Winesburg, Ohio
by Sherwood Anderson
“Love is like a wind stirring the grass beneath trees on a black night,' he had said. 'You must not try to make love definite. It is the divine accident of life. If you try to be definite and sure about it and to live beneath the trees, where soft night winds blow, the long hot day of disappointment comes swiftly and the gritty dust from passing wagons gathers upon lips inflamed and made tender by kisses.” ― Sherwood Anderson, Winesburg, Ohio
I first read this book when I was in high school and have read and reread it since then. From the beginning it struck me as a serious work of literature but only upon rereading it and reading more extensively authors who were influenced by Anderson have I become to appreciate his true greatness. Published in 1919 and sub-titled “A Group of Tales of Ohio Small-town Life,” Winesburg, Ohio exposed the desperation and loneliness of so many of the residents of a small, mid-American town.
Rather than a single, well-defined plot, Winesburg, Ohio has a loosely interconnected set of stories with overlapping time frame and characters. Only when the town itself is considered the "main character" can one speak of an overall plot. Using this approach, the traditional small town life of nineteenth-century America comes to an end; its hard but stable community is broken into the dynamic but impersonal atoms of twentieth-century American society.
It was among the first books to take on what would become a central theme in American literature. In these tales you see the strange, secret lives of the inhabitants of a small town. In "Hands," Wing Biddlebaum tries to hide the tale of his banishment from a Pennsylvania town, a tale represented by his hands. In "Adventure," lonely Alice Hindman impulsively walks naked into the night rain. Threaded through the stories is the viewpoint of George Willard, the young newspaper reporter who, like his creator, stands witness to the dark and despairing dealings of a community of isolated people. Here is an example of the beautiful prose of such isolation:
“In that high place in the darkness the two oddly sensitive human atoms held each other tightly and waited. In the mind of each was the same thought. "I have come to this lonely place and here is this other," was the substance of the thing felt.”
Each of the tales shines a clear light on the character of an inhabitant and you come to know Winesburg almost as well as your own home town. Growing up in a small Midwestern town I never forgot the feeling this book gave me and the appreciation for the genius of Sherwood Anderson.
Winesburg, Ohio by Sherwood Anderson. Viking Critical Library.
4 comments:
Hi James, I read Winesburg Ohio in my 20's and I had difficulty getting through it. Maybe its time for a reread. The one story I do remember and it was quite powerful was Hands. As you say this book has been a major influence on writers. Another novelist from around this time Sinclair Lewis is someone worth reading. His book It Can't Happen Here has become relevant again. But even his early novel Our Mr. Wrenn holds up very well.
Super review. I have not read this. The passage that you quoted is beautifully written.
Thinking about your comment about literature revolving around the inner lives of small town inhabitants. This has really become a somewhat common theme. I even think that it has spread a bit beyond North American Literature. I just finished a reread of Gabriel García Márquez‘s One Hundred Years of Solitude. That book seems to be very different from a book like this. But those themes are present.
Kathy,
Thanks for your observation and recommendation of Lewis. My favorite of his novels is Main Street - I really admire the character of Carol Kennicott. I read Babbit in high school and, most recently, It Can't Happen Here which did not impress me.
Brian,
I think the theme of the inner lives of small town inhabitants was more novel when Anderson took up his pen. He excelled in creating these vignettes and in his other short stories.
Post a Comment