Was Augie March thread, misc.

[Michael Bailey]

Augie March wasn't bad, I just liked his later stuff so much better.

Also I was put off by his admiration for Trotsky, although it wasn't
all that doctrinaire, he just thought of Trotsky as a dynamic fellow
who got things done (which it's weird how a lot of later right-wingers
came from Trotskyist beginnings)

It seemed like he would get into situations where somebody would
take a shine to him, and then he would slide out from them without
having returned their affection, or (more crucially for the story) really
had any great insights about them; also he never expressed any guilt
about stealing books (wasn't there a period where he was making
a living by stealing books?) - could relate to the shoplifting but not
to the absence of later guilt for it...

In his later stuff the other characters are more enjoyable, more "rounded"...

Note to self: read earlier works first when possible!

other points in thread:

I think Dylan was really lacerated by certain dudes from the press
and misinterpreted, he needed some writers to give him lines like
the Beatles in Hard Day's Night, "turn left at Greenland" and so forth...
he did have a lot of those but I think he just got fed up after awhile

Tony Tanner, I was trying to find out what he had said about Saul
Bellow but haven't locked into anything in particular that would arouse
hostility.  I guess it was actually pretty accurate in a way: he could
write fiction without knowing anything about Tanner.  Whereas Tanner
could cherish the hope of getting something salable by talking to Bellow.

Tanner himself struggled with alcoholism and depression, sez Wikipedia.
Poor guy...I can relate to that although post-40 my brain chemistry
is ridiculously cheerful - but still remember that other way of being...