B List: Anna Karenina 664/950
C List: David Eisenhower--Going Home to Glory: A Memoir of Life With Dwight D Eisenhower 1961-1969 175/284
The most recent things I've read for the "A" List are a couple of short stories, Sherwood Anderson's "I Don't Know Why" and Henry James's "The Real Thing". The Anderson story was written around 1920 and is kind of a darker take on the snappy Ring Lardner-esque American vernacular style. The post-modern reader would probably be most struck by its copious and unabashed use of the "n" word. The A List is taken from the GRE exam circa-1990. A lot has changed since then. I possess a copy of the story in a 1968 edition of the Norton Anthology of American Literature. I also have an edition from around 1995 in which this story was replaced by different Anderson stories. I am guessing that the story was most notable for its style and other aspects of it technique, narration, etc, which were not bad, though I felt like I could see where the story was going pretty early on. The contrast between the beauty and excellence represented by the horses with the bestiality and sordidness of men did not strike me as having anything new to say on that subject. The James story, which checked in at around 30 pages, was very Jamesisan, from his middle period, It is tasteful, neat, and largely devoid of action, but I have learned, somewhat, how to read and approach Henry James as a type, or a brand, and this is what you get with him.
The Eisenhower book I find engaging enough as a memoir of the almost quaint old days of the American 60s. His grandson, David, who seems to be the primary author thus far (his wife, Richard Nixon's daughter Julie, is named as a co-author), comes across as a fairly undynamic and even priggish boy and man who seems to represent a considerable decline in the manliness department from his grandfather. I have more to say about this book, perhaps I will do an addendum to this post tomorrow....
Picture Gallery
Portrait of a Young Lady (so-called Anna Karenina) by Aleksei Mikhailovich Kolesov.
Checking out the girls at a poetry reading in London.
Portrait of genius
Eisenhower Memorial, Abilene, Kansas.
This person is a writer named Julie Bell. Most new writers seem to have to be attractive nowadays.
Just some of the cuteness that was Julie Nixon (Eisenhower) in the 60s. I found the other writer-Julie when I was looking for her.
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