Tag Archives: RKS literature

RKS Literature: After a Southern Lynching How Does Mike the Mob Participant Feel? Part 2 (John Steinbeck)

“He walked around the side of his house and went in the back door. His thin petulant wife was sitting by the open gas oven warming herself. She turned complaining eyes on Mike where he stood in the doorway. Then her eyes widened and hung on his face. ‘You been with a woman,’ she saidContinue reading “RKS Literature: After a Southern Lynching How Does Mike the Mob Participant Feel? Part 2 (John Steinbeck)”

RKS Literature: After a Southern Lynching How Does Mike the Mob Participant Feel? Part 1 (John Steinbeck)

“Mike shied away from the contact. ‘It don’t make you feel nothing.’ He put down his head and increased his pace The little bartender had nearly to trot to keep up. The street lights were fewer. It was darker and safer. Mike burst out, “Makes you feel kind of cut off and tired, but kindContinue reading “RKS Literature: After a Southern Lynching How Does Mike the Mob Participant Feel? Part 1 (John Steinbeck)”

RKS Literature: That Oft Used Parental Expression “When I’m Dead….” (Georges Simenon)

“This was the first time since I’d been with you in the room where you were slowly dying that you spoke, even indirectly, of death. When I was a child and then a young man, you often spoke of it, I’d almost say with satisfaction. ‘ When I’m dead children…..’ Or: ‘You’ll understand when I’mContinue reading “RKS Literature: That Oft Used Parental Expression “When I’m Dead….” (Georges Simenon)”

RKS Literature: What Else Could it be But Hatred? (Georges Simenon)

“When I speak of hatred, I’m not exaggerating. True, I wasn’t there. But when a husband and wife living under the same roof get to the point where each does his own cooking, each keeping his provisions in his own locked food cupboard, and one waits for the other to vacate the kitchen before gettingContinue reading “RKS Literature: What Else Could it be But Hatred? (Georges Simenon)”

RKS Literature: Merciless Judging of Parents by Their Children (Georges Simenon)

“Today I realize that a couple with children is not just a couple. And sometimes they forget it. Near them in the house, almost always present, there are children who watch them and, in the measure of their own intelligence, judge them. The parents think of themselves as simply a father and a mother. ButContinue reading “RKS Literature: Merciless Judging of Parents by Their Children (Georges Simenon)”

RKS Literature: Harlem’s Sense of Community Before Its Collapse (James Baldwin)

“When I say I was luckier than the children are today I am deliberately making a very dangerous statement, a statement that I am willing, even anxious, to be called on. A black boy born in New York’s Harlem in 1924 was born of southerners who had but lately been driven from the land andContinue reading “RKS Literature: Harlem’s Sense of Community Before Its Collapse (James Baldwin)”

RKS Literature: Can a White Person Ever Know What a Black Person is Talking About? (James Baldwin)

“I hit the streets when I was seven. It was in the middle of the Depression and I learned how to sing out of hard experience. To be black was to confront, and be forced to alter, a condition forged in history. To be white was to be forced to digest a delusion called whiteContinue reading “RKS Literature: Can a White Person Ever Know What a Black Person is Talking About? (James Baldwin)”

RKS Literature: “The Communist Manifesto”: Your Horror at the Communists’ Intention to Do Away with Private Property

“You are horrified at our intending to do away with private property. But in your existing society, private property is already done away with for nine-tenths of the population; its existence for the few is solely due to its non-existence in the hands of those nine-tenths. You reproach us therefore, with intending to do awayContinue reading “RKS Literature: “The Communist Manifesto”: Your Horror at the Communists’ Intention to Do Away with Private Property”

RKS Literature: The Last Wishes of a Dying American Hobo (Jack Kerouac)

“I’m sick. I’m alone, I’m dying-see my hand up-tipped, learn the secret of my human heart, give me the thing, give me your hand, take me to the emerald mountains beyond the city, take me to the safe place, be kind, be nice, smile-I’m too tired now of everything else, I’ve had enough, I giveContinue reading “RKS Literature: The Last Wishes of a Dying American Hobo (Jack Kerouac)”

RKS Literature: The American Hobo is on the Way Out (Jack Kerouac)

“The American Hobo is on the way out as long as sheriffs operate with as Louis-Ferdinand Céline said, ‘One line of crime and nine of boredom’ because having nothing to do in the middle of the night with everybody gone to sleep they pick on the first human being they see walking. They pick onContinue reading “RKS Literature: The American Hobo is on the Way Out (Jack Kerouac)”