Alex Kudera's Blog, page 55

the coal bills of winter

"Already they dreaded the coal bills of winter, and were at a loss what to do for Christmas; Rhoda wrote Phyliss McGinley in Larchmont, wondering if she knew anyone who might be interested in buying a second-hand mink for $1,500, less than half what they'd paid for it in 1947 ('I doubt if, in the last two years, it has been worn more than ten times'). And perhaps something of that sort was arranged, since they seemed to have jolly holidays; indeed, at a New Year's 'kids party,' Charlie proved such a 'cavorting parent' that his twelve-year-old daughter was a little mortified."

~~ from Blake Bailey's Farther & Wilder: The Lost Weekends and Literary Dreams of Charles Jackson

careful as a cat

"Doctor Lovejoy himself used to wash cups after Sunday tea. He was as careful as a cat about not getting his hands wet at the same time. He would run the hot water from the faucet into those thin cups, then daintily and delicately turn them around without wetting even a finger-nail. Last of all, he would peer like a botanist into them, to see if any sugar were left."

~~ from East Goes West by Younghill Kang

the chance to work

“All my life I had thought that if you worked hard you would be rewarded. If you worked your ass off, there would be some reward for you. But now I knew that the reward was just the chance to work your ass off.”

~~ from The Cliff Walk by Don J. Snyder

Isakov live

Gregory Alan Isakov performs live from The Caverns in Tennessee.

The Cliff Walk

"I told her the truth about myself then: that like a lot of people in this country I had lost my job and all my money and everything else that I'd always believed added up to the promise of a secure life. How I'd had things my own way for so long that when this happened I spent most of two years feeling sorry for myself and looking for somebody to blame. How I took solace from news reports about how hard life had become in America, until I realized that life had always been hard for a lot of people, people I thought I was better than, and that the only thing that had changed was that bad things were finally starting to happen to people like me who had it so good for so long. I told her that the whole time I was putting my family through hard times I knew what was the best thing to do for them and what was the worst thing, and I always chose the worst thing because it was easier."

~~ from The Cliff Walk by Don J. Snyder

He was tired of science. . .

"Ian had been studying to be an engineer, before the war, but his service in France seemed to have knocked all desire for engineering out of him. He was tired of science, he said.

"'Why?' I questioned.

"'Well, in times of peace, it takes away a man's job. In times of war, it takes away his life.'"

~~ from East Goes West by Younghill Kang

Charles Jackson to Philip Rahv

"'The story kills me to write it,' [Charles Jackson] confessed to Philip Rahv: 'I've never done anything that takes so much out of me; and during the past month it's gotten me down so that I've become neurotic as hell, nervous, depressed, and even at times have thought the only solution is suicide.'"
~~ from Blake Bailey's Farther & Wilder: The Lost Weekends and Literary Dreams of Charles Jackson  

breakthrough covid breaks into this blog

"Breakthough covid" is typically a mild case that one can get after being fully vaccinated. Masha Gessen wrote about getting such a case for The New Yorker, and others have described it as well. It sounds like vaccination is not at all perfect immunity although it seems to be a reason that cases and deaths have declined in the United States and United Kingdom. In better news, vaccines are also showing an ability to improve the lives of those with "long covid"—enduring symptoms that have been known to stretch the illness out over months.

Richard Yates and Charles Jackson

Richard Yates and Charles Jackson can't possibly be to blame for whatever Philip Roth and Blake Bailey said, thought, or did, and Bailey certainly did the literary world a great service by getting Yates's Revolutionary Road and Jackson's The Lost Weekend back in print or in public view. Both writers knew significant adversity well after their acclaimed debut novels were published. Indeed, the writing life rarely gets easier for any of us. I was past page 100 of Bailey's Farther and Wilder: The Lost Weekends and Literary Dreams of Charles Jackson, and I'm at peace with my decision to continue reading the book.

East Goes West

Read Alexander Chee's introduction to a Penguin edition of Younghill Kang's East Goes West.

derchee/this-novel-was-radical-in-its-time-and-is-radical-now#:~:text=The%20novel%20East%20Goes%20West%20was%20the%20first,said%20that%20Kang%E2s%20success%20embolde