As others read us: American fiction abroad Thomas Wolfe, part one
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This is the fifth of a series of programs untitled as others read us American
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fiction abroad produced and recorded by the Literary Society of the
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University of Massachusetts under a grant from the Educational Television and Radio
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Center in cooperation with the National Association of educational broadcasters.
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The subject of this hour's discussion is the foreign reputation of Thomas Wolfe.
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The two critics who will discuss the impact abroad of Wolfe's novels are Mr.
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outof Klarman and Mr. Maxwell Geismar. Mr. Kleiman
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who was born in Austria has been professor of German literature at the University of
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Pennsylvania for many years and is now also in charge of the comparative literature
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courses there. He's author of articles in the field of 19th and
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20th century German literature and is the editor and literary executor of the great
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Austrian novelist poet and dramatist Francis variable. Mr
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guy's Maher a well-known critic and teacher has devoted much time to the
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study of American literature. Three volumes of his projected five
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volume history of American fiction have already been published. Writers in
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crisis. The last of the provincials and rebels and ancestors.
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These deal with the American novel from 1890 to 1940. Mr. Guy's
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Mar has also edited the Viking portable edition of the works of Thomas Wolfe.
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Moderator of the discussion will be Mr. Richard Sipe age of the University of Massachusetts and
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police department. Mr. SAVAGE Thank you.
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In discussing representative American authors whose works have made an impact upon Europe
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one would find it difficult to overlook the name of Thomas will the enthusiastic reception
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his works have had in Germany and to a lesser degree in England Poland a list kind of even
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countries is worthy of consideration. Whatever the foreign influence of American authors is
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debate debated. Thomas will warn a national North Carolina in
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1900 published his first novel Look Homeward Angel in 1929
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the same year that saw the publication of Ernest Hemingway's A Farewell to Arms and William
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Faulkner of the sound and the Fury. The general reception of well first novels by
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critics and publishers alike was enthusiastic and in 1930 the
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royalties from the novel were sufficient to prevent his resignation from the. Staff of New York
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University where he had been instructor in English for several years thereafter he
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devoted all his time to writing in 1935 appear the second
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major work of time on the river. However lesser works by him appeared
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before this. Among them was a collection of short stories untitled from death to
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morning. When Thomas Wolfe died in 1988 he left behind
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manuscripts which were published as two novels. The Web and the rock and you
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can't go home again. In 1941 his literary executor
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published the last of the posthumous five hymns. The hills beyond a collection of short
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hitter to one printed stories studies and friends. The
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central conflict in Will's four novels is the continual struggle of the young
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protagonist who is essentially the same in each of the novels to find release from the
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prison of loneliness in which he found himself locked by society and to quench the
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Follistim hunger to experience all of life. It was a hunger which drove him to want to read
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all the books in the Harvard library which sent him on wild odysseys of Europe in the south
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of the Pacific Coast and New England and of the great north west which made him
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proud in the night time the lonely asphalt labyrinth of cities seeking life
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everywhere in his attempt to know and feel all of life that he possibly could
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its depths and its heights. He strolled lowballed to probe and reveal the
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secret of the loneliness and fascination of America the
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struggles of Eugene Grant in the first two novels and of George Weber in the last two
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are in a real sense the struggles of will as an artist. Maxwell
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Perkins a great friend of Wolf an editor who gave him such valuable aid in preparing
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his manuscripts for publication wrote this of the novelist. He
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knew to the uttermost the meaning the literatures of other lambs and that they were not the
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literature of America. He knew that the light and color of America were different
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that the smells and sounds its people and all the structure and dimensions of our
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continent were unlike anything before it was was this he was
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struggling and it was that struggle alone that in a large sense governed
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all he did keeping this comment in mind we may say that will struggles to
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create in his novels a literature that is truly American and the impact these
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novels had in the European world of literature is the subject of our discussion
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today. So in order to begin the discussion we would like to ask Mr.
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Geissler if he would talk for a moment about the standing of Will snowballs here in
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America.
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Well I think you have outlined the general structure of
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Wolf's work. What is curious at the present time
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is that his reputation in the US is surprisingly low.
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That is for a major writer. I mean love among the
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fashionable critics today his critical reputation as
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not his real reputation. We are in a period of
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conservative thought or reaction shall we call it
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moderation. Let Richard too has moved away from the social
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cultural issues that created a time warp and that will deeply
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believed in realism. The tradition of social realism to
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which will belong to all his romantic individual as him is out of
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fashion at the moment. The critical emphasis today is on craft and
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technique. That well-plotted story the inevitable
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word. Technically too Wolf has been discounted or
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even worse ignored. It was a brave student I think who will do a
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doctoral thesis on Wolf today in the universities Yet
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the fact remains that Will is a solid and most valuable writer.
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Fiction has always had this kind of writing. He is basic in our
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tradition. His popular audience remains large and faithful
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to him. I think he is very good Wolf. I think he
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would have become a better writer.
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But not perhaps for some of the reasons that the
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European audiences have seen in him.
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Do you think the clips that you speak of is just temporary.
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It's always time. All right his reputation is up
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and down today. Somebody better say like
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William March who is ignored in his life time is coming up very
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strongly. A very good writer who was ignored well was a very good writer who is
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well received and very popular. Perhaps that
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element today.
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Don't you think that perhaps the greatest crime a contemporary author can commit is to die
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before his time and then he has to bide his time for several decades again until somebody digs
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a lot again and establishes every turn.
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Yes this whole matter of.
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Literary reputations is fluid
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and entertaining really because solid it is.
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I never lost. Really. And somebody like Wolf I assume that his books are
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selling. Just as much today perhaps as ever and that the readers who
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like him like him just as much and I know that if he is taught in the schools he
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always has a great impact on students.
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And he's made the paperback which is very important too I think.
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In reference to Wolf's reputation abroad since it was Germany which first
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gave the novels of Thomas Walcott foothold on the continent of Europe perhaps Mr.
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Carmen you can tell us one how the German reading public was first introduced to well
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I suppose speaking chronologically as Sinclair Lewis's acceptance speech when he
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received the Nobel Prize is the actual beginning of it was his introduction to you know that was in
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1930 of memory serves me right his very enterprising
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German publisher and still hopeful it picked up very soon after that
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the first novel was actually ready for publication. Early in 1932
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maybe 1931 Homewood angel did not appear until
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1930 to install Voigt has never been known to
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pick up an author and drop them again.
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One one reason why not important but one reason
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why.
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A vote spread in Germany itself as US is very consistent effort on the part of US
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publisher to keep them in front of the public all the time and to get everybody who is anybody to a
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human to say things about him.
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Where that works. What do you think introduced 20 other European countries by virtue
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of this popularity in Germany.
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I rather think so German literature was usually the entrance gate let's say
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to Scandinavia and to other countries to the east and I'm certain that the early
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translations into Danish and Norwegian followed very quickly upon the German
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translations that were translations made in Sweden but Sweden fencing thems as it were
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fencing itself as the Friends of the North didn't take too kindly.
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In contrast to to Denmark and Norway took kindly to a wall. He was very
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popular with us Labick countries with objects in the skulls and he spread way down to
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Balkan and I think that is probably largely due to the German reception because it
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certainly couldn't of been the French reception which was extremely cool.
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It was there was a reception of these works and any other country comparable
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to what it was in Germany.
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I would doubt that. I would doubt that and I think the reasons will come out in the course of
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our discussion I think he's probably the most German author America has ever produced
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if I may use that term in the same sense as the great late philologist
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Prakash at the University of Texas Colt Shakespeare the great just German dramatist he
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answered the German spirit in a way.
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There's a interesting connection between Shakespeare Wolf that I was thinking about to
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draw it out that the English are also rather cool about. Yes.
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Which we can take up later I suppose if you would.
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We might mention I think one of the most enthusiastic critical biographies
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of will power has been written by an English novelist.
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Hunger goal. I want to I wonder
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how much this is critical while he speaks on the critical
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reception.
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My impression is that well I know that my portable you can buy
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very cheaply all because it could be a remainder for a great
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many places so I assume this is one in the US.
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And with that I think this is true.
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Well I think in general probably I may return to my original statement of the great
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luxury a contemporary author cannot afford that's dying and says in part
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this question because even in Germany I think his reading public is receding.
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That was like his academic public in contrast to what Mr Geismar said about America
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is growing by leaps and bounds their dissipations galore about him I have a whole list
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anybody here on titles of right up to 1950
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55 and 56 as a matter of fact he still being
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publicized a great deal of the radial I have reference here to a long
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radio talk on walls and excerpts from as late as February 1956.
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Now my impression is just the opposite here.
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The readers who come to will somehow read him out of the
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blue are very much taken by him he has a great effect on them but when you talk
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I think you gentlemen will correct me if I'm wrong when you talk with most members of the English
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department through the country. They are very
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scornful of wealth he seems to be an outworn number. I don't
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believe this because there's this impression that this
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I'm the thread I cannot answer that I know certainly that the
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text is included.
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I've seen the text of time on the river and Look Homeward Angel included in modern novel
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courses out to Minnesota University in North Carolina and here at the University of
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Massachusetts. I think perhaps he will always be included in these courses
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