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juushikaTitle: A Death in the Family
Author: James Agee
Published: New York: Random House, 1998 (1967)
Page Count: 310
Total Page Count: 18,956
Text Number: 56
Read For: My own enjoyment (borrowed from the library)
Short review: In the suburbain South, Jay Follet is summoned to his father's death bed. The summon is a false alarm, but on the drive back Jay is killed in a car accident. A Death in the Family, chronicling the days before and after his death, tells the story of the end of his life and his family's understanding of and ways of coping with his death. The narration moves from Jay to his wife to Jay's brother and finally to Jay's children, examining the delicate balance of domestic life, the roles of family background, the impact of religion, and how people, children in particular, understand and cope with death. The novel was edited and published posthumously and therefore reads as if it is still unfinished—which it is. While it begs editing and disparages, rather than advocates, the children it depicts, Agee confronts a number of normally notions (the romanticism of death, euphemisms for death, and religion's ability to weaken its practitioners) without apology or hesitation. To be honest, this book read like Faulkner without the good parts, but I still recommend it is a short, uniquely-constructed, cynical and honest text. Not my favorite, but I didn't mind reading it.
Having read no more of Agee than this text, I don't know how well it compares to his other work or his general writing style. However, Death in the Family does read as if it's in need of editing. Posthumous publishing seems to have done a number on the text: editors had to piece it together from the author's draft, and as a result the book doesn't read smoothly. Bits are pieced together, inconsistencies abound, and the book lacks a definite course of events from beginning to end. That alone isn't enough to make it a bad book, and it's hard to hold it against the author, but I do wish I knew what this text would be like if Agee had finished it himself.
That aside, the setting, plot, and narration of the book reminds me strongly of Faulkner—yet, while I love Faulkner passionately, I had no such passion for Agee. His text lacked Faulkner's spark. The gritty dirty setting of the south was there, the weak characters, the themes of religion and death, yet while Agee attempted to find his spark, the shining hope among it all, in the "good life" that a man can lead despite religion, despite even his untimely death; while Agree tried to find that, it didn't hold up against the rest of the text. Perhaps it is because the book stands unfinished or at least unedited by its author, but this last hope gets buried in the center of the text and is long forgotten by the book's end. While there are some interesting challenges and critiques in the book, there was no lasting impression, to intrinsic worth, no spark. I felt disappointed, even let down, when I was done. The idea is there, but it fails to come to fruition.
A Death in the Family was not shoddy, poorly written, or even bad. Agee confronts a lot of social norms very frankly, presenting honest, uncomfortable critique. His child character in particular are his strongest tool of social critique: what they don't understand and the weakness that they see in their mother highlights the failures of euphemisms and our way of understanding death, as well as our dependence on religion, in a forthright, biting manner. On those subjects, he makes a fair argument and presents a strong point. The writing style is unique as well, and while piecemeal it is an interesting overview of various alternative forms of narration. However, even with that, there was nothing that grabbed me, nothing that made me feel passionately, nothing to make me love this book. I recommend it on the basis of it's unique style and forthright critique, but I didn't really care for it, won't come back to it, and recommend Faulkner much more heartily and emphatically. He had spark.
Author: James Agee
Published: New York: Random House, 1998 (1967)
Page Count: 310
Total Page Count: 18,956
Text Number: 56
Read For: My own enjoyment (borrowed from the library)
Short review: In the suburbain South, Jay Follet is summoned to his father's death bed. The summon is a false alarm, but on the drive back Jay is killed in a car accident. A Death in the Family, chronicling the days before and after his death, tells the story of the end of his life and his family's understanding of and ways of coping with his death. The narration moves from Jay to his wife to Jay's brother and finally to Jay's children, examining the delicate balance of domestic life, the roles of family background, the impact of religion, and how people, children in particular, understand and cope with death. The novel was edited and published posthumously and therefore reads as if it is still unfinished—which it is. While it begs editing and disparages, rather than advocates, the children it depicts, Agee confronts a number of normally notions (the romanticism of death, euphemisms for death, and religion's ability to weaken its practitioners) without apology or hesitation. To be honest, this book read like Faulkner without the good parts, but I still recommend it is a short, uniquely-constructed, cynical and honest text. Not my favorite, but I didn't mind reading it.
Having read no more of Agee than this text, I don't know how well it compares to his other work or his general writing style. However, Death in the Family does read as if it's in need of editing. Posthumous publishing seems to have done a number on the text: editors had to piece it together from the author's draft, and as a result the book doesn't read smoothly. Bits are pieced together, inconsistencies abound, and the book lacks a definite course of events from beginning to end. That alone isn't enough to make it a bad book, and it's hard to hold it against the author, but I do wish I knew what this text would be like if Agee had finished it himself.
That aside, the setting, plot, and narration of the book reminds me strongly of Faulkner—yet, while I love Faulkner passionately, I had no such passion for Agee. His text lacked Faulkner's spark. The gritty dirty setting of the south was there, the weak characters, the themes of religion and death, yet while Agee attempted to find his spark, the shining hope among it all, in the "good life" that a man can lead despite religion, despite even his untimely death; while Agree tried to find that, it didn't hold up against the rest of the text. Perhaps it is because the book stands unfinished or at least unedited by its author, but this last hope gets buried in the center of the text and is long forgotten by the book's end. While there are some interesting challenges and critiques in the book, there was no lasting impression, to intrinsic worth, no spark. I felt disappointed, even let down, when I was done. The idea is there, but it fails to come to fruition.
A Death in the Family was not shoddy, poorly written, or even bad. Agee confronts a lot of social norms very frankly, presenting honest, uncomfortable critique. His child character in particular are his strongest tool of social critique: what they don't understand and the weakness that they see in their mother highlights the failures of euphemisms and our way of understanding death, as well as our dependence on religion, in a forthright, biting manner. On those subjects, he makes a fair argument and presents a strong point. The writing style is unique as well, and while piecemeal it is an interesting overview of various alternative forms of narration. However, even with that, there was nothing that grabbed me, nothing that made me feel passionately, nothing to make me love this book. I recommend it on the basis of it's unique style and forthright critique, but I didn't really care for it, won't come back to it, and recommend Faulkner much more heartily and emphatically. He had spark.
