The Drama of Ordinary Life
The day of 25 April 2010 came and went for most people as any other Sunday comes and goes. In London, at Charing Cross Hospital, an eighty-two year-old author from Nottingham passed away without a great deal of uproar. To be fair, 82 is a fine old age and though he was a prolific writer until his death, his most famous works had been written in 1958 and 1959 - almost exactly 50 years prior.
Alan Sillitoe, often referred to alongside playwright John Osborne and the "Angry Young Men" or the "Kitchen Sink Dramatists," had a real impact on my life. Strange, I know, for an author who spoke of the working class travails of post-war Nottingham to affect a kid in a small industrial town in the Southeastern United States of the 80's and 90's. I read Saturday Night and Sunday Morning with impressed enthusiasm. I read The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Runner with zeal and yes - anti-establishment anger. To me, these were works without the pretensions of Faulkner, or the weight of Thomas Wolfe. It did not offer the heavy-handed preaching of CS Lewis. Frankly, it was vastly different than anything I'd read for school and it seemed real to this poor southern kid.
Sillitoe once stated in his very stark style, "I found it impossible to work in a factory without believing that socialism was the ultimate solution for all life on this planet."
For once in my life I can be less verbose - I agree completely, but I would remove the prepositional phrase, "in a factory."
I find it impossible to work without believing that socialism is the ultimate solution for all life on this planet.
Here's to remaining angry young men, even as we grow older!
Alan Sillitoe, often referred to alongside playwright John Osborne and the "Angry Young Men" or the "Kitchen Sink Dramatists," had a real impact on my life. Strange, I know, for an author who spoke of the working class travails of post-war Nottingham to affect a kid in a small industrial town in the Southeastern United States of the 80's and 90's. I read Saturday Night and Sunday Morning with impressed enthusiasm. I read The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Runner with zeal and yes - anti-establishment anger. To me, these were works without the pretensions of Faulkner, or the weight of Thomas Wolfe. It did not offer the heavy-handed preaching of CS Lewis. Frankly, it was vastly different than anything I'd read for school and it seemed real to this poor southern kid.
Sillitoe once stated in his very stark style, "I found it impossible to work in a factory without believing that socialism was the ultimate solution for all life on this planet."
For once in my life I can be less verbose - I agree completely, but I would remove the prepositional phrase, "in a factory."
I find it impossible to work without believing that socialism is the ultimate solution for all life on this planet.
Here's to remaining angry young men, even as we grow older!