AMERICAN AUTHORS CHALLENGE 2023 WILD CARD: AAC 2014 REDUX

Here's a thread for discussing Wild Card reads chosen from the AAC 2014 list of authors.

The challenge was hosted by @msf59 Mark that year, and included the following authors:

Willa Cather
William Faulkner
Cormac McCarthy
Toni Morrison
Eudora Welty
Kurt Vonnegut
Mark Twain
Philip Roth
James Baldwin
Edith Wharton
John Updike
Larry Watson

Here you will find links to the discussion threads for each authors from that year:

Willa Cather- January http://www.librarything.com/topic/163440
William Faulkner- February http://www.librarything.com/topic/164037#
Cormac McCarthy- March http://www.librarything.com/topic/170080
Toni Morrison- April https://www.librarything.com/topic/171799#
Eudora Welty- May http://www.librarything.com/topic/173048#
Kurt Vonnegut- June http://www.librarything.com/topic/174613
Mark Twain- July http://www.librarything.com/topic/176689#4743720
Philip Roth- August http://www.librarything.com/topic/178271
James Baldwin- September http://www.librarything.com/topic/179741#
Edith Wharton- October http://www.librarything.com/topic/181038#
John Updike- November http://www.librarything.com/topic/182191#4895241
Larry Watson- December http://www.librarything.com/topic/183345#4928854

It was a very good year.

2014 authors read so far:

In January I read The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain, and quite enjoyed it. I did note this book in January's children's books.

My February read was difficult but important:


Playing in the Dark: Whiteness and the Literary Imagination, Toni Morrison, 1992

These three essays by Toni Morrison are nothing less than challenging. Morrison explores American literature and how "whiteness" becomes defined as the antithesis of "blackness." An excerpt:

Black slavery enriched the country's creative possibilities. For in that construction of blackness and enslavement could be found not only the not-free but also, with the dramatic polarity created by skin color, the projection of the not-me....What rose up out of collective needs to allay internal fears and to rationalize external exploitation was an American Africanism---a fabricated brew of darkness, otherness, alarm, and desire that is uniquely American.

If you had to read that excerpt over several times, you are not alone. I spent a lot of time re-reading sentences to fully absorb their meanings. Throughout the essays, she gives particular examples from the writings of white American authors, including Melville, Cather, Faulkner, Twain and especially Hemingway, and how they use “Africanism” to define and frame the white characters. A short book (90 pages) that's hard work and not for everyone, but an important one on the American literary legacy.

Fun fact: another book I read in February, Semicolon by Cecelia Watson, mentioned that 2014-featured author Kurt Vonnegut despised the semicolon.

In March I'm currently reading A Son at the Front by Edith Wharton (1923). Complicated set-up, but good writing so far.

>2 kac522: You are tackling some weighty stuff, Kathy. Thanks for sharing it here. I am not familiar with that Wharton title.

I finished A Son at the Front by Edith Wharton (1922) last week, but have spent the last few days trying to figure out what I thought about it.

The premise is complicated. The book starts on July 30, 1914 with the main character, John Campton, an American portrait painter nearing 60 years old, who has been living in Paris for the last 30 or so years. John is divorced from his American wife Julia, who is also living in Paris and re-married to a successful American businessman, Mr Brant. John & Julia have one child from their marriage, George, who was born in France, but has gone to school in England and has recently graduated from Harvard. George has been groomed to join his step-father's business and is about to arrive in Paris for a short holiday before leaving for his job in New York. But when France declares war a few weeks later, dual citizen George is called up for the French military, since he is on French soil.

The book is told from John Campton's perspective. John wants as much time with his son as he can get, and is jealous of time spent with his mother & step-father. The wealthy step-father Mr Brant has managed to arrange a desk job for George. Once George leaves, the book focuses on John, Julia, Mr Brant and the other "old New Yorkers" found in other Wharton books: wealthy Americans living in Paris and attempting to live their society lives as usual. John watches as other sons join the fighting, become wounded, die, or, for those not conscripted, put their full energies into charitable home war efforts. John is glad his son is safe, but at the same time feels somehow ashamed and guilt that George has been saved from harm. John is resentful of the step-father Mr Brant being able to "do" for George that the struggling painter cannot afford to do for his own son.

Not much happens in this book until the last few chapters; it is a character study of the parents (and sons) left at home. Even as a character study, however, I still felt a certain distance from the characters (or perhaps I didn't fully sympathize with them). Beyond scenes in hospitals with the wounded, Wharton does not show any "scenes from the front." Some have labeled this an anti-war novel, but I don't see it that way exactly. Certainly there is much talk of "when the Americans will join" and indeed, the novel ends in April 1917 after the U.S. entered the war. There is an ambivalence here: Wharton describes the devastation to people's lives but she is still devoted to "The Idea of France...if France went, Western civilization went with her" (Ch. XXXII).

I feel as conflicted about the book as the picture that Wharton paints. Speaking of pictures, apparently the idea of the book came from a sketch that Pierre-Auguste Renoir did of his son in uniform before leaving for the front. That sketch is opposite the title page of my edition.

One article that helped me through my thoughts was a comparison of A Son at the Front with Willa Cather's One of Ours (1923), another WWI novel I read about 10 years ago. Both are about the lives at home; both female authors received criticism for attempting to write a book about a man's war. If you have read either of these novels, you might appreciate this analysis of the books, and literature about the Great War in general: https://cather.unl.edu/scholarship/catherstudies/8/cs008.olinammentorp

I finished the short story collection Crucial Instances by Edith Wharton (1901). This was Wharton's 2nd collection of short stories: "The Duchess at Prayer," "The Angel at the Grave," "The Recovery," "Copy: A Dialogue," "The Rembrandt," "The Moving Finger," and "The Confessional." I enjoyed all of these except the last, which didn't work as well for me. Most deal with art and artists.

"Copy: A Dialogue" was the most fun--it was written like a scene from a play, about 2 writers, who many years ago had a brief affair; now their old love letters have become a point of contention and clever banter.

Another Edith Wharton:



I read Madame de Treymes and Other Stories by Edith Wharton. This volume included 4 novellas: "The Touchstone" (1900), "Sanctuary" (1903), "Madame de Treymes" (1907) and "The Bunner Sisters" (1916). All four works involve deceit in some way. I liked the first two best and they were also the most like Henry James in style.

I think it could be a Philip Roth for me this month.

Sadly, Cormac McCarthy has died. As he was featured in our Wild Card year, 2014, it seemed appropriate to note his passing here.

I finally read from another 2014 author. I finished The Professor's House by Willa Cather (1925), which is set in the fictional college town of Hamilton, where Professor St. Peter can glimpse Lake Michigan from his attic window. The novel is in 3 large sections; the middle section "Tom Outland's Story", was written first as a short story; the first section ("The Family") and the last section ("The Professor") were written later to frame around the central story to create the full novel.

The writing is beautiful. I loved this passage describing Lake Michigan:

But the great fact in life, the always possible escape from dullness, was the lake. The sun rose out of it, the day began there; it was like an open door that nobody could shut. The land and all its dreariness could never close in on you. You had only to look at the lake, and you knew you would soon be free.

Having lived in a city on Lake Michigan all my life, I can attest to the trueness of this feeling, even though my trips to the lake are few and far between. It's the thought that it's always there that is comforting.

Overall, I'm not sure what to make of the book and what Cather was trying to get across. There's not much action, just small events among family members, with a story in the middle about the Southwest. There is disdain for materialism, and yet the most materialistic guy in the book is the most generous. There is uncertainty about family and family relationships, and yet The Professor loves his family in his way. Lots of contradictions. I probably need to read it again to get a better handle on it.

I am also reading Willa Cather: 24 Stories, but so far the stories haven't been especially memorable. These are all stories Cather wrote early in her career (1892-1912), and I think it shows. I'll eventually finish all 24 before the month is out.

>9 kac522: I'm making a note of that one for next year's Midwest category in the AAC. Good review.

>10 laytonwoman3rd: A short Cather that I really loved is A Lost Lady. Under 200 pages, but powerful story about the allure of the Old West.

<11 Thanks for that recommendation. I have 3 volumes of her work in the Library of America series, so I won't have any trouble picking one of hers next December. I have enjoyed everything I've read by Cather so far, and may not wait for the Heartland month to visit her again.

I received a copy of Chasing Bright Medusas by Benjamin Taylor for Christmas, and since Willa Cather was on my mind, I tore right through it. A quick read, and a lot of it involved discussion of Cather's work, rather than her personal life. Very good.