Essays discuss this novel's place in American literature, look at different interpretations, and analyze Steinbeck's style

Twentieth Century Interpretations of the Grapes of Wrath

Literature & Fiction

Davis, Robert Murray

United States

Prentice Hall Direct

Based on extensive interviews with authors, editors, and publishers in four countries, this book examines the economic, social, and literary effect of the end of communist domination and accompanying cultural subsidies in Slovenia, Slovakia, Hungary, and Romania. The end of the communist regime has made the position of writer less lucrative as well as less prestigious within these four countries. Likewise, the countries' respective publishing markets are struggling to adjust to a new economy in which books are more expensive, Western competition is ever-increasing, and distribution systems must be rebuilt. The author addresses each of these concerns as they affect the individual nations and Central Europe as a whole and includes extensive bibliographical citations for primary and secondary works referenced in each chapter.

The Literature of Post-Communist Slovenia, Slovakia, Hungary and Romania: A Study

History & Criticism

McFarland Company

Provides information on understanding and living with asthma, covering such topics as causes, symptoms, diet and lifestyle, and treatments.

American College of Physicians Home Medical Guide: Asthma

Horowitz, David A.

Goldmann, David R.

Health, Fitness & Dieting

DK Pub.

"went no very great distances toward fulfillment"

Brideshead Revisited: The Past Redeemed (Twayne's Masterwork Studies Series)

Twayne Pub

Brideshead Revisited: The Past Redeemed (Twayne's Masterwork Studies)

In Playing Cowboys, Robert Murray Davis examines the Western hero-a principal image of American manhood since publication of The Virginian-as portrayed by a variety of post-World War II novelists and filmmakers. Innovative artists have used the Western to discuss issues of ethics and aesthetics, but its greatest impact may have been on popular cultural values. Davis shows that the Western is not primarily about escape or violence, but, at its best, is about development. The would-be hero adopts the existing role only to find it inadequate, and, forced to "reimagine" himself, he defines the Western hero anew. At the core of this process is strength-not power over others, but courage to go beyond the established boundaries. Although women do appear in the Western (often as proponents of "civilization"), it is fundamentally a man's world, offering an important view of male identity.Focusing on The Virginian, chapter 1 explores the origin of the Western hero and the source of the genre's major plots and issues. Chapter 2 evaluates history, myth, and the relative reality of the two in the works of Oakley Hall. Citing the novels of Richard Brautigan, E.L. Doctorow, John Hawkes, and Michael Ondaatje, chapter 3 compares the Western and the gothic novel, focusing on the concept of space. These works portray the West as a wasteland devoid of any vitality, but chapter 4 takes up science fiction Westerns (including works by John Jakes, John Boyd, and Robert Sheckley) that use the Western frontier to ironic and liberating effect. Chapter 5, on the motion picture Blazing Saddles and the postmodern Western novels of Ishmael Reed and Alvin Greenberg, examines the role playing by which identity is created. And in his Preface, Introduction, and Epilogue, Davis frames these discussions with personal observations on the West and its relation to the American masculine mystique.For those interested in Western movies or novels, popular culture, gender studies, or literary criticism, Playing Cowboys is a unique and indispensable guide to the territory from here to the sunset.

Playing Cowboys: Low Culture and High Art in the Western

University of Oklahoma Press

In Playing Cowboys, Robert Murray Davis examines the Western hero-a principal image of American manhood since publication of The Virginian-as portrayed by a variety of post-World War II novelists and filmmakers. Innovative artists have used the Western to discuss issues of ethics and aesthetics, but its greatest impact may have been on popular cultural values. Davis shows that the Western is not primarily about escape or violence, but, at its best, is about development. The would-be hero adopts the existing role only to find it inadequate, and, forced to "reimagine" himself, he defines the Western hero anew. At the core of this process is strength-not power over others, but courage to go beyond the established boundaries. Although women do appear in the Western (often as proponents of "civilization"), it is fundamentally a man's world, offering an important view of male identity. Focusing on The Virginian, chapter 1 explores the origin of the Western hero and the source of the genre's major plots and issues. Chapter 2 evaluates history, myth, and the relative reality of the two in the works of Oakley Hall. Citing the novels of Richard Brautigan, E.L. Doctorow, John Hawkes, and Michael Ondaatje, chapter 3 compares the Western and the gothic novel, focusing on the concept of space. These works portray the West as a wasteland devoid of any vitality, but chapter 4 takes up science fiction Westerns (including works by John Jakes, John Boyd, and Robert Sheckley) that use the Western frontier to ironic and liberating effect. Chapter 5, on the motion picture Blazing Saddles and the postmodern Western novels of Ishmael Reed and Alvin Greenberg, examines the role playing by which identity is created. And in his Preface, Introduction, and Epilogue, Davis frames these discussions with personal observations on the West and its relation to the American masculine mystique. For those interested in Western movies or novels, popular culture, gender studies, or literary criticism, Playing Cowboys is a unique and indispensable guide to the territory from here to the sunset.

Humor & Entertainment

Movies

Mapping out a cosmos bounded by heaven, hell, Kansas City, and St. Louis, Robert Murray Davis looks back on his life in central Missouri in the 1940s and 1950s. As he recalls his youth and early adulthood in the town of Boonville, Davis wryly contemplates some of the sharp dichotomies by which his world was ordered: grown-ups and kids, blacks and whites, Protestants and Catholics, boys and girls, town and country, work and play, art and life.
Davis sees now that as he grew up in white, postwar mid-America, he seldom pondered the limitations that its "either/or" perspective on life imposed. Sometimes, however, intimations about the world's complexity were too strong for him to ignore. The presence of an occasional black teammate in baseball jarred him into the realization that he knew nothing about some segments of Boonville society. His high school principal's lenient response to a teacher's demand for Davis's expulsion bared a weakness in the united front of adult authority over children. The boldness of the first girl in his class to wear makeup repelled and attracted him--and confused him about sex even more than did his Catholic education.
Many of Davis's recollections involve his family and read like captions to snapshots in a family album. However different they were from each other, the two family branches were unified by their mutual regard for uniqueness of character (Davis says his mother felt that one's real duty was not to be right but to be interesting). Anything said or done by a family member had story potential, and Davis learned at an early age that transgressions were judged less harshly if their retelling enhanced an already varied and idiosyncratic family saga.
Amid droll profiles of relatives like his guntoting, nearsighted grandfather, Davis also passes along such gems of practical information as the best way to kill a chicken and how to judge character by the car a person drives. Combining memoir with social history and inspired storytelling, Mid-Lands is a reflective and entertaining evocation of regional American life.

Mid-Lands: A Family Album

History

Americas

Univ of Georgia Pr

The first comprehensive list of materials by and about Evelyn Waugh. The works by Waugh include books and monographs, contributions to books and periodicals, interviews, broadcasts, remarks, debates, drawings, bookplates and dust-jacket designs, editor and staff member, and miscellaneous; works about Waugh lists bibliographies, books and monographs, dissertations, general commentary, and articles on and reviews of individual works. Index. iv , iv, 211+ 1 pages. cloth. 8vo..

Evelyn Waugh: A Checklist of Primary and Secondary Material

Whitston Pub Co Inc

In eighteenth-century England, some wealthy people built ruins on their estates, hired hermits to inhabit them, and took guests to view the picturesque results. While no one hires ornamental hermits anymore, society as a whole supports people like Thoreau or Edward Abbey who step aside to comment on ordinary life as critics or would-be prophets yet who still get to head into town for a slice of Mrs. Emerson’s pie or a shot or three at a Moab saloon—or, as in the case of Bob Davis, drive over the mountain for a Jemez Grande Burger and an internet link. Davis had the chance to look back at America from Communist Hungary, and what he saw changed his view of himself and his country. He discovered that he agreed less with Thoreau and Abbey, and even less with European critics, and more with Chuck Berry—glad, mostly, to be living in the USA as he crossed and recrossed it, heading west from his boyhood home in Missouri to California and many points between.In his essays, he celebrates the achievements of the Navajo Nation’s radio station; of the young mayor of Blackwater, Missouri, who helped to revive the town; and of Moab, Utah, which survived boom and bust and even Abbey to reinvent itself.Some attempts to create or re-create he views more wryly: the Texas Panhandle’s two vertical monuments; Forest Lawn and the Gene Autry Museum, trying to deny death and reality; the Grapes of Wrath Festival in Sallisaw, Oklahoma. But even events and artifacts verging on the ludicrous can be appreciated for the energy put into them.And around and between all of them is the American West, often apparently dead and empty yet still able to evoke complex emotions and to jar the traveler out of self-absorption, self-pity, self-regard.Fans and writers of Western literature will enjoy the musings of this former president of the Western Literature Association. Anyone who enjoys language will delight in Robert Murray Davis’s use of it.

The Ornamental Hermit: People and Places of the New West

Texas Tech University Press

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Davis, Robert Murray. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Davis, Robert Murray

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Davis, Robert Murray. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Twentieth Century Interpretations of the Grapes of Wrath

The Literature of Post-Communist Slovenia, Slovakia, Hungary and Romania: A Study

American College of Physicians Home Medical Guide: Asthma

Brideshead Revisited: The Past Redeemed (Twayne's Masterwork Studies Series)

Brideshead Revisited: The Past Redeemed (Twayne's Masterwork Studies)

Playing Cowboys: Low Culture and High Art in the Western

Playing Cowboys: Low Culture and High Art in the Western

Mid-Lands: A Family Album

Evelyn Waugh: A Checklist of Primary and Secondary Material

The Ornamental Hermit: People and Places of the New West