Volume 33, Number 1 · January 30, 1986
Inconstant Anderson
By Christopher Benfey
Letters to Bab
by Sherwood Anderson, edited by William A. Sutton
University of Illinois Press, 352 pp., $24.95
Kit Brandon
by Sherwood Anderson
Arbor House, 373 pp., $6.95 (paper)
William Faulkner once called Sherwood Anderson 'a one- or two-book man.' That was in 1953, twelve years after Anderson's death, and Faulkner probably felt he was generous to allow room in eternity for a volume of Anderson's short stories—The Triumph of the Egg or Horses and Men. Anderson's many books continue to drift in and out of print—novels, stories, assorted tracts, unreliable autobiographies, prose poems—but salvage attempts have not proved very successful. The only book that has never disappeared from view is Winesburg, Ohio (1919), one third of what has come to seem a midwestern trilogy—its Purgatorio perhaps—which also includes Edgar Lee Masters's Spoon River Anthology (1915) and Sinclair Lewis's Main Steet (1920). Anderson felt Winesburg was part of a spiritual awakening: 'There is a something that broods over our Mid American landscapes that can save us all if we will but give our selves,' he wrote in 1920.
Review, 4788 words
To read the full text of this piece, please choose one of the following options:
|
If you are already a subscriber to the Review's electronic edition, please sign in: |
To subscribe to the electronic edition, please press the button below. |
To purchase access to this article for $3, please press the button below. |