NP but an influence, Henry Adams

[alice wellintown]

> 1) Did Henry Adams' influence more writers back in the day--60s-- than
> lately?

Well, if I take the cranky position, I would guess that Adams was read
by a select few and read deeper. Today, Adams is a best seller, a top
read, a modern library classic must read, number one on the list of
non-fiction, and, and, and, non-fiction is all the rage now, as
fiction fades away, and deeper readings of more chllanging texts
replace the cannon of spoon-fed young adult literature. I would say
that Adams, like Mumford, like Freud, like Sontag,  like so
many...because he had his finger on the pulse, on the zeitgeist, that
beat of a  moment moving magically under memory's mumbling insistance
in the moment when it ceased to matter much, will end up a footnote
from which we may find an allusion to Pynchon.