Almost a DNF, but I’m a bitter-ender. I’m glad I kept going, too — this total slog was rescued by a perfect final sentence.
Famously, this chronicle of rural America is notable for its "ideas" more than its characters. And I guess I agree with its baseline premise that every person is born alone and spends their life striving for human connection in various forms (and to varying degrees of success). Anderson just doesn't have the juice to ground his ideas in compelling characters.
Each short story presents a new townsperson who nakedly stands in for an idea of depravity, desire, ambition, etc. Often, Anderson will explicitly frame what's about to unfold (e.g., "This sicko, horndog pastor is about to cream his pants peeping at his lady neighbor laying in bed — and feels bad about it!").
Not a lot is left to the imagination, yet we get no sense of interiority. Every character seems like a helpless victim of their circumstances, completely unable to diagnose why they're unhappy or what they might do about it. As you make your way through the book, it gets repetitive and altogether depressing to spend time with the miserable townsfolk of Winesburg, where every person is trapped by their mistakes and misfortunes. I mostly stuck around for the lovely descriptions of the Ohio countryside.
Thankfully, it stuck the landing. The final sentence, as George Willard zooms off toward his unknown future away from Winesburg, stitches everything back together. We all are alone, but we are also part of a constellation inextricably tied to one another. That felt true to me in a way that most of the book did not.
👏 spot on, I can’t understand what’s kept this one from falling into obscurity. Is it a staple of school curricula in the States?
I think so...my copy's introduction really hammers home that Hemingway, Faulkner, Wolfe, Steinbeck, Caldwell, Saroyan, Henry Miller "each owe an unmistakable debt to Anderson" so it's probably taught in survey courses. The introduction also made clear that Anderson was a huge loser who never wrote anything else worthwhile. I guess we can let him have this one win.
Fair enough, yes I guess it was influential. But like you say, the unsophisticated morality of it hasn't aged well at all.
it absolutely is, had to read this in lit 101 my freshman year. also it must be some kind of mythos about andersons life because he infamously had a panic attack and abandoned his business career to be a writer (romantic). also didnt he have some tiff with hemingway? nothing like a little drama to sweeten up the socratic circle. he also died from eating a toothpick by accident (?) which my prof thought was hilarious but to me speaks to the inconspicious danger of little sandwiches, cheese cubes on a platter, and various other hors d'ouveres. death by tapas, he must be the only one.
I would never have guessed he overlapped with Hemingway but yeah the dates check out. I very much doubt he's the only victim of tapas, they're not called papas bravas for nothing.