dagblog - Comments for "Joe Bageant, 1946-2011"

Never heard of him, but that

acanuck — Tue, 29 Mar 2011 07:22:32 +0000

Never heard of him, but that obit makes me like him. I'll never get through my current backlog of unread books, but maybe I'll pick up Deer Hunting With Jesus for a deer-hunting friend.

Good stuff at that link:Most

Donal — Mon, 28 Mar 2011 12:08:23 +0000

In reply to I read Deer Hunting and

Good stuff at that link:

Most who have heard of him have done so through his books, Deer Hunting with Jesus, and Rainbow Pie. Deer Hunting is a curious work, a sleeper, that you can read the first time without noticing that it deserves a high place in American letters. He tells of that huge class of unnoticed people in America, the white underclass of a thousand small towns and countryscapes, of Winchester, Virginia where he lived and by implication to Waldorf, Maryland and King George, Virginia and, well, all over the Carolinas and the Cumberland Plateau and…everywhere. America thinks it is a middle-class country. It isn’t. Joe knew.

You wouldn’t see it at first as sociology. Sociology is supposed to be written in drab, repetitive, half-literate, numbingly narcotic prose that would make an anvil beg for mercy. Joe was more Twain. Never eat cocktail weenies out of the urinal, he said, no matter how high the betting gets, while talking of people working whole lives in jobs without benefits or retirement and generally getting screwed. He had no patience for smug commentators in Washington who talked at half a million bucks a year of how America was a land of opportunity if only you worked hard. It isn’t. He knew it. So did I, having grown up in rural King George Country, Virginia, where the same people lived. He was exactly right.

I read Deer Hunting and

A Guy Called LULU — Mon, 28 Mar 2011 03:01:28 +0000

In reply to Joe Bageant, 1946-2011

I read Deer Hunting and recognized a lot of the people Joe wrote about. I have linked to Fred Reed a couple times, once just the other day. Today he has a new post out about his friend Joe Bageant.

http://www.fredoneverything.net/BageantMovesOn.shtml

Oh, that's sad. He was

Ramona — Mon, 28 Mar 2011 00:58:55 +0000

In reply to Joe Bageant, 1946-2011

Oh, that's sad. He was a really good writer. So very funny but so relevant. I'm glad you posted this here, Donal. RIP, Joe. Your work lives on.

If you don't know Joe, here he is: http://americannewsproject.com/videos/longview-deer-hunting-jesus