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Title: Studs Lonigan: A Trilogy Comprising Young Lonigan, the Young Manhood of Studs Lonigan, and Judgement Day (Prairie State Books) by James T. Farrell, Charles Fanning ISBN: 0252062825 Publisher: Univ of Illinois Pr (Trd) Pub. Date: November, 1993 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $19.83 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.45
Rating: 5
Summary: Sprawing epic that throws streets at history.
Comment: "Studs Lonigan" written by James T Farrell follows the life of William "Studs" Lonigan from the ages of sixteen to thirty. Originally three separate novels, this book was ground breaking in its day for its gritty realistic portrayal of life in an urban centre frilled with the trappings of alcohol, violence, womanising, an array of street characters yet also, family, loyalty, disillusionment, media and historic commentary. In essence Farrell has created a massive work using 57th and Indiana on Chicago's Southside as a microcosm for a varity of themes, notably the changing position of the Irish community in America, the effects of the great Depression, World War one and youthful idealism with modern actuality. This story is overall one of tragedy on two levels. For Studs he dies young realising in sure strides that he is overall very little, contrasted to the headstrong youth that based himself after the gallery of cinematic idols he perceived. Yet also for a time and place that was obviously a watershed for the author, Stud's degeneration mirrors other aspects Farrell sees as problematic in Modern America. The book narrative basically takes us through Studs life. We first meet him as a young boy of sixteen. He stares at the mirror practising his sneer and chews a cigarette in the typical tough guy manner of his day. His father, a well to do Irish-American businessman, and mother wants him to become a painter and priest respectively. What follows however is a catalogue of Studs adventures with the street corner element of Chicago, brandishing memorable characters like Weary Reilly, Tommy Doyle, Slug Mason and Five Star Hennessey. Generally a coming off age tale where love, labour, alcohol and violence mingle, Studs dreams of being a football star, of going to war, of being the toughest guy on the block, of getting married, of taking the world by the throat and strangling it into submission. However as the story develops he is increasingly disempowered. His appearance in it self is not enough to attract girls so he has to rely on his tough hard edged image to win their emotions adding to his inner confusion of never being able to say what he wants confidently to the opposite sex. Alcohol and casual violence with run ins with less conscionable compatriots i.e. Reilly eventually lead him to phneumia and a weak heart. By his climatic fight with his younger brother in which Studs is overpowered his mental fall is complete. No longer the tough guy, just a guy. What marks Studs out, as an original protagonist is his is thoughtful questioning nature. His hard image ride on his belief of his own invincibility-which of course lies more in fiction and cinema than in reality. Studs ideas of romance and heroism are all evoked through his inner images. When these colourful fairy tale ideals are broken which form the tone through roughly half the novel something in Studs is gone and you can feel the dark clouds gather. Farrell here I feel makes the universal point of what should be and what is and the passed on notions that encircle certain activities. The fall of Studs is the fall of all dreamers that's why in sympathy for Studs almost reflects sympathy for us. Where Studs fails, is where we fail. Farrell's innovative use of slang (authentic street language) all through the book acts to bring the reader completely into the mindset and place of the characters. The speech patterns and gritty tough guy mannerisms and comments are realistic shown to let the novel act as a commentary of a time and a place. The language in the book is colourful, vivid, edgy, realistic and vital. Vital because of Farrell's obvious aims. To bring a person into your known place you need to firstly to place them in the street (the detailed descriptions of 57th on Indiana achieve this.) Next, place them in the mindset of a central character in this environment (the narration of Studs Lonigan). Then give your readers a key into this community (the ultimate key of language). James T Farrell uses the language so completely and accurately because he realised its importance in life as a real thing (Stylised writing describing these people just would not work on any level) and he brilliantly manipulates it to forfeit the above criteria. Another vital aspect of the novel is the amount of detail that Farrell reveals the divergence of ethnic transition in twentieth century America. His neighbourhood is one of Irish abstraction, white and blue collar. The Irish being the first mayor emigrant group to land in mass in the United States formed the first "ghetto" like neighbourhoods, which for all the wrongs associated with such sections of the urban arena also brought a sense of transplanted community and a sense of belonging. Studs early life is increasingly bothered by the rumours of an imminent black shift through distant neighbourhoods coming ever closer to their own area. Threats and blame are passed yet eventually that foreign object a "black face" becomes common leading to the exodus of the Irish community. This transition occours at an exceeding rate. By the books climax Studs father returns to the old neighbourhood unable to recognise or accept his forced separation from an area that formed his past. Here is a man with a dying son, bankrupt due to the Depression and without even the security of place to pacify his mind. Yet what are the questions Farrell is posing us through such transitions. Is Farrell blaming the spread of other ethnics for the decline of urban community? Is he lamenting the weakening of the hold of the Irish community on American life and politics? Is he a racist? The answer I believe is none of the above. Here is a man of a certain ethnic group who has lived to see his own past become a thing of memory. Lonigan Senior portrays Farrell in the novel. The old times and ways are gone, in Modern America what was stable does not last long, The sway, movement and influxes represent American expansion and growth, its greatness if you like but Farrell points to generations dislocated and a population with out roots. Lack of roots breeds uncertainty. Such issues and thoughts are not uncommon in modern American literature yet Farrell handles the ideas objectively. We ask and answer our own questions in the book. Overall Studs Lonigan is a fascinating piece of fiction. Farrell deals with enough motifs, ideals and elements to fill many more novels. Yet his achievements are in creating a thoroughly sympathetic and realistic character in Studs Lonigan, a character we can root for, learn from and grow with. He identifies us with a whole neighbourhood, puts us in that place and time and leads us through a series of events, both on a personal and a historic level. To retain interest and to create such lasting effect is the mark of a great (and largely forgotten) writer working at the peak of his powers. A must read mingling history, fiction and a central protagonist whose struggle with life never quite leaves you.
Rating: 5
Summary: Excellent
Comment: Not since Dreiser's, "An American Tragedy", have I read a book that described the spiritual depravity of teen age youth and the ignorance that accompanies it. Farrell's masterpiece made the top 100 for this century at #29 and certainly deserves its place there.
The book is actually three shorter books combined into one massive saga about a young man named Bill "Studs" Lonigan. Studs is a Catholic, Irish-American who lives in the rough and tumble neighborhood of Chicago during the early portion of this century. The story starts off with Studs being 15 and thinking he knows everything and willing to prove it with his fists. Dropping out of high school to hang around a pool room, he and his friends primarily engage in fights, drinking and picking up women.
Studs is the leader of his friends and always feels the need to prove himself by fighting and out drinking them. Despite hearing lectures from his priest about the dangers of drink and sex, he continues to engage in these activities. However, time takes it toll on Studs's health. By 1930, the Depression and his failing health (from his activities in his 20's) force him to realize that he isn't the man who used to be.
Farrell depicts the turbulent times perfectly. The reader is draw into the descriptions and accounts of Chicago at the end of the first World War, the socialist movement, the rise in popularity of Sinclair Lewis, and many other events. The roaring 20's are also written about and the reader is taken through gambling halls, speakeasies, and whore houses. Farrell paints a very bleak picture of the Depression as well.
While there doesn't seem to be many answers in the book, it does depict that ignorance and a lack of spirituality wreaks havoc upon lives. While it is one thing to have religious rules and regulations, it is another to live them. The reader can be intimidated by the page count, but it is well worth reading. It easily made my list for one of the 10 best books I've read in my lifetime.
Rating: 3
Summary: Studs Yawn-again
Comment: An aimless work of stark realism, "Studs Lonigan" has the distinction of being one of the earliest Irish American bildungsromans, a trilogy of novels covering the later half of its title character's life from his grammar school graduation in 1916 to his ignominious death in the depths of the Great Depression. In between there's a lot of drinking, fighting, singing, grumbling, praying, implied swearing and sexual activity, bad prose, and not much else.
William "Studs" Lonigan is an archetypal boy growing up in a tough working-class Irish neighborhood in Chicago's south side. The oldest of four children, Studs is a lazy student and, despite his mother's wish for him to enter the priesthood, flounders in high school and wastes his time hanging out in poolrooms and getting in scraps, ultimately going to work for his father's painting company. Farrell successfully turns the Chicago neighborhoods into interesting fictional settings, but he never manages to elevate Studs and his boorish friends above the flatness and dullness of negative stereotypes.
Farrell paints a candid, savage portrait of racism and bigotry in the Irish American enclave. There is a genuine fear of blacks moving into and taking over their neighborhoods, and a distrust of Jews as real estate agents who are orchestrating this migration and as "international bankers" who have sunk America into its Depression. To be fair, these sentiments are not unanimous among the Irish characters in the book, but they constitute a world view expressed by Studs's financially embattled father and shared by many sympathizers.
The book's prose matches its protagonist: simple, gritty, and slovenly. Farrell writes in the third person, but the voice is Studs's; the young man's thoughts concerning life, love, and sex are of the most basic. The third novel of the trilogy, "Judgment Day," is the best, in which the writing matures with Studs as he becomes engaged to a nice girl, worries about his weak heart and his inability to stop smoking, and struggles to find lucrative work during the draconian economic times. Here the book also achieves a sort of dramatic crescendo, as general anxiety about the Depression, panic over closing banks and plunging stocks, and paranoia over "Reds" combine with the ominous state of Studs's health in a nightmare of Dreiseresque misery.
The book has some fine passages, but my overall opinion is lukewarm at best. The simplistic prose, although maybe a stylistic necessity, is no fun when it is used at such length to document a life as uneventful as Studs's; given the clownishness of the violent scenes, at times it's like reading a comic book without the pictures. The book doesn't seem to have any purpose other than to introduce an Irish milieu into the American literary canon -- it certainly doesn't bother to give Studs's life any purpose -- and that just isn't enough to sustain a 900-page novel.
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Title: To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf, Eudora Welty (Introduction) ISBN: 0156907399 Publisher: Harvest Books Pub. Date: January, 1990 List Price(USD): $12.00 |
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Title: The Good Soldier: A Tale of Passion (Oxford World's Classics) by Ford Madox Ford, Thomas C. Moser ISBN: 019283620X Publisher: Oxford University Press Pub. Date: May, 1999 List Price(USD): $8.95 |
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Title: Henderson the Rain King by Saul Bellow ISBN: 0613172744 Publisher: Bt Bound Pub. Date: October, 1999 List Price(USD): $23.00 |
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Title: An American Tragedy by Theodore Dreiser, Richard Lingeman ISBN: 0451527704 Publisher: Signet Classic Pub. Date: 08 August, 2000 List Price(USD): $9.95 |
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