Sherwood Anderson: a literary....

          Sherwood Anderson is either a hypocrite or a failure or maybe both. Apologies for the direct introduction and for die-hard Sherwood fans .The Book of Grotesque introduces the idea of a grotesque being. In Anderson's portrayal through the old man, this entails someone who claims some "truth"  as his own and tries to live by it. However, outside of the text, is Anderson's role as an author not to express some universal truth?! This text is obviously of literary merit and from Perrine's definition of the characteristics of a piece of literary fiction, a text of literary merit attempts to "reveal some truth about it [life]"(Perrine 204). However, believing in some truth and even more trying to spread/express it is what makes someone a grotesque. This is so crazy to me! Maybe we cannot help but be a grotesque. Nobody is a perfect being and everyone believes in something at the least. Quite possibly this could have been Anderson's message (?). Futhermore, if you take a look at the story "The Strength of God", Reverend Hartman is portrayed as grotesque because he wishes to spread some truth of the gospel, the word of God. He hopes his that as he speaks the word of God it will be heard by many. This truth of God and the Bible is what makes him a grotesque. Even as I am writing this I am perplexed. Perhaps Anderson's book is about more than just this idea of grotesques. Maybe he is criticizing the fact that we as readers will take this idea of a grotesque as a truth and try to apply it to the text (whoa this just all came to me). And maybe, Anderson is emphasizing that people cannot help but be grotesques because even he is a grotesque himself. So i am even more confused as ever. Does this mean that the book is about nothing at all. how do we apply meaning without believing in some truth. If we find a meaning in life we have a perceived purpose to achieve to satisfy this meaning. This is our truth. Through writing this entry, i am even more intrigued by Winesburg,Ohio and even Sherwood Anderson himself. More to come on these thoughts later...