Midwest Monday: Jeffrey Eugenides

Jeffrey Eugenides is an author familiar to many on the blogosphere as a result of the success of his 1993 novel, The Virgin Suicides.  I haven't read it, but earlier this year I was able to read The Marriage Plot. While I didn't fall in love with it, I do think that his writing style was really interesting, and I've thought about the book a few times since reading it (reflected upon it...?) and have been thinking about reading it again maybe next year or something.

Despite my complete ignorance about Eugenides's work, one thing that I did notice during my initial Eugenides research (conducted while reading The Marriage Plot via Wikipedia) was that each of his novels involved - in one way or another - the Detroit area. And while The Marriage Plot's connection to Detroit is relatively weak, Eugenides did take the time to reflect on the city's slow decline. As Eugenides noted in an interview with The Paris Review, "My entire childhood coincided with the demise of Detroit.... It imbued my sense of the world with a strong elegiac quality - a direct experience of the fragility and evanescence of the material world."

In examining the decay of Detroit, Eugenides also examined the effects of the white flight from the city, and the creation of the surrounding suburbs. Acutely aware of class distinctions, he considered himself to be a person with connections to society while not necessarily being part of it himself. This sentiment was portrayed most recently by Mitchell in The Marriage Plot; Mitchell, in love with the novel's protagonist Madeleine, is at odds with her wealthy WASP background. Also a descendant of Greek immigrants, Mitchell spends time post-graduation working as a taxi driver in Detroit and working in a Greek restaurant. During this time, he observes the disconnect between himself and his heritage as well as the decay of the city and the fact that he "doesn't belong" in Madeleine's world.

Of course, it is impossible to mention Eugenides and Detroit without mentioning his famous novel Middlesex; its Detroit setting reflects both class and urban decay, and the Detroit riots results in a cold parallel between the world of the protagonist, Cal, and that of his family, in Smyrna.

While I'm still pretty unfamiliar with Eugenides's work (I don't count reading one of his novels and one interview as "familiar"), I am more interested in reading his novels as a result of doing this research. Before writing about him, I didn't think that I would be interested in his connection to the Midwest, but now that I am aware, I think that I could attain a richer understanding of his work. I look forward to reading more of his novels in the future!

 

Midwest Monday: Ernest Hemingway

Via.

The first thing I ever read by Ernest Hemingway was one of his short stories, titled "The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber." My sophomore English teacher handed it to me, and given my total and absolute dislike of the man (my English teacher), I barely glanced over the story. I didn't even know that Hemingway had written it until two years later.

My senior year of English, we read For Whom the Bell Tolls, and although I wasn't totally sold on it, I thought that Hemingway was a pretty interesting guy; I mean, he had survived two plane crashes, was married four times, and had a home with six-toed cats. Also, he wrote for The Kansas City Star. Which, to be honest, was a pretty unexpected thing to hear. (I am from KC. I love The Star, but it is not the New York Times by any stretch of the imagination.)

Ernest Hemingway was born on July 21, 1899 in Oak Park, Illinois (a suburb of Chicago). His family owned a summer home in Michigan, where his passion for the outdoors and wild/rustic lifestyles began. When he graduated from high school, he moved to Kansas City, MO, where he worked as a cub reporter for The Star.

Hemingway wasn't on the staff of The Star long, but while there he used The Star's style guide as the foundation for his writing. Below are quotes pulled from the Star stylebook that Hemingway once referred to as, "the best rules I ever learned for the business of writing."

• "Use short sentences. Use short first paragraphs. Use vigorous English. Be positive, not negative."
• "Never use old slang." (Well, I'm f*cked.)
• "Eliminate every superfluous word."

Hemingway's ties to Kansas City were further alluded to in his first novel, The Sun Also Rises. The protagonist of the novel, Jake Barnes, is a reporter from Kansas City. While this background is just that - background - I feel like there was some sort of acknowledgement on Hemingway's behalf that Kansas City (and the Midwest in general) served as the foundation for his person and his writing.   

If you're interested in reading more, The Kansas City Star has a portion of its website dedicated to Hemingway's time at the Star and his other connections to Kansas City. It's by no means an exhaustive list on Hemingway's connections to the Midwest, but I feel like it's an interesting place to start. 

 (I feel like this was kind of a bare-bones approach to Hemingway, but I don't think there's much more I could have said about him that hasn't been said already.)

INTRODUCING MIDWEST MONDAY!

*throws confetti in air, blows horn*

This is going to be a new feature on Ye Olde Blog where I write about the "literary Midwest" - authors from the region, books... you get the idea. Since I'm from the region (Born in KC, lived a year in Chicago suburbs, currently attending college in Wisconsin), I'm familiar with the trope of the Midwest being some sort of culturally ignorant black hole, where people sit around in wheat/corn fields and chew cud. Well, screw that; I've been doing some research, and the Midwest has famous authors and novels coming out of the f*cking wazoo. 

This feature is meant to showcase writers from the Midwest, their novels, as well as other books set in the region (although that last one might be a bit of a stretch). I want this feature to be as inclusive as possible in terms of writers and their work; to be honest, I'm a little worried that this is a big thing to tackle all at once, but I feel like I have more than enough material to get myself started. (Which is good...?)

Via.

To provide some parameters for this project, here's the Midwestern region that I'll be drawing from (above, in blue). To limit/eliminate argument, I am using a map from the CDC; the Midwest's borders, as seen above, are defined by the U.S. Census, and in my mind "official." I am also using this specific image because I think it highlights an important cultural divide between the "East North Central" and the "West North Central" (aka the "East" and "West" Midwest - never mind "North" and "South"). Being from Kansas City, I'm pretty familiar with how dramatically a culture can change over the distance of a single state (*waves* Hi, STL).

Expect the first Midwest Monday update to show up next Monday (after I've done some marginal research, obvi), the 18th. If y'all have any suggestions of authors I should write about, or novels I should discuss, please comment below! I don't want to miss anything. :)