The writing has a stream of consciousness feel to it that is sometimes engaging, sometimes tedious. The photographs are beautiful, and Agee portrays the lives of these tenant families with great sensitivity. ( )

Hated it even though it is a classic. Felt like a voyeur throughout. Definitely shows that time has changed. ( )

Yes, it has a complex structure and verges on tedious at points.But you would hard pressed to find an author who could portray such a detailed account of peoples lives without getting a little tangled in it. ( )

non-fiction

http://jwvpk.wordpress.com/2007/11/27... ( )

3361. Let Us Now Praise Famous Men: Three Tenant Families, by James Agee & Walker Evans (read Oct 17, 2000) I have wanted to read this for ages. In fact, in Feb of 1996 I read the book (And Their Children After Them) written on the situation 50 years after Agee and Evans' time in Alabama. Much of this book was boring, and Agee had quirky ideas which he spouts in the book, but the last third of the book was pretty good telling about actual experiences Agee and Evans had in visiting in 1936 3 tenant families. But the first few hundred pages of this supposedly classic work were a drag. ( )

I did not know what it meant to be Southern until I read this book. ( )

I did not think a book could be written in english, that was this hard to read! I am familar with the area described (Chilton, Shelby, Perry and Bibb counties) and appreciated the photographic work by Walker Evans.

Agee, on the other hand would have made my Freshman English ("Creative Writing") teacher, Margaret Maloney at the Univ of Tenn orgasmic with its incomplete and/or 'run-on' sentences, parenthetical phrases enclosed with commas and lack of a logical plan or story.

Miss Maloney; May I give James AGEE an "F"? ( )