Exactly 75 years ago today, The Grapes of Wrath won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction. It is such a great book, which shows humanity at its very best during the hardest of times. It’s remarkable that just a couple of years later, Ayn Rand would publish The Fountainhead — the psychopathic answer to it. A book that answers Steinbeck’s question, “What is it to be a human?” Rand’s answer: to act like a reptile.

The book starts with a drought and ends with a flood — and through it all, the Joads manage on. I am, I suppose, an optimist. I actually think that the Joads are a good representation of who we are as a species — flawed and slow to learn as we may be. It goes along with my 95/5 theory. I think that 95% of all people just want to live their quiet lives. All the problems in the world are due to 5% of the people who ruin everything for the rest of us. A great deal of cultural effort goes into explaining how we would be lost without that 5% — too much effort if it were such a social good.

What most struck me when I first read The Grapes of Wrath was the ending. I don’t think there has ever been such a beautiful ending to a novel. A Tale of Two Cities is also great. It’s ending is beautiful, “It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to than I have ever known.” But it is pale compared to this, which still makes me cry:

Happy anniversary to the public acknowledgement of the greatness of The Grapes of Wrath!

On this day in 1550, Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford was born. He was an awful person. He wouldn’t accept that the first child of his marriage was his. He was pretty much the definition of a libertine. But he was a poet and playwright of some repute. You know, at that time, the rich didn’t have much to do with their time. Of course Edward spent through all of his fortune by the end of his life. And that is with the Queen giving me a thousand pounds per year in addition (an enormous amount of money). I could not possibly care less about this idiot, except for one thing.

A lot of people think he wrote the plays of William Shakespeare. In one way, who cares? I mean, we know almost nothing about Shakespeare anyway. So what does it matter? But it really bugs me that one of the main reasons that people think Edward wrote the plays is because Shakespeare’s plays supposedly show so much knowledge of the way that the aristocracy lived. But this is so ridiculous. I’m poor, but I have a damned good idea of how the rich live. And it isn’t just because of television. In Shakespeare’s time, the poor knew how the rich lived because they saw it — and their servants saw it up close and personal.

What’s more, this desire to find someone — Anyone! — but Shakespeare to have written the plays is based on the idea that the plays are so amazingly great that they couldn’t have just been written an ex-school teacher from the country. Well, I have news for you all. Although Shakespeare’s plays were well regarded during his life, they weren’t seen as any better than the plays of Marlowe or Jonson. And they were seen as inferior to the plays of people who came after. I’m a fan of Shakespeare, but he just wasn’t that great.

So people: get over it. If you want to think that someone else wrote Shakespeare’s plays, at least go with Marlowe. At least in that case you have royal spying and murder and faked deaths. It’s a lot more fun. The Edward de Vere narrative is just boring. But really, I think people get into the whole “who wrote Shakespeare” question because it relieves them of having to read the plays, which are by and large not all that great. So sure, I’d rather read “Shakespeare” Identified in Edward De Vere, Seventeenth Earl of Oxford than The Two Noble Kinsmen. But that doesn’t prove anything.

So happy birthday you great pretender, Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford!

On this day 90 years ago, F Scott Fitzgerald’s novel The Great Gatsby was published. It is certainly one of the best 20th century American novels — very possibly the best. But I’m not sure I can justify that claim in an objective sense. Fitzgerald had an extremely compelling style. But it may just be that his sense of ambiguity very much matches my own. And that is perhaps best illustrated in The Great Gatsby.

It is hard for me to read the book without bringing a lot of my own opinions about class and the United States along. No one ever questions that it isn’t fundamentally an honest reflection of the country. Yet most people want to ignore its great insights. Basically, you have the Buchanans, who I would say at the useless wealthy. They are what we are always told America doesn’t have: aristocrats.

On the other side, we have Gasby, tragic in his successful efforts to work his way into that social class. His obsession with Daisy is not as a woman but as a symbol of attainment in that society. Nick is also attracted to the world of the useless wealthy, but his failure provides him with armor against it. And ultimately, his personal nobility saves him.

I didn’t realize it before, but the novel was badly reviewed at the time and did not sell well. This is often the case with what we now consider great books (or whatever). But it does seem like the kind of book that wouldn’t be very easy to understand in 1925. It was really a novel that needed the Great Depression to be fully appreciated. Also: critics are generally idiots.

Happy anniversary The Great Gatsby!

The Great Gatsby is apparently finally in the public domain in Australia. You’ve got to wonder why it isn’t in the United States. This isn’t freedom. This isn’t protecting creative works. This is protecting corporate profits. And this is part of what The Great Gatsby is about.

On this day in 1783, the writer Washington Irving was born. So let’s discuss “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” — about the only thing of his that anyone knows about anymore. When I read it as a kid, it totally confused me. I didn’t deal well with ambiguity when I was that age. Although I don’t think it was completely my fault. Who writes a story that long all for the sake of a joke?

The story is actually quite clear. In fact, you might even say that it is offensively clear. The story goes out of its way to highlight the fact that Ichabod Crane is highly superstitious. So when Brom Bones seeing that Ichabod is making a bit of progress in wooing the rich Katrina Van Tassel, he sets to work bringing the “headless horseman” legend to life, causing Ichabod to flee for this life. It is a clever little story, filled with sly wit. I think it could rather easily be updated and I’m surprised that it isn’t done more often.

What makes the story difficult for me is that the characters are not well developed. Ichabod is just horrible. There is really nothing to like about him. He’s a misanthrope who’s too weak to even verbalize it. His interest in Katrina is only because of her money and status. He is less likable than Lou Ford in The Killer Inside Me. As a hero, he leaves everything to be desired.

Brom, on the other hand, leaves everything to be desired as the villain. He’s just too perfect. Everyone loves Brom. It would be totally unbearable if it weren’t for the fact that we all know that kind of guy. And unlike what Irving says, he really is mean and he abuses pretty much everyone. But clearly, if someone has to win in the conflict between the two men, we would prefer Brom because Ichabod simply has no positive personality traits.

And then there is Katrina. What can we say about her? Nothing. Because Irving said nothing. Really. In 12,000 words, she might get a hundred. She is wealthy and she is pretty. And given that she is wealthy and nubile, of course she is pretty. Regardless, even if she were ugly, Ichabod and Brom would want to marry her because she is the most advantageous marriage in that area.

So there you go. A clever plot and well written. But lousy characters, at least for a modern audience. But you can definitely see why the story is still read.

Happy birthday Washington Irving!

This post is an edit of last year’s birthday post. I’m just too depressed about the state of California to spend much time writing. Although it was exactly forty years ago that Bobby Fischer forfeited the World Chess Championship to Anatoly Karpov. I think it is clear that Fischer would have won. But in 1978, it is hard to see him not beating Fischer. Karpov would have become champion eventually — there is no doubt of that.

The great Peruvian writer Mario Vargas Llosa is 79 years old today. He received the Nobel Prize in Literature back in 2010. I don’t read much modern fiction, so I only know him from one book, Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter. I first read it upwards of twenty years ago. I liked it, but I thought it was a tad dense for a comedy. But just a couple of weeks ago, I got it from the library. It sat around until the day it had to go back. So on my way to the library, I finally opened it and read the first couple of chapters. I was wrong before, the books is hilarious and perfectly rendered. It probably also helps that I’m older now. When I read it before, it seemed kind of harsh. I don’t get that from it now.

After I turned the book back in, I immediately requested it. As a result, it has been sitting at the library for me for almost a week. I will pick it up tomorrow. I’m really looking forward to it. There is not a great deal that I read that can be termed truly enjoyable. If I read any of his other work, I’m sure it will show up here.

Happy birthday Mario Vargas Llosa!

“The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel.” That’s the first sentence in William Gibson‘s iconic first novel, Neuromancer. And it is brilliant. It slams the reader into the world of virtual reality where the background is the pseudo-random noise of UHF on an old television. And today is Gibson’s 67th birthday.

I think that Gibson gets too much credit for being an innovator. The truth is that he didn’t move much past Philip K Dick. What’s more, Blade Runner came out right before Neuromancer was to be published, and Gibson went in and made changes to make the novel more distinct from the film. The point is: the concepts and that way of looking at the world were in the air.

But here’s the thing: as much as I love Dick’s work, he wasn’t nearly as good or interesting a writer as Gibson. As many people know, I am a pimp for films and books and music that I love. And one of those things I’m always pimping is what I think is Gibson’s first published short story, “Fragments of a Hologram Rose.” It is such a great story. In fact, it is the best thing he ever wrote. But short stories are like that. It is impossible to make novels perfect, and that’s most of what Gibson has written. But “Rose” is perfect. And it’s his birthday. It’s only 2,000 words — even I could read it in about five minutes! What are you waiting for? It’s online:

There was a film made based on what I think is Gibson’s worst work, Johnny Mnemonic. I actually think the film is pretty good. And I especially like this scene:

Anyway, happy birthday William Gibson!

Afterword

After you read the story, you can check out my thoughts on it, Fragments of Reality.

On this day in 1702, the first issue of The Daily Courant was published. It was England’s first national daily newspaper. It was started by a woman, Elizabeth Mallet. But a year later, she sold it to Samuel Buckley, later of The Spectator fame. And it managed to remain in publication for 34 years.

It was printed on a single (and as you can see) long piece of paper. On the front was the news, and on the back was advertisements. But if you look closely at the first issue, you will see that a good one-sixth of the first page is also an advertisement. Then, as now, there appears to have been more commerce than actual news.

Something that most people don’t realize is that the flashy advertisements that we are used to is quite a recent invention. Until not much more than a hundred years ago, advertisements took the form of text and only text. Here is a reprint of the first paid advertisement in an American newspaper, The Boston News-Letter. It dates from 1704:

Neil Postman noted in Amunsing Ourselves to Death, “As late as 1890, advertising, still understood to consist of words, was regarded as an essentially serious and rational enterprise whose purpose was to convey information and make claims in propositional form.” It does seem that we are always behind those who want to manipulate us. And now we have reached a time where people don’t even care. Monday night saw Jon Stewart and Larry Wilmore congratulating each other in their irrational desires for an Apple Watch.

But image that: just over 300 years ago, people thrilled to a daily paper that consisted of nothing but words. Advertisements consisted of straight forward propositions, “I have something I would like to sell to you.” The way advertising treats us today is insulting, “You’ll be cool if you use this product!” The journalism has improved, I think. But it too has troubling implicit elements to it. The main “advancement” is that The Daily Courant was published every morning and now we have a constant stream of news — the illusion of change in an economy so ossified that the petrified forest seems like it is streaming along.

Happy birthday The Daily Courant!