Winesburg, Ohio

By Sherwood Anderson, Irving Howe and Dean Koontz

Published in 1919, Winesburg, Ohio is Sherwood Anderson’s masterpiece, a work in which he achieved the goal to which he believed all true writers should aspire: to see and feel “all of life within.” In a perfectly imagined world, an archetypal small American town, he reveals the hidden passions that turn ordinary lives into unforgettable ones. Unified by the recurring presence of young George Willard, and played out against the backdrop of Winesburg, Anderson’s loosely connected chapters, or stories, coalesce into a powerful novel.

In such tales as “Hands,” the portrayal of a rural berry picker still haunted by the accusations of homosexuality that ended his teaching career, Anderson’s vision is as acute today as it was over eighty-five years ago. His intuitive ability to home in on examples of timeless, human conflicts—a workingman deciding if he should marry the woman who is to bear his child, an unhappy housewife who seeks love from the town’s doctor, an unmarried high school teacher sexually attracted to a pupil—makes this book not only immensely readable but also deeply meaningful. An important influence on Faulkner, Hemingway, and others who were drawn to Anderson’s innovative format and psychological insights, Winesburg, Ohio deserves a place among the front ranks of our nation’s finest literary achievements.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Penguin Group
• Release date: Nov 1, 2005
• ISBN: 9781101657812

Sherwood Anderson

Sherwood Anderson (1876-1941) was an American businessman and writer of short stories and novels. Born in Ohio, Anderson was self-educated and became, by his early thirties, a successful salesman and business owner. Within a decade, however, Anderson suffered what was described as a nervous breakdown and fled his seemingly picture-perfect life for the city of Chicago, where he had lived for a time in his twenties. In doing so, he left behind a wife and three children, but embarked upon a writing career that would win him acclaim as one of the finest American writers of the early-twentieth century.

Reviews for Winesburg, Ohio

[addunn3 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Short stories wrapped around a town in Ohio.

[asxz-2 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I can see why this would have been scandalous back in 1919. There's an awful lot of earthy sexuality in Winesburg.

Men and women are instantly struck by each other's attractiveness and they fall in and out of lust at the drop of a hat. There a depth to such human shallowness that even reminded me of War and Peace and the way Tolstoy was so sharp on the tiny things that trigger feelings of love.

It's a great companion piece to the Spoon River Anthology which I read last year delving into overlapping lives with overlapping vignettes.

The short story "The Untold Lie" is worth the price of admission all by itself.

[eilonwy_anne · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

An excellent model for shnovel or collage, written with a delicate touch. I like the way the focus on the main character grows over time, as the child grows and differentiates himself and his personality from his community. I also appreciate the willingness to show the protagonist's folly and foibles. From a modern perspective, the clumsy attempts at female characterization are rather cringeworthy, and I also found the 'grotesque' angle somewhat overplayed.

[jscape2000 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Much better than I expected. This book of short stories both showed its age and defied it. It was packed with more sex, more honestly confused people, and more ambiguous moments than I expected. At the same time, that sex, confusion, and ambiguity was more obviously privileged, white, and male than I was comfortable with.In the penultimate story, the narrator observes of a young woman, "it seemed to her that the world was full of meaningless people saying words." Perhaps this applies to all the characters in the novel, or perhaps we're encouraged to believe that young newspaper reporter who is nearly the main character and seems to be the chronicler of the town's adventures is a different sort of man.Such moments of keen insight were too often surrounded by passages that feel more subtly sinister in the winter of 2017: "The young man took Mary Hardy into his arms and kissed her. When she struggled and laughed, he but held her the more tightly. For an hour the contest between them went on..." Over and over, women are waiting for men to deliver them from their lives. Maybe that is merely an accurate reflection of a time when women couldn't vote, unmarried women could rarely own property or conduct business, and rarely attended college. But at several moments in the story, it all felt more sinister to me.I wish I'd read these stories a decade ago. I suspect I would have loved them without the complicated mixed emotions I have now.

[madepercy-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I did not know what to think when I began reading Winesburg, Ohio. Hemingway's satire of the novel in The Torrents of Spring had somewhat tainted my first impression of the book. However, on completion I found the book thoughtful, interesting, and, aside from being somewhat vanilla in its description of life in a small American town, insightful. There is a coherence to the various stories that I found in Calvino's Marcolvaldo, despite the work appearing as a collection of short stories based around a protagonist and their relationship to the people, places and happenings in one particular town. I would not be surprised if Calvino was inspired by Anderson. But for the life of me I cannot understand Hemingway's criticism. Yet Anderson had a similar response from Faulkner. I think what makes this work so important is the background story, yet the work speaks to the reader in its own right.

[iambookish-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This has been on my mental list of "to-reads" for a very long time. As a native of Ohio, I have a familiarity with the area and and with Sherwood Anderson, so I was excited to finally read this fantastic piece of literature.

[etxgardener · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Somehow I had never read this book, so im glad it got picked for one of my book clubs. Sherwood Anderson describes life in a small Ohio town that is ostensibly based on his own hometown. It is not a pleasant portrait. The action in the book takes place almost entirely at night, sand the darkness reflects the lives of most of the book's characters. There is lying, cheating, illicit sex and just about every other vice you can think of. No wonder the people in Anderson's home town were appalled when this book came out. A very depressing, yet accurate look at the venial life in a small town.

[exstasiss · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Her thoughts ran away to her girlhood with its passionate longing for adventure and she remembered the arms of men that had held her when adventure was a possible thing for her. Particularly she remembered one who had for a time been her lover and who in the moment of his passion had cried out to her more than a hundred times, saying the same words madly over and over: "You dear! You dear! You lovely dear!" The words, she thought, expressed something she would have liked to have achieved in life.

--

From being quite sure of himself and his future he becomes not at all sure. If he be an imaginative boy a door is torn open and for the first time he looks out upon the world, seeing, as though they marched in procession before him, the countless figures of men who before his time have come out of nothingness into the world, lived their lives and again disappeared into nothingness. The sadness of sophistication has come to the boy.

--

In that high place in the darkness the two oddly sensitive human atoms held each other tightly and waited. In the mind of each was the same thought. "I have come to this lonely place and here is this other," was the substance of the thing felt.

[dukefan86 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I really enjoyed this collection of short stories about the fictional town of Winesburg, Ohio. The way the story lines interconnected fascinated me. The descriptions of the townspeople's actions emotions were so intriguing that sometimes I felt like a voyeur.

[mabroms-1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Oddly compelling set of very short stories set in rural America at the dawn of agricultural industrialization. Themes center on love, family religion, values and lack thereof. Also a kind of one hit wonder for Anderson.

[tloeffler_3 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A collection of interconnected short stories, set in the post-WWI years in a small town in Ohio. Some of the stories are a little bit dated, but still a good read--a slice of time and place.

[marti.booker · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

I trudged through this. I'm sure it was quite realistic and risque in 1919, but the repeated hand imagery annoyed me, as did the whole premise of trying to describe the inner emotional lives of interconnected people in vignettes. Give me PLOT, please! And don't tell me it was a coming of age story, George was an idiot.

[chrisblocker · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I waited too long to write my thoughts on this one and now I remember so little. But that in itself is a critique. Any book which doesn't stay with you was probably ho-hum at best.

So which parts do I remember? Actually, I remember the four-part story "Godliness" best--the one about the grandfather who feels he has been chosen by God. I found it to be thought-provoking and suspenseful. Also memorable was the story about the minister who catches a glimpse of the neighbor woman and lusts after her.

Ironically, many of the stories which focus on George Willard, the main character, escape me. The most memorable scenes from him were perhaps his final ones, as he walks around Winesburg by himself and also through the fair grounds with Helen.

I thought I'd either love Winesburg or hate it; most people I know who have read it do. Instead, I fall in the middle. There were some great stories here, but overall, it just didn't capture me.

[msarki_3 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I believe Mr Anderson is a very talented writer. I also think he touched on many subjects of interest to me and others. But, for the most part, as charming as it was and well-written, I felt it all too soft for me, kind of like a Little House on the Prairie if you want to know the truth. Perhaps a bit too sentimental and even a bit too romantic for me. I like dirt and music that not only lifts me but spreads a soiling on me too permanent to rub off. But I shall see how the book progresses in the further regions of my mind as it gestates, or not, come what may. Certainly a book worth reading and definitely a precursor to what was to come in the literary field of its time.

[33racoonie · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

22 short stories of different people, all living in Winesboro, a small town. All the stories connect with the others, showing a great example of a small town and how it's residence may influence each other.

[yosarian_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Sherwood Anderson is often credited with writing, in Winesburg Ohio, the first really 'modern' American novel. Or so I've read ... I'm in no position to agree or disagree with that but what I can say is, that despite the age of the book, the short stories even today sound fresh to the ear and still discuss themes and topics contemporary to 'now'.Set in a fictional mid-west small town the book is a collection of short stories about the inhabitants all (very) loosely held together by a young wannabe reporter George Willard. Not all of the stories flatter the characters and the language used is very vivid, which I understand puts some people off Sherwood, denouncing him as having a 'superior attitude', however there are certainly some stories that inspire as Sherwood seems to get right inside the fictional minds of his characters to draw out their deepest and truest characters. The stories themselves can be read individually and I must admit to having dipped back in to the collection again to re-read a few, particularly my favourite story 'Hands'.I would heartily recommend this book to anyone and urge you to keep going with it if it does not instantly grab you; it is well worth any effort you have to put in to read.

[jthierer_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Lovely. Find a copy of this book and read it immediately.

[deebee1_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Considered to be the first American "modern" novel and a masterpiece of 20th century American literature, the book consists of a collection of loosely related short stories of inhabitants of a rural town in the Midwest in the 1900s. Here, Anderson breaks away from two traditions: the use of plot as the focal point and themes about the gentility and romantic and ideal views of rural life. The stories are told to George Willard, a young newspaperman aspiring to be a writer, who seem to draw others into him perhaps because of his sensitivity or being a writer, simply somebody who could understand. From their stories, we see a depiction of alienation, of loneliness, of inner struggles, of unexpressed desires, of unfulfilled sex lives, of frustrated ambitions. We see that each strives for happiness but never quite reaches it, and immediately we sense even from the first stories that their being inarticulate is a common trait that prevents this from happening. Beneath a seeming quiet life is a passionate, tormented soul. The failure to connect is a recurring theme. In attempting to relate their narratives to George, we feel that the characters are trying to inject some meaning into their empty lives. Among others, there is a tale of the old writer who wants to write "a book of grotesques", and a four-part narrative of religious fervor that parodies the biblical tales of Abraham's sacrificing of Isaac, and David and Goliath. The variations of stories of inner fervor but repressed wills are bleak and can be depressing at times. And it almost seems improbable that a town could be peopled at once with so many odd characters, bizarre and angst-ridden individuals. But the book does leave much for thought, and even if we perhaps don't care to admit it, the themes of alienation and frustration are something we recognize, to varying degrees, in our own individual, modern lives.

[jvioland_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This book has much of Elyria, Ohio in it. At least that seems to be the case. I was raised in Elyria and Anderson writes of a typical turn-of-the-century (last century, that is) American Midwest city with its prejudices and glories. If one wishes to understand the evolution of the American being, read this book.

[icolford · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Winesburg, Ohio is truly a landmark in American literature as well as in the short story genre. Anderson mercilessly scrutinizes his characters, laying their fears, lusts, and shameful passions out on the page for all to see. Anderson's modern approach to storytelling must have seemed wildly out of place in 1919, but it heralded in a new era, bridging the gap between 19th-century realism and 20th-century modernism.

[rabbitrun_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Interesting psychological analysis of why people behave the way they do.

[richardderus · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Anderson's influence on both Faulkner and Hemingway is very clear. He's got a deft hand with characterization, but he's not quite the craftsman that Faulkner would prove to be...his jumps in time feel like boo-boos, not choices. And he's not quite the storyteller Hemingway would prove to be, miring himself in the quotidian and missing the many opportunities to universalize his characters' angst the way ol' Ernie did.I long to see an "American Masterpiece Theatre" created, and the stories here dramatized for it. Would win Golden Globes and Peabodys and such-like prestige awards, done well.

[lgaikwad_4 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Some favorite quotes:"All men lead their lives behind a wall of misunderstanding they have themselves built, and most men die in silence and unnoticed behind the walls." "...the moment one of the people took one of the truths to himself, he called it his truth, and tried to live by it, he became a grotesque and the truth he embraced became a falsehood.""Only the few knew the sweetness of the twisted apples.""Be Tandy, little one," he pleaded. "Dare to be strong and courageous. That is the road. Venture anything. Be brave enough to dare to be loved. Be something more than man or woman. Be Tandy.""I was furious. I couldn't stand it. I wanted her to understand but, don't you see, I couldn't let her understand. I felt that then she would know everything, that I would be submerged, drowned out, you see. That's how it is. I don't know why.""Things went to smash," he said quietly and sadly. "Out she went through the door and all the life there had been in the room followed her out.""...and Hall had suddently become alive when they stood in the corn field stating into each other's eyes.""Love is like a wind stirring the grass beneath trees on a black night," he had said. "You must not try to make love definite. It is the divine accident of life. If you try to be definite and sure about it and to live beneath the trees, where soft night winds blow, the long hot day of disappointment comes swiftly...""I have come to this lonely place and here is this other," was the substance of the thing felt."...the town of Winesburg had disappeared and his there had become but a background on which to paint the dreams of his manhood."

[reneerobinson-2 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

WINESBURG, OHIO-by Sherwood Anderson 479 -12706019I was skeptical of this book because I thought the title sounded dull and the generic title even more dull-dom. However, I decided to read it only because I am from a small town in Ohio. It turns out, I am happy I live in Ohio. The stories are detailed with realistic, well-rounded characters. Typically I steer away from short stories as many times it seems the endings are simple cutoff. This author delivers. His stories, though short, are well formed and entertaining. I was taken back to a different time of life, perhaps better in some ways as I read through.

[muddyboy · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Every chapter in this book is a separate story that can stand on its own but they are linked together through a few central characters. The book takes place in the early 20th century and is a blazing indictment of small town life. This is a town where those who stay find their dreams crushed. The only chance you have is to move away. Even then we are not sure what happens to those who leave. Yes it is depressing, but it is just so well written that is worth the "downers".

[silva_44 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

After reading Bradbury's The Martian Chronicles, I was curious to read this book which he said was his inspiration. Having been raised in a very small farming community, these stories resonated with me on some level. Each story details the psychological struggles of various town residents. Many writers have tended to idealize small-town America at the turn of the century (and perhaps accurately), so Anderson's depiction is bold and different.

[shadowofthewind · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This collection of short stories is told through the eyes of a local reporter in Winesburg Ohio. A small town dealing with change at the turn of the century. This collection of stories has inspired some of America's greatest writers and the soft muted tones can find connections even today. A wonderful book that understands the quiet thoughts of a person. I could relate to many of the characters and felt connected to their inner thoughts. Loneliness, despair, joy, secrets, new experiences, and old habits are all displayed in this wonderful book. An excellent exposition of the human condition and the inner thoughts of the everyman. I also downloaded this book from Librivox, a volunteer supported audiobook site for works in the public domain. The readers were excellent (with maybe one exception) and it was great to listen to on a long drive I had. Favorite Passages: That in the beginning when the world was young there were a great many thoughts but no such thing as a truth. Man made the truths himself and each truth was a composite of a great many vague thoughts. All about in the world were the truths and they were all beautiful.The old man had listed hundreds of the truths in his book. I will not try to tell you of all of them. There was the truth of virginity and the truth of passion, the truth of wealth and of poverty, of thrift and of profligacy, of carelessness and abandon. Hundreds and hundreds were the truths and they were all beautiful.And then the people came along. Each as he ap- peared snatched up one of the truths and some who were quite strong snatched up a dozen of them.It was the truths that made the people grotesques. The old man had quite an elaborate theory concerning the matter. It was his notion that the moment one of the people took one of the truths to himself, called it his truth, and tried to live his life by it, he became a grotesque and the truth he embraced became a falsehood.p. 47 (Book of the Grotesque)In a way the voice and the hands, the stroking of the shoulders and the touching of the hair were a part of the schoolmaster's effort to carry a dream into the young minds. By the caress that was in his fingers he ex- pressed himself. He was one of those men in whom the force that creates life is diffused, not centralized. Under the caress of his hands doubt and disbelief went out of the minds of the boys and they began also to dream.p. 58 (Hands)One by one the mind of Doctor Reefy had made the thoughts. Out of many of them he formed a truth that arose gigantic in his mind. The truth clouded the world. It became terrible and then faded away and the little thoughts began again.p. 66 (Paper Pills)Tom Willard was ambitious for his son. He had always thought of himself as a successful man, al-though nothing he had ever done had turned out successfully. However, when he was out of sight of the New Willard House and had no fear of coming upon his wife, he swaggered and began to drama- tize himself as one of the chief men of the town. p. 79 (Mother)"If not now, sometime," he whispered, shaking his head. "In the end I will be crucified, uselessly crucified."Doctor Parcival began to plead with George Wil- lard. "You must pay attention to me," he urged. "If something happens perhaps you will be able to write the book that I may never get written. The idea is very simple, so simple that if you are not careful you will forget it. It is this--that everyone in the world is Christ and they are all crucified. That's what I want to say. Don't you forget that. Whatever happens, don't you dare let yourself forget."p. 102 (Philosopher)The young man began to laugh nervously. "It's warm," he said. He wanted to touch her with his hand. "I'm not very bold," he thought. Just to touch the folds of the soiled gingham dress would, he de- cided, be an exquisite pleasure. She began to quib- ble. "You think you're better than I am. Don't tell me, I guess I know," she said drawing closer to him.A flood of words burst from George Willard. He remembered the look that had lurked in the girl's eyes when they had met on the streets and thought of the note she had written. Doubt left him. The whispered tales concerning her that had gone about town gave him confidence. He became wholly the male, bold and aggressive. In his heart there was no sympathy for her. "Ah, come on, it'll be all right. There won't be anyone know anything. How can they know?" he urged.p. 107 (Nobody Knows)It will perhaps be somewhat difficult for the men and women of a later day to understand Jesse Bent- ley. In the last fifty years a vast change has taken place in the lives of our people. A revolution has in fact taken place. The coming of industrialism, at- tended by all the roar and rattle of affairs, the shrill cries of millions of new voices that have come among us from overseas, the going and coming of trains, the growth of cities, the building of the inter- urban car lines that weave in and out of towns and past farmhouses, and now in these later days the coming of the automobiles has worked a tremen- dous change in the lives and in the habits of thought of our people of Mid-America. Books, badly imag- ined and written though they may be in the hurry of our times, are in every household, magazines cir- culate by the millions of copies, newspapers are ev- erywhere. In our day a farmer standing by the stove in the store in his village has his mind filled to over- flowing with the words of other men. The newspa- pers and the magazines have pumped him full. Much of the old brutal ignorance that had in it also a kind of beautiful childlike innocence is gone for- ever. The farmer by the stove is brother to the men of the cities, and if you listen you will find him talking as glibly and as senselessly as the best city man of us all. In Jesse Bentley's time and in the country districts of the whole Middle West in the years after the Civil War it was not so. Men labored too hard and were too tired to read. In them was no desire for words printed upon paper. As they worked in the fields, vague, half-formed thoughts took possession of them. They believed in God and in God's power to control their lives. In the little Protestant churches they gathered on Sunday to hear of God and his works. The churches were the center of the social and intellectual life of the times. The figure of God was big in the hearts of men.p. 124 (Godliness pt. 1)As he ran he called to God. His voice carried far over the low hills. "Jehovah of Hosts," he cried, "send to me this night out of the womb of Katherine, a son. Let Thy grace alight upon me. Send me a son to be called David who shall help me to pluck at last all of these lands out of the hands of the Philistines and turn them to Thy service and to the building of Thy kingdom on earth."p. 128 (Godliness Pt. 1)For an hour the woman sat in the darkness and held her boy. All the time she kept talking in a low voice. David could not understand what had so changed her. Her habit- ually dissatisfied face had become, he thought, the most peaceful and lovely thing he had ever seen. When he began to weep she held him more and more tightly. On and on went her voice. It was not harsh or shrill as when she talked to her husband, but was like rain falling on trees.Presently men began coming to the door to report that he had not been found, but she made him hide and be silent until she had sent them away. He thought it must be a game his mother and the men of the town were playing with him and laughed joyously. Into his mind came the thought that his having been lost and frightened in the darkness was an altogether unimportant matter. He thought that he would have been willing to go through the frightful experience a thousand times to be sure of finding at the end of the long black road a thing so lovely as his mother had suddenly become.p. 135 (Godliness Pt. 2)She thought that in him might be found the quality she had all her life been seeking in people. It seemed to her that between herself and all the other people in the world, a wall had been built up and that she was living just on the edge of some warm inner circle of life that must be quite open and under- standable to others. She became obsessed with the thought that it wanted but a courageous act on her part to make all of her association with people some- thing quite different, and that it was possible by such an act to pass into a new life as one opens a door and goes into a room.p. 159 (Surrender)All during the first year Louise tried to make her husband understand the vague and in- tangible hunger that had led to the writing of the note and that was still unsatisfied. Again and again she crept into his arms and tried to talk of it, but always without success. Filled with his own notions of love between men and women, he did not listen but began to kiss her upon the lips. That confused her so that in the end she did not want to be kissed.p. 168 (Surrender)

[kszr_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Engaging stories. Well written. Can see the influence that he made on Hemingway.

[jddunn_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Restrained, finely crafted, genuine stories about moral and social isolation in small town, turn-of-the-century America, and the lengths people were driven to to combat it. Kind of desolate and depressing, but the humanity and tension of the solitary battles portrayed is very worthwhile. Reminds me of Hemingway's short work, only with much more emotional intelligence, or maybe Carson McCullers' portraits of people fighting similar circumstances in the South.

[wvlibrarydude · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

The other reviews here are much better written, and give a better analysis of this work's place in the canon of American Literature. On a purely personal level, I really enjoyed the way Anderson dovetailed the chapters together into a tight piece of character work. By focusing on the characters, one is able to get at a larger truth that escapes many of the individual "grotesques."A very well written book, that I will revisit in the future. The only draw back on it was the frank bleakness of the lives and loves. I believe this is why it took me three tries to actually get started and finish the book. It has sat on the shelf for almost 17 years begging to be read, but each time I started I had a bad taste I didn't feel comfortable swallowing, so .... patooie... it was spit out. This time I kept going with determination and came away much more satisfied than I thought I would.