B List: Don Marquis--The Lives and Times of Archy and Mehitabel.......396/477
C List: Karl Ove Knausgaard--My Struggle: Volume 2..............................55/592
I suspect that what is considered valuable in the Mencken book could be acceptably covered by the modern reader through pertinent excerpts. Many of the controversies and premises it addresses have been long superseded, or are long lost causes, such as the contention among the British educated classes and their American admirers that American speech was even in its highest forms a brutal degradation of the mother tongue, and the alarm in England in the 1930s when the book was written that the introduction of talking Hollywood movies would sow and spread the linguistic rot among the population there. I was also reminded of the obsession that raged among American educators throughout the first half of the last century with eradicating the word "ain't" and the abominable habits of dropping one's g's from the national vernacular. He has referred in recent pages to a study of local accents in New England that I am hoping he will go back to, as I might find that personally interesting. New England had at this time apparently the greatest diversity of local speech patterns in the United States. I am guessing this is not the case anymore. Even twenty years ago there were still a decent number of older people around with very distinct and unusual, archaic accents, as well as a surprising number of people who spoke (Canadian) French as their first language. But I guess those people must all have died off, since I don't remember encountering anyone fitting these descriptions for some years now.
Having fallen behind on my "C" List, I arranged for a string of very short titles to win my legendary Challenges, and having finished all of them in relatively short order, I decided to take up the second volume (and the longest, seemingly) of Knausgaard. So far Knausgaard has been at the same pre-school birthday party for the entire book. I do like him, and I do look forward to reading my little segment of him each day, but that is because he is like the literary-minded friend of my own generation, which I do not actually have, who is smart but not forbiddingly or inaccessibly so--in the birthday party scene he is a little befuddled by the kinds of parents who have the kinds of awesome 21st century careers that require them to go to Malaysia for conferences on a regular basis. This is about what I get from him.
Before Knausgaard, I read Jesus's Son, the Carveresque short story collection by Denis Johnson that is much praised. It was published in 1992, though most of the stories seem to be set in the 70s. The stories are set primarily in the great expanse between Chicago and Seattle, and feature characters who have a lot of problems with things like drugs, violence, employment, health, the inability to form stable or even functioning relationships with other people. You know, I was going to say something how the country has changed, that people like this used to be seen as having a kind of rawness or authenticity about them, whereas now they seem kind of pathetic. You would have to be a very strong writer to write as if you identified with them without coming off as more than a bit of a fool. I didn't think the author accomplished that here, though that is just my impression as someone who reads a fair amount of books. I would like to think that someone out there trusted my opinion, but I can't expect it. I could go more into this book if anyone was interested, but I need to get my post up for tonight.
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