Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Ya-ta Boy]

I spent the weekend reading Stephen Crane for the first time. Impressive body of work. Impressive guy. I had no idea he was so instrumental in inventing the 'foreign correspondent'. He was one of the models for the saying, 'live fast, die young and leave a beautiful corpse'. (1871-1900) HG Wells, no slouch himself, said Crane was the best writer of their generation.

Anyway, here's one of his poems.

A newspaper is a collection of half-injustices
Which, bawled by boys from mile to mile,
Spreads its curious opinion
To a million merciful and sneering men,
While families cuddle the joys of the fireside
When spurred by tale of dire lone agony.
A newspaper is a court
Where every one is kindly and unfairly tried
By a squalor of honest men.
A newspaper is a market
Where wisdom sells its freedom
And melons are crowned by the crowd.
A newspaper is a game
Where his error scores the player victory
While another's skill wins death.
A newspaper is a symbol;
It is fetless life's chronical,
A collection of loud tales
Concentrating eternal stupidities,
That in remote ages lived unhaltered,
Roaming through a fenceless world.

[dulouz]

TY for the contribution and book review. He'll get a browse next time at the used book store.

[Ya-ta Boy]

FYI, someone said in the stuff I was reading that there are two novels that set the precedents for 20th Century American lit.: Huck Finn and 'A Red Badge of Courage'. Badge is the literary ancestor of Hemingway and impressionistic writing (in America).

I like his short stories better.

I ordered a biography because his life sounds like it would make a great movie. An international star at 23. (Back then, writers were the pop stars of the day. I didn't know that.) Defending prostitutes and offending Teddy Roosevelt. Getting ship wrecked. 'Conquering' a Puerto Rican town all by himself. Friends with HG Wells, Joseph Conrad, William Dean Howells, Willa Cather, Hamlin Garland and Henry James. Dead at 28. Colorful.

[nicknack]

I have a little culture going in my refrigerator. I think it used to be a piece of bread.

Oh, well.