economy in novels: booklist
Here are two book lists. The first lists the major texts of a graduate course I teach on "19th-Century American Literature and the Marketplace" (I am a literature professor). They're not all novels. The second lists books of literary criticism that focus on pre-20th-century American and British literature about economics, markets, exchange, finance, money, etc. I did not list scholarly treatments of labor and literature. REQUIRED TEXTS : Caroline Kirkland, Home as I Found It. Who'll Follow? (1839) Henry David Thoreau, Walden (1854) P. T. Barnum, The Life of P.T. Barnum, Written by Himself (1855) Nathaniel Hawthorne, The House of the Seven Gables (1851) Harriet Beecher Stowe, Uncle Tom's Cabin (1852) William Craft, Running a Thousand Miles for Freedom (1860) Harriet Wilson, Our Nig (1859) William Dean Howells, The Rise of Silas Lapham (1885) Mark Twain, Pudd'nhead Wilson (1894) Edith Wharton, The House of Mirth (1905) Frank Norris, The Pit (1903) Theodore Dreiser, Sister Carrie, Penguin edition (1981) [1900] Mark Twain, "The Man that Corrupted Hadleyburg" (1898) course reader materials RELEVANT LITERARY CRITICISM: Jeffrey Sklansky, The Soul's Economy : Market Society and Selfhood in American Thought, 1820-1920 (2002) Mohamed Zayani, Reading the Symptom: Frank Norris, Theodore Dreiser, and the Dynamics of Capitalism (1999) Christophe Den Tandt, The Urban Sublime in American Naturalism (1998) Lori Merish, Sentimental Materialism: Gender, Commodity Culture, and Nineteenth-Century American Literature (1997) Brook Thomas, American Literary Realism and the Failed Promise of Contract (1997) Bill Brown, The Material Unconscious: American Amusement, Stephen Crane, and the Economics of Play (1996) James Livingston, Pragmatism and the Political Economy of Cultural Revolution, 1850-1940 (1997), ch. 6 Da Zheng, Moral Economy and American Realist Fiction (1996) Richard Godden, Fictions of Capital, the American Novel from James to Mailer (1992) Mark Seltzer, Bodies and Machines (1992), pt. II Howard Horwitz, By the Law of Nature: Form and Value in Nineteenth-Century America (1991) Gillian Brown, Domestic Individualism: Imagining Self in Nineteenth-Century America (1990) Susan Coultrap-McQuin. Doing Literary Business: American Women Writers in the Nineteenth Century (1990) Amy Kaplan, The Social Construction of American Realism (1988) Walter Benn Michaels, The Gold Standard and the Logic of Naturalism: American Literature at the Turn of the Century (1987) Michael T. Gilmore, American Romanticism and the Marketplace (1985) June Howard, Form and History in American Literary Naturalism (1985) Christopher Wilson, The Labor of Words: Literary Professionalism in the Progressive Era (1985) Roy Male, ed. Money Talks: Language and Lucre in American Fiction (1979) Lisle Abbott Rose, "A Bibliographical Survey of Economic and Political Writings, 1865-1900." American Literature 15:4 (Jan. 1944), 381-410 Walter F. Taylor, The Economic Novel in America (1942) Claude R. Flory, Economic Criticism in American Fiction, 1792-1900 (1937) On British and other literature: Catherine Gallagher. The Industrial Reformation of English Fiction (1985) Sandra Sherman, Finance and Fictionality in the Eighteenth Century: Accounting for Defoe (1996) John Vernon, Money and Fiction: Literary Realism in the Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries (1984) James Thompson, Models of Value: Eighteenth-Century Political Economy and the Novel (1996) Catherine Ingrassia, Authorship, Commerce, and Gender in Early Eighteenth-Century England : a Culture of Paper Credit (1998) Rachel Bowlby, Just Looking: Consumer Culture in Dreiser, Gissing, and Zola (1985) Patrick Brantlinger, Fictions of State: Culture and Credit in Britain, 1694-1994 (1996) Catherine Gallagher. Nobody's Story: The Vanishing of Women Writers in the Marketplace, 1670-1820 (1994) Audrey Jaffe, Scenes of Sympathy: Identity and Representation in Victorian Fiction (2000) Marc Shell, Money, Language, and Thought: Literary and Philosophical Economies from the Medieval to the Modern Era (1982) Marc Shell,The Economy of Literature (1979) Jean-Joseph Goux, The Coiners of Language (trans. 1994) David Zimmerman English Dept. University of Wisconsin, Madison [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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Also, see . Bruna Ingrao, Economic Life in Ninteenth-Century Novels: What Economists might Learn from Literature, in Guido Erreygers (ed.), _Economics and Interdisciplinary Exchange_ (London and New York: Routledge, 2001). Mohammad Maljoo From: Michael Perelman [EMAIL PROTECTED] Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [PEN-L:32216] Re: Re: economy in novels Date: Thu, 14 Nov 2002 09:35:15 -0800 Stephen Hymer's Monthly Review article on Robinson Crusoe is an excellent example of using novels to teach economics. -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED] _ Tired of spam? Get advanced junk mail protection with MSN 8. http://join.msn.com/?page=features/junkmail
Re: economy in novels
A student wants to read some novels to compare the views on capitalism they portray. Any suggestions? (something more contemporary than, say, Dickens' Hard Times). Post-WWII or thereabouts. Thanks, Mat jack conroy's 'the disinherited', meridel lesuer's 'the girl' (both depression era)... michael hoover
Re: economy in novels
Oh, I almost forgot to mention Walter Brierley's The Sandwichman, 1937. I recommended this one before in reply to a Pen-l thread a couple of years ago on Workplace Literature. So I'll just recycle my 2 1/2 year old message: Louis Proyect wrote or quoted: Marx warned that, in a capitalist system, the worker becomes a commodity, and indeed, the most despised of commodities. Saunders' correction is that the worker becomes an advertisement, and, indeed, the most wretchedly inarticulate of advertisements. . . I would like to here and now start a cult for a 1937 book by Walter Brierley titled, The Sandwichman. Actually, I'd like to start a cult for about 25 pages in the book, from 201 to 226, wherein the unemployed protagonist, Arthur Gardner, temporarily works at two 'jobs'. The first assignment is as the sandwichman of the book's title, advertising a sale at a furniture store. The second is as an adult education night school lecturer, presenting a series of six lectures on drama, one on pre-Shakespearean, one -- or two, perhaps -- on Shakespeare, then Restoration and the Romantic comedy in one, then two on the moderns. As a sandwichman for the furniture store, Arthur wears a sign that proclaims: SALE! SALE! SALE! LATHAM'S! LATHAM'S! LATHAMS!. His lectures, in Fritchburn, a little village about half-way between Pirley and Leawood, are advertised by an paper stuck to a bus-stop hoarding announcing Arthur's name in large capitals and the subject of that evening's lecture. Arthur manages to delude himself into believing that hawking culture as if it were furniture is somehow more 'respectible' than hawking furniture, but other than the delusion, the former comes off as a more profound humiliation than the former. Tom Walker 604 255 4812
Re: economy in novels
A student wants to read some novels to compare the views on capitalism they portray. Any suggestions? (something more contemporary than, say, Dickens' Hard Times). Post-WWII or thereabouts. Thanks, Mat The Cave by Jose Saramago? New translation reviewed in today's Christian Science Monitor. Kathy Campbell
Re: economy in novels
A student wants to read some novels to compare the views on capitalism they portray. Any suggestions? (something more contemporary than, say, Dickens' Hard Times). Post-WWII or thereabouts. Thanks, Mat * ...In the morning I walked to the bank. I went to the automated teller machine to check my balance. I inserted my card, entered my secret code, tapped out my request. The figure on the screen roughly corresponded to my independent estimate, feebly arrived at after long searches through documents, tormented arithmetic. Waves of relief and gratitude flowed over me. The system had blessed my life. I felt its support and approval. The system hardware, the mainframe sitting in a locked room in some distant city. What a pleasant interaction. I sensed that something of deep personal value, but not money, not that at all, had been authenticated and confirmed. A deranged person was escorted from the bank by two armed guards. The system was invisible, which made it all the more impressive, all the more disquieting to deal with. But we were in accord, at least for now (Don DeLillo, _White Noise_ [1984], Chapter 10) * -- Yoshie * Calendar of Events in Columbus: http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/calendar.html * Anti-War Activist Resources: http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/activist.html * Student International Forum: http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/ * Committee for Justice in Palestine: http://www.osu.edu/students/CJP/
Re: economy in novels
On Thu, 14 Nov 2002, Mat Forstater wrote: A student wants to read some novels to compare the views on capitalism they portray. Any suggestions? (something more contemporary than, say, Dickens' Hard Times). Post-WWII or thereabouts. I think the greatest of all time is _JR_ by William Gaddis. It might be kind of hard to fit into a student schedule, though. Although the picture of capitalism should be perfectly clear after the first hundred pages or so. Michael
Re: economy in novels
Hey Mat, A friend (you know who you are) recently turned me on to Gaddis' _JR_. [It's difficult, but (so far) interesting.] If your student doesn't want something quite so formally experimental, he might try Richard Powers' _Gain_ (which is really great); Paul Erdman wrote dimestore econ novels in the 70's--the most well known is _The Crash of '79_. And, of course, there's always _Bonfire of the Vanities_. If you want early in the century, you could do worse than Frank Norris' _The Pit_ and _The Octopus_. I also think it might be interesting to compare these to the non-fiction narrative of Michael Lewis, who is a pretty fair storyteller. Christian
Re: Economy in novels
The Scarlet Empire, David M. Parry, 1906. This one is definitely not post WWII, but it is notable for its explicit treatment of the point of view of American right-wing industrialists. Parry was president of the National Association of Manufacturers at the time he wrote the novel and the N.A.M. was engaged in its infamous open shop campaign of union busting. The novel, set in the undersea socialist dystopia of Atlantis projects the dire consequences of legislation establishing an eight-hour day. For a stark contrast, pair that chestnut with Gabe Sinclair's _The Four Hour Day_, 2000 http://www.fourhourday.org/, Taken together, the two novels neatly bookend the 20th century and its distracted economic thinking. In my view, they also clearly show why the central economic question is the determination of the hours of work, not the determination of the prices of commodities. To the extent that political economy focuses on the latter and neglects the former, it is an exercise in mystification. Tom Walker 604 255 4812
Re: economy in novels
A student wants to read some novels to compare the views on capitalism they portray. Any suggestions? (something more contemporary than, say, Dickens' Hard Times). Post-WWII or thereabouts. Thanks, Mat * ...Our sentence does not sound severe. Whatever commandment the prisoner has disobeyed is written upon his body by the Harrow. This prisoner, for instance -- the officer indicated the man -- will have written on this body: HONOR THY SUPERIORS!...Can you follow it? The Harrow is beginning to write; when it finishes the first draft of the inscription on the man's back, the layer of cotton wool begins to roll and slowly turns the body over, to give the Harrow fresh space for writing. Meanwhile the raw part that has been written on lies on the cotton wool, which is specially prepared to staunch the bleeding and so makes all ready for a new deepening of the scriptSo it keeps on writing deeper and deeper for the whole twelve hours. The first six hours the condemned man stays alive almost as before, he suffers only pain. After two hours the felt gag is taken away, for he has no longer strength to scream. Here, into this electrically heated basin at the head of the Bed, some warm rice pap is poured, from which the man, if he feels like it, can take as much as his tongue can lap. Not one of them ever misses the chance. I can remember none, and my experience is extensive. Only about the sixth hour does the man lose all desire to eat. I usually kneel down here at that moment and observe what happens. The man rarely swallows his last mouthful, he only rolls it around his mouth and spits it out into the pit. I have to duck just then or he would spit it in my face. But how quiet he grows at just about the sixth hour! Enlightenment comes to the most dull-witted. It begins around the eyes. From there it radiates. A moment that might tempt one to get under the Harrow oneself. Nothing more happens than that the man begins to understand the inscription, he purses his mouth as if he were listening. You have seen how difficult it is to decipher the script with one's eyes; but our man deciphers it with his wounds. To be sure, that is a hard task; he needs six hours to accomplish it. By that time the Harrow has pierced him quite through and casts him into the pit, where he pitches down upon the blood and water and the cotton wool. Then the judgment has been fulfilled, and we, the soldier and I, bury him (Franz Kafka, In the Penal Colony [written in 1914, first published in 1919], Trans. Willa and Edwin Muir) * Cf. John Frow, In the Penal Colony, _Australian Humanities Review_ April-June 1999, http://www.lib.latrobe.edu.au/AHR/archive/Issue-April-1999/frow3.html -- Yoshie * Calendar of Events in Columbus: http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/calendar.html * Anti-War Activist Resources: http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/activist.html * Student International Forum: http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/ * Committee for Justice in Palestine: http://www.osu.edu/students/CJP/
Re: economy in novels
At 08:31 PM 11/13/2002 -0600, you wrote: A student wants to read some novels to compare the views on capitalism they portray. Any suggestions? (something more contemporary than, say, Dickens' Hard Times). Post-WWII or thereabouts. Thanks, Mat These three are roughly about the same time period: WWI to the depression. Fitzgerald Great Gatsby Laxness Independent People Silone Fontamara Joanna
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Yoshie Furuhashi wrote: (Franz Kafka, In the Penal Colony The Christian criticism of the 1940s and 1950s turned this work upside down, into a justification of Divine Justice. Carrol
Re: Re: economy in novels
Stephen Hymer's Monthly Review article on Robinson Crusoe is an excellent example of using novels to teach economics. -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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Title: RE: [PEN-L:32217] Re: Re: economy in novels no, they count as propaganda. They use a lot of references to things that are true (according to current knowledge) to back up a world-view that says that markets are the natural state of the world and the best way of doing things (perhaps aided by wise technocrats). Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine -Original Message- From: Michael Perelman [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Thursday, November 14, 2002 9:42 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [PEN-L:32217] Re: Re: economy in novels Do most economics principles texts count as fiction? -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Re: economy in novels
Do most economics principles texts count as fiction? -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: economy in novels
On Thu, 14 Nov 2002, Devine, James wrote: Do most economics principles texts count as fiction? No, they count as propaganda. It's possible for something to be both, even to be great at both, to be great literature and great propaganda. Shakespeare's _Richard III_, for example. Michael
Re: economy in novels
Yoshie Furuhashi wrote: (Franz Kafka, In the Penal Colony The Christian criticism of the 1940s and 1950s turned this work upside down, into a justification of Divine Justice. Carrol Here's a bit about Kafka's life that Mat might pass to his student, in case s/he gets hermeneutically challenged by a Christian reading: * ...Mention has already been made of Kafka's work as an insurance assessor in the Workers' Accident Insurance Institute, and its possible role as a source for his imaginative fiction. Indeed [Max] Brod thought it self-evident that, as he put it, 'whole chapters of the novels _The Trial_ and _The Castle_ derive their outer covers, their realistic wrappings, from the atmosphere Kafka breathed in the Workers Accident Institute'. He also recalls Kafka's anger at the meekness of workers mutilated in avoidable industrial accidents, who approached the Institute as suppliants instead of storming it and smashing it to bits.[21] To this we might add Kafka's experiences of the family businesses, the fancy-goods store owned by his father and the asbestos works in which he was for a time a partner. Undoubtedly, these provided him with first-hand experience of industrial relations, practices, and conditions. In 'Letter to his Father' Kafka recalls Hermann Kafka's 'tyrannising' way with his employees, whom he regarded as 'paid enemies', to which Kafka adds that his father was in turn their 'paying enemy'.[22] In his diary he expresses his sympathy for the women in the asbestos factory whose work threatens to turn them into dehumanized, exploitable objects before they escape at the end of each shift (5.XI.12; D1[_The Diaries of Franz Kafka 1910-13_, ed. Max Brod, tr. Joseph Kresh, London: Secker and Warburg, 1948]: 231). His professional duties brought him into contact with industrial enterprises in and around Prague, with the devious ways of employers unwilling to pay the appropriate accident insurance premiums for their workers, and often with the complicity of workers themselves. And he was himself, of course, also an employee, familiar with the uncertainties and frustrations of his class. It has only recently been realised that, in 1912, as Anthony Northey reports: Kafka the insurance agency employee was also involved in the creation of an Association of Officials of the Workers' Accident Insurance Institute, the closest these white-collar workers could come to forming a union: Kafka was treasurer of the Association for a brief period. Thus, Kafka occupied the two conflicting position of factory-owner and union leader at the same time.[23] He was evidently underpaid for his level of qualifications, and as a Jew was lucky to find employment at the Institute -- he happened to know the President in 1908, Dr. Otto Pribram, himself a converted Jew. In 1917, Kafka wrote to Brod that the Institute was now 'closed to Jews' (13.XI.17; LFFE [_Letters to Friends, Family, and Editors_, ed. Max Brod, tr. Richard and Clara Winston, NY: Schocken, 1978]: 165). His professional experiences undoubtedly inform his fictional presentations of technology, for example in _The Man who Disappeared_ [Amerika/America] and 'In the Penal Colony'. They are also reflected in the detailed attention to the conditions of employment imposed on K. in _The Castle_. Andrew Weeks has traced the parallels between this novel and the protracted struggle of Habsburg civil servants (the white-collar 'trade union' to which Kafka belonged) for a code of service, illuminating the connections with a class struggle very close to Kafka's heart.[24] Issues of status, autonomy and dependence, are already present, for K. at least, 'between the lines' of the letter which seems to confirm his appointment as the Castle's land-surveyor, but in which he perceives a threat to reduce his existence to 'life as a worker. Service, foreman, work, conditions of pay, duty, worker, the letter was swarming with it' (DS [_Das Schloß (The Castle)_: 35). K. is fearful that such a life, planned for him by the Castle, will be one of subjugation, effectively nullifying the threat he poses, in his own mind, at least, to the established order [21] Max Brod, _Franz Kafka: a Biography_, tr. G. Humphreys Roberts and Richard Winston (New York: Schocken, 1973), pp. 82-4. [22] 'Letter to his Father', in _Wedding Preparations in the Country and other Posthumous Writings_, with Notes by Max Brod, tr. Ernst Kaiser and Eithne Wilkins (London: Secker and Warburg, 1954), p. 181. [23] Anthony Northey, _Kafka's Relatives: their Lives and his Writing_ (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1991), p. 96. [24] [W.J.] Dodd (ed.), _Kafka: The Metamorphosis, The Trial and The Castle_, [London: Longman, 1995], pp. 171-88. (Bill Dodd, The Case for a Political Reading, _The Cambridge Companion to Kafka_, ed. Julian Preece, pp. 138-139) * -- Yoshie * Calendar of Events in Columbus:
Re: economy in novels
A student wants to read some novels to compare the views on capitalism they portray. Any suggestions? (something more contemporary than, say, Dickens' Hard Times). Post-WWII or thereabouts. Thanks, Mat J.K. Huysmans, _Against the Grain [A Rebours]_ (1884), Chapter 16: * After the aristocracy of birth, it was now the turn of the aristocracy of money; it was the Caliphate of the counting-house, the despotism of the Rue du Sentier, the tyranny of commerce with its narrow-minded, venal ideas, its ostentatious and rascally instincts. More nefarious, more vile than the nobility it had plundered and the clergy it had overthrown, the bourgeoisie borrowed their frivolous love of show, their decrepit boastfulness, which it vulgarized by its lack of good manners, stole their defects which it aggravated into hypocritical vices. Obstinate and sly, base and cowardly, it shot down ruthlessly its eternal and inevitable dupe, the populace, which it had itself unmuzzled and set on to spring at the throat of the old castes! Now the victory was won. Its task once completed, the plebs had been for its health's sake bled to the last drop, while the bourgeois, secure in his triumph, throned it jovially by dint of his money and the contagion of his folly. The result of his rise to power had been the destruction of all intelligence, the negation of all honesty, the death of all art; in fact, the artists and men of letters, in their degradation, had fallen to their knees and were devouring with ardent kisses the unwashed feet of the high-placed horse-jockeys and low-bred satraps on whose alms they lived! ...It was the vast, foul bagnio of America transported to our Continent; it was, in a word, the limitless, unfathomable, incommensurable firmament of blackguardism of the financier and the self-made man, beaming down, like a despicable sun, on the idolatrous city that grovelled on its belly, hymning vile songs of praise before the impious tabernacle of Commerce. Well, crumble then, society! perish, old world! cried Des Esseintes, indignant at the ignominy of the spectacle he had conjured up,--and the exclamation broke the nightmare that oppressed him. * -- Yoshie * Calendar of Events in Columbus: http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/calendar.html * Anti-War Activist Resources: http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/activist.html * Student International Forum: http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/ * Committee for Justice in Palestine: http://www.osu.edu/students/CJP/
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Perphaps Goebels succeeded utterly in hijacking the word propaganda, but in the 70 years or so since that hijacking, no one has really come up with a word to serve the original quite neutral or even positive meaning of the term -- namely, truthful writing intended to deepen the understanding of those who have already grasped the truth of that which is being explained but require a deeper understanding if they are to act successfully on the basis of that truth. Education or political education works in some contexts, but is not always or ususally satisfactory. I think it's worthwhile to cling to the term (with whatever parenthetical explanation is necessary) whenever that is at all possible. Carrol Michael Pollak wrote: On Thu, 14 Nov 2002, Devine, James wrote: Do most economics principles texts count as fiction? No, they count as propaganda. It's possible for something to be both, even to be great at both, to be great literature and great propaganda. Shakespeare's _Richard III_, for example. Michael
Re: economy in novels
On Thu, 14 Nov 2002, Carrol Cox wrote: Perphaps Goebels succeeded utterly in hijacking the word propaganda, but in the 70 years or so since that hijacking, no one has really come up with a word to serve the original quite neutral or even positive meaning of the term -- namely, truthful writing intended to deepen the understanding of those who have already grasped the truth of that which is being explained but require a deeper understanding if they are to act successfully on the basis of that truth. Perhaps so, but that's not what's going on in the case of Richard III. It's propaganda in sense of being a lie. Richard III was actually a very nice guy. The view of him in Shakespeare's play is pure Tudor propaganda to make their usurpation look legitimate, because after a monster like that, anything would look like deliverance. Of course it contains deeper truths about human nature that are beautifully put and that's what makes it great art. But there's no doubt that there's a big political lie at the center of it. Michael
Re: Economy in novels
I am impressed by both the scope of offerings - and the volume of replies to this question! I am surprised however, by the lack of The Jungle by old Upton Sinclair; the lack of Ragged Trousered Philanthropists by Robert Tressel (altho' I guess it could be classed as old - tho' if Shakespeare's old Richard remains eternally youthful - I agree - then so does Tressel). I second Haldnor Laxnesss I.Silone Smebene Ousmene - but I do miss other 3rd world writers. (I don't know what world Iceland or Italy is - OK)... Try: Mulk Raj Anand Coolie Untouchable Abdul Bismillah The Song of the Loom; Chaman Nahal Azadi Premchand Ghodan - The gift of a cow. Sarat Manesh For an appreciation of Sarat see: http://www22.brinkster.com/harikumar/SocialistArt/SARAT_BLAND.htm I also enjoy Yashar Kemal - virtually anything. Oh - And as an explicit and especial antidote to Jim Devine for his sci fi - I offer Nikolai Ostrovsky How the Steel Was Tempered. Hari K
Re: Re: economy in novels
Michael Pollak wrote: On Thu, 14 Nov 2002, Carrol Cox wrote: Perhaps so, but that's not what's going on in the case of Richard III. It's propaganda in sense of being a lie. I agree it was a lie -- but sticking to the old vocabulary, it was (lying) agitation rather than (lying) propaganda. It was oral (not in print at the time of its intended propaganda effects) and rather than appealing to and explicating principles it depended on various stock responses in the audience. Richard III was actually a very nice guy. The view of him in Shakespeare's play is pure Tudor propaganda to make their usurpation look legitimate, because after a monster like that, anything would look like deliverance. To be fair to Shakespeare, had not the sainted Thomas More started this strain of agitation? And the two Henrys had pretty much wiped out anyone with even an indirect link to the more legitimate kings prior to Henry VII. Hence by Shakespeare's time there wasn't all that much need for Anti-Yorkist propaganda, there not being any Yorks left. It's been an awfully long time since I read the history plays, but I sort of remember a good deal of the excitement for someone today -- i.e. someone who knows what Shakespeare was going to write later -- was to see his grip on his material suddenly begin to firm up after the total chaos/dullness of Henry VI Part I (with the second and third parts being little better). Suddenly with RIII we have the Shakespeare we recognize now. Of course it contains deeper truths about human nature that are beautifully put and that's what makes it great art. Being rather skeptical of the (non-trivial) existence of anything that can be called human nature I'm not sure I can buy this. It's wonderful art because that fellow sure could spin words-- and particulrly he could pen some awfully good polemics for women on the losing side (though with a subtext that was pretty anti-woman). Carrol But there's no doubt that there's a big political lie at the center of it. Michael
Re: economy in novels
Oh, of course, I left out the old testament of capitalism Robinson Crusoe and the new testament Lost Illusions (Balzac) cause you said you wanted more modern stuff. Joanna
Re: Economy in novels
I am surprised however, by the lack of The Jungle by old Upton Sinclair There are other worthwile works (I mean authored by others) of the muckraking period to consider. I'd start listing some, but, to be honest, I'm not paid to maintain my interest in 19th and early 20th century American literature and my immediate knowledge has fallen to the wayside. I've often thought of using some of Sinclair's stuff to get university students interested in 20th century history. Upton Sinclair was one of my favorite writers actually, back when I had time to read fiction. And I'm glad someone else thought of Robinson Crusoe, too! More suggestions: Sister Carrie by Theodore Dreiser O. Henry's short stories C. Jannuzi __ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Web Hosting - Let the expert host your site http://webhosting.yahoo.com
Re: Economy in novels
The whole book is at gosh.com Sister Carrie, by Theodore Dreiser The Lure Of The Material--Beauty Speaks For Itself The true meaning of money yet remains to be popularly explained and comprehended. When each individual realises for himself that this thing primarily stands for and should only be accepted as a moral due--that it should be paid out as honestly stored energy, and not as a usurped privilege--many of our social, religious, and political troubles will have permanently passed. As for Carrie, her understanding of the moral significance of money was the popular understanding, nothing more. The old definition: Money: something everybody else has and I must get, would have expressed her understanding of it thoroughly. Some of it she now held in her hand--two soft, green ten-dollar bills--and she felt that she was immensely better off for the having of them. It was something that was power in itself. One of her order of mind would have been content to be cast away upon a desert island with a bundle of money, and only the long strain of starvation would have taught her that in some cases it could have no value. Even then she would have had no conception of the relative value of the thing; her one thought would, undoubtedly, have concerned the pity of having so much power and the inability to use it. __ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Web Hosting - Let the expert host your site http://webhosting.yahoo.com
economy in novels
A student wants to read some novels to compare the views on capitalism they portray. Any suggestions? (something more contemporary than, say, Dickens' Hard Times). Post-WWII or thereabouts. Thanks, Mat
Re: economy in novels
A student wants to read some novels to compare the views on capitalism they portray. Any suggestions? (something more contemporary than, say, Dickens' Hard Times). Post-WWII or thereabouts. Thanks, Mat Herman Melville, The Paradise of Bachelors and the Tartarus of Maids (1855) [a short story] Joseph Conrad, _Nostromo_ (1904) Dashiell Hammett, _Red Harvest_ (1929) Josephine Herbst, _Pity Is Not Enough_ (1933) Tillie Olsen, _Tell Me a Riddle_ (1956) [a collection of short stories] Sembene Ousmane, _God's Bits of Wood_ (1960/1962) George Lamming, _In the Castle of My Skin_ (1970) William Gaddis, _JR_ (1975) Cf. * The Rise of Capitalism by Donald Barthelme The first thing I did was make a mistake. I thought I had understood capitalism, but what I had done was assume an attitude -- melancholy sadness -- toward it. This attitude is not correct. Fortunately your letter came, at that instant. Dear Rupert, I love you every day. You are the world, which is life. I love you I adore you I am crazy about you. Love, Marta. Reading between the lines, I understood your critique of my attitude toward capitalism. Always mindful that the critic must studiare da un punto di vista formalistico e semiologico il rapporto fra lingua di un testo e codificazione di un -- But here a big thumb smudges the text -- the thumb of capitalism, which we are all under. Darkness falls. My neighbor continues to commit suicide, once a fortnight. I have this suicides geared into my schedule because my role is to save him; once I was late and he spent two days unconscious on the floor. But now that I have understood that I have not understood capitalism, perhaps a less equivocal position toward it can be hammered out. My daughter demands more Mr. Bubble for her bath. The shrimp boats lower their nets. A book called Humorists of the 18th Century is published. Capitalism places every man in competition with his fellows for a share of the available wealth. A few people accumulate big piles, but most do not. The sense of community falls victim to this struggle. Increased abundance and prosperity are tied to growing productivity. A hierarchy of functionaries interposes itself between the people and the leadership. The good of the private corporation is seen as prior to the public good. The world market system tightens control in the capitalist countries and terrorizes the Third World. All things are manipulated to these ends. The King of Jordan sits at his ham radio, inviting strangers to the palace. I visit my assistant mistress. Well, Azalea, I say, sitting in the best chair, what has happened to you since my last visit? Azalea tells me what happened to her. She has covered a sofa, and written a novel. Jack has behaved badly. Roger has lost his job (replaced by an electric eye). Gigi's children are in the hospital being detoxified, all three. Azalea herself is dying if love. I stroke her buttocks, which are perfection, if you can have perfection, under the capitalistic system. It is better to marry that to burn, St. Paul says, but St. Paul is largely discredited now, for the toughness of his views does not accord with the experience of advanced industrial societies. I smoke a cigar, to disoblige the cat. Meanwhile Marta is getting angry. Rupert, she says, you are no better than a damn dawg! A plain dawg has more sensibility than you, when it comes to a woman's heart! I try to explain that it is not my fault but capitalism's. She will have none of it. I stand behind the capitalistic system, Martha says. It has given us everything we have -- the streets, the parks, the great avenues and boulevards, the promenades and malls -- and other things, too, that I can't think of right now. But what has the market been doing? I scan the list of the fifteen Most Loved Stocks: Occident Pet 983,100 28 5/8 + 3 * Natomas 912,300 58 3/8 + 18 * What chagrin! Why wasn't I into Natomas, as into a fine garment, that will win you social credit when you wear it to the ball? I am not rich again this morning! I put my head between Marta's breasts, to hide my shame. Honoré de Balzac went to the movies. He was watching his favorite flick, The Rise of Capitalism, with Simone Simon and Raymond Radiguet. When he had finished viewing the film, he went out and bought a printing plant, for fifty thousand francs. Henceforth, he said, I will publish myself, in handsome expensive deluxe editions, cheap editions, and foreign editions, duodecimo, sexdecimo, octodecimo. I will also publish atlases, stamp albums, collected sermons, volumes of sex education, remarks, memoirs, diaries, railroad timetables, daily newspapers, telephone books, racing forms, manifestos, libretti, abecedaries, works on acupuncture, and cookbooks. And then Honoré went out and got drunk, and visited his girlfriend's house, and, roaring and stomping on the stairs, frightened her husband to death. And the husband was buried, and everyone
Re: economy in novels
A student wants to read some novels to compare the views on capitalism they portray. Any suggestions? (something more contemporary than, say, Dickens' Hard Times). Post-WWII or thereabouts. Thanks, Mat Here's Lu Xun's view of feudalism, capitalism, and imperialism A Madman's Diary [From _Selected Stories of Lu Hsun_, translated by Yang Hsien-yi and Gladys Yang, Published by Foreign Languages Press, Peking, 1960, 1972. Printed in the People's Republic of China.] Two brothers, whose names I need not mention here, were both good friends of mine in high school; but after a separation of many years we gradually lost touch. Some time ago I happened to hear that one of them was seriously ill, and since I was going back to my old home I broke my journey to call on them, I saw only one, however, who told me that the invalid was his younger brother. I appreciate your coming such a long way to see us, he said, but my brother recovered some time ago and has gone elsewhere to take up an official post. Then, laughing, he produced two volumes of his brother's diary, saying that from these the nature of his past illness could be seen, and that there was no harm in showing them to an old friend. I took the diary away, read it through, and found that he had suffered from a form of persecution complex. The writing was most confused and incoherent, and he had made many wild statements; moreover he had omitted to give any dates, so that only by the colour of the ink and the differences in the writing could one tell that it was not written at one time. Certain sections, however, were not altogether disconnected, and I have copied out a part to serve as a subject for medical research. I have not altered a single illogicality in the diary and have changed only the names, even though the people referred to are all country folk, unknown to the world and of no consequence. As for the title, it was chosen by the diarist himself after his recovery, and I did not change it. I Tonight the moon is very bright. I have not seen it for over thirty years, so today when I saw it I felt in unusually high spirits. I begin to realize that during the past thirty-odd years I have been in the dark; but now I must be extremely careful. Otherwise why should that dog at the Chao house have looked at me twice? I have reason for my fear. II Tonight there is no moon at all, I know that this bodes ill. This morning when I went out cautiously, Mr. Chao had a strange look in his eyes, as if he were afraid of me, as if he wanted to murder me. There were seven or eight others, who discussed me in a whisper. And they were afraid of my seeing them. All the people I passed were like that. The fiercest among them grinned at me; whereupon I shivered from head to foot, knowing that their preparations were complete. I was not afraid, however, but continued on my way. A group of children in front were also discussing me, and the look in their eyes was just like that in Mr. Chao's while their faces too were ghastly pale. I wondered what grudge these children could have against me to make them behave like this. I could not help calling out: Tell me! But then they ran away. I wonder what grudge Mr. Chao can have against me, what grudge the people on the road can have against me. I can think of nothing except that twenty years ago I trod on Mr. Ku Chiu's account sheets for many years past, and Mr. Ku was very displeased. Although Mr. Chao does not know him, he must have heard talk of this and decided to avenge him, so he is conspiring against me with the people on the road. But then what of the children? At that time they were not yet born, so why should they eye me so strangely today, as if they were afraid of me, as if they wanted to murder me? This really frightens me, it is so bewildering and upsetting. I know. They must have learned this from their parents! III I can't sleep at night. Everything requires careful consideration if one is to understand it. Those people, some of whom have been pilloried by the magistrate, slapped in the face by the local gentry, had their wives taken away by bailiffs, or their parents driven to suicide by creditors, never looked as frightened and as fierce then as they did yesterday. The most extraordinary thing was that woman on the street yesterday who spanked her son and said, Little devil! I'd like to bite several mouthfuls out of you to work off my feelings! Yet all the time she looked at me. I gave a start, unable to control myself; then all those green-faced, long-toothed people began to laugh derisively. Old Chen hurried forward and dragged me home. He dragged me home. The folk at home all pretended not to know me; they had the same look in their eyes as all the others. When I went into the study, they locked the door outside as if cooping up a chicken or a duck. This incident left me even more bewildered. A few
Re: economy in novels
I can get you to between the wars: Dos Passos (better than Fitzgerald or Sinclair Lewis, if you ask me). The stuff Frank Norris did in the late 19th century is very interesting as well. CJ __ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Web Hosting - Let the expert host your site http://webhosting.yahoo.com
Re: economy in novels
At 8:59 PM -0800 11/13/02, Charles Jannuzi wrote: The stuff Frank Norris did in the late 19th century is very interesting as well. * At Marcus's shout McTeague looked up and around him. For the instant he saw no one. The white glare of alkali was still unbroken. Then his swiftly rolling eyes lighted upon a head and shoulder that protruded above the low crest of the break directly in front of him. A man was there, lying at full length upon the ground, covering him with a revolver. For a few seconds McTeague looked at the man stupidly, bewildered, confused, as yet without definite thought. Then he noticed that the man was singularly like Marcus Schouler. It WAS Marcus Schouler. How in the world did Marcus Schouler come to be in that desert? What did he mean by pointing a pistol at him that way? He'd best look out or the pistol would go off. Then his thoughts readjusted themselves with a swiftness born of a vivid sense of danger. Here was the enemy at last, the tracker he had felt upon his footsteps. Now at length he had come on and shown himself, after all those days of skulking. McTeague was glad of it. He'd show him now. They two would have it out right then and there. His rifle! He had thrown it away long since. He was helpless. Marcus had ordered him to put up his hands. If he did not, Marcus would kill him. He had the drop on him. McTeague stared, scowling fiercely at the levelled pistol. He did not move. Hands up! shouted Marcus a second time. I'll give you three to do it in. One, two Instinctively McTeague put his hands above his head. Marcus rose and came towards him over the break. Keep 'em up, he cried. If you move 'em once I'll kill you, sure. He came up to McTeague and searched him, going through his pockets; but McTeague had no revolver; not even a hunting knife. What did you do with that money, with that five thousand dollars? It's on the mule, answered McTeague, sullenly. Marcus grunted, and cast a glance at the mule, who was standing some distance away, snorting nervously, and from time to time flattening his long ears. Is that it there on the horn of the saddle, there in that canvas sack? Marcus demanded. Yes, that's it. A gleam of satisfaction came into Marcus's eyes, and under his breath he muttered: Got it at last. He was singularly puzzled to know what next to do. He had got McTeague. There he stood at length, with his big hands over his head, scowling at him sullenly. Marcus had caught his enemy, had run down the man for whom every officer in the State had been looking. What should he do with him now? He couldn't keep him standing there forever with his hands over his head. Got any water? he demanded. There's a canteen of water on the mule. Marcus moved toward the mule and made as if to reach the bridle-rein. The mule squealed, threw up his head, and galloped to a little distance, rolling his eyes and flattening his ears. Marcus swore wrathfully. He acted that way once before, explained McTeague, his hands still in the air. He ate some loco-weed back in the hills before I started. For a moment Marcus hesitated. While he was catching the mule McTeague might get away. But where to, in heaven's name? A rat could not hide on the surface of that glistening alkali, and besides, all McTeague's store of provisions and his priceless supply of water were on the mule. Marcus ran after the mule, revolver in hand, shouting and cursing. But the mule would not be caught. He acted as if possessed, squealing, lashing out, and galloping in wide circles, his head high in the air. Come on, shouted Marcus, furious, turning back to McTeague. Come on, help me catch him. We got to catch him. All the water we got is on the saddle. McTeague came up. He's eatun some loco-weed, he repeated. He went kinda crazy once before. If he should take it into his head to bolt and keep on running Marcus did not finish. A sudden great fear seemed to widen around and inclose the two men. Once their water gone, the end would not be long. We can catch him all right, said the dentist. I caught him once before. Oh, I guess we can catch him, answered Marcus, reassuringly. Already the sense of enmity between the two had weakened in the face of a common peril. Marcus let down the hammer of his revolver and slid it back into the holster. The mule was trotting on ahead, snorting and throwing up great clouds of alkali dust. At every step the canvas sack jingled, and McTeague's bird cage, still wrapped in the flour-bags, bumped against the saddlepads. By and by the mule stopped, blowing out his nostrils excitedly. He's clean crazy, fumed Marcus, panting and swearing. We ought to come up on him quiet, observed McTeague. I'll try and sneak up, said Marcus; two of us would scare him again. You stay here. Marcus went forward a step at a time. He was almost within arm's length of the bridle when the
