James Agee and the Modern Chronicle
Published in
1 min readOct 29, 2018
James Agee’s Let Us Now Praise Famous Men is to the modern chronicle what James Joyce’s Ulysses is to the modern novel. Few critics have noted how influential Agee was as a stylist. How clearly and completely many passages in the Agee book anticipated by about 20 years Jack Kerouac’s more famous style is, by itself, worthy of at least a lengthy essay. The old influence-anxiety may have led Kerouac to conceal or “forget” Agee’s impact.
Originally published at modernchronicle.blogspot.com on October 29, 2018.
