Ernie Seckinger's Reading for 1993
January
**** James Agee, A Life by Bergreen. As Agee struggled to deal with the Alabama material, he came upon an answer. He would, on one level, incorporate his doubts about his ability to deal with the material, "to capture the intensity and manifold meanings of the sharecroppers' lives." On another level, he "would write as frankly as he dared about the three families." The resulting Let Us Now Praise Famous Men text is, in my view, a masterpiece of introspective writing.*** Logbook for Grace by Robert Cushman Murphy. Journal of a naturalist onboard a 1912 whaling voyage. The language speaks beautifully from the first paragraph. I found his descriptions of the slaughter of elephant seals troubling. So did he.
*** Wolf Willow by Wallace Stegner. His home-town memoir--Whitemud, Saskatchewan.
*** Separate Pasts: Growing up White in the Segregated South by Melton A. McLaurin. UGA Press 1987. Thoughtful for me since my growing up bridged the old world of segragation and the new one we still labor to create.
*** The Salzburger Saga by George Fenwick Jones. UGA Press 1984. My ancestors. The all time black sheep of the family, Martin Dasher, is featured prominently in this book. This upset many in the family, even though he has been dead 200 years!
February
*** Living by Fiction by Annie Dilliard When the day is done and you are alone in your hotel room, books like this remind us that life is a very fine thing indeed.During this time, I began to read a great deal of time and personal management literature. Jeez, I say to myself now, although it did allow me to think of that part of my brain. Those volumes contain much good thought and potential action, but I soon came to realize they are only useful if you are the executive. Most companies, and government agencies, simply ape the language of these books, all the while working to strengthen their command and control. It is sheer hypocrisy. I am back to normal now that the millenium has passed (8/11/02).
*** Helene Hanff--Underfoot in show Business. More fun reads from the author of 84 Charing Cross Road.
March
*** 1/2 Whitman by Justin Kaplan**** Thomas Merton--Asian Journal. "Why complicate what is simple?"
** 1/2 Edward de Bono--Serious Creativity: Using the Power of Lateral Thinking to Create New Ideas. 1992 Harper Business. Six hat thinking has some validity.
April
*** Stalking the Blue-Eyed Scallop by Euell Gibbons. It was not just a pine tree that Gibbons ate; I do believe it was everything he saw!*** Run With the Horsemen by Ferrol Sams. A funny book about growing up in Georgia.
*** Bridges of Madison County. The complete sap reputation of this phenonema is a result of the book + the movie. I believe it would have been different had the correct actors and director been on the project. Who, you ask? Well of course Robert Redford as the director and male star and Angelica Huston as the female role. Think about it. Oh yes, of course I know it is a romance.
May
**** A Fire in the Mind: A Biography of Joseph Campbell by Stephen and Robin Larson. My thought and reading continue to be influenced by Campbell. The place of mythology in American pop culture is suggested by his final days at Skywalker Ranch.
June
** 1/2 Praying for Sheetrock. About McIntosh County, GA.July
**** Letters of James Jones. Letters often explain a lot. These certainly do.I read a lot of GRANTA in 1993. Bought many back issues at the Chamblin Bookmine in Jacksonville, FL.
Bought a small Signet paperback selection of ***** Henry David Thoreau's journal at Jackson Street Books in Athens, GA. I read it again and again until I got the "full (1906)" version.
August-September
*** Go to the Widow Maker by James Jones. I think Styron railed against this book because he felt Jones was too honest about the writing colony, Jones's relationship with Lowney Handy, and Jones's wife, Gloria Mosolino. There is much truth in its portrayal of men's relationships--they are tough.October
***** A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers by Henry David Thoreau. Library of America series. Perhaps his most Transcendentalist work (outside the Journal, of course).
November
*** Diary of a Confederate Soldier: John S. Jackman of the Orphan Brigade edited by William C. Davis. University of South Carolina Press. Audiotape. Great description of the problems different railroad gauges caused in the South.***** Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury. Silence is not acceptable.
**** Desert Solitaire by Edward Abbey. Few have lived as he did and wrote so well about it. Although many compare him to Thoreau, I say you have to first stir in E.B. White before you approach Henry.
Deception by Philip Roth. I have absolutely no memory of this book.
** 1/2 All the Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy. On tape. which came first, this or The Man From Snowy River?" Moral of this story? There are no easy answers.
*** Liberation Management by Tom Peters. Ready. Fire. Aim.
December
*** The Carolina Back-Country on the Eve of Revolution: The Journal and Other Writings of Charles Woodmason, Anglican Itinerant. Edited by Richard J. Hooker. 1953. UNC Press. Sketches of the back-woods Carolinian and a bit about the crazy Germans across the river (the Savannah), my ancestors.***** Exploration of the Colorado River and Its Canyons by John Wesley Powell.
"[Y]ears are plenty in the ages, and an intermittent rill called to life by a shower can do much work in centuries of centuries." Powell began the thread within government that ultimately led, in 1977, to the creation of my job. Thank you. Thank you very much.
***** Clarissa by Samuel Richardson. The movie. Pledged one day to read the book. 1,000,000 words!
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