The American Earthquake by Edmund Wilson


The American Earthquake
Title : The American Earthquake
Author :
Rating :
ISBN : -
Language : English
Format Type : Hardcover
Number of Pages : 586
Publication : First published January 1, 1958

During a twelve-month period in 1930 and 1931, Edmund Wilson wrote a series of lengthy articles which he then collected in a book called American Jitters: A Year of the Slump. The resulting chronicle was hailed by the New York Times as "the best reporting that the period of depression has brought forth in the United States," and forms the heart of the present volume. In prose that is by turns dramatic and naturalistic, inflammatory and evocative, satirical and droll, Wilson painted an unforgettable portrait of a time when "the whole structure of American society seemed actually to be going to pieces." The American Earthquake bookends this chronicle with a collection of Wilson's non-literary articles-including criticism, reportage, and some fiction-from the years of "The Follies," 1923-1928, and the dawn of the New Deal, 1932-1934. During this period, Wilson had grown from a little-known journalist to one of the most important American literary and social critics of the century. The American Earthquake amply conveys the astonishing breadth of Wilson's talent, provides an unparalleled vision of one of the most troubling periods in American history, and, perhaps inadvertently, offers a self-portrait comparable to The Education of Henry Adams.

The American Earthquake Reviews

  • Bruce

    It has been almost two weeks that I have been working on this review. Why is it all so difficult? It's hard to know the importance or impact of things that happened in the 20's or 1930's, now almost 90 years ago. I am so happy I read this book; this book is monumental. It has taken me so long because I have had to review all my highlighted areas, and I'm glad I did, because, after reviewing all this, I realized that my full comprehension of what Edmund Wilson was telling me was not the best it could have been.
    Edmund Wilson is brilliant. This book is not easy .Sentences one page long, each with so many ideas contained within that I had to reread the paragraph asking myself, " wait a minute. what did he just say"? Edmund Wilson, with a command of the English language which is unequalled, even by the very best. I didn't count all my highlighted vocabulary words that he uses all so easily, highlighted because I either didn't know them or was uncertain. There must have been at least 200, on this 570 page book.
    " The American Earthquake" is not a novel.There is no beginning of a story, or an end. It is a history book, but not as one normally finds. It is one man, a man about town, so smart, so insightful, with a wisdom equal to two or three people combined ( maybe more). It is a chronicle, a chronicle of those things that he found interesting. There is so much here; my apologies in advance for this discordant, unharmonious presentation.
    Part 1, entitled, "the Follies", 1923-8, and our man about town is pondering, evaluating, the vast majority, in New York City. The Ziegfeld Follies, Eddie Cantor, the Moscow Art Theatre. Night Clubs- The Triangle, Club Alabam. Off Broadway, " What Price Glory". George Gershwin- " That Gershwin has musical ambitions beyond his accustomed vein is proved by his ' Rhapsody in Blue'. Charlie Chaplin- "The Gold Rush", "Pay Day". The arts- Georgia O'Keefe, George Bellows. The Warner Theatre, with its apotheosis of John Barrymore kissing a girl in the clouds. " The ushers are dressed in high ruffled collars and long belt-skirted gowns designed to transport the visitor into the atmosphere of the 15th century". September 1926. Stieglitz, Stravinsky, they are all here.
    Part Two starts on page 167- "The American Earthquake". October 1930- October 1931. My father was 8 years old, the 8th of 11. Our man about town travels now- to New Orleans, " All god's Chillun". ( If you want to feel the ambiance of New Orleans, read the chapter" Return From Louisiana, the descriptiveness is majestic.) "Foster and Fish" , the entitled chapter, where William Foster, leader of the American Communists is facing Hamilton Fish, chairman of a House committee appointed to investigate Communism. Quite apposite,certainly in today's setting. Mr. Foster answers questions to Representatives Nelson, Bachman, and Eslick of Tennessee. Mr Foster in testimony- "One of the root causes of the present crisis of capitalism is to be found in the Versailles Treaty". The chimerical Henry Ford, and the chapter" Detroit Motors". " Frank Keeney's Coal Diggers", and his independent union, the coal miners of West Virginia paid in company "scrip", out of chicken feed, worth, on the average, about 60c on the dollar. " The Tennessee Agrarians. " " The Enchanted Forest" with a palette of New Mexico reminiscent of and equalled only by Willa Cather's " Death Comes For The Archbishop". Bellamy, New Mexico, a town not located by Google Maps. " ...there are today only 8 people left in a town that had once six hundred. During the nineties there was a gold boom in Bellamy, but apparently the mines didn't pay". Archbishop Lamy, Kit Carson, the Hoover Dam, and its construction. All here.
    " The City of Our Lady - the Queen of Angels"- the city's business cathedrals, the Avocado Building, the Lubrication Building, the Citrus building, Syd Grauman's Babylonian Garage, c Purr-Pull and Violet Ray gasoline, insuring a maximum of road comfort. The Reverend Bob Shuler, originally from Virginia, Tennessee, and Texas, and then, Trinity Church in Los Angeles, and the populus of Los Angeles swelling, with the Midwestern exodus to the land of milk and honey. Iowa leads, with 400,000. The Pantages trial. The Coronado Beach Hotel, 1887- " the ultimate triumph of the dreams of the architecture of the '80s"
    The " American Earthquake" - strikes abound, the textile industry of Lawrence, Massachusetts, coal mines in West Virginia, AFof L. " in 1929, the average cost of living for a family of four was $1,
    594.95/year. Average earnings of a textile worker was $1013. "\
    Part Three- " Dawn of the New Deal" 1932-1934 The chapter- " Hull House in 1932", Kroptkin, Arnold Toynbee, Jane Addams- she travels to Moscow to meet Tolstoy. Chicago flophouses, 50,000 registered to live there between September 30, 1931, -September 30, 1932. The Oak Forest poorhouse, called, " the Graveyard", has people sleeping in the corridors. Poisonings as a result of drinking dilutions of wood alcohol " But most of the cases in the infirmaries- from exhaustion to bad kidneys and body sores- come down to the same basic disease: starvation". The Angelus Building. Private incinerators@ #5th and LaSalle, and people eating garbage, Saul Alinsky, John L. Lewis< Powers Hapgood, all here. " the prosperity of America has vanished; even the banks do not know where the money is...". FDR"s inaugural parade. The book concludes with the chapter" Postscript of 1957", a chapter that I would encourage everyone to read. A brilliant man ,reflecting on his own chronicle 30 years later.
    There is much to be learned here; it should be available for reference by any and all.

  • Dan Downing

    Edmund Wilson was born in 1895. He was born a critic and a writer. His literary criticism made his fame as he often wrote better than the best writers he covered. His depth of learning and his perception had no peer.
    I bought the present volume a deade after it was published. It has been patiently waiting on my shelf ever since. Unbeknownst to me most of the material here is not literary criticism; it is the fruit of the years he spent as a reporter, a potpourri of topics, from a report of a night on the town, to journies into the heartland to musings on Broadway plays to The Earthquake, a period of one year's events, October 1930 to October 1931. Unions, strikes, farm subsidies, The New Deal: on and on Wilson discovers America. Occasioally, he inserts a note written in 1957, when he put this volume together.
    Reading "The Amerian Earthquake" in 2021 renewed my admiration for the brilliance of Wilson's writing and awe at his perception. What he saw and understood in the period 1925 to 1934 is the history lesson America needs today. Here we have the writhings which cause some to choke at the phrase "Make America Great Again" alongside and integral with ideas that make others today cheer the urge to travel back to yesteryear. As usual, the past reveals itself to be nowhere near as wonderful as memory insists, and often worse than history concedes.
    Highly Recommended

  • Nate Hendrix

    This book was mentioned in another book I read, so I thought I'd try it. Edmund Wilson may be widely regarded as one of the most important literary critics of the 20th century, but I found myself halfway through the book having skipped more of the book than I read. It was written in the 20's and 30's, so his criticisms of Broadway shows and celebrities was beyond my understanding. I did enjoy the essays he wrote about events such as a murder trial or the circus. When I find myself skipping tens of pages at a time, it is time to give up.

  • Cool_guy

    An meandering collection of essays and observations from an era where it was in vogue for someone like Edmund Wilson, a well bred Yalie, to listen to the worker, actually listen. These essays are by no means free from judgement, shaped by his upper crust, progressive worldview; yet they still manage to capture the real voice of the working class. Our overlords have no interest in that sort of thing now, unless it's to confirm what they already believe