tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19106928.post4975369514302889386..comments2024-02-29T02:37:34.896-06:00Comments on Ivebeenreadinglately: William Dean Howells and the pleasures of the minor writerLevi Stahlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11094919454842047688noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19106928.post-81451432374523571822011-03-13T01:37:23.999-06:002011-03-13T01:37:23.999-06:00I have a couple of Howells on my shelf to read. I...I have a couple of Howells on my shelf to read. I bought them because I was curious about him and his work, never having heard of him before. Thanks for the recommendation.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19106928.post-25736661493308957712011-02-14T18:28:14.629-06:002011-02-14T18:28:14.629-06:00Thanks for the recommendations, guys. I can see I&...Thanks for the recommendations, guys. I can see I've got plenty more thinking about and reading of Howells to do soon!Levi Stahlhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11094919454842047688noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19106928.post-49783853392261749412011-02-11T09:52:22.111-06:002011-02-11T09:52:22.111-06:00The latest Hudson Review (Winter 2011) has an outs...The latest <i>Hudson Review</i> (Winter 2011) has an outstanding William Pritchard essay on just this theme - the pleasures of Howells, even of minor Howells, novels like <i>The Quality of Mercy</i> and <i>The Landlord at Lion's Head</i>. I thought it was convincing. Worth your time if you come across a copy.Amateur Reader (Tom)https://www.blogger.com/profile/13675275555757408496noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19106928.post-7792451120276469102011-02-11T08:56:38.909-06:002011-02-11T08:56:38.909-06:00Not to push the comparison too hard, but I always ...Not to push the comparison too hard, but I always think of Howells as an American Trollope. (Arnold Bennett is another good parallel.) He is a delightful writer and a delightful personality. Anyone who could be friends with both Henry James and Mark Twain clearly had diverse gifts! <i>A Hazard of New Fortunes</i> is a great social novel that I recommend strongly. Howells's technique is solidly mainstream, but his outlook can be surprisingly modern; significantly, the very last words of his novel of divorce <i>A Modern Instance</i> are "I don't know!" The open-endedness is both daring for its time and quite humanly attractive. Howells may be a minor writer, although I rather think he skirts being a major one; he is, in any case, a lovable and supremely readable novelist.Patrick Murthahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08103905929956454199noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19106928.post-72349255652485762192011-02-11T07:25:37.485-06:002011-02-11T07:25:37.485-06:00A Hazard of New Fortunes is surprisingly nice &...<i>A Hazard of New Fortunes</i> is surprisingly nice & I recommend it. Howells always made sense to me as the missing link between Mark Twain & Henry James - he managed to be friends with both of them. <br /><br />And I think there's a fair amount about Howells in Thomas Beer's very nice <i>The Mauve Decade</i>? Though I could be misremembering - I don't know where my copy of that's gone off to.Dan Viselhttp://withhiddennoise.netnoreply@blogger.com