An elegiac essay on memory and the power of storytelling by a master of the art. Well-known as a Pulitzer-winning novelist (Duane’s Depressed, 1998, etc.), McMurtry turns less often to nonfiction. It’s usually a delight when he does. In this book-length meditation on the past—his own, that of his ancestors, and that of the corner of west Texas whence they hail—McMurtry works from an unlikely conceit: rereading the work of the German-Jewish literary journalist Walter Benjamin over a lime Dr. Pepper (for which he gives the recipe) at a drive-through diner out on the dry plains of Archer City, the town McMurtry made famous in The Last Picture Show and other novels. Benjamin never saw a prickly pear in his life, but he had much to say about personal history and storytelling in an age that isn’t much interested in either. So, too, does McMurtry, who touches on issues of his craft (he writes that one of his purposes as a novelist has been to people the empty frontier in which he grew up), the pleasures of reading and collecting books, the lost art of conversation over supper, the aftereffects of heart attacks and urban renewal, and the tricky business of memory. (In west Texas, he observes, “Sudden death, particularly death on the highway—as much a part of that culture as football—lodged in people’s memories, whereas about almost everything else they were vague—). It’s philosophy, literary criticism, and memoir all rolled up into one neat package, and McMurtry’s constant readers will find much pleasure in these pages. — Kirkus Review
The first part of this book is about Larry’s grandparents homesteading and his growing up as a ‘cowboy’. The second part of the book, from which the quote was taken, was the more interesting for me. It is about the years when he was writing his novels.
For the past several centuries the bonding power of the family dinner table has been one of the few constants, and now it’s binding no more. The potency of the media is now stronger than that of the family. The wonder is that families still exist at all, since the forces of modern life mainly all pull people away from a family-centered way of life.… If one considers such rituals from the Depression until now, one might conclude that it’s among the leisured, old-money rich that the habits of dining have changed least. For the old rich, dinner is still a form of entertainment, an important social ritual.
The middle and working classes normally ate supper at the end of the working day, which would have been long. If one breakfasts at 5 A.M., as is still common in ranching families, dinner at 5 or 6 P.M. comes none too soon. Though there may be a certain amount of general conversation—weather, “Good roast,” report cards, “Can I have the car Friday night?”—these meals are rarely leisurely. All the food is put on the table at once (rather than course by course, as with the rich) and more is shoveled into the serving dishes as needed. The notions of a progression of courses—salad, entree, dessert—was unknown, though there might have been a certain amount of place clearing before dessert,in order to make room for pie plates, cobbler, and the like. Meals were practical occasions; necessary fuel was taken in; people ate to get full. There was a modest order of precedence: the father and breadwinner would be served first, unless a preacher was present. Preachers took precedence over fathers. There might be a modest amount of squabbling over who got the best piece of chicken—the wishbone—but not much. Preachers were most likely to appear at Sunday lunch; having just sweated himself down delivering a fiery sermon, he would be allowed to serve himself first. The children came last—the classic expression of their problem is Governor Jimmy Davis’s poignant ballad “Take an Old ColdTater and Wait.”
This quote is from the part of the book where he describes what changes after he had heart bypass surgery. He no longer had the desire to read or to continue writing novels. After he recovered his desire to do more reading he began writing essays and this autobiography.
I have had a similar two histories, not separated by heart surgery but rather by beginning to ride a bicycle as an adult. That simple change in my life led to a whole different history from what preceded the change.
Perhaps one reason I have become increasingly fascinated by history is because I feel that I have had two histories—or, put another way, because two individuals bearing my name have had sequential but largely separate histories.
Well, we have a President elect Trump that with any luck will live until he is inaugurated. What happens after that is going to depend on who he selects for his administration and what policies he tries to implement. The powers that have fought him for eight years and not going to stop now.
The pressing question from now on is whether Trump – whose life was spared by God, in his own interpretation – does what is expected of him by his uber-wealthy donors, appoints Pompeo and similar gangsters for key posts, and invests on Israel’s war against Iran and the Axis of Resistance.
If that’s the case, he won’t have to worry about another failed sniper. But if he really tries to run his own independent game, there’s no question he will be a dead man walking. — Trumpquake by Pepe Escobar
If you think that the left is just going to sit back and accept Donald Trump’s victory, you must not have been paying attention for the past eight years. Trump is the most hated politician in modern American history, and prominent voices in the media continue to fuel that hate by making extremely inflammatory statements. For the moment, many on the left are still in a state of complete shock because they were entirely convinced that they were going to win this election. But once the shock wears off, we will see an explosion of anger, frustration and fury that is unlike anything we have ever seen before. — Social Unrest Has Already Started To Erupt, And This Is Just The Beginning… by Michael Snyder