'oie as Fougler describes it.

"Examine my case, if you will [Fougler said]...What achievement is there for a critic in praising a good play?  None whatever.  The critic is then nothing but a kind of glorified messenger boy between author and public.  What's there in that for me?  I'm sick of it. I have a right to wish to impose my own personality upon people.  Otherwise, I shall become frustrated--and I do not believe in frustration."

Do we see Fougler again or is he crucial to the plot?  Not really.  But is it interesting to wonder where he went afterwards and/or if he had Waldorf salad for lunch?  Yes, I kind of think so.

virga vay and allan cedar

Sinclair Lewis' short story "Virga Vay and Allan Cedar" has always seemed just a couple of tweaks away from being something that the Coen Brothers might come up with.  Something between Barton Fink and Fargo, but with less violence.  There's the undertone of dark humor.  There's the Midwestern and specifically Minnesota setting, which puts it in the world of Fargo; there's a meek yet desperate man trapped in a bad situation, and there are bullying, semi-grotesque American caricatures along with a violent conclusion (both Fargo and Barton Fink).  But then like Barton Fink or Fargo, the meek desperate characters are still trapped -- but now things are worse, because they tried to take action.

Timid Virga and Allan are caught up in an adulterous affair, but we have to root for them because they're each married to otherwise lousy spouses.  They can't or won't divorce because apparently in pre-World War II society, a bad marriage was like a prison sentence you just had to endure.  Allan is a dentist and generally tormented by his "fat and vicious" wife Bertha, who works daily to undermine his confidence and mental well-being.  Virga's husband Orlo is the local optician and not as cruel as Bertha, but he still doesn't understand his wife nor does he particularly want to, with his general complaint being that Virga has no gumption and spends too much time daydreaming.  Virga and Allan meet secretly to make "shy, eager love in mossy pastures" or read poetry to each other, or to share banana splits like teenagers at soda fountains in other towns.  When Bertha inherits a bunch of cash and a house in California from a "horrible aunt," she decides that she and Allan will leave the frozen Midwest and that Allan can now suffer in a a sunnier climate.

"It occurred to Allan to murder her, but not to refuse to go along.  Many American males confuse their wives and the policeman on the beat."

Allan's next plan of action is to enjoy a final lovefest with Virga at a St. Paul hotel, and then the two of them will commit suicide to be eternally together. Virga first wonders if they can't just run away someplace, but Allan notes that Bertha has a private detective cousin and that he'll find them no matter where they go.  Allan pretends to attend a dentists' seminar and Virga joins him at the hotel; they take bubble baths and read more poetry and drink whiskey, then decide to end it all by sitting in Allan's car, now rigged up to have the exhaust funnel back in and asphyxiate them.  They start to slip into the happy fog of oblivion but then the windows are shattered and they're dragged out of the car and back to reality.  Bertha and her detective cousin have tailed them.  Allan's jaw gets broken in the life-saving process and Virga's face gets slapped surely more than necessary by Bertha to help her return to consciousness.  Later, Allan finds himself back home recuperating while his wife jeers to their friends how "Ally tried to--you know--with a woman, but he was no good, and he was so ashamed he tried to kill himself."

"Please go away and don't torture me," Allan mutters.

Virga finally gets her divorce from Orlo and ends up working at a 5 & 10 in Des Moines.  She writes several letters to Allan, but Bertha gets to them first and presumably rips them up, throws them in the trash, or reads them aloud in a mocking voice to the ladies in her bridge club.

* * * *

Pictured:  Hotel by a Railroad -- Edward Hopper (1952)

new year's salinger

[Mrs. Glass] was wearing her usual at-home vesture-what her son Buddy (who was a writer, and consequently, as Kafka, no less, has told us, not a nice man) called her pre-notification-of-death uniform. It consisted mostly of a hoary midnight-blue Japanese kimono. She almost invariably wore it throughout the apartment during the day. With its many occultish-looking folds, it also served as the repository for the paraphernalia of a very heavy cigarette smoker and an amateur handyman; two oversized pockets had been added at the hips, and they usually contained two or three packs of cigarettes, several match folders, a screwdriver, a claw-end hammer, a Boy Scout knife that had once belonged to one of her sons, and an enamel faucet handle or two, plus an assortment of screws, nails, hinges, and ball-bearing casters-all of which tended to make Mrs. Glass chink faintly as she moved about in her large apartment. ~ Franny and Zoey -- J.D. Salinger (b. January 1, 1919 - d. January 27, 2010) 

Pictured:  The Blue Kimono -- William Merrit Chase, 1898

bookstore holiday shopping 1970-style

During this holiday season, if you happen to board a mysterious Polar Express train that takes you back to 1970 and lots of pale blue eyeshadow, among the New York Times' bestselling fiction books for the year would have been Mario Puzo's The Godfather, John Fowles' The French Lieutenant's Woman, and Erich Segal's Love Story  -- all destined to be Oscar-nominated movies as well.  Long before gift cards and Kindles and internet shopping, people had to actually trudge to stores and wait in line to buy books for friends and/or family, and while they were out their landline phones went unanswered at home and there wasn't even anywhere to Yelp if someone working at the bookstore was rude or incompetent.  (Seriously, thanks and praise to the technology gods for what they have given us in the 45 years since.)

For non-fiction book shoppers, 1970's top NY Times nonfiction bestsellers were The Selling of the President 1968 by Joe McGinnis, Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex (But Were Afraid to Ask) by David Reuben (Woody Allen apparently read that one), Up the Organization by Robert Townsend, The Sensuous Woman by "J" or Joan Garrity, and The Greening of America by Charles A. Reich.  All titles that sound quite fitting for the beginning of a decade that would definitely leave its mark on American history.