![]() ![]() He also looks at the cult of business (the business of America is business, and all that) and at the how religion and business began to use each other's language. He describes the madness of the stock bubble and the shouting down of anyone who call into question the riches to be made. Lewis covers racism, populism, and the infatuation with celebrity, sports, and trifling events, at the expense of vital issues. It doesn't hurt that the subjects feel particularly relevant today. Here was a chance to dress up the village bigot and let him be a Knight of the Invisible Empire." ".but it white robe and hood, its flaming cross, its secrecy, and the preposterous vocabulary of it ritual could be made the vehicle for all that infantile love of hocus-pocus and mummery, that lust for secret adventure, which survives in the adult whose lot is cast in drab places. ![]() ![]() I loved his description of the motivations of Klan members: He is crisp, funny and has a strong point of view throughout. Lewis was an editor at the Atlantic and I wonder if his style has influenced later writers there. He wrote Only Yesterday in 1931 and it read like it was written last year. Well, Frederick Allen Lewis sure showed me up. The evidence gets old, the arguments get settled or the style becomes out-dated and the read just isn't the same. ![]() I have a bias against older nonfiction books as I don't think they age well. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |