Just now I saw comments on a DailyKos diary expressing bewilderment at Trump’s approval ratings creeping stubbornly upwards at a time when they were supposed to be tumbling in a free-fall from low to abysmal to non-existent. I’m disheartened too, but not at all surprised, thanks partly to several books, some famous, some obscure, that offer crucial insights into the fascist state of mind.
I’ve been thinking about passing on a reading list for several months, but time is running out quickly, and the need for insight and foresight is already past critical. I’ve no doubt we’ll look back at the present as a honeymoon period. It’s important now to share what we think we understand about the nature of the storm that’s heading our way. (And it’s important to remember that none of us really knows anything for sure about what to expect.)
I’m not sure how regularly I’ll be adding to this little bibliography, because I’m no scholar, nor a literary critic, and offering useful commentaries won’t be easy. I’ve decided to stick to one publication per diary.
Without further ado...
Let’s start with an item I discovered very recently by pure chance. A free link to a complete pdf is below—and it’s a breeze to read, just 11 pages. The less preliminary commentary the better. I’ll just say how I happened upon it.
One dark and dreary night when I needed a change of pace from my dark and dreary habit of plowing through massive history books from dark and dreary thrift shops, I remembered I had an ancient paperback anthology, published 1941, its pulp paper deeply tanned and brittle with age. It’s mostly what you’d call “light reading” —mini-mysteries, puzzles, jokes and some stories. I needed a break from the declining years of the Qing Dynasty, and figured this would do nicely, as long as I picked a story that suited my mood.
I wish I could share the whole raw encounter with you. Compared to this pdf, the old anthology’s typography was far more elegant, appropriate and readable—and the author (as you can see from the cover image above) was identified as just “Kressmann Taylor”. Knowing absolutely nothing about the author, or about the history of the story, greatly enhanced the experience. If you read this pdf you will know the author’s first name and you will know that someone thought it worth preserving into the age of the internet. When you’re done, you can find out more. There’s not a whole about it on the net, but there’s enough if you dig around. Thanks to acobas.net, a French educational site, for making this complete text available (in English). Here it is: