Atomized junior- The Radio Weblog
Dedicated to the smallest particles of meaning on the web
Atomized Links:


(the Weblog)


theUsual Suspects:




Subscribe to "Atomized junior- The Radio Weblog" in Radio UserLand.

Click to see the XML version of this web page.

Click here to send an email to the editor of this weblog.


Thursday, 24 July, 2003
 
Big Rock Candy Mountain

Taking page from Dave Winer on how to contart up a weblog, use whatever you were doing a year or two ago (or three) on a particular date and write about it, I thought back to one of the things I was doing last July.

A some point around the fourth I found myself thinking of the Neil Young song Sugar Mountain. But then, there are always songs passing through my consciousness in serial fashion. Before this one left and went on its way, it left a lingering stray thought behind for a moment: didn't somebody write a book with a title like that? A few days later while reading an old paperback copy of Will Durant, I saw an advertisement in the back pages for the novel Big Rock Candy Mountain by Wallace Stegner. This must be that book, I thought, so I got hold of a copy and read it. The book in turn takes its name from the song by Harry McClintock. Only occasionally do I read a book that marks a divide and changes the way I feel about writing and what its all about. Generally it's not about (at least for me) whether some author has invented a new way of writing - often in association with a new truth they have discovered - which needs special expressing. There is a barrel quite bottomless, full of literary geek tricks for that crowd. For me it's about clarity, comprehensiveness, and stamina. A writer who is willing to take on full characterization of all his denotees not of just the principle and paint the others into the backdrop. A writer who understands what he or she is putting their characters through, who understands, and Stegner seemed particularly aware of this, that the land - the place is always a character in its own right in every story, one who lends identity to the others. Stegner wrote Big Rock Candy Mountain in the early 1940's (perhaps late 1930's) That and other early writings established him as a writer, for other writers. It wasn't until he left teaching in the 1970's and returned to novels that he established a larger public presence. I had never heard of him and took the book on as a forgotten mid-century novel. Its ambition: seeking to peer into aspects of the American psyche; Bo Mason and his restless destructive search for the good and easy life. I found it much harder to to understand why I had never heard of him after reading this book.
11:41:03 PM    comment [];




Click here to visit the Radio UserLand website. © Copyright 2003 Paul Bushmiller.
Last update: 8/01/03; 01:36:55.
July 2003
Sun Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat
    1 2 3 4 5
6 7 8 9 10 11 12
13 14 15 16 17 18 19
20 21 22 23 24 25 26
27 28 29 30 31    
Jun   Aug


Prolegemma to any future FAQ.

Who are you again?
paul bushmiller
what is it exactly that you do?
at the least, this.
What is this?
it's a weblog.
How long have you been doing it?
3 or 4 years. I used to run it by hand; Radio Userland is more convenient.
Ever been overseas?
yes
Know any foreign languages?
no
Favorite song?
victoria - the kinks
favorite book?
any book I can read in a clean well lighted place
Is this one of those websites with lots of contentious, dogmatic and brittle opinions?
no
What do you expect to accomplish with this?
something