Word: sinclairs
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1950-1959
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
THEIRS BE THE GUILT (287 pp.)-Upton Sinclair-Twayne Publishers...
...Upton Sinclair has always been the most unreal character in his own books. He proves this once again in Theirs Be the Guilt, a re-edit of Manassas, which he wrote 56 years ago. Sinclair, then 24, was living in two tents near Princeton, NJ. and doing research from books hauled from the university library in a rented horse and buggy. Years have left the innocent style intact-a genuine fustian or homespun purple-as well as the sentimentality, which would shame Dickens for a cynic. Thus the novel is not only a publishing oddity but it gives a rare...
Like other Sinclair novels, Theirs Be the Guilt has its Lanny Budd, i.e., a character who, when history's big scenes are played, is to be found stage center, or at least behind the arras with tape recorder. Here, this character is Allan Montague, a boy growing up on a slightly mythical Southern plantation, with a swarm of smiling Negroes in the great house-and another swarm of Negroes out in the cotton fields, where it is hard to see if they are smiling or not. Probably not. But for Allan and his dashing cousins, 'Dolph and Ralph...
...Davis." Later, he regrets not having "poured out his soul," but he wisely suppresses the impulse again when, in his presence. Abraham Lincoln worries about the Constitution and tells two stories of doubtful humor. Most of the speeches and conversations of the great sound authentic; only the hero, Montague-Sinclair, is unreal. He is, nevertheless, an engaging figure to the connoisseur of the absurd in fiction-a kind of Candide without Voltaire...
There was more unanimity on the N.A.M.'s contention that labor featherbedding threatens the U.S.'s competitive position in world trade. "It is a plain economic fact," said Sinclair Oil Vice President Millard E. Stone, "that the country can no longer afford to let management be handcuffed by archaic work rules which prevent maximum efficiency, nor by the kind of uneconomic wage increases which subject the public to further inflationary pressures. Our continued failure to recognize the impact of labor costs on our competitive standing has brought us to the point where we stand to lose our domestic...