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“The Dead Zone” by Stephen King: Alienation and Recovery

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In talking about books written by Stephen King, I think there is some trepidation when it comes to listing one’s favorites. There are just so many great novels in his horror canon. Nonetheless, I am always quick to point out The Dead Zone (1979) by King as one of my favorites. I read it when I was in my early 20s. I remember staying up night after night reading it until I had completed it in a sad, bleary-eyed mess. It was a fantastic experience.

I think it is an important book.

With that said, in this post, I am going to summarize the novel and provide my overall thoughts near the end.

Synopsis
The Beginning

The novel opens with a young Johnny Smith falling and hitting his head on the ice while skating. This accident causes him to see a future accident. In his vision, a man gets his face burned with battery acid after jumping his car. This comes to fruition, though nobody thinks twice.

Meanwhile, somewhere else in the US, bible salesmen Greg Stillson thinks about his future (and dreams of power). Then after a bout of annoyance with a barking dog, he savagely beats it to death. It is a rough scene:

“Sometimes he wondered if he was going crazy. Like now. He had meant to give the dog a burst from the ammonia Flit gun, drive it back into the barn so he could leave his business card in the crack of the screen door.

Come back some other time and make a sale. Now look. Look at this mess. Couldn’t very well leave his card now, could he?

He opened his eyes. The dog lay at his feet, panting rapidly, drizzling blood from its snout. As Greg Stillson looked down, it licked his shoe humbly, as if to acknowledge that it had been bested, and then it went back to the business of dying.”

(The Dead Zone | Stephen King)

Fast forward to 1970, Johnny Smith teaches English at a high school in Maine. He is also dating one of the other teachers at the school, Sarah Bracknell. They both go on a date that ends in a spectacular showing of Johnny’s latent ability. He wins a “Wheel of Fortune” carnival game multiple times. This upsets the game manager, and so Johnny and Sarah leave.

After taking Sarah home, Johnny is involved in a car accident and falls into a four-year coma. After he awakes he discovers that he can touch people and see events, typically tragedies, in their future. He has a revealing interaction with one of his nurses during the proceeding passage:

“He was still gripping her hand, looking into her face with’ a faraway, dreamy contemplation that made her feel nervous. She had heard things about Johnny Smith, rumors that she had disregarded with her own brand of hard-headed pragmatism. There was a story that he had predicted Marie Michaud’s boy was going to be all right, even before the doctors were one hundred percent sure they wanted to try the risky operation.

Another rumor had something to do with Dr. Weizak; it was said Johnny had told him his mother was not dead but living someplace on the West Coast under another name. As far as Eileen Magown was concerned, the stories were so much eyewash on a par with the confession magazines and sweet-savage love stories so many nurses read on station. But the way he was looking at her now made her feel afraid. It was as if he was looking inside her.”

(The Dead Zone | Stephen King)
The Middle

After Johnny’s ability becomes known, the press wants to capitalize on his “gift.” They inundate him with interviews, but he begins to reject his newfound fame by becoming more reclusive. After a tabloid prints a story on Johnny that dismisses his ability, Johnny believes he can resume his old life. However, the local sheriff, Bannerman, asks him if he can help solve a slew of serial-killings. Johnny is able to adeptly solve the case, which results in a shocking climax.

We cut to the door-to-door salesman (Greg Stillson) who is now the mayor of Ridgeway, New Hampshire. He has found success through making violent threats and other illicit activities against his enemies. Stillson later wins a seat in the U. S. House of Representatives while Johnny is teaching as a tutor in Ridgeway. Johnny decides to meet Stillson, as he has made a hobby of meeting elected officials. During the rally, he has a psychic vision that the vicious, dog-killing politician will eventually cause worldwide nuclear chaos.

“There was the sense of flying – flying through the blue – above scenes of utter desolation that could not quite be seen. And cutting through this came the disembodied voice of Greg Stillson, the voice of a cut-rate God or a comic-opera engine of the dead: ‘I’M GONNA GO THROUGH THEM LIKE BUCKWHEAT THROUGH A GOOSE! GONNA GO THROUGH THEM LIKE SHIT THROUGH A CANEBRAKE!’

‘The tiger,’ Johnny muttered thickly. ‘The tiger’s behind the blue. Behind the yellow.’

Then all of it, pictures, images, and words, broke up in the swelling, soft roar of oblivion. He seemed to smell some sweet, coppery scent, like burning high-tension wires. For a moment that inner eye seemed to open even wider, searching; the blue and yellow that had obscured everything seemed about to solidify into … into something, and from somewhere inside, distant and full of terror, he heard a woman shriek: ‘Give him to me, you bastard!’”

(The Dead Zone | Stephen King)
The End

Johnny decides to take matters into his own hands to stop Sillson. He buys a rifle with the intent to assassinate the prospective politician before he can do harm. However, his plans fail, and he is mortally wounded, but no before Stillson undoes his career with a fatal mistake. Before dying, Johnny touches Stillson and learns that he has prevented the violent future he saw in his premonition.

“Stillson got up abruptly, and with the last bit of his strength Johnny reached out and grasped his ankle. It was only for a second; Stillson pulled free easily. But it was long enough.

Everything had changed.

People were drawing near him now, but he saw only feet and legs, no faces. It didn’t matter. Everything had changed.

He began to cry a little. Touching Stillson this time had been like touching a blank. Dead battery. Fallen tree. Empty house. Bare bookshelves. Wine bottles ready for candles.”

(The Dead Zone| Stephen King)

The book closes with letters from Johnny to his father and other loved ones that detail his motives and rationale. It also features a brief narrative including Sarah, who visits Johnny’s grave and makes peace with his death. It turns out that Johnny’s headaches were caused by a tumor that gave him only a few months to live. Feeling too passive with his psychic gift, he decides to take action. So, according to Johny, there was no alternative to killing Stillson.

Overall thoughts

I love The Dead Zone by King for its pacing. The reader gets to live with Johnny Smith and his strange psychic gift. As some critics have pointed out, there really is not an antagonist for most of this novel. Instead, it relies on the themes of “recovery” and alienation for a large chunk of the story. All of this adds to the pacing of the story. The slowness of it (the day-to-day of the novel) feels a bit truer in regards to a story about suffering.

Additionally, The Dead Zone is both a supernatural and extremely human experience. There could not be more pathos in regards to the character of Johnny. He spends much of the book in quiet contemplation, wondering why he was given the gift of second sight. This confusion causes him great psychological harm. It also puts him in strange situations, including solving murders committed by a serial killer, and saving students from a catastrophe. Johnny isn’t running in and kicking down doors. Rather, he is focused on the emotional impact of his psychic powers. It seems as though he save those around him but with great cost to himself.

Works Cited

King, Stephen. The Dead Zone. Viking Press, 1979.

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Author Biography: Richard Wright’s Impact on Black Literature

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In today’s post, we examine the life of Richard Wright, who wrote an extremely influential novel about the Black American experience. This novel is called Black Boy. Wright was a complex figure who participated in communist communities post-World War I. He cared deeply about the treatment of blacks at the hands of white society and wrote for social reform and justice.. Much like other authors in a similar genre, he wrote about his passions and what he believed needed to change in the world around him.

Richard Wright’s Early Years

Wright was born on Sept. 4, 1908 on Rucker’s Plantation near Natchez, Mississippi in Roxie. He was the son of a sharecropper and teacher who had been born free after the Civil War. Both sets of his grandparents had been slaves.

When Wright was six, his father left and did not reunite with his son for 25 years. Wright did not attend school until 1920, when he and his remaining family moved in with his grandparents. Though Wright excelled in his studies, his life at home in a Seventh-Day Adventist household stifled him greatly. .

Wright’s Publishing Career

Wright “worked at a number of jobs before joining the northward migration, first to Memphis, Tennessee, and then to Chicago (in 1927). There, after working in unskilled jobs, he got an opportunity to write through the Federal Writers’ Project” (Britannica). The project allowed him other avenues of expression and he was able to pursue a love of the craft.

The project spurred Wright in his writing interests, and he later joined the Communist Party in 1932. He also acted as the Harlem editor of the Communist Daily Worker in 1937 after he moved to New York City. He would later produce Uncle Tom’s Children in 1938, which was a series of novellas that asks the question: “How may a black man live in a country that denies his humanity?” (Britannica).

His novellas would begin a string of successes:

“More acclaimed followed in 1940 with the publication of the novel Native Son, which told the story of a 20-year-old African American man named Bigger Thomas. The book brought Wright fame and freedom to write.”

(Biography.com)

Then, in 1945, Wright published Black Boy, which depicted “extreme poverty and his accounts of racial violence against blacks” (Biography.com). This novel continues to be his hallmark and shows his adeptness at

Richard Wright’s Final Years

Richard Wright lived in Mexico from 1940 to 1946 and eventually left the Communist Party disenfranchised. He later lived in Paris where he wrote The Outsider (1953), The Long Dream (1958), Black Power (1954) and White Man, Listen (1957). During these years, his books were about “hunger, poverty, race, and various protest movements” (famousauthors.org).

Wright died in Paris of a heart attack at the age of 52 on Nov. 28, 1960.

Works Cited

Britannica.com

Biography.com

Famousauthors.org

Wikipedia.org

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The Reclusive and Complex Thomas Pynchon

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There is an interesting story about science fiction author Thomas Pynchon that is a little hard to verify—because it’s probably false. But here it is anyway: the author of the book V, Thomas Pynchon, was sitting quietly in his hotel room one day waiting to meet with a publisher. Suddenly, there came a knock on the door, loudly abrasive, and the voice behind demanded an audience. It was a reporter. And he wasn’t going to leave until he got at least one picture of the famously reclusive author. Instead of entertaining this bit of mania, Pynchon instead chose to jump out of a third-story window from the hotel and into a tree. He shimmied down and ran to freedom.

Much like J. D. Salinger (or Boo Radley from To Kill a Mockingbird), when you are infamous for your reclusive nature, and you hate interviews, myths begin to pop up around your character. In today’s post, we are going to examine the life and achievements of science fiction author Thomas Pynchon.

Pynchon’s Early Years and Education

Pynchon was born as one of three children in Glen Cove, Long Island, on May 8, 1937. He would go on to Oyster Bay High School in Nassau County and graduated in 1953. Pynchon earned his bachelor’s in English from Cornell University in 1958. Afterward, he lived in Greenwich Village for a short time, crafting short stories, and eventually found work in Seattle writing safety articles for Boeing.

Thomas Pynchon’s Publishing History

He eventually turned to writing full-time and won the Faulkner Foundation Award in 1963 for his book V. Following this success, Pynchon wrote The Crying of Lot 49 (1966) and Gravity’s Rainbow (1973). He also published a collection of short stories titled Slow Learner (1984) (Britannica).

Over a decade later, Pynchon published Vineland (1990), Mason & Dixon (1997), and Against the Day (2006). His most recent novels include Inherent Vice (2009) and Bleeding Edge (2013). Regarding his “complex” novels, some sources state: “To plunge down the rabbit hole of Pynchon’s fiction is to commence a journey into an alternate world, a world—somewhat like our own but, as Pynchon put it ‘Maybe it’s not the world, but with a minor adjustment or two it’s what the world might be.’”

Examining Pynchon’s History of Reclusiveness

As stated earlier in the post, the synonymity of Thomas Pynchon and “the myth of the reclusive author” is apparent when people converse about him. Time reported that, “Almost nothing is known about the author of some of the most seminal, mysterious and generally difficult works of the 20th century fiction, and the novelist would like to keep it that way … When his 1973 novel Gravity’s Rainbow won the National Book Award, Pynchon had someone else accept on his behalf” (Time). In other words, he was not about the song and dance of writing. He was about the writing.

Moreover, it may be that this reclusiveness is a fabrication of pop culture obsession. It is very well that Pynchon just might dislike the attention from journalists, or he just might not like answering questions. Both of these are valid reasons to skip ceremony, and his privacy is probably a much less dramatic story then some would like. It is not like other writers aren’t eccentric or don’t have eccentric ideas.

As contributor to Vice David Whelan said of Pynchon’s mythos: “This is far from the truth. He’s not hiding in the woods or refusing to publish new work à la J.D. Salinger; he just doesn’t like talking to reporters. While there are only four known photos of Pynchon … he’s a vibrant prankster with his finger on the world’s pulse. He knows how to manipulate us. He’s willing to make fun of himself …”

Conclusion

We should accept a nuanced version of Pynchon because it makes more sense that a story of reclusiveness has been created around him rather than him intentionally creating the story itself because he’s a “weirdo” or an “eccentric.” As we should see it, Pynchon is just a talented writer who doesn’t care at all for the additional publicity that comes with fame. Writing, after all, takes time, and that doesn’t include the spotlight.

Works Cited

“Thomas Pynchon.” Britannica. Web.

“Thomas Pynchon.” Thomaspynchon.com. 1997-2018. Web.

“Top 10 Most Reclusive Celebrities.” Time. Web.

Whelan, David. “Thomas Pynchon and the Myth of the Reclusive Author.” Vice. Oct. 9, 2014. Web.

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The Role of Epithets in Literature Explained

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New verbiage is crucial in writing to explore different ways to communicate and convey messages. When it comes to literature, it is also important to understand what an author is trying to say. In this post we are going to define epithets and explore how to use them in our own writing.

What is an Epithet?

An epithet is a literary device that uses a descriptor to describe a person, place, or object. These are also known as a by-names or descriptive titles. As some sources define it it: “A characterizing word or phrase accompanying or occurring in place of the name of a person or thing” (Merriam-Webster). Moreover, we categorize epithets a few ways:

  • A Kenning: Two-word phrase
  • A Fixed: Repeated use of a word (Odysseus as “Many-Minded”)
  • Argumentative: A “possible outcome” or repercussions

What Does this Mean?

Epithets can be tricky. As Vocabulary.com writes: “An epithet can be harmless, a nickname that catches on … On the flipside, an epithet can be an abusive word or phrase that should never be used, like a racial epithet that offends and angers everyone.”

Here are a few examples of epithets from all the categories:

  • Richard the Lion-Heart
  • Trash panda (racoon)
  • The Piano Man (for Billy Joel)
  • Rost-fingered
  • Catherine the Great
  • Wine-dark sea
  • The Great Emancipator (for Abe Lincoln)

How to Use Epithets in Our Own Writing

When implementing epithets in our own writing, we can go about it a few ways. One way is to enrich characterization by supplying nicknames to our characters that other characters have coined. As such, you create a richer world where there is definitive interaction between people.

Conclusion

In this way, epithets can make your writing seem more real and realized. Additionally, epithets can be used to address those derogatory experiences in life, racial or otherwise. Understanding the reasons behind an epithet can help us better contextualize history by understanding society at a given time.

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The Great Vowel Shift: What is It, and Why Did It Happen?

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The Great Vowel Shift sounds like some sort of cataclysmic event where the world suddenly split open and words spilled out everywhere. As a consequence, now suddenly humans all talk differently. However, that is not really the case at all. In fact, like most things, the shift was a gradual evolution from one era to another and it has a complex history. With that said, in today’s post, we are going to look at the causes and effects of The Great Vowel Shift.

Background of The Great Vowel Shift

In the beginning, vowels were a bit different from what we know them as today. That is to say, there was a difference in pronunciation, from longer and more complex sounds. The shift between the times of Chaucer, Shakespeare, and afterward are indicative of this change.

“The main difference between Chaucer’s language and our own is in the pronunciation of the ‘long’ vowels,” states Harvard University. “The consonants remain generally the same, though Chaucer rolled his r’s, sometimes dropped his aitches, and pronounced both elements of consonant combinations, such as ‘kn,’ that were later simplified.”

In other words, time moved on and through era, so the vowel sound began to change and evolve over time. Vowels started to be pronounced closer to the front of the mouth, which meant as the shift happened some words were pronounced differently. But often, people would pronounce words a specific way based on where they lived. Moreover, there were 8 steps in this change, and, as academia has suggested—this didn’t happen in a quick, orderly way, because evolving language takes time.

Why Did the Shift Happen?

The Great Vowel Shift occurred during the late Middle English period (and before and after, too). It was a “raising of all long vowels,” and there are many explanations given as to why this happened (Nordquist).

For example, because this happened between the 15th and 18th centuries, the shift could be attributed to the movement of people. As stated by some sources: “rapid migration of people from northern England to the southeast part of the country” caused this change as they were looking “to escape the Black Death that killed over 25 million people across Europe” (Omondi).

Moreover, this movement of people blended accents and the words that people use. It also saw the use of a lot more loanwords from France. This either made the English want to change the way their English words sounded in comparison or the two languages naturally blended together.

There are also arguments stating that England’s rich wanted to change the way they spoke so they would sound less like the common serf. In this way, the aristocracy could differentiate itself from the peasant.

Conclusion

The Great Vowel Shift was a massive change in how our words sounds compared to Middle English and transformed speech into what we know today. There are many reasons for this change (as stated), and we can see the shift’s affects even to this day.

Works Cited

“The Great Vowel Shift.” Furman.edu. Web.

“The Great Vowel Shift.” Harvard.edu. Web.

Nordquist, Richard. “What was the great vowel shift?” Thoughtco.com. June 4, 2020. Web.

Omondi, Sharon. “What Was the Great Vowel Shift?” World Atlas. July 18, 2019. Web.

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Top Four Really Long Books

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As writers, we often fret about word count and how long our books are going to be when its all said and done. Some authors don’t really care about that as much. In this post, much like in previous posts, we are going to look at some of the longest books ever written. The list that follows will probably contain some recognizable faces, and hopefully this will give you some solace in your own writing goal if you are working on that novel of yours.

1. Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace

We all want to start David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest one day, but the book’s daunting size makes that a difficult goal. The book is over 540,000 words long, and it’s also a complex novel. As such, it’s hard to nail the plot down exactly. The novel is set on a North American superstate that involves the United States, Mexico, and Canada. There are many plot threads to contend with, including Quebec radicals, substance abusers in Boston, students at an academy, and family strife. Regardless of its density, it seems to have its merits as one of the really long books on this list.

2. Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand

Ayn Rand has massively-sized novels, and the often complex content in her novels guarantees that you will be reading for awhile. Her book Atlas Shrugged is about individualism in a dystopian future and is over 500,000 words (565,223-645,000 by some accounts). That is a really long book. Many of us struggled to punch out 50, 000 words for a novel, so to write that many books with a high word count is quite an achievement.

3. Clarissa by Samuel Richardson

Samuel Richardson’s Clarissa or History of a Young Lady was published in 1748. It is a story of Clarissa Harlowe and is a whopping 943-000-969,000-word novel. In Clarissa’s attempts to be a moral, chaste woman in pursuit of a suitable marriage, Richardson got carried away. Or, he intentionally wrote that much and deserves a medal. The book was positively received, but due to its length takes a great undertaking of reading stamina.

4. Mission Earth by L. Ron Hubbard.

The noted creator of Scientologist was also a prolific science fiction/fantasy author. Mission Earth is one such piece of science fiction and it also happens to be a massive tome. It is 1.2 million words and details (over the course of 10 volumes) the story of Jettero Heller, who attempts to stop the evil Voltars from conquering Earth. Largely marred by sexual misadventures and diatribes, reviews for the book are middling.

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Four Literary Road Trips by Famous Authors

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Once upon a time in the long ago, as Cormac McCarthy wrote, I was an avid traveler. These days, I don’t get out all that much, but I still enjoy reading about people who do. My most favorite literary road trips aren’t lifestyle magazine featurettes but, rather, bookish adventures. Because I too believe, as literary critic Harold Bloom said over and over, that the secret to reading is rereading, here are some musings on four road trips which top my re-re-rereading list.

The Tender Hem Rides Along

I’ve tried on several occasions to get into books like For Whom the Bell Tolls and The Sun Also Rises but they just weren’t for me. I’d just about given up on Hemingway when I decided to give The Green Hills of Africa a try. Pleasantly surprised by how much I liked his nonfiction, I next read A Moveable Feast.

It was while reading Hem’s memoir of his youth in Paris that I got my next big surprise. Knowing Hemingway’s reputation of hypermasculinity, I was rather shocked to read how tenderly he behaved toward his friend F. Scott Fitzgerald, particularly during a 900-mile road trip they took from Paris to Léon and back again to pick up Scott and Zelda’s car.

The auto had been abandoned there due to bad weather after Zelda demanded the roof be cut off because she would only ride in a convertible. From the get-go, Scott—a hypochondriac of sorts—claimed he was coming down with a lung ailment. On their way back from picking up the car, Scott became more and more convinced he was developing congestion of the lungs.

Hem did his best to manage Scott, even telling him about an article he’d read on the subject. And this helped calm him for a while during the road trip. Then the weather turned bad and they decided to stopover that second night.

Once at the hotel, Hem sent Scott—who had been complaining of fever and demanding a thermometer—to bed.

“Scott was lying in bed to conserve his strength for his battle against the disease,” Hemingway wrote. “I had taken his pulse, which was 72, and had felt his forehead, which was cool. I had listened to his chest and had him breathe deeply. His chest sounded alright.”

Hem continued to assure Scott he was fine and ordered hot beverages to help soothe him, in addition to finding a waiter at that late hour in search of the almighty oral thermometer. But, since everything was closed, the best the waiter could produce was a bathtub thermometer.

Hem put the thermometer under Scott’s armpit, telling him to be thankful it wasn’t a rectal model. Because he couldn’t remember the conversion, Hem lied about the Celsius reading, saying Scott’s temperature was perfectly normal.

“You could not be angry with Scott,” Hemingway wrote, “any more than you could be angry with someone who was crazy.”

Hem continued to nurse Scott through the night. And, when the patient felt fine the next morning, they continued on their road trip to Paris. There’s a lot more to the story, and I urge you to at least check out that chapter of the book for a funny and heartwarming read.

Manson Family Realty: Bukowski Travels

In the shortest of my chosen literary road trips, Henry Chinaski (nee Bukowski) scores big when he’s offered $10,000 to write a screenplay and earns $35,000 off the German translations of several of his books. After some rather dubious financial advice from one Vin Marbad, Buk decides to go house hunting.

This little literary road trip takes Buk and his “good lady” Sarah to a nationally known realty firm, where they are summarily dismissed as vagabonds without ever having had the chance to speak with a realtor. Eventually, they find a place called Rainbow Realty and are taken to a dark mansion occupied by eccentric Grey Gardens types.

About halfway through the tour, Sarah realizes the house was one of the Manson Family murder sites and she and Buk get the hell out of there toot de suite. My favorite part of this minor misadventure, detailed in the book Hollywood, is when they visit a biker bar where the patrons recognize Buk and begin buying him drinks.

To get out of there alive, Sarah downs one of the many shots of whiskey intended for Buk, who one drunk refers to as, “The world’s greatest writer.”

On the way out, Sarah asks, “Are those your readers?”

Buk says, “That’s most of them, I think.”

Even though these would seem to be Buk’s people, he takes pity on grown men day-drinking in a filthy dead-end bar.

“[A]gain I noted the leather jackets and the blandness of the faces and the feeling that there wasn’t much joy or daring in any of them,” Bukowski wrote. “There was something missing, the poor fellows, and something in me wrenched for just a moment. And I felt like throwing my arms around them, consoling, and embracing them like some Dostoevsky.”

He added, “But I knew that would finally lead nowhere except to ridicule and humiliation for myself and for them. The world had somehow gone too far and spontaneous kindness could never be so easy. It was something we would all have to work for once again.”

One Fast Move: A Car Ride with Kerouac

While On The Road continues to be Jack Kerouac’s big hit, I continue to argue his later work Big Sur is superior as a story in general and as a travelogue. Not only is the work a poetic feast from start to finish, its prose is singular in its honesty and beauty. As the book is described in its foreword, Big Sur details Kerouac’s long series of tender nervous breakdowns.

Jack left his mother’s house after the publication of On The Road made him famous—so famous that he couldn’t get a moment’s peace from reporters, fans, and friends. While it was written in 1961 as one sojourn, his Big Sur trips were several.

In the book, Kerouac takes a train from his mother’s in New York to San Francisco, where he meets up with Lawrence Ferlinghetti who lets him stay in his cabin in Bixby Canyon.

Kerouac wanders as a man-child from friend to friend, bed to bed, bottle to bottle; confused, sad, tired, self-absorbed.

Scared and desperate, he feels the warring pulls of solitude—which always turned out for him to be brutal isolation—and socialization, which soothed him for a time but ended too often in jealousy, shame, regret.

“One fast more or I’m gone,” Kerouac wrote of his need to get away, and adding that he felt like, “a bent back mudman monster groaning underground in hot steaming mud pulling a long hot burden nowhere.”

McCarthy On The Road

Saving the darkest—and most hopeful of these literary road trips—for last, I give you Cormac McCarthy’s The Road. Even if you’ve already seen the movie, please make time to read this book. It’s part spiritual journey, part post-apocalyptic adventure, and all meditation on what it means to live a good life amidst suffering and uncertainty … and knowing there will never be a time when we’re truly ready to die.

Golden nuggets of wisdom include the exhortation to beware what you let into your head, because you’ll remember the things you want to forget and forget the things you want to remember. When the boy character asks what’s the bravest thing his father has ever done, the man says, “Getting up this morning.” One of my favorite lines comes in the father character’s exchange with a fellow hobo.

When he asks the old man if he wished he had died, the old man responds “no” but that he might wish he had died because, when you’re alive, you’ve always got that to look forward to. I have read The Road more times than any other book except for Bukowski’s Hollywood.

In fact, as soon as I finished it for the first time, I immediately began reading it again. I’ve been doing so at varying paces for nearly five years.

These literary road trips have taught me much about both the real and figurative highways we travel, how those roads intersect with other people’s paths or sometimes only run parallel, how we’re all traveling down that long lonesome road of life, and how someday we all come to the end of our own road … even though roads never really end.

And, if we’re lucky, we’ll have someone who cares about us to carry our memory with them as they keep going down the road long after we’re gone.

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Stephen Crane: A Biography of a Literary Master

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Many of us remember reading The Red Badge of Courage in middle school. At the time, it may have seemed like a slog, but as you get older books have a habit of changing. That is, parts of The Red Badge of Courage do stick with me, such as the emotional depth of the novel. As it stands, Stephen Crane is a masterful writer, and he fits right into the realm of literary realism. In this post, we will take a brief look at his life and times.

History

Stephen Crane’s Early Years

Crane was born on Nov. 1, 1871 in Newark, New Jersey to a family of ministers and clergymen, and he was also the last of fourteen children. Crane was a bright child and excelled at reading and writing and was crafting short stories at the age of 14 years old. Crane attended Pennington Seminary and then enrolled in Claverack College (a “quasi-military school”) and then he went on to Lafayette College and Syracuse University.

Tending to the Writing Muse

Crane wrote on and off throughout his youth and early years and eventually began freelancing for the Tribune and worked on a novella Maggie: A Girl of the Streets (1893), which didn’t achieve the success he was looking for as an author.

“Crane received several rejections from publishers before he resolved to self-publish the novella under the pseudonym Johnston Smith in 1983. Despite the true-to-life depiction of slum life, the literary work failed to garner positive reviews and left the author broke.”

(Famousauthors.org)

However, in 1895, Crane wrote The Red Badge of Courage, which audiences praised (as well as a rewrite of Maggie). His later books did not garner as much attention, but he had already cemented himself with one of the most important Civil War novels ever written.

Stephen Crane’s Later Years and Death

Crane would continue to write about war until his death, venturing to foreign countries as a correspondent.

“Back to being a war reporter, Crane went to Greece to report on the Greco-Turkish War for several New York newspapers, but rumors of his life turning to drug addiction, rampant promiscuity, even satanism—all of which were untrue—prompted him to move to England.”

(Americanliterature.com)

Crane died from tuberculosis at the early age of 28 on June 5, 1900.

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Reflections on Mortality in ‘End of Summer’ by Kunitz

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Today, I thought that I would share my analysis of the poem “End of Summer” by Stanley Kunitz. I love it dearly. Particularly, the second-to-last stanza. It reminds me that even though life moves quickly, it is okay to sit back and reflect on the days gone by. Hopefully, it does that for you, too. The poem can be found here.

Analysis of “End of Summer”

In the first stanza, Kunitz discusses how he experienced an unsavory year. With that knowledge, he looks to the future as “the unloved year / Would turn on its hinge that night.” In the next stanza, he writes about the “stubble and stones.” In it, he talks about his waking mortality by using “a small worm” and referencing “my marrow-bones.”

Yet, in the next stanza, Kunitz writes, “Blue poured into summer blue, / A hawk broke from his cloudless tower, / The roof of the silo blazed, and I knew / That part of my life was over.” Specifically, if you have ever looked out over a field at the end of summer, you know what the author is saying. The golden sun shining on a vibrant, green and darkened hill then you know exactly what Kunitz is writing about. Death is a far-reaching theme in poetry.

In other words, life is fleeting and we forget that fact. As each year passes, our mortality becomes more and more relevant. To this extent, Kunitz’s poem brilliantly addresses this feeling. It delivers such emotion to the reader for us to chews over.

Works Cited

Kunitz, Stanley. “End of Summer.” The Collected Poems, W. W. Norton & Company, 2000, pp. 145-146.

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The Trial Surrounding “Howl” by Allen Ginsberg

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Society is capable of strange evils, like burning books or banning them from curriculum. Society can also convict people of thought crimes, because words have a great deal of power. Today, we are going to look at the trial of the poem “Howl” by Allen Ginsberg.

Poetry Readings: “Cops Don’t Allow No Renaissance Here”

Allen Ginsberg hadn’t even started his career as an influential Beat poet (the post-war Baby Boomer radicals) when he got himself into trouble. After giving a reading of his poem “Howl” at the art house Six Gallery in North Beach, San Francisco on Oct. 7 ,1955, Ginsberg was accused of obscenity.

Publisher Lawrence Ferlinghetti had read “Howl” before Ginsberg presented it at the gallery that night, and he knew it was a transformative piece. As such, “Howl” is a poem that is technically challenging and impressive in its message. Ginsberg was able to adeptly use his influence with Whitman and Blake and use an amalgamated style to convey new themes. This newness resonated with people of the age.”

“… I knew the world had been waiting for this poem, for this apocalyptic message to be articulated. It was in the air, waiting to be captured in speech. The repressive, conformist, racist, homophobic world of the 1950s cried out for it.”

Ferlinghetti

The reading event featured other notable poets and was a smashing success for the San Francisco poetry scene. It also launched Ginsberg’s career. According to Ferlinghetti, after hearing the poem, and in mimicking Ralph Waldo Emerson’s message to Walt Whitman after hearing “Leaves of Grass,” he sent Ginsberg a Western Union telegram that read: “I greet you at the beginning of a great career. When do we get the manuscript?” (Found SF).

Ferlinghetti called the 29-year-old Beat poet soon after to publish “Howl” in City Lights in 1956. After the poem’s publication in paperback, authorities promptly arrested Ferlinghetti and book seller Shigeyoshi Murao on obscenity charges. The book featured explicit four-letter-words and homosexual overtones, which the moral sensors of the 1950s disliked. After the police made their arrests, one local newspaper headline read: “Cops Don’t Allow No Renaissance Here.”

Opinions on the Poem’s Impact

Ferlinghetti wrote that “Howl” was targeted for more than just being “obscene by cops.” He said that it was because, “it attacked the bare roots of our dominant culture, the very Moloch heart of our consumer society.” As stated by Andrew Spacey in his analysis of “Howl”: the poem is a “game-changer” because it adequately captured the feelings of the era. He writes: “… it expressed for the first time a modern psychological angst, an urban existence fueled by drugs, jazz, travel and expansion,” Spacey writes (Spacey).

The poem was a departure from what most writers and poetry consumers considered verse. It revolutionized an approach to writing. While some wrote letters criticizing Ginsberg’s poem, writers, poets, and artists unanimously criticized the trial. They said it was unnecessary censorship because the court was dealing with a true work of art.

“Mark S. Wittenberg, in the San Francisco Chronicle, represented this perspective. He stated: ‘I should say that when (Federal Collector of Customs) saw too many four letter words, he neither saw nor read anything else. Allen Ginsberg’s poem may be a lot of things…but it is not obscene” (Rehlaender).

The Trial of Allen Ginsberg’s “Howl”

The trial began in Aug. 1957, and the defense had some support. Lawyer Jake Ehrlich, and Lawrence Speiser and Albert Bendich of the ACLU defended Ferlinghetti and Murao. Meanwhile, Ginsberg, free from arrest, wrote letters of support from outside the judicial circus.

The overall argument from The State of California, represented by Ralph McIntosh, was that the words would harm the American people in mediums other than poetry. Thus, the poetry must be banned, because if it appeared on the radio then it would be inappropriate. Both sets of lawyers brought up expert witnesses to discuss the poem as art or as offensive material.

“Ehrlich closed by arguing the poem is only obscene if you purposefully read it that way; he argued that just because the words may be vulgar, does not mean the message is, so this should not detract from the literature’s value. Ginsberg wrote this way to detail HIS life, HIS experiences, and it is not intended to corrupt readers.”

Howl and Beyond

After spending time in consideration, Judge Clayton W. Horn ruled that the poem could not be obscene because such a ruling with tamper with the First Amendment. Horn’s ruling was important because it made way for the publication of previously censored works, such as Lady Chatterley’s Lover by D. H. Lawrence and Tropic of Cancer by Henry Miller.

Works Cited

Rehlaender, Jamie. “A Howl of Free Expression: the 1957 Howl Obscenity Trial and Sexual Liberation.” Portland State University. March 19, 2015.

Spacey, Andrew. “Analysis of Poem Howl by Allen Ginsberg.” Owlcation. Jan. 10, 2020. Web.

“Howl and Beyond.” URL: https://howlandbeyond.weebly.com/the-obscenity-trial.html

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“Howl” as Read by Allen Ginsberg

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In today’s post, we listen to Allen Ginsberg read his infamous poem “Howl.” While accused of being obscene, this poem conveys a changing dynamic in American culture. The freedom and breakaway from the 1950s-1960s culture was becoming apparent, and this poem embodies that message. There are many universal themes in poetry, but “Howl” tapped into the minds and feelings of a generation.

“Howl” discusses many themes, but relies on its outside approach to conveying themes and messages. It is considered a significant work of the Beat Generation, which was already in full swing against the establishment. The poem has three sections, and each one critiques different aspects of society, discussing personal freedom, mental illness, and oppressive society.

The poem also discuss disillusionment with 1950s culture, and the nature of capitalism as a negative principle. It often refers to “Moloch” within the poem as a monstrous force. Similarly, it discusses how those with different ideas do not fit within the confines of a stratified society. “I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness,” Ginsberg writes. In addition, Ginsberg talks about sexuality in varying degrees, from homosexuality to heterosexuality. Lastly, the poem discusses Ginsberg’s outlook on the holy and the reverent by mixing mystical and theological imagery.

“Howl” as Read by Allen Ginsberg

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Four Crucial Blogging Tips to Make a Successful Blog

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There is something liberating about frequently publishing posts, as feeling productive and actually being productive work in tandem. Yet, when blogging, it’s difficult to know how to use that productivity. Blogging tips or can help (like understanding the writing process), but a blogging tip should be useful; so, practicality comes into play as well, and practical problem-solving methods are the way to go. Exercises, ideas, and tangible concepts to get everybody moving on the right path. In today’s post, we have assembled some blogging tips and ideas that help you in your blog-writing journey.

Blogging Tips

Tip 1:  Conduct Some Usability Tests

Before you publish your immaculately designed blog, consider performing a few usability tests to improve quality, interface, and user retention. Usability Testing is a fairly simple concept: it asks the designer (or blogger, in your case) to set up a series of one-on-one tests with multiple participants (strangers, preferably) over a small timeframe in order to watch as they interact with your website.  

Authors Don Norman and Steve Krug are big into this UX (user experience) idea. Both of their books on these ideas are excellent as well: The Design of Everyday Things and Rocket Surgery Made Easy. There are two more blogging tips for you, free of charge.

You as the designer decide upon the questions or tasks, but really think about your blog: What is your goal? Where are things located? Is everything easy to find? Can users navigate your blog easily?

Some example questions while conducting a test include:

  • Where would you find the ‘contact’ information?
  • If you wanted to know where the author was, could you find them?
  • Where are the archives and can you tell me where the most recent post is?

You really want the subject to speak aloud while they work through your questions and you should probably record the conversation or take thorough notes so you have “saved data” when it comes time to examine the feedback you collected. The tester typically reinforces the idea that the usability test is not actually a “test” per se, so there isn’t a wrong answer when it comes to any of the questions (this is true and your test subject should be comfortable so they respond in an honest, relaxed way).

Tip 2: Find an Angle

If you are actively trying to gain a following and you are trying to have an extremely original blog—then you may want to try to find an angle. This works on a micro level–each post–or a macro level–your blog in general.

If you’ve spent any time in journalism or wonder why some articles are more engaging than others, then you can probably say with some surety that the writer has a unique angle on the subject material. After all, you have to fight hard to be at the head of the pack when it comes to publishing, and if you aren’t telling an original story, then your prospective audience may gloss over your work.

If you want to write about a famous musician, say, Jimi Hendrix, how are you going to write about him? Are you going to go the usual route and just report his history ? Or will you discuss his guitar technique? Or, are you going to tell his story in a more original way? Like, approaching his life through the stories of others, or writing about the clothes he wore at historic concerts.

In going against this advice, keep in mind that people also like familiar topics, so if you feel compelled to write about Hendrix’s guitar style, then, why not? Aristotle argues that art is cathartic (meant to purify the spirit), so if you are enjoying the material and working on your craft—go for it!

Tip 3: Do Some Research

Blogs thrive on research before one starts to actively write. Doing research takes no time and it actually find it to be pretty fun, because I get to see what other blogs are doing and how they handle mundane and complex information in different ways.

First, you might consider a broad research strategy where you go to the most popular websites right now and check them out. Ideally, you want to examine their page design first: find out where they keep information and find out what each page has in common and what each page has different (and why). Finally, find out how they engage with their customers. Is there a form to fill out? Is there an open dialogue? Do you think the way this company interacts with their customers is effective? Why?

And don’t just focus on those questions! Brainstorm questions you might have for a digital design specialist and see how they apply to the websites you are examining.

Second, bring your research strategy into the realm of the microcosm. In other words, find websites and blogs that inspired you or have similar information and topics. Are you a self-help blog? Find other self-help blogs! Are you a literature blog? Find other literature blogs!

Next, examine the design of each blog. What works well, and what does not work well? How could you improve your site? Again, dream up questions that will give you solid answers, which you can then use to build an effective and successful blog.

Tip 4: Interact and Engage

I will keep this one brief, but I think people forget to deliver on this particular part of blogging, and it’s certainly one that I need to spend more time on:

Interact and engage with other blogs and writers.

Writing is communal and so is blogging. While we may feel as though writing is a solitary function, academic research does not show that the best work comes from individuals sitting alone in dark, smoky rooms. You may feel cool, but your writing and craft will suffer. In fact, research shows that engaging with others and discussing writing improves one’s craft immensely. Even the greatest authors of all time had writing circles, editors, publishers, beta readers, and so on. They wrote, they shared, and they created excellent work.

Conclusion

By engaging with other blogs and writers, you are sharing your work and you are earning something in return. You are putting those blogging tips to use. Additionally, that something includes important feedback from other writers (suffering criticism is a threshold we all have to cross), and confidence in your writing, which will help you write better because you spend less time second-guessing yourself. And, lastly, by interacting and engaging with other writers, you are seeing how other websites function (Blog Tip 1), you are seeing other story angles (Blog Tip 2), you are conducting research through interaction (Blog Tip 3), and you are having meaningful conversations with people who have similar interests (so you are building a writing community).

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“Hap” by Thomas Hardy Analysis

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Thomas Hardy wrote “Hap” in the 1860s and it was one of his earliest poems. It details happenstance, misfortune, and the random nature of the world. Hardy, who was in his 20s, was touching on a theme that would dominate much of his work throughout his life: that there is no Gods’ plan and that chance rules our lives instead.

Background and Analysis

We could look at this poem, ideally, from a previously discussed discipline that appears in the neutral form of “naturalism,” which doesn’t “care about humanity and (is) neither good nor bad” (BA English Notes). This, of course, is a more rational appeal toward nature and our own lives because we aren’t necessarily looking to the mystical for knowledge, but, rather, our own abilities and intuition.

“Hap” is a blending of Italian and English sonnet forms because “the first eight lines rhyme ababcdcd rather than abbaabba,” and this, “makes the poem a curious hybrid of the English and Italian sonnet forms, lending the poem’s rhyme scheme an air of uncertainty …”  (BA English Notes). So, the structure is definitely an amalgamation of styles, which suits the topic perfectly.

What follows is the poem in its entirety.

“Hap” By Thomas Hardy

If but some vengeful god would call to me
From up the sky, and laugh: “Thou suffering thing,
Know that thy sorrow is my ecstasy,
That thy love’s loss is my hate’s profiting!” 

Then would I bear it, clench myself, and die,
Steeled by the sense of ire unmerited;
Half-eased in that a Powerfuller than I
Had willed and meted me the tears I shed.

But not so.   How arrives it joy lies slain,
And why unblooms the best hope ever sown?
—Crass Casualty obstructs the sun and rain,
And dicing Time for gladness casts a moan. . . .
These purblind Doomsters had as readily strown
Blisses about my pilgrimage as pain.

Conclusion

We often stumble upon all sorts of good poems by happenstance, and “Hap” is one of those. The poem takes a few styles and transcends with an interesting theme and excellent imagery. Using naturalism as a center, it conveys the fight against nature and the dangers of

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An Analysis of “My Voice” by Oscar Wilde

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Oscar Wilde has had many popular pieces of writing shared since he put pen to paper. He also has some great poetry. “My Voice” by Oscar Wilde is one such poem that is singularly sweet and important to identity and understanding.

Analysis of “My Voice” by Oscar Wilde

“My Voice” by Oscar Wilde appeared sometime between 1854-1900. It is written in a ballad or ode form, and it contains three stanzas that have four lines in each paragraph. Additionally, it is written in iambic pentameter with rhyme scheme that follows abab / cdcd / efef.

The poem details the end of a relationship, with the narrator’s ex-lover not reciprocating in the heartache that he feels. Wilde writes in the first stanza that, “Within the restless, hurried, modern world / We took our hearts’ full pleasure–You and I, / And Now the white sails of our ships are furled / And spent the lading of our agony.” Wilde is telling us that the relationship began, but now it is over, and the “agony” has set in. In other ways, Wilde is discussing emotional separation, and the strain that it causes.

Similarly, this individual has had a profound impact on him through voice and evocation of memories. He writes in line 8 of the second stanza, “And Ruin draws the curtains of my bed,” which further builds on the theme of loss and desolation after love has gone. Meanwhile, in stanza three he states that though he feels this intense pain, the subject of his loss does not feel the same way. “Of viols, or the music of the sea,” he writes, “That sleeps, a mimic echo, in the shell.” There are some interpretations that pull optimism from the passage, but “echo, in the shell” seems to indicate his own voice coming back to him no matter how he calls for his love.

It’s an extremely relatable poem, and Wilde handles the theme well with heartbreaking tones.

Conclusion

Wilde’s style and ability to craft an ambitious atmosphere of debate and apprehension enamors, but, by the same token, Wilde has such a strong writing voice that either through prose or verse–there is similarity. This makes all of his writing appealing to me, and this poem is a prime example of telling a story, alluding to love, while also encapsulating a heart-breaking theme of calling for a loved one and immortalizing them in our minds.

“My Voice” by Oscar Wilde

Within the restless, hurried, modern world
   We took our hearts’ full pleasure—You and I,
And now the white sails of our ships are furled,
   And spent the lading of our argosy.

Wherefore my cheeks before their time are wan,
   For very weeping is my gladness fled,
Sorrow hath paled my lip’s vermilion
   And Ruin draws the curtains of my bed.

But all this crowded life has been to thee
   No more than lyre, or lute, or subtle spell
   That sleeps, a mimic echo, in the shell.
Of viols, or the music of the sea

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Biography of George Bernard Shaw: Socialist, Critic, Playwright

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George Bernard Shaw’s name looms large amongst the litany of famous authors. Both fascinating and contentious, he has all the makings of a literary icon. Likewise, he has many shared traits with other authors. Moreover, his sheer volume of work along, puts him in the pantheon of influential authors. In this George Bernard Shaw biography, we are going to dig into his life, times, and literary works.

Biography of George Bernard Shaw

Upbringing and early novelist

To start, Shaw was born in Dublin on July 26, 1856. He was the third child in his family, and he hated school. However, he found no interest in the workings of academia. Eventually, Shaw worked in an estate agent’s office before moving to London in 1876. There, he struggled to find work through multiple jobs. Eventually, he settled on pursuing a full-time career as a writer—with mixed results.

As stated by Britannica: “Despite his failure as a novelist in the 1880s, Shaw found himself during this decade. He became a vegetarian, a socialist, a spellbinding orator, a polemicist, and tentatively a playwright.” In these words, Shaw became the character and writer that would leave a mark on the literary world.

(Britannica.com)

The Fabian Society and Critic

In 1884, Shaw joined the Fabian Society. The group spent time advancing the principles of democratic socialism. Furthermore, in this society, he used his writing abilities to craft pamphlets and to debate the application of such beliefs. In addition, somewhere in the midst of novel writing failure, Shaw began critiquing plays. These critiques were published in papers in London and became quite successful.  He worked as a critic for the Pall Mall Gazette, The World, The Star, and The Saturday Review.

As Britannica further states, Shaw knew a great deal about the arts, which gave him critical acumen. The source states, “Shaw had a good understanding of music, particularly opera, and he supplemented his knowledge with a brilliance of digression that gives many of his notices a permanent appeal …”

Bernard Shaw as Playwright and Death

Shaw’s first collections of plays appeared in “Plays Unpleasant” and “Plays Pleasant.” Both collections were replete with “what would become Shaw’s signature wit, accompanied by healthy doses of social criticism.” Both of which “stemmed from his Fabian Society leanings” (biography.com). Shaw produced a great deal of work in a variety of genres, which kept him busy working on his craft.

Finally, with the 19th century coming to a close, Shaw really began churning out his best work. He wrote Man and Superman in 1903 and Major Barbara in 1905, and Pygmalion in 1912. In 1925, Shaw was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature for Saint Joan. He died in his home in England in 1950 at 94 years old.