Let Us Now Praise Famous Men, A Death in the Family, and Shorter Fiction (Library of America) Book

A Death in the Family by James Agee

Another version of this note, together with three others on this novel and thoughts on other books are available at:

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As the title clearly states, one of the main characters dies.
Quite early on.

- Then death itself becomes a sort of a personage
- And if not, its presence is felt heavily throughout the account

Normally, this subject is repelling to me, not just unattractive.
Nevertheless, there is a need to come to terms with the final episode of our lives and there are literary and philosophical works that deal with it and recommend a peaceful acceptance, an intense use of the limited time available.

- One of the main themes, messages of this exquisite novel is that we need to savor and enjoy life
- An accident puts an end to the life of a hero and it could happen to any of us…indeed, it will come to that sooner or - preferably- later.

The person who dies- I will not divulge the identity, suffice to know there is a death as an intended alert- is extraordinary.
The deceased is remembered with fondness, not just by family but by all that knew him- perhaps we can say just that he is a man…well, was.

There is a twist in the plot, for at the very start we are under the impression that an old man is about to die and therefore we have the Death.
But there is a surprising occurrence.

The tone of the beginning is jocular, with Charlie Chaplin and his exploits making an appearance, enjoyed by the father, Jay and disliked by his wife.
Rufus appears to be based on James Agee himself, seeing as the novel is autobiographical, with the author's father dying in the same circumstances presented in the book.

I have just read on the internet about this aspect and that the book was only published after the death of James Agee.
There is a controversy, with a scholar claiming that the manuscript intended for publication by the late writer is very different.

- I wonder what that is like

Like it is, this work is one of my favorites, and the latest read is the second encounter with this fascinating narrative.
The morbid, depressing theme of death is approached with tenderness; at times we see it through the eyes of the children.

There are dark characters, one of which is really despicable…and I am not thinking of the alcoholic brother, but of the priest.
The priest is not just mean and cruel, he is a disgrace to the frock and the very religion he is supposed to represent and promote.
He is aggressive with the children who do not understand what he is talking about and are anyway suffering a form of

- PTSD- Post Traumatic Stress Disorder

And he does not stop there.
At the funeral, he does not give the entire sermon.
Hard on the grieving family, he pretends he cannot do it because the deceased was not baptized and hence not worthy of the full service…
That makes Uncle Andrew mad and puzzles Rufus…and probably James Agee himself aka Rufus in the literary version of events.
There is humor.
Apart from the aforementioned Charlie Chaplin and his shenanigans, we have a play with words:

A guest talks to the children about the newly introduced musical machine

- You know a gramophone?
- Oh no, uncle said grandma cannot phone!
- …
- She cannot hear so that is a very bad, impossible idea
- Oh no, I do not mean for grandma to phone but…gramophone


Dazzling novel.

Recondite, self-indulgent, evocative, fitful, inimitable, genius. Agee makes me cry.

Excerpt: "Knoxville: Summer of 1915," James Agee

We are talking now of summer evenings in Knoxville Tennessee in the time that I lived there so successfully disguised to myself as a child.

...It has become that time of evening when people sit on their porches, rocking gently and talking gently and watching the street and the standing up into their sphere of possession of the trees, of birds' hung havens, hangars. People go by; things go by. A horse, drawing a buggy, breaking his hollow iron music on the asphalt: a loud auto: a quiet auto: people in pairs, not in a hurry, scuffling, switching their weight of aestival body, talking casually, the taste hovering over them of vanilla, strawberry, pasteboard, and starched milk, the image upon them of lovers and horsemen, squaring with clowns in hueless amber. A streetcar raising its iron moan; stopping; belling and starting, stertorous; rousing and raising again its iron increasing moan and swimming its gold windows and straw seats on past and past and past, the bleak spark crackling and cursing above it like a small malignant spirit set to dog its tracks; the iron whine rises on rising speed; still risen, faints; halts; the faint stinging bell; rises again, still fainter; fainting, lifting, lifts, faints foregone: forgotten. Now is the night one blue dew.

Now is the night one blue dew, my father has drained, he has coiled the hose.

Low in the length of lawns, a frailing of fire who breathes...

Parents on porches: rock and rock. From damp strings morning glories hang their ancient faces.

The dry and exalted noise of the locusts from all the air at once enchants my eardrums.

On the rough wet grass of the back yard my father and mother have spread quilts. We all lie there, my mother, my father, my uncle, my aunt, and I too am lying there.…They are not talking much, and the talk is quiet, of nothing in particular, of nothing at all in particular, of nothing at all. The stars are wide and alive, they seem each like a smile of great sweetness, and they seem very near. All my people are larger bodies than mine,...with voices gentle and meaningless like the voices of sleeping birds. One is an artist, he is living at home. One is a musician, she is living at home. One is my mother who is good to me. One is my father who is good to me. By some chance, here they are, all on this earth; and who shall ever tell the sorrow of being on this earth, lying, on quilts, on the grass, in a summer evening, among the sounds of the night. May God bless my people, my uncle, my aunt, my mother, my good father, oh, remember them kindly in their time of trouble; and in the hour of their taking away.

After a little I am taken in and put to bed. Sleep, soft smiling, draws me unto her: and those receive me, who quietly treat me, as one familiar and well-beloved in that home: but will not, oh, will not, not now, not ever; but will not ever tell me who I am.