18 Comments

Midwestern novels - Giants in the Earth (Rolvaag), Housekeeping and Gilead (2 by Marilyn Robinson), The Emigrants (Moberg), Crossing to Safety (Stegner), So Long, See You Tomorrow (William Maxwell) ....a few among many others. It is, after all, known as "the heartland," is the midwest.

Although I've never been a great fan of most of his work, some of Hemingway's Nick Adams stories - north woods of Michigan (a writer you have said you like, Jim Harrison, also long-based in northern Michigan, writes as if much-influenced by Hemingway) should probably appear on such a list. Then there's Willa Cather (that Omaha writer to you must surely know her writing).... and so on and so on.

So many books, so little time.

Expand full comment

I would like to second the nomination of Marilyn Robinson and her Gilead series of novels. So very good.

Expand full comment

Please, please, do not tell me that the man who founded the Professional Organization of English Majors has not read Moby Dick. This cannot have happened. Tell me it isn't true.

Expand full comment

It’s a bit of a trope, Diet, that he hasn’t.

Isn’t it one of the special joys of one’s 80’s, to declare a personal non-enjoyment of something that’s supposed to be good for you, and get away with it?

“I don’t like broccoli,” said GHW Bush: another example. It seems so quaint now, a Presidential gaffe about a vegetable that’s good for you, but he doesn’t wanna eat it and now he’s president, he doesn’t have to. Sigh. Ou sonts les têtes-de-nieges d’antan?”

Expand full comment

I am worrying about all scriveners talks and does this April day, given it's April Fools Day. Or did they move it with the Savings Time. You never know for sure, you know, given the "April Foolings."

Expand full comment

Loved your comment: "They’re certainly not going to vote for a conman and crook who’s selling $59.99 Bibles." Those of us born and bred in Brooklyn NY know this conman and crook quite well.

Thanks for the reminder.

Expand full comment

See my comment above, Myna. They're not trying to keep him off the ballot for nothing : )

Expand full comment

Good morning, Garrison

Your reference to the “crepuscular dissemination of the fantods” reminds me of an old (fellow Midwesterner) friend who, when faced with an unwelcome and uninvited “What’s That?” question, would always respond:

— “It’s a nibsh*t finder. Good to know it’s still in good working order.”

Expand full comment

The earnestness and writing talents of your eleventh grade friend with the very common Vietnamese name were both touching and encouraging. Let's hope they are representative of many more of his generation.

Expand full comment

Please reprint the organists that played too loud. You said it was from Acts 29ff.

Expand full comment

GK:

Re the crepuscular dissemination of the fantods. Luckily it wasn't a retrograde hycocktapuecous.

Doc Westring

Expand full comment

I have on good authority (Don Imus, NYC radio host of “Imus in the Morning”) that Trump’s magabible is a trick bible with blank pages, so you can swear on it and lie without being struck by lightning. Hardly worth the $60 dollars, unless you wish to contribute to his defense fund made necessary by his legion of lies. A lightning fund would make more sense.

Expand full comment

I am amused by the proud Know Nothings who consider it a badge of honor not to have read a specific book. Presumably there must be an analogous clan relating to James Joyce's works. I'm guessing the literary reputations of Melville and Joyce are nonetheless safe.

PS Did you know that sperm whales turn white when they reach old age?

Expand full comment

Alas, poor Flaco. That is sad news indeed.

Expand full comment

Like Cindy Long, 'I treasure your work that has graced my life all these years.' A thousand thanks.

Expand full comment

"They’re certainly not going to vote for a conman and crook" They might. The young have a lurid history of monkeywrenching. One year, they almost voted in Bombo Rivera as class president at your alma mater : )

Expand full comment

I fear you may have confused your readers with "crepuscular dissemination of the fantods" as Aunt Getrude was confused with the doctor's "impunct on the pizzarinctum."

Having a Masters Degree in Zoology, I must assume you are referring to the twilight flight of members of the Order Chiroptera as they leave their roosts to hunt. They of course cause fantods, even howling fantods, in many folk. (Did you know that bats are the second largest Order of Mammals after Rodents. Bats and rats. It's amazing the things we dislike and fear are so widespread and important to earth's ecosystems.) I also understand that many of them like to fly out listening to Mussorgsky"s "A Night on Bald Mountain."

Happy April 1st!

Expand full comment

I am from Brooklyn Halal. Y’all talking about? No hard feelings. I love your Midwestern Drawl. Gotta go getting late.

Expand full comment