Winesburg, Ohio (Barnes & Noble Library of Essential Reading)

By Sherwood Anderson and Ted Olson

Winesburg, Ohio is one of the most influential twentieth-century works of fiction by an American author. Most of the major American fiction writers who emerged in the 1920s and 1930s—including Nobel Prize for Literature recipients William Faulkner, Ernest Hemingway, and John Steinbeck—confessed publicly that Sherwood Anderson and Winesburg, Ohio had inspired their own work. Published in 1919 on the vanguard of the Modernist movement in American literature, Anderson’s book is an innovative cycle of interconnected short stories that together form a complex larger work; hence, Winesburg, Ohio is generally referred to as a novel rather than as a short-story collection.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Barnes & Noble
• Release date: Apr 19, 2011
• ISBN: 9781411438262

Sherwood Anderson

Sherwood Anderson was born in Camden, Ohio. Following a brief stint in the Spanish American War, he started a family and founded a business -- both of which he abruptly abandoned at the age of 36 to pursue his life-long dream of writing. His simple and direct writing style, with which he portrayed important moments in the lives of his characters, influenced both Ernest Hemingway and William Faulkner. His other notable works include Triumph of the Egg; Horses and Men; and A Story Teller's Story.

Book preview

WINESBURG, OHIO

WINESBURG, OHIO

A Group of Tales of Ohio Small Town Life

SHERWOOD ANDERSON

Introduction by Ted Olson

Introduction and Suggested Reading

© 2010 by Barnes & Noble, Inc.

This 2011 edition published by Barnes & Noble, Inc.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher.

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ISBN: 978-1-4114-3826-2

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

THE BOOK OF THE GROTESQUE

HANDS

PAPER PILLS

MOTHER

THE PHILOSOPHER

NOBODY KNOWS

GODLINESS, A TALE IN FOUR PARTS

I—CONCERNING JESSE BENTLEY

II—ALSO CONCERNING JESSE BENTLEY

III SURRENDER

IV TERROR

A MAN OF IDEAS

ADVENTURE

RESPECTABILITY

THE THINKER

TANDY

THE STRENGTH OF GOD

THE TEACHER

LONELINESS

AN AWAKENING

QUEER

THE UNTOLD LIE

DRINK

DEATH

SOPHISTICATION

DEPARTURE

ENDNOTES

SUGGESTED READING

INTRODUCTION

WINESBURG, OHIO IS ONE OF THE MOST INFLUENTIAL TWENTIETH-CENTURY works of fiction by an American author. Most of the major American fiction writers who emerged in the 1920s and 1930s—including Nobel Prize for Literature recipients William Faulkner, Ernest Hemingway, and John Steinbeck—confessed publicly that Sherwood Anderson and Winesburg, Ohio had inspired their own work. Published in 1919 on the vanguard of the Modernist movement in American literature, Anderson’s book is an innovative cycle of interconnected short-stories that together form a complex larger work; hence, Winesburg, Ohio is generally referred to as a novel rather than as a short-story collection.

Depicting the epiphanies of citizens residing in a vividly imagined American town at the dawn of the twentieth century, Winesburg, Ohio unsentimentally yet empathetically portrays small-town Midwesterners, their way of life, and their values (often conflicted between conservative social propriety and modern notions of individual freedom). The novel ignores the superficial interactions between Winesburg’s citizens and instead focuses on their deeper struggles—their inner conflicts as well as their often strained negotiations with others within their community. At first, Anderson’s prose appears to be direct and luminously simple. Closer inspection reveals, though, that Anderson artfully constructed the twenty-five fictional sketches to be interrelated yet freestanding. A master storyteller, he approximates American vernacular with spare, rhythmic language, as he tells complex stories. Readers of this book will find that the novel remains deeply relevant because it explores the myriad struggles that individuals confront in modern-day society. Winesburg, Ohio illustrates the dangers of suppressing one’s emotions in an effort to conform to mainstream social values.

Born September 13, 1876, in Camden, Ohio, to Irwin McLain Anderson and Emma Smith Anderson, Sherwood Anderson grew up in Clyde, Ohio, in the northern part of the state. Clyde was Anderson’s model for the fictional community of Winesburg, Ohio, and not the actual unincorporated community known as Winesburg, which is situated in east-central Ohio. Anderson, nicknamed Jobby because of his youthful enthusiasm for doing odd jobs, assisted in his father’s harness shop and, intermittently, attended the local public school. After short stints as a laborer in a Chicago warehouse and as a soldier during the Spanish-American War, Anderson attended Wittenberg Academy in Springfield, Ohio, concluding his final year of high school in June 1900 at the age of twenty-three. Despite receiving excellent grades that year, he did not attend college but opted to return to Chicago to work as an advertising copywriter. In 1903, Anderson made his first foray into publishing when he wrote the first of numerous articles he would submit to Agricultural Advertising, a trade periodical.

In 1904, he married Cornelia Lane, a well-educated woman from a middle-class background; the couple went on to have three children. Anderson briefly managed a mail-order company in Cleveland, Ohio, then moved with his family to Elyria, Ohio, where for five years he headed Anderson Manufacturing Company, a paint distribution company. Spending his spare time writing, he suffered a nervous breakdown in November 1912, at which time he abandoned his business and left Elyria for Chicago; there, resuming his former job in advertising, he devoted himself to learning the craft of fiction writing.

After he became a well-known and much-discussed writer, Anderson encouraged the proliferation of the notion that he had self-consciously staged his nervous breakdown in order to convince others he was mentally unstable so that he could escape the confines of his life as businessman, husband, and father. Considering the evidence, Anderson’s nervous breakdown was likely not intentionally enacted but instead was the outcome of his inability to handle the many roles expected of him at the time.

In Chicago, Anderson’s relationship with Cornelia became strained as he associated primarily with that city’s artistic community. He soon met visual artist Tennessee Mitchell, whom he married in 1916 after divorcing Cornelia (this second marriage would end in divorce in 1924). During this period, Anderson read the books that would influence his own writing style: George Borrow’s novels Lavengro (1851) and The Romany Rye (1857), Ivan Turgenev’s A Sportsman’s Sketches (1852), Mark Twain’s novel The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884), and Edgar Lee Master’s poetry collection Spoon River Anthology (1915). Borrow’s influence was less literary than inspirational, as the Victorian-era English author symbolized to Anderson the power of the writing life in a conformist society. Turgenev, one of the leading Russian novelists of the nineteenth century, wrote the classic novel Fathers and Sons, but it was his lesser-known fictional work A Sportsman’s Sketches that likely served as a stylistic model for Winesburg, Ohio—both works are episodic, strongly lyrical, and structured to conclude with understated irony. From Twain, Anderson learned to employ a vernacular, distinctively American language. While the author of Winesburg, Ohio at times refused to admit publicly that he had read Spoon River Anthology, substantial evidence suggests that he did, and it is likely that Masters’ book provided Anderson a template for writing a text that explored numerous related narratives as opposed to a single, unified narrative.

Anderson’s first published work of fiction, a story called The Rabbit-Pen, appeared in Harper’s in June 1914, though it dates from 1912, during his final months in Elyria. His first two published books were the novels Windy McPherson’s Son and Marching Men, published in 1916 and 1917, respectively, by the John Lane Company; they were likewise written in Elyria. (There, he also produced two never-published novels: Mary Cochran and Talbot Whittingham.) While receiving some positive reviews in national periodicals, Windy McPherson’s Son and Marching Men were artistically uneven and commercially unsuccessful. Expected to publish one additional title for the John Lane Company to fulfill his contract, Anderson selected a manuscript of poetry, Mid-American Chants (1918). While his third book failed to garner serious responses from reviewers and critics, Anderson’s awkward effort at composing poetry ultimately had the effect of loosening up his prose style, yielding the more rhythmic, more confident approach to phrasing that characterized his writing style in Winesburg, Ohio.

In late 1915 and early 1916, Anderson wrote many of the stories later incorporated into Winesburg, Ohio, most of which were loosely based on his experiences growing up in Clyde, Ohio. While the book was first published in May 1919 by B. W. Huebsch, Inc., several of the stories initially appeared in such nationally distributed literary periodicals as the Little Review, Masses, and Seven Arts. It is significant that several of the stories later incorporated into Winesburg, Ohio were initially published separately, as it underscores the fact that Anderson’s best-known book defies easy categorization in terms of form. While several of the stories in Winesburg, Ohio make powerful aesthetic statements if read separately, all of the stories are most effective when interpreted in the context of the larger work.

A marked artistic improvement over Windy McPherson’s Son, Marching Men, and Mid-American Chants, Winesburg, Ohio was not only Anderson’s literary breakthrough but it also launched his career as an author, ultimately allowing him to leave the advertising business. Subsequent books by Anderson—especially his novel Poor White (1920) and his short story collections The Triumph of the Egg (1921) and Horses and Men (1923)—were lauded by fellow writers and critics as further displays of Anderson’s skill in the composition of a new type of American fiction. Through the mid-1920s, Anderson was widely considered a major American author, as his short stories and nonfiction pieces appeared in leading U.S.-based periodicals, and he could claim a readership in Great Britain. Although his books were selling only nominally in the U.S., readers internationally were developing an interest in Anderson, and his books were soon translated into French, German, Russian, and Swedish. Just when his work was reaching larger audiences, however, Anderson was beginning to show signs of creative exhaustion. Two of his more recent books—the novel Many Marriages (1923) and memoir A Story Teller’s Story (1924)—attempted to expand his artistic range in terms of style and theme, but they were widely viewed as unsuccessful.

The general critical assessment of Anderson’s career is that his literary work declined markedly after 1925 when he left B. W. Huebsch, Inc., to sign a more lucrative, long-term book contract with the publisher Boni and Liveright. Anderson’s subsequent books were increasingly ignored by reviewers and spurned by other writers; for example, Anderson’s Dark Laughter (Boni and Liveright, 1925) may have been the best-selling book of his career, but that novel was viciously parodied in Hemingway’s 1926 novel The Torrents of Spring.

After Winesburg, Ohio had established his literary reputation, Anderson visited Paris and lived in Alabama, Chicago, Nevada, and New Orleans, and he also lectured extensively across the United States. That period of restlessness ended when he settled into Ripshin, the house he and his third wife, Elizabeth Prall (whom he married in 1924), had built in Virginia’s Blue Ridge Mountains. Anderson purchased and managed two Marion, Virginia-based newspapers, and also wrote occasional short stories and novels set in his adopted Appalachian home. Upon his divorce from Prall in 1932, Anderson married Eleanor Copenhaver, a native of Marion, who was a social worker then living in New York City. Influenced by Copenhaver’s social concerns, Anderson’s writings during the early years of the Great Depression attempted to draw attention to the plight of economically distressed Americans. Anderson’s final years—which coincided with the Great Depression—were comparatively calm, in part because of the contentedness of his fourth marriage, and in part because his creative decline was now largely overlooked and he was generally considered an elder statesman of American letters. Anderson, having just embarked on a good-will trip to South America, died on March 8, 1941, in Colon, Panama; he was buried in Marion, Virginia’s Round Hill cemetery.

A template for the sketches Anderson later incorporated into Winesburg, Ohio is the often-anthologized story Hands. Written by Anderson during fall 1915, Hands concerns Wing Biddlebaum, an old man residing in a small Ohio town who when working as a schoolteacher in Pennsylvania was accused of improperly touching boys; the accusation originated from a half-witted boy who became enamored of the young master. Possessing considerable symbolic importance to the larger narrative, Biddlebaum’s hands in Anderson’s portrayal are presented as a character separate from the human being to whom they belong. Upon realizing the power of this story, Anderson felt compelled to write additional fictional sketches exploring conflicts between the inner impulses and the societal roles of other small-town citizens. Many of the characters in Winesburg, Ohio are unable to resolve such conflicts in their lives, and, in Anderson’s view, they become grotesques. To make his point emphatic, Anderson opens Winesburg, Ohio with the story The Book of the Grotesque, which concerns an unpublished book manuscript of that same title written by an old man about the people he has known. Reflecting Anderson’s thematic motivation for writing Winesburg, Ohio, that story posits that All of the men and women the writer [i.e., the old man] had ever known had become grotesques. Accordingly, the town of Winesburg, Ohio, is home to a number of memorable grotesques including, in the story Adventure, Alice Hindman, a woman in her late twenties who, lovelorn for a long-lost boyfriend, experiences sexual excitement and then shame after running naked outside her house on a rainy night; in The Strength of God, the Reverend Curtis Hartman, a Presbyterian minister who succumbs to his lust when he spies from the window in his church’s bell tower a woman lying in her bed in an adjacent house; and in The Untold Lie, Ray Pearson, a middle-aged, unhappily married farm worker who yearns to advise a younger man not to get married but who decides against it since Whatever I told him would have been a lie. What is the common link between all the grotesques in Winesburg? They have all been deprived of love, and in trying to survive in their repressed community they have suppressed much of their natural human feeling. In fact, only one character in the novel avoids becoming a grotesque: the central consciousness of Winesburg, Ohio, George Willard, the young reporter for the town newspaper who interacts with many other Winesburg citizens in approximately half the stories in the novel and who ultimately avoids their fate by leaving his hometown for the city.

Upon its publication in 1919, Anderson’s book proved controversial among some readers for its unflattering representation of small-town life and for its frank treatment of human sexuality. Critical response to Winesburg, Ohio, nonetheless, was mostly positive; of the more than twenty reviews that appeared in major American periodicals shortly after the book’s May 1919 publication, only four were negative. One of the latter reviews, written by an anonymous critic and printed in the New York Sun, referred to Winesburg, Ohio as a disgusting imitation of Edgar Lee Master’s poetry collection Spoon River Anthology. In a more sympathetic review published in the Chicago Tribune, critic Burton Rascoe not only contended that Winesburg, Ohio was a significantly better effort than Spoon River Anthology, but also asserted that the former book’s literary accomplishment resulted from the fact that Anderson, one of the most personal and subjective of writers, has in these stories achieved a fine effect of impersonality.¹ Without directly saying so, Rascoe had observed that Winesburg, Ohio was the first American prose work to successfully incorporate the Modernist aesthetic of minimalism—of suggesting rather than overtly depicting the emotional meanings of his stories. In essence, Anderson’s approach was the prose equivalent to Imagism, the avant garde movement in English-language poetry (begun several years earlier by such poets as Ezra Pound and H. D. [Hilda Doolittle]) that championed simplicity, freedom of subject matter, vernacular speech, and non-traditional poetic forms.

H. L. Mencken’s review of Winesburg, Ohio, more than any other contemporary critique of the book, helped establish Anderson’s reputation among the literati across the U.S. One of the leading American critics of the first third of the twentieth century, Mencken in Smart Set maintained that Anderson’s book was not only vastly better than Spoon River Anthology but was also a marked improvement over Anderson’s earlier books:

The national vice of ethical purpose corrupted [Anderson’s earlier works]. . . . Now, in Winesburg, Ohio, he throws off that handicap. What remains is pure representation—and it is representation so vivid, so full of insight, so shiningly life-like and glowing, that the book is lifted into a category all its own. Nothing quite like it has ever been done in America.²

Critical accolades did not translate to large-scale initial sales (a total of 3,068 copies of Winesburg, Ohio sold during the first two years after its publication). Reissued in 1922 as part of the popular Modern Library series, Winesburg, Ohio experienced increased sales, and it was soon widely viewed as a classic American novel. Even as Anderson’s overall literary reputation waned after 1925, Winesburg, Ohio remained solidly in the American literary canon. The book’s canonization, at least in part, was due to the fact that other influential writers and critics continued to praise Winesburg, Ohio long after Anderson’s death. In a 1953 reminiscence published in the Atlantic, William Faulkner recalled the last time he saw Anderson, at a late-1930s literary gathering in New York City: "I remembered Winesburg, Ohio and The Triumph of the Egg and some of the pieces in Horses and Men, and I knew that I had seen, was looking at, a giant in an earth populated to a great—too great—extent by pygmies, even if he did make but the two or perhaps three gestures commensurate with gianthood."³ Novelist John Updike, in a 1984 Harper’s article lauding Anderson’s major work, called Winesburg, Ohio a democratic plea for the failed, the neglected, and the stuck.⁴ In 1960, influential critic Malcolm Cowley, exhibiting a balanced perspective possible from decades of reflection upon the full sweep of American literary history, observed:

Anderson made a great noise when he published Winesburg, Ohio in 1919. The older critics scolded him, the younger ones praised him, as a man of the changing hour, yet he managed in that early work and others to be relatively timeless. . . .⁵

Winesburg, Ohio is timeless because it portrays a human community from a profoundly universal perspective. Although set in a Midwestern town at the dawn of the twentieth century, the novel remains relevant in the early twenty-first century because the world is still populated with grotesques—people whose lives have become distorted because they have been founded upon unattainable, often inhumane absolutes (truths, as Anderson called them). This, the overarching philosophical position within Winesburg, Ohio, was memorably articulated in the book’s opening story, by the old man in The Book of the Grotesque:

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.

If in writing Winesburg, Ohio Anderson had been solely interested in confronting the grotesque nature of people living in an insular small-town community, the novel would most likely have been crafted as a satire. Yet, Winesburg, Ohio is anything but satirical, and it is perhaps instructive to compare that novel with a bestselling novel by Sinclair Lewis, Anderson’s contemporary and a Nobel Prize for Literature recipient. Lewis’ Main Street (1920) was principally a satire of small town Midwestern values, whereas Winesburg, Ohio—though conscious that the value system of early twentieth-century small-town America was corrupted by hypocrisy and emotional suppression—does not seek to directly castigate that value system. Anderson is much more interested in understanding the complexity of the human behavior that corrupts a community’s value system. Whereas Main Street is a brilliant satire of a world no longer in existence, Winesburg, Ohio is unconcerned with ephemeral social commentary; instead, the latter novel explores universal human concerns.

Winesburg, Ohio, then, is ultimately not about the fictional town of Winesburg, Ohio, or the actual town of Clyde, Ohio; the novel is concerned with the people of any community in any place at any time. In this sense, Winesburg, Ohio, is your community, and the town’s characters are, very possibly, your neighbors; and Anderson’s Winesburg, Ohio may help you to better understand those neighbors, to more fully empathize with their hopes and their fears.

Ted Olson teaches at East Tennessee State University and is the author of Breathing in Darkness: Poems (Wind Publications, 2006) and Blue Ridge Folklife (University Press of Mississippi, 1998) as well as the editor of several volumes of CrossRoads: A Southern Culture Annual (Mercer University Press, 2004–2009) and two scholarly books on author James Still.

THE BOOK OF THE GROTESQUE

THE WRITER, AN OLD MAN WITH A WHITE MUSTACHE, HAD SOME difficulty in getting into bed. The windows of the house in which he lived were high and he wanted to look at the trees when he awoke in the morning. A carpenter came to fix the bed so that it would be on a level with the window.

Quite a fuss was made about the matter. The carpenter, who had been a soldier in the Civil War, came into the writer’s room and sat down to talk of building a platform for the purpose of raising the bed. The writer had cigars lying about and the carpenter smoked.

For a time the two men talked of the raising of the bed and then they talked of other things. The soldier got on the subject of the war. The writer, in fact, led him to that subject. The carpenter had once been a prisoner in Andersonville prison and had lost a brother. The brother had died of starvation, and whenever the carpenter got upon that subject he cried. He, like the old writer, had a white mustache, and when he cried he puckered up his lips and the mustache bobbed up and down. The weeping old man with the cigar in his mouth was ludicrous. The plan the writer had for the raising of his bed was forgotten and later the carpenter did it in his own way and the writer, who was past sixty, had to help himself with a chair when he went to bed at night.

In his bed the writer rolled over on his side and lay quite still. For years he had been beset with notions concerning his heart. He was a hard smoker and his heart fluttered. The idea had got into his mind that he would some time die unexpectedly and always when he got into bed he thought of that. It did not alarm him. The effect in fact was quite a special thing and not easily explained. It made him more alive, there in bed, than at any other time. Perfectly still he lay and his body was old and not of much use anymore, but something inside him was altogether young. He was like a pregnant woman, only that the thing inside him was not a baby but a youth. No, it wasn’t a youth, it was a woman, young, and wearing a coat of mail like a knight. It is absurd, you see, to try to tell what was inside the old writer as he lay on his high bed and listened to the fluttering

Reviews for Winesburg, Ohio (Barnes & Noble Library of Essential Reading)

[cbl_tn · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

The stories in Winesburg, Ohio, tell of a restless longing for something that the characters can’t quite define, but which may be community or connection. It has an aura of disappointment verging on despair. The town is filled with lonely souls who seem detached from everyone around them, except for young reporter George Willard, who seems to be the last remaining thread connecting the people of Winesburg. What will happen to the town when George Willard leaves?Anderson seems to capture the beginning of the Midwest’s shift from agricultural economy to manufacturing economy and the waning of its small towns. Everyone with Midwestern roots ought to read this book.

[thornton37814 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I know many of my friends did not enjoy this collection as much as I did. They called the interconnected stories "depressing." I chose to focus on the glimpses of small town life and the beautiful way the author painted the picture with adjectives and other words. George Willard appears in most of the stories, and we gain lots of insights into his character through the course of the book. I found a lot of truth in the small town life depiction even a century later. While I know many will disagree with my high rating, this one resonated with me.

[mstrust · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A collection of short stories about the citizens of the small town. What most of the stories have in common is that each character has something that makes them feel isolated and often desperately unhappy, whether this is a bad marriage or an unsuccessful career or unrequited love. While some readers have found this a depressing book, and it certainly isn't a happy one, there are little unexpected touches of humor, and a lot more sex than you'd expect in a book published in 1919.

[deltaqueen50 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Winesburg, Ohio by Sherwood Anderson was originally published in 1919 and consists of 22 short stories loosely connected by setting and characters. One character, George Willard, appears in all but 6 of the stories, and we read about his growing up years and his observations in the small fictional town of Winesburg, Ohio. From the moment of reading the first story, “The Book of the Grotesque” the author sets the stage for his series of less than flattering stories about the loneliness and isolation that can exist in a small town.Anderson is reputed to have strongly influenced authors such as Faulkner, Hemingway, Steinbeck and Wolfe by his modern style of writing. Nothing here is over-written or padded with flowery descriptions. The themes that Anderson explores are mostly connected with the inability to communicate and feeling that one doesn’t fit in. While on the surface life moves gently along in this small town, underneath there is darkness, jealousy, and unfulfilled yearnings.While I can certainly see the uniqueness of Winesburg, Ohio, I can’t say that I enjoyed the book as I found the various stories rather depressing. Personally I would have preferred some of the stories to express a little lightness or humor but these loosely connected stories about the troubled characters of Winesburg, Ohio is well worth the read.

[kristelh_15 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Series of interconnected stories set in the early part of the 20th century (preindustrial) small town, Ohio. Themes of loneliness and isolation even though these characters are living in a small town.The work is structured around the life of protagonist George Willard, from the time he was a child to his growing independence and ultimate abandonment of Winesburg as a young man.Because of its emphasis on the psychological insights of characters over plot, and plain spoken prose, Winesburg, Ohio is known as one of the earliest works of Modernist literature. It is also a forerunner of the novel made up of a bunch of interconnected short stories. The cycle consists of twenty-two short stories, one of which consists of four parts:[note 1]The Book of the GrotesqueHands—concerning Wing BiddlebaumPaper Pills—concerning Doctor ReefyMother—concerning Elizabeth WillardThe Philosopher—concerning Doctor ParcivalNobody Knows—concerning Louise TrunnionGodlinessParts I and II—concerning Jesse BentleySurrender (Part III)—concerning Louise BentleyTerror (Part IV)—concerning David HardyA Man of Ideas—concerning Joe WellingAdventure—concerning Alice HindmanRespectability—concerning Wash WilliamsThe Thinker—concerning Seth RichmondTandy—concerning Tandy HardThe Strength of God—concerning The Reverend Curtis HartmanThe Teacher—concerning Kate SwiftLoneliness—concerning Enoch RobinsonAn Awakening—concerning Belle Carpenter"Queer"—concerning Elmer CowleyThe Untold Lie—concerning Ray PearsonDrink—concerning Tom FosterDeath—concerning Doctor Reefy and Elizabeth WillardSophistication—concerning Helen WhiteDeparture—concerning George WillardWritten third person omniscient narrative.

[et.carole · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This book grew on me, a steady crescendo to a final couple of chapters that were beautifully crafted. A narration style that captures the animalistic frustration and self-contained disasters of growing up in a small town.

[zoes_human · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

As a steadfast lover of Death in the Woods and Other Stories, I was sorely disappointed with this. No doubt Anderson's talent for bringing the reader to the moment of epiphany with a character is present. Furthermore, his ability to evoke emotion with seemingly simple descriptions of the physical is also manifest, and the book will most certainly arch the eyebrows of those who think that we were oh-so-much more pure and civilized in the ever-golden past. However, despite all those redeeming characteristics, the work as a whole simply does not gel. The individual stories, more often than not, only make sense within the context of each other, so they fail to satisfy as complete tales. Yet they also lack the necessary cohesion to form a novel. So while the portrait of a town is indeed painted, it is not made of interest.Those who have only read this Sherwood Anderson title might consider giving Death in the Woods a try. I find it to be a vastly superior work.

[billycongo · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This is one I come back to every once in a while. I read it on the web the last time. It's more than just a portrait of a town. It's poetry. You come to feel like you know the people and their relationships. Life is hard in a small town, but there are perks.

[nakeeya-787167 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

The themes and concepts about humanity and society in these stories are fascinating and ageless.

[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.

[danielstj · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

An interesting book of short stories about small-town life in the rural area of Winesburg, Ohio. Very introspective, with much of the intrigue based within the minds of the characters. It was good, but personally there was nothing especially noteworthy about the book. Nonetheless, worth a read.

[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.

[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.

[shulera1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Anderson shows a deep understanding of people and what drives them. Each character is unique and filled out so completely that I feel as though I understand every one on a level much deeper than the length of their presence in the book would suggest. Their is also an attention to language in the prose that is lovely to read. It's not always poetic, but it is always beautiful, and it cuts through to the heart of whatever is being said in that moment.

My favorite quote from the books comes from the chapter titled "Death, concerning Doctor Reefy and Elizabeth Willard":
"Their bodies were different, as were also the color of their eyes, the length of their noses, and the circumstances of their existence, but something inside them meant the same thing, wanted the same release, would have left the same impression on the memory of an onlooker.

I would suggest this to anyone looking to feel less alone in the world, anyone who is confused and feels lost, or anyone who just needs something they can't explain.

[bookczuk · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

It's hard to find those kind of books where the action slowly meanders through the streets and fields, and doesn't come blasting out of weapons, or splash through in a rapid pace, firing wit at a whiplash pace. Winesburg, Ohio shapes the character of a small town through its characters, told slowly and gently through short story glimpses. I love a quiet paced book, with good writing, and even though this was really vignettes/short stories, it still had the gentle quality I long for in today's action packed world.Almost embarrassed to admit, I might not have picked this up were it not for the Stanford Book Salon. I read in someone's review that the author died from peritonitis after his intestine was perforated by a piece of a toothpick left in a martini olive. I just want to reassure everyone that knows about the czuk "Martini Night" ritual on (most) Fridays, that we do not toothpick our Castlevietro olives.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[kidsisyphus · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

THE BEST LAID PLANS

A man and woman meet at a bar. They begin to talk and learn that each has trouble staying in long-term relationships because their sexual tastes are considered deviant. Excited, they decide to return to the woman’s apartment. After a bit of heavy petting, the woman excuses herself to her bedroom, promising to return wearing something more appropriate. Minutes pass and the woman emerges from her room in dominatrix attire to find the man nude, spent and smoking a cigarette. Incensed, she admonishes him for finishing without her. He replies, "Lady, I don’t know what your idea of kinky is but I just fucked your cat and shit in your purse."

*****

Bakersfield, California

The man closes the book. He is at the car wash. His daughter dances in front of him, hopping from colored tile to colored tile in the run down, if air conditioned, interior of the building. He remembers the dreams of youth.

He remembers standing on a hillside in Corona Del Mar and looking down upon a gigantic house under construction as his father tells him he is meant to be a writer. A plywood turret of what is to become a huge personal library is framed by the hazy blue of the Pacific Ocean. The house will be that of Dean Koontz, who would go on to write the Afterword for the 2005 Signet Classic Edition of Winesburg, Ohio.

The man remembers boyhood, when the dream of being a writer was new. He is eleven. He and his parents have moved to the working class community of South Gate. For the first time, he applies himself to his schoolwork. He wins a city-wide essay contest and is rewarded with an article in the newspaper and a free lasagna dinner. His parents, whose marriage is failing, declare a temporary truce and whisper with one another about their destined-for-greatness son. Almost as impressively, a biologically precocious Latina he goes to school with named Claudia asks him to sleep with her. Blushing, he buries his head in his desk. He does not know what it is to sleep with a girl, he only knows that Catherine Bach of Dukes of Hazard fame has made him feel funny on several different occasions.

One day he is accosted at the school bus stop by another boy named Jose who is jealous of the attentions of the resident alpha-female. Jose is beaten bloody and chased home by the boy. The school bus shows up just as Jose's family spill from their house, whipped into a bloodlust that the most fervent mujahideen would envy. As the eldest brother approaches the departing bus, his eyes meet the boy's through a window. The boy answers his foreign slanders by sticking out his tongue.

The boy did not become a writer. The man he became thinks of all the things he has left unsaid and of all the feelings he has never shown. He is at the hardware store. He buys a drain snake because his Hispanic wife's hair has clogged the shower. He is mildly irked, but he loves her. He loves his daughter. He loves his life. Old friends are coming over today and he will laugh. He thinks that anyone who has read Winesburg, Ohio and given it less than four stars probably only has sex like Jesus is in the room working the lights.

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

I loved Infinite Jest, so naturally I loved Winesburg, Ohio. Sherwood Anderson is clearly David Foster Wallace’s doppelganger, displaced eighty years in the past, and two states away, but possessing a very similar melancholy sense of humanity, and even a kindred narrative style. The more I reflect on these two novels, the more parallels I find. One’s about drugs, entertainment, and sexual deviance in fast-paced urban Boston of the near future. The other’s about isolation, disappointment and sexual repression in the leisurely and pastoral Winesburg, Ohio of circa 1915. Their window dressings may differ, but their hearts are both pervaded with a deep sense of loneliness and disconnection. Unconvinced? Let me see if I can persuade you. While both novels tend to bounce around between multiple story threads, some of which connect up in unexpected ways, each has a frontrunner candidate for the title of protagonist. Hal Incandenza and George Willard are both intelligent young men, raised by distant mothers and successful yet frustrated fathers. Each stands on the doorstep of adulthood, raked with uncertainty about how to go forward, and scarred by upbringings which have left them poorly-equipped emotionally to form healthy adult relationships. Both books contain naïve young women betrayed by their lovers. Alice Hindman lies on her bed, staring nightly at the wall, waiting in despair for years, abandoned and forgotten by Ned Currie, who really only ever wanted to bed her and move on. Joelle Van Dyne struggles alone with addiction and the bittersweet memories of Orin Incandenza, who bedded her, disfigured her, and has definitely moved on. Infinite Jest has Don Gately- the perpetually despondent rehab counselor, whose past secrets (drug addiction and manslaughter) impede him from forming close interpersonal bonds. Winesburg, Ohio has Wing Biddlebaum, a perpetually introverted and fidgety recluse, whose past secrets (untrue accusations that he molested students as a teacher) impede him from forming close interpersonal bonds.Are these parallels too much of a stretch? Too reductive? Maybe these two novels aren’t as similar as all that.. but they do have common themes, and more than anything else, they both leave me with a sense that Nature and History have ganged up to play a cruel joke on many of us: making us on one hand genetically and socially conditioned to congregate in packs, but on the other hand shaping our society to be so rigidly hierarchical, so full of oppressive demands and expectations, and governed by such complex unspoken nuances of manner and custom that the whole process of socializing and getting along in large groups hardly feels achievable to many, and hardly seems worthwhile to many others. Most of us ultimately find a livable balance between inputs and outputs: a tolerable equilibrium between the mental and physical energy we must expend, and the social and material life that they buy for us. We don’t quite live out our wildest dreams, but we get enough of what we need to soldier on. Frequently this involves either accepting that we can’t "have it all", or redefining our idea of what "having it all" means.That’s great for those who make it, but society and economics are hard, and not everybody ends up with the "happy-enough" ending. Some people give up on the standard prizes… the proverbial 2.3 kids and the house in the suburbs with the white picket fence. They follow some other dream, God bless ‘em, and some find their own happiness. Hermits, starving artists, nuns, and other eccentrics essentially say "fuck it". They haven’t found conventional happiness, and they’re done trying. I’m not sure whether this represents victory or defeat. Regardless, this book isn’t about those people; this book is about the people who can’t seem to attain the orthodox version of happiness, but don’t have a better dream to replace it with. It’s people who can’t quite master the rules of social success, but can’t or won't reject mainstream civilization and its prizes either.They keep following society’s rules, knowing on some level that the game is rigged against them, but following nonetheless, because they lack either the courage or imagination to take another path. Consider Ray Pearson: miserably married for decades to the girl he got pregnant, in a fleeting moment of passion. Consider Elmer Cowly: painfully awkward and overly-self conscious, who leaves his family and a secure job to head off into the night, dreaming of a distant city, where he might "… get work in some shop and become friends with the other workmen and would be indistinguishable. Then he could talk and laugh. He would no longer be queer and would make friends. Life would begin to have warmth and meaning for him as it had others." God damn; is that the saddest thing you’ve ever heard? It’s not so different from the kids at the Enfield Tennis Academy in Infinite Jest, is it? Those kids leave their families to attend the prestigious academy, placing all their hopes for deferred happiness in the dream of a career in professional tennis,"…this game the players are all at E.T.A. to learn, this infinite system of decisions and angles and lines Mario’s brothers worked so brutishly hard to master: junior athletics is but one facet of the real gem: life’s endless war against the self you cannot live without." Fuck. Kill me now, if that’s what it’s all about.This isn’t a philosophy book, but it’s written by an observant and philosophical author. I don’t directly identify with any of the characters; I’m generally satisfied with my life, even if the review suggests otherwise. So why did these assorted vignettes about sad, disenfranchised characters touch me so? Probably because I think our social systems deserve to have their warts pointed out. They’ve evolved as a successful way to maintain order over time, which has some benefits for the community at large, but is frequently cruel and stifling to the individual, who may pay a high price for overrated things like acceptance and a sense of belonging. Sherwood Anderson seems to be telling the great abstract System that it’s not as fucking awesome as it thinks it is; and even though I’ve bought into it (or sold out to it) in many ways, there’s a part of me which still holds out against it, and which thinks the System deserves this tongue lashing, and probably a lot worse. -Thanks, David!

[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.

[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.

[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.