Introduction to Let Us Now Praise Famous Men

James Agee's Let Us Now Praise Famous Men can be a tough read. As an author and journalist, Agee is neurotic about his task as a writer feeling he is "spying" on the people he's writing about. He also switches into poetry with little to no notice, and at once romanticizes and problematicizes the plight of poverty in America.

But his introduction, just seven pages in length, is absolutely stunning. He begins by writing/invoking Walker Evans, the Depression photographer and accompanying personage on the research trip that inspired the book. He then draws attention to the problems of writing as a medium and, most importantly, draws attention to the problem of media as media.

He tells the reader to get a Phonograph and listen to Beethoven's Seventh Symphony as loud and as close to the phonograph as possible. He says it will not sound nicely. It may even hurt. And if it hurts "be glad of it." Try to get inside the music.

To me, this all media theory at its most experiential. Agee writes that the bourgeoisie reading his article will feel a twinge of sympathy for the poor that they may feel they have absolved even by reading his article.

And that he implies, is absolutely no good. That is the problem and conceit and indeed power of media.

Bibliographic Deets
Agee, James. Let Us Now Praise Famous Men. Mariner Books, Boston. 2001.

Link

 * Just to the introduction. Those seven glorious, troubling pages.