Sherwood Anderson

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(Dark Laughter is a 1925 novel by the American author Sherwood Anderson. It dealt with the new sexual freedom of the 1920s, a theme also explored in his 1923 novel Many Marriages and later works. The influence of James Joyce's Ulysses, which Anderson had read before writing the 1925 novel, is expressed in Dark Laughter. Dark Laughter was Anderson's only best-seller during his life, but today he is better known and respected for Winesburg, Ohio. Out of print since the early 1960s, since the late twentieth century the novel has been considered a failure by some critics, including Kim Townsend, the author of a 1985 biography of Anderson. Ernest Hemingway parodied Dark Laughter in his early short work The Torrents of Spring. Hemingway's novella mocked the pretensions of Anderson's style and characters. Gertrude Stein, his former mentor, objected to the young writer's parody of a writer who had helped him get published, and they had a falling-out. The novel was included in Life Magazine's list of the 100 outstanding books of 1924-1944. (wikipedia.org)

(Dark Laughter is a 1925 novel by the American author Sherwood Anderson. It dealt with the new sexual freedom of the 1920s, a theme also explored in his 1923 novel Many Marriages and later works. The influence of James Joyce's Ulysses, which Anderson had read before writing the 1925 novel, is expressed in Dark Laughter. Dark Laughter was Anderson's only best-seller during his life, but today he is better known and respected for Winesburg, Ohio. Out of print since the early 1960s, since the late twentieth century the novel has been considered a failure by some critics, including Kim Townsend, the author of a 1985 biography of Anderson. Ernest Hemingway parodied Dark Laughter in his early short work The Torrents of Spring. Hemingway's novella mocked the pretensions of Anderson's style and characters. Gertrude Stein, his former mentor, objected to the young writer's parody of a writer who had helped him get published, and they had a falling-out. The novel was included in Life Magazine's list of the 100 outstanding books of 1924-1944. (wikipedia.org)

Sherwood Anderson's place is unquestionably among the three or four titans of American letters. He is already in interval part of the history of American literature. Dark Laughter is the story of virile America, and in particular, the Middle West, the Ohio River Valley, the Mississippi, and New Orlean. An intense story is superimposed upon a background of dark laughter - the mysterious, detached, strange laughter of the Negro, the earth, and the river. While not exclusively concerned with racial problems, Dark Laughter has a definite theme of racial conflict. Conflict of any nature arises out of difference. Anderson sees the basic difference between white and black as arising out of the varying ability of each race to adapt to a situation; he sees the inherent difference between the Negro and the Caucasian as one of personality. Anderson presents social and racial conflict on a personal and psychological level. Social adjustment fails between the races because the white man fails Dark Laughter, Sherwood Anderson's best selling novel, is influenced by Joyce's Ulysses. It deals with the new sexual freedom of the 1920s and provides a unique fictional window into that era.

Many Marriages (1923) is a novel by Sherwood Anderson. Inspired by his own decision to abandon his family and career in order to establish himself as a professional writer, Anderson explores the guilts, routines, desires, and disappointments driving the lives of many Americans in the early-twentieth century. Although he is known today for his story collection Winesburg, Ohio, a pioneering work of Modernist fiction admired for its plainspoken language and psychological detail, Anderson’s Many Marriages is a masterpiece in its own right. “There was a man named Webster lived in a town of twenty-five thousand people in the state of Wisconsin. He had a wife named Mary and a daughter named Jane and he was himself a fairly prosperous manufacturer of washing machines. […] [A]t odd moments, when he was on a train going some place or perhaps on Sunday afternoons in the summer when he went alone to the deserted office of the factory and sat for several hours looking out through a window and along a railroad track, he gave way to dreams.” On an otherwise average day in his office at an Ohio washing machine factory, John Webster finds himself dreaming. He contemplates an affair with his young secretary, hears a number of voices in his head, and watches an angelic woman drift down the river on a raft beneath the afternoon sun. When he returns home after work, he struggles to look his wife and daughter in the face, feeling deep in his heart he will have to leave them soon. Despite spending his whole life in service of the mundane—building his business, supporting his family, securing his finances—Webster knows he can no longer live an impassionate life. He knows he must reinvent himself from scratch. With a beautifully designed cover and professionally typeset manuscript, this edition of Sherwood Anderson’s Many Marriages is a classic of American literature reimagined for modern readers.

Dark Laughter (1925) is a novel by Sherwood Anderson. Inspired by his own decision to abandon his family and career in order to establish himself as a professional writer, Anderson explores the guilts, routines, desires, and disappointments driving the lives of many Americans in the early-twentieth century. Although he is known today for his story collection Winesburg, Ohio, a pioneering work of Modernist fiction admired for its plainspoken language and psychological detail, Anderson’s Dark Laughter was his only bestseller. Inspired by the stream of consciousness style of James Joyce’s Ulysses, Anderson produced a novel that remains controversial for its depictions of race, class, and sexuality. >“Bruce Dudley stood near a window that was covered with flecks of paint and through which could be faintly seen, first a pile of empty boxes, then a more or less littered factory yard running down to a steep bluff, and beyond the brown waters of the Ohio River.” Bruce, a factory worker in Old Harbor, Indiana, is your average working man. He lives a simple life, keeps a low profile, spends his money at the bar with his friends, and tries not to get fired. As far as anyone knows, there is nothing special about him whatsoever; he is a drifter who found his way to Old Harbor by chance and settled down to make himself some money. But Bruce was born in Old Harbor; raised on its streets and educated in its schools, he lived most of his life by another name: John Stockton, Indiana native turned Chicago reporter. Married with kids, he was happy as far as anyone could tell. Up until the day he left, he was still John Stockton, but the change that came over him late in life was too great to resist. He needed a new name, a new life. He wanted to start over in the place where he began. When an opportunity comes to work as a gardener for the factory owner’s wife, Bruce soon finds it impossible to resist her brazen advances. Dark Laughter is a tale of guilt, identity, and shame from master storyteller Sherwood Anderson. With a beautifully designed cover and professionally typeset manuscript, this edition of Sherwood Anderson’s Dark Laughter is a classic of American literature reimagined for modern readers.

Shervud Anderson (1876-1941) okazal zametnoe vlijanie na samykh izvestnykh amerikanskikh pisatelej XX veka, v tom chisle Uiljama Folknera, Tomasa Vulfa, Dzhona Stejnbeka, Ernesta Khemingueja. Ego proza nasyschena pronzitelnym psikhologizmom, chto otlichaet i roman "Svadba za svadboj". Zaurjadnaja na pervyj vzgljad intrizhka mezhdu preuspevajuschim zhenatym fabrikantom i ego sekretarshej privodit k tragedii i stanovitsja dlja geroev povodom pogruzitsja v tajnuju zhizn sobstvennogo soznanija, polnuju kak nizmennykh poryvov, tak i podlinnoj krasoty. Shervud Anderson ne tolko predvoskhischaet vojnu pokolenija shestidesjatykh s puritanskoj moralju, no i sozdaet udivitelno smeluju i tonkuju kartinu dukhovnogo pereloma, privodjaschego cheloveka na gran bezumija. Genij Andersona porozhdaet sobstvennyj mir s takoj siloj ubezhdenija, chto sposoben tselikom vytesnit u vospriimchivogo chitatelja prezhnjuju kartinu mira... "Svadba za svadboj" - roman ne beznravstvennyj, no otkrovenno antiobschestvennyj. Odnako, esli by ego geroj prosto otvergal prinjatuju v obschestve monogamiju, eto byla by ne bolee chem propaganda. Na samom dele roman ne stolko opravdyvaet povedenie geroja, skolko pokazyvaet v novom i sovershenno neobychajnom svete otnoshenija mezhdu muzhchinoj i zhenschinoj. Pered nami reaktsija tonko chuvstvujuschego, v vysshej stepeni kulturnogo cheloveka na takoe javlenie, kak pokhot - no kak nepokhozhe eto na sozvuchnye opyty Teodora Drajzera, Dzhejmsa Dzhojsa ili, skazhem, Gerberta Uellsa... Vybrannyj v geroi "Svadby za svadboj" vladelets fabriki stiralnykh mashin okazyvaetsja gorazdo blizhe k suschestvovaniju v absoljutnom vakuume, chem ljuboj literaturnyj personazh, vkljuchaja Odisseja, Ljutsifera, Attilu ili Tarzana. I eto predstavljaetsja mne blistatelnym avtorskim uspekhom. Frensis Skott FitsdzheraldPerevodchik: Kuzina Darja

Windy McPherson’s Son (1916) is a novel by Sherwood Anderson. Both fictional and autobiographical, Anderson’s debut novel is a coming of age story that explores themes of unhappiness and infidelity while illustrating the frustrations of the son of an abusive father. Although he is known today for his story collection Winesburg, Ohio, a pioneering work of Modernist fiction admired for its plainspoken language and psychological detail, Anderson’s Windy McPherson’s Son is a powerful work of fiction that helped establish him as a leading realist writer of his generation. “At the beginning of the long twilight of a summer evening, Sam McPherson, a tall big-boned boy of thirteen, with brown hair, black eyes, and an amusing little habit of tilting his chin in the air as he walked, came upon the platform of the little corn-shipping town of Caxton in Iowa.” With a cigar in his hand and a bundle of newspapers under his arm, the young Sam McPherson appears both overly proud and ambitious for his age. Those that know him, however, understand that he has no choice. Left to fend for himself by an alcoholic father, Sam dreams of making a name for himself and escaping the small town of his birth. When an ill-fated affair with an older teacher leaves him disgraced, McPherson abandons his father for Chicago, where he finds work as a purchaser of farming equipment. Soon, he falls in love with his boss’ daughter, the beautiful Sue Rainey. Windy McPherson’s Son is a story of the American Dream, for all of its difficult truths and convenient fictions. With a beautifully designed cover and professionally typeset manuscript, this edition of Sherwood Anderson’s Windy McPherson’s Son is a classic of American literature reimagined for modern readers.

Marching Men (1917) is a novel by Sherwood Anderson. Both fictional and autobiographical, Anderson’s second novel is a coming of age story that explores the individual and collective identities shaping American life. Although he is known today for his story collection Winesburg, Ohio, a pioneering work of Modernist literature admired for its plainspoken language and psychological detail, Anderson’s Marching Men is a powerful work of fiction that helped establish him as a leading realist writer of his generation. “In a country of so many varied climates and occupations as America it is absurd to talk of an American type. The country is like a vast disorganised undisciplined army, leaderless, uninspired, going in route-step along the road to they know not what end.” At a young age, Norman McGregor, a misfit dreamer, knows this to be true of his country. Fourteen-year-old Norman, ironically named “Beaut” for his homely appearance, works alongside his mother at a bakery in the town of Coal Creek. When frustration over unpaid debts leads him to close the bakery, a group of disgruntled miners nearly destroys his family’s only source of income. At the last second, a group of soldiers marches in to protect them, inspiring Norman with a sense of unity. As a young man, he leaves his hometown for Chicago, where he develops a relationship with a woman who introduces him to politics and labor organizing. Unable to shake the memory of the marching soldiers, he dedicates his life to collective empowerment. Marching Men is a story of the American Dream, for all of its difficult truths and convenient fictions. With a beautifully designed cover and professionally typeset manuscript, this edition of Sherwood Anderson’s Marching Men is a classic of American literature reimagined for modern readers.

Many Marriages (1923) is a novel by Sherwood Anderson. Inspired by his own decision to abandon his family and career in order to establish himself as a professional writer, Anderson explores the guilts, routines, desires, and disappointments driving the lives of many Americans in the early-twentieth century. Although he is known today for his story collection Winesburg, Ohio, a pioneering work of Modernist fiction admired for its plainspoken language and psychological detail, Anderson’s Many Marriages is a masterpiece in its own right. “There was a man named Webster lived in a town of twenty-five thousand people in the state of Wisconsin. He had a wife named Mary and a daughter named Jane and he was himself a fairly prosperous manufacturer of washing machines. […] [A]t odd moments, when he was on a train going some place or perhaps on Sunday afternoons in the summer when he went alone to the deserted office of the factory and sat for several hours looking out through a window and along a railroad track, he gave way to dreams.” On an otherwise average day in his office at an Ohio washing machine factory, John Webster finds himself dreaming. He contemplates an affair with his young secretary, hears a number of voices in his head, and watches an angelic woman drift down the river on a raft beneath the afternoon sun. When he returns home after work, he struggles to look his wife and daughter in the face, feeling deep in his heart he will have to leave them soon. Despite spending his whole life in service of the mundane—building his business, supporting his family, securing his finances—Webster knows he can no longer live an impassionate life. He knows he must reinvent himself from scratch. With a beautifully designed cover and professionally typeset manuscript, this edition of Sherwood Anderson’s Many Marriages is a classic of American literature reimagined for modern readers.

Dark Laughter (1925) is a novel by Sherwood Anderson. Inspired by his own decision to abandon his family and career in order to establish himself as a professional writer, Anderson explores the guilts, routines, desires, and disappointments driving the lives of many Americans in the early-twentieth century. Although he is known today for his story collection Winesburg, Ohio, a pioneering work of Modernist fiction admired for its plainspoken language and psychological detail, Anderson’s Dark Laughter was his only bestseller. Inspired by the stream of consciousness style of James Joyce’s Ulysses, Anderson produced a novel that remains controversial for its depictions of race, class, and sexuality. >“Bruce Dudley stood near a window that was covered with flecks of paint and through which could be faintly seen, first a pile of empty boxes, then a more or less littered factory yard running down to a steep bluff, and beyond the brown waters of the Ohio River.” Bruce, a factory worker in Old Harbor, Indiana, is your average working man. He lives a simple life, keeps a low profile, spends his money at the bar with his friends, and tries not to get fired. As far as anyone knows, there is nothing special about him whatsoever; he is a drifter who found his way to Old Harbor by chance and settled down to make himself some money. But Bruce was born in Old Harbor; raised on its streets and educated in its schools, he lived most of his life by another name: John Stockton, Indiana native turned Chicago reporter. Married with kids, he was happy as far as anyone could tell. Up until the day he left, he was still John Stockton, but the change that came over him late in life was too great to resist. He needed a new name, a new life. He wanted to start over in the place where he began. When an opportunity comes to work as a gardener for the factory owner’s wife, Bruce soon finds it impossible to resist her brazen advances. Dark Laughter is a tale of guilt, identity, and shame from master storyteller Sherwood Anderson. With a beautifully designed cover and professionally typeset manuscript, this edition of Sherwood Anderson’s Dark Laughter is a classic of American literature reimagined for modern readers.

Windy McPherson’s Son (1916) is a novel by Sherwood Anderson. Both fictional and autobiographical, Anderson’s debut novel is a coming of age story that explores themes of unhappiness and infidelity while illustrating the frustrations of the son of an abusive father. Although he is known today for his story collection Winesburg, Ohio, a pioneering work of Modernist fiction admired for its plainspoken language and psychological detail, Anderson’s Windy McPherson’s Son is a powerful work of fiction that helped establish him as a leading realist writer of his generation. “At the beginning of the long twilight of a summer evening, Sam McPherson, a tall big-boned boy of thirteen, with brown hair, black eyes, and an amusing little habit of tilting his chin in the air as he walked, came upon the platform of the little corn-shipping town of Caxton in Iowa.” With a cigar in his hand and a bundle of newspapers under his arm, the young Sam McPherson appears both overly proud and ambitious for his age. Those that know him, however, understand that he has no choice. Left to fend for himself by an alcoholic father, Sam dreams of making a name for himself and escaping the small town of his birth. When an ill-fated affair with an older teacher leaves him disgraced, McPherson abandons his father for Chicago, where he finds work as a purchaser of farming equipment. Soon, he falls in love with his boss’ daughter, the beautiful Sue Rainey. Windy McPherson’s Son is a story of the American Dream, for all of its difficult truths and convenient fictions. With a beautifully designed cover and professionally typeset manuscript, this edition of Sherwood Anderson’s Windy McPherson’s Son is a classic of American literature reimagined for modern readers.

Marching Men (1917) is a novel by Sherwood Anderson. Both fictional and autobiographical, Anderson’s second novel is a coming of age story that explores the individual and collective identities shaping American life. Although he is known today for his story collection Winesburg, Ohio, a pioneering work of Modernist literature admired for its plainspoken language and psychological detail, Anderson’s Marching Men is a powerful work of fiction that helped establish him as a leading realist writer of his generation. “In a country of so many varied climates and occupations as America it is absurd to talk of an American type. The country is like a vast disorganised undisciplined army, leaderless, uninspired, going in route-step along the road to they know not what end.” At a young age, Norman McGregor, a misfit dreamer, knows this to be true of his country. Fourteen-year-old Norman, ironically named “Beaut” for his homely appearance, works alongside his mother at a bakery in the town of Coal Creek. When frustration over unpaid debts leads him to close the bakery, a group of disgruntled miners nearly destroys his family’s only source of income. At the last second, a group of soldiers marches in to protect them, inspiring Norman with a sense of unity. As a young man, he leaves his hometown for Chicago, where he develops a relationship with a woman who introduces him to politics and labor organizing. Unable to shake the memory of the marching soldiers, he dedicates his life to collective empowerment. Marching Men is a story of the American Dream, for all of its difficult truths and convenient fictions. With a beautifully designed cover and professionally typeset manuscript, this edition of Sherwood Anderson’s Marching Men is a classic of American literature reimagined for modern readers.

Winesburg, Ohio (1919) is a collection of interrelated short stories about small-town life in the American Midwest by author Sherwood Anderson. No doubt inspired by his own decision to leave Ohio for Chicago in order to launch his career as a professional writer, these stories relate a firsthand understanding of the concerns, routines, desires, and disappointments driving the lives of many Americans in the early-twentieth century. A young man struggles to express himself, and, consumed with paranoia and loneliness, turns to violence as his only outlet. An elderly mother recalls visions of her youth and memories of lost love as she faces death alone. A reserved woman inexplicably runs naked into the rainy streets of her town. Winesburg, Ohio is built on such stories as these, dissecting with painstaking detail the inner psychological torments of a small town’s residents who remain, in the end, unmistakably human. Their longing and loneliness bring them together as much as they define what drives them apart, but ultimately it is silence and suffering which prevail. Throughout these stories, the life and development of George Willard is told in fragments, examining the extent to which we are formed in the image of others as well as the lengths to which one young man will go to avoid the fate he is born to. Winesburg, Ohio was an instant classic, a work which came not only to define Anderson’s career, but to inspire generations of writers and readers to come. Winesburg, Ohio is recognized today as a pioneering work of Modernist fiction that precipitated a sea change in not only short story writing, but the entirety of American literature. Anderson’s style is admired for its plainspoken language and psychological detail, and he was one of the first American authors to incorporate ideas from Freudian analysis within his work. Both darkly pessimistic and ultimately hopeful, Winesburg, Ohio endures because it captures the humanity of American life while offering to readers a sense of the promise of change. With a beautifully designed cover and professionally typeset manuscript, this edition of Sherwood Anderson’s Winesburg, Ohio is a classic of American literature reimagined for modern readers.