Popular Culture Review Vol. 8, No. 2, August 1997 | Page 31
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the book to reflect the unpredictability and chaotic nature of life. As
in real life, characters in the book appeared, disappeared, and then
reemerged later. Various scenes were repeated, and arguments were
interr upted and resumed later. The book's structure was circular, with
no definable beginning, middle, or end. "The result," Pells observed,
"was an expressionistic tour de force in which the Reader—no longer
a passive recipient of information but a partner in a dialogue with
the author—was compelled to see and think about the world in
radically new ways" (p. 247).
Convinced that reality is pluralistic and that a
documentarian should be aware of multiple perspectives in the
search for truth, Agee experimented with novelistic techniques in his
narrative. In fact, he disdained the traditional who, what, where,
when, why, and how of journalism, citing its preoccupation with facts
rather than truth: "Journalism can within its own limits be 'good' or
'bad,' 'true' or 'false,' but it is not the nature of journalism even to
approach any less relative degree of truth" (Agee, 1941, p. 234).
Instead, by calling upon the fiction writer's tools of imagery,
descriptive narration, and multiple frames of reference, Agee sought
a larger truth not evident in the mere compilation of facts. Like
Wilson, Anderson, and Dreiser, Agee's goal was to come to terms with
reality; however, Agee's experimentation with narrative form to
achieve that goal was by far the boldest.
For Agee, the language of reality had the creative resonance
of music or poetry. He said the works of most naturalistic writers
failed on this level by offering detailed descriptions of people and
places in language incapable of placing value on what had been
discovered. Thus, this language of reality had the capacity of
liberating individuals and their settings from their stereotypical
roles as societal symbols and metaphors. Agee, of course, examined
the societal implications of the plight of the sharecroppers, but he
strove to convey the impact of the Depression on individual tenant
farmers. He was not interested in depicting the sharecroppers of the
Thirties as a social category, or even in labeling them as victims.
Instead, by fusing journalism with art—by combining Wilson,
Anderson, and Dreiser's fascination with the gathering of social facts
with the novelist's experiments with ways of perceiving reality—
Agee paid homage to the resiliency of the human spirit in a decade of
social disorder.