Thanksgiving Unto Saturday Morning

 I was supposed to eat with CC and her friend John at 1 pm on Thursday. She got it in her head to take care of her car first. We did not eat until around 6, and I was back here before 8. I did not intend to spend time with John. Cc spent most of her time in the kitchen. I was displeased. This is why I do not like socializing - people think my time is their time, when I know I am living on borrowed time. What I accomplished Thursday was to stiffen my back.

I did get an idea for a story. That I started yesterday.

Friday, I was up early, then back down. Another of those low-energy days. It took me till afternoon to get to the bank and grocery and landlord. Then it was down, again. It feels like the stomach is bothering me when it is the spasms in the back and neck. Hard to keep my head up to do any writing.

John called yesterday afternoon. CC and he had a fight, and she is in the wind. I have not tried calling her. I am here to help her if she wants to get clean. She knows that I am not here to get tangled up in her other relationships. I hope John gets the same idea. Word is she has been accepted for inpatient treatment. Time will tell if she goes and if it is the success she says she wants. Meanwhile, I have my business needing my attention.

I did get an idea of how to work the history play that has been circulating in my head. It started when I saw a contest for an Indiana history play. Disregarding the limitations of the contest, I got 10 pages done last night. There might have been more, but the opening needed research. Here is some of the stuff I was reading last evening and into the night:

Sexual Anti-Semitism and Pornotopia: Theodore Dreiser, Ludwig Lewisohn, and The Harrad Experiment

This chapter examines why, in the decades after World War II, writers began to understand the explicit representation of sexuality and the embrace of sexual pleasure as effective strategies to counter the grievous anti-Semitism and other hatreds emerging in America and Europe. It argues that Theodore Dreiser, Ludwig Lewisohn, Robert Rimmer, and the other cultural producers discussed in the chapter were not, in this sense, correct in the belief that the popularization of sexology would reduce the incidence of anti-Semitism....

(I never knew there was such a connection. Learn something new every day - that is how you know you are not dead. And who even knows of The Harrad Experiment these days? I remember it as a shocker from my teenage days, never saw, and not sure of anyone who did.)

Thomas Mallon on Booth Tarkington: “he sees things through to their bitter, true conclusion” 

Our Land, Our Literature: Theodore Dreiser

Dreiser: Indiana: Her Soil and Light

"Universal thought is a pretty large thing to connect up with I-," I con- tended genially. "And this is all very flattering to dear old Indiana, but do you really believe yourself? It seems to me that, if anything, the State is a little bit sluggish, intellectually and otherwise. Or, if it isn't that, exactly, then certainly there is an element of self-complacency that permits the largest percentage of its population to rest content in the most retarding forms of political, religious, and social fol de rol. They are all, or nearly all, out here, good and unregenerate Democrats or Republicans, as they have been for, Lo! these seventy years, now- come next Wednesday. Nearly all belong to one or another of the twenty-seven sure-cure sects of Protestantism. And they are nearly all most heartily responsive to any -ism which is advertised to solve all the troubles of the world, including those of our own dear nation. I call your attention to the history of the Millerites of southeast Indiana, with their certain date for the ending of the world and their serious and complete preparation for the same; the Spiritualists and free lovers who fixed themselves ran northwestern Indiana, about Valparaiso, if I am not mistaken, and Mormon fashion ruled all others out; the something of soil magnetism which drew Robert Owen from Scotland to New Harmony and there produced that other attempt at solving all the ills to which the flesh is heir. Don't forget that the Dunkards-that curious variation of Mennonism-took root out here and flourished mightily for years, and exists to this day, as you know. Also the reformed Quakers. And now I hear that Christian Science and a Christianized form of Spiritualism are almost topmost in the matter of growth and the enthusiasm of their followers. I have no quarrel with any faith as a means to private mental blessedness. But you were speaking of universal and creative thought. Just how do you explain this?"

"Well, I can and I can't," was his rather enigmatic reply. "This is a most peculiar State. It may not be so dynamic nor yet so creative, sociologically, as it is fecund of things which relate to the spirit-or perhaps I had better say to Poetry and the interpretative arts. How else do you explain William M. Chase, born here in Brookville, I believe, General Lew Wallace, James Whitcomb Riley, Edward Eggleston and his Hoosier Schoolmaster, Booth Tarkington, George Ade, John Clark Ridpath, Roswell Smith, who founded the Century Magazine, and then Lincoln studying and dreaming down in Spencer County? All accidents? I wonder. In fact I am inclined to think that there is much more to soil and light in so far as temperament and genius are concerned than we have any idea of as yet. There may be, and personally I am inclined to think there is, a magnetic and also generative something appertaining to soil and light which is not unrelated to the electromagnetic field of science in which so much takes place. I look upon them as potent and psychogenetic even, capable of producing and actually productive of new and strange and valuable things in the way of human temperament. Take little Holland, for instance, and its amazing school of great painters. And Greece, with its unrivaled burst of genius. Or Italy, with its understanding of the arts. Or England, with its genius for governing. There is something about the soil and light of certain regions that makes for individuality not only in the land but in the people of the land."

Stories of the Hoosier State: Two Centuries of Indiana Literature: Theodore Dreiser

Hoosier State Chronicles: Fiery Cross

Hoosiers and the American Story: The roaring twenties (pdf)

Hoosier State Chronicles: The Indianapolis Times: A Short History

theodore dreiser klu klux klan

What About Booth? (Russell Kirk Center)

During a recent lecture, the eminent and usually trustworthy literary critic Joseph Epstein befuddled at least one audience member (me) by referring to Theodore Dreiser as the “greatest American author of the twentieth century.” Huh? Dreiser was not even the greatest twentieth-century author from Indiana. In fact, in Beer’s Genuinely Objective Rankings of Indiana Authors, Twentieth Century Division, Dreiser ranks third, just a smidgen ahead of Ross Lockridge Jr. (who wrote Raintree County and nothing else) and considerably behind runner-up Kurt Vonnegut. 

The champion, several lengths ahead of the field, is Newton Booth Tarkington. In fact, Tarkington stands, if not among the first rank of American writers, squarely and securely among the second. His obscurity is unjustified and unjustifiable.

(I have some small problems with this essay. First, I have no idea who Russell Kirk was/is. Second, I agree that Tarkington is too obscure, but I do not like this disparaging of Dreiser, either. Yes, Dreiser is a clunky writer and a ponderous thinker. However, I do not think that Tarkington's characters have aged as well; they seem much of their time. Dreiser's verbosity captures the time so that the characters are not just of their time. Third, I disagree that Dreiser's Sister Carrie is better than his An American Tragedy. Lastly, I do not see Dreiser and Tarkington as an either/or proposition; they are different perspectives on the modernizing of America, and neither finds much good in the effort.)

I finished off last night with Netflix's The Last Kingdom, done with that this morning, and started on the first season of Peaky Blinders.

I want to do laundry and hit a food bank today, so I will leave off here.

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