Rating: 
Summary: A Puzzle to be piece together....
Review: James Agee's book on the sharecroppers of the American south during the great depression is a book not to be taken lightly. I read this book for a college english class and I can honestly say that most people in the course including myself are confused by Agee's intent and purpose. Agee's highly lyrical and philosophical tone allows a deep analysis into the question of human existence in the depression south. Yet, the very scope and difficulty of his subject is expressed in his confused, perhaps confusing writing. There are lonely moments of insight stacked alongside pages of seemingly irrelevant and baseless speculation. I say seemingly because each time I re-read the passage I find that Agee's words have quite a bit more meaning than I had originally found. This book is not a novel, not journalism but a puzzle which Agee could not piece together. Only with time and care can the reader hope to understand the frustratingly complex yet real message of Agee's work.
Rating: 
Summary: Powerful!
Review: Living only 3 miles from the site where this book was born, I can easily still see the horrors of what Agee and Evans witnessed. Rual Hale County, Alabama is still a place slow to develope, but with still as much pride and hope as was seen in the Depression years. The book is, at times, unequelled because of the direct accurancy describing the people, smells, conditions, and lifestyles of the three families. It is simply a work of art. The families are still around, and PBS even shot a piece on the book; however, the reminders of what was can still pierce the souls of all who live in our area. We have come a long way, but there are "miles to go." It is a work of art. Powerful! It needs to be followed up- yet I doubt that there could ever be such a quality work to follow that of Agee's.
Rating:
Summary: Incredible, but widely misunderstood work
Review: Many people argue about Agee's complex text. The entire body of Let Us Now Praise Famous Men is written in a kind of highly emotional euphoria in which Agee combines his own thoughts and perceptions with exhaustive description of the world around him. His intense feeling causes the writing to be, by conventional grammatical standards, virtually unreadable. Once the reader gets past his chapter-long sentences and widely varying themes, however, the book emerges as one of the greatest written accomplishments of the 20th century.While the nominal subject of the documentary is an in-depth exploration of three tenant farming families during the Great Depression, the real project (and Agee himself admits this in his remarkably confessional prose) is the documentation of his own experience living with those farmers for several weeks--sleeping in their vermin-infested beds, eating their home-cooked food, and interacting with them on a human level. In addition, Agee self-consciously writes the text and explores the act of writing, both during his stay with the farmers and several years later, when he completed the vast majority of the book. The final product is a patchwork book pieced together from Biblical prayer, Evans's photographs, Agee's flawless descriptions (which, in several cases, may be more accurate than Evans's probably manipulated prints) and meditations on writing, poverty, art, and day-to-day human experience. Two things make this work remarkable: Agee's honesty (he never claims to be objective or non-judgemental) and his innate talent for description. I approached this book with an open mind, and found it to be one of the most thoughtful and rewarding works I have ever read.
Rating:
Summary: Incredible, but widely misunderstood work
Review: Many people argue about Agee's complex text. The entire body of Let Us Now Praise Famous Men is written in a kind of highly emotional euphoria in which Agee combines his own thoughts and perceptions with exhaustive description of the world around him. His intense feeling causes the writing to be, by conventional grammatical standards, virtually unreadable. Once the reader gets past his chapter-long sentences and widely varying themes, however, the book emerges as one of the greatest written accomplishments of the 20th century. While the nominal subject of the documentary is an in-depth exploration of three tenant farming families during the Great Depression, the real project (and Agee himself admits this in his remarkably confessional prose) is the documentation of his own experience living with those farmers for several weeks--sleeping in their vermin-infested beds, eating their home-cooked food, and interacting with them on a human level. In addition, Agee self-consciously writes the text and explores the act of writing, both during his stay with the farmers and several years later, when he completed the vast majority of the book. The final product is a patchwork book pieced together from Biblical prayer, Evans's photographs, Agee's flawless descriptions (which, in several cases, may be more accurate than Evans's probably manipulated prints) and meditations on writing, poverty, art, and day-to-day human experience. Two things make this work remarkable: Agee's honesty (he never claims to be objective or non-judgemental) and his innate talent for description. I approached this book with an open mind, and found it to be one of the most thoughtful and rewarding works I have ever read.
Rating:
Summary: The Most Wonderful Use of Language
Review: Readers who appreciate language will love this book. Sentence after sentence is so beautifully crafted that a sensitive reader will regularly stop to reread passages and appreciate their beauty. Let Us Now Praise Famous Men sets a standard for reporting -- showing that good journalism can indeed be fine literature.
Rating:
Summary: A Puzzle to be piece together....
Review: Starts out with a long discourse that is not easy to read, but soon becomes a detailed and moving description of three tenant famer families. Depressing, but valuable. Photos are very moving.
Rating: 
Summary: Detailed and moving
Review: Starts out with a long discourse that is not easy to read, but soon becomes a detailed and moving description of three tenant famer families. Depressing, but valuable. Photos are very moving.
Rating:
Summary: Dull text, great photos
Review: The Walker Evans photograpy is indeed remarkable, but Agee's thick prose is deathly dull, and at times it seems he is only down there to ogle the women.
Rating: 
Summary: Deeply Flawed Work; Don't Be Seduced by the Language
Review: This book is indeed a landmark in the (rather young) field of American ethnography; it is a one-of-a-kind work, and a very brave effort by two immensely talented, well-intentioned men. Aesthetically speaking, this is a tremendous work. At the same time, this book's beauty should not overshadow the fact that as a piece of ethnography, it is deeply, even fatally flawed. Agee allows his political agenda and deeply-rooted assumptions about life and poverty in the rural South to completely exclude the lives and thoughts of his subjects, committing the cardinal sin of ethnography. For instance, in describing a bedroom, he talks about an "obscene smelling Bible." How in God's name can a Bible smell obscene? This is a Bible kept on a dresser, well-worn and clearly frequently used. To Agee, this Bible is a pathetic and somehow "obscene" artifact, while it obviously is a treasured spiritual possession that speaks to the core of its owners' existence. Why describe it as "obscene smelling" when you can ask its owner exactly what it means to him or her? Examples like this flood the book, and it is easy to be seduced by Agee's beautiful writing and miss how flawed his perspective is; it is flawed to the core. Remember, this book is ostensibly about rural tenant farmers in the South, but much of it is really about Agee. Keep this in mind when you read it.
Rating:
Summary: Deeply Flawed Work; Don't Be Seduced by the Language
Review: This book is indeed a landmark in the (rather young) field of American ethnography; it is a one-of-a-kind work, and a very brave effort by two immensely talented, well-intentioned men. Aesthetically speaking, this is a tremendous work. At the same time, this book's beauty should not overshadow the fact that as a piece of ethnography, it is deeply, even fatally flawed. Agee allows his political agenda and deeply-rooted assumptions about life and poverty in the rural South to completely exclude the lives and thoughts of his subjects, committing the cardinal sin of ethnography. For instance, in describing a bedroom, he talks about an "obscene smelling Bible." How in God's name can a Bible smell obscene? This is a Bible kept on a dresser, well-worn and clearly frequently used. To Agee, this Bible is a pathetic and somehow "obscene" artifact, while it obviously is a treasured spiritual possession that speaks to the core of its owners' existence. Why describe it as "obscene smelling" when you can ask its owner exactly what it means to him or her? Examples like this flood the book, and it is easy to be seduced by Agee's beautiful writing and miss how flawed his perspective is; it is flawed to the core. Remember, this book is ostensibly about rural tenant farmers in the South, but much of it is really about Agee. Keep this in mind when you read it.
|
