Comments on: The mere act entitled women to respite from all other physical and social responsibility

By: Bomag

Bomag — Tue, 10 May 2022 15:40:38 +0000

“I expected to see an eloquent defender of private property but instead saw a low and little man who stumbled over his words. He was a ‘man’ of the Left.”

I’ve noted many who were wonderful in private, but deflate in public.

By: Altitude Zero

Altitude Zero — Tue, 10 May 2022 12:48:25 +0000

Wylie was also a classic example of a guy who didn’t know his own strengths. His fiction, which he regarded as hackwork, done only for financial reasons, is pretty good. His more “serious” stuff I find almost unreadable, although as noted above, he does have some good points buried under a bad prose style.

By: Longarch

Longarch — Tue, 10 May 2022 11:38:50 +0000

I must thank you for recommending this author! I intend to read all his books closely. While locating a copy of Gladiator, I stumbled upon a follow-up nonfiction book, An Essay on Morals. Also, Wylie's intro to a revised edition bears quoting:

“Vipers” has become a kind of “standard work” for Americans who love liberty, detest smugness and are anxious about the prospects of our nation. It has been studied by scores of Bible classes. It has also been proscribed by Catholics. It has been quoted in unrecorded dozens of other books; it is “compulsory reading” in hundreds of college English and journalism classes. In 1950 it was selected by The American Library Association as one of the major nonfiction works of the first half century. It was used, during the war, as an instrument for “briefing” those British officers who were to have contact with our troops, on the nature and neuroses of genus Homo, race americanus. And it no longer seems possible for any author, lay or scientific, to discuss motherhood and mom without noting that the dark side of that estate was defined earlier by me. Those are but a few of the vicissitudes of “Vipers.” I daresay this new, annotated edition will augment their number and their bewildering nature. Two reactions to “Vipers” are common enough to warrant brief discussion here. A great many people have asked me, often with evident anguish, this question: Are you sincere? It is easy enough to reply, “Lord, yes!” [...] A commoner and even more sobering reaction to “Vipers” concerned its concentration upon criticism and derogation. That was intended to stimulate constructive thought. I would not damn a traditional idea or circumstance or attitude that I did not believe could be improved: if I will not re-write history neither will I resent or regret the past, as do so many frantic authors these days. But to criticize or anathematize what men believe now, and are doing and saying now, is another matter: it is the only way to bring to the future any hope of betterment.

By: Altitude Zero

Altitude Zero — Tue, 10 May 2022 10:39:15 +0000

Wylie was a good example of a man who was extremely influential when he was alive, but was forgotten almost immediately after his death, much like Theodore Dreiser or (to step up a bit) Mordechai Richler. I remember reading an abridgement of one of his nuclear war books when I was kid. He had some good points in some of his books, but he always struck me as someone I would have disliked a great deal had I met him in person. Anyway, it doesn’t surprise me that he was a lefty, he was most certainly a weirdo, and they tend to trend that way.

By: Dan Kurt

Dan Kurt — Sun, 08 May 2022 23:36:39 +0000

I was in high school circa 1957 and had to take two Pittsburgh Railways’s streetcars to and from the high school. Cost was a thin dime for each trip and even cheaper if one purchased a weekly student pass for $1.25 good for unlimited rides. During those years I was also a great fan of Wylie since my father took the Saturday Evening Post as long as I could remember and I read parts of it from when I learned to read among which were the sporadically published Crunch & Des stories of Saltwater Fishing written by Wylie. I, by high school, was into his books many of which I borrowed from the public library including his Generation of Vipers.

Now comes the denouement. The Democrats in Allegheny County wanted to wrest the Pittsburgh Railways Company, a private corporation, from its owners and run a public transportation system which of course they did in time which is still around and losing money, PAT (Port Authority Transport). There was scheduled a public debate on the proposed looting and it was televised. Phillip Wylie was scheduled to be a participant. I expected to see an eloquent defender of private property but instead saw a low and little man who stumbled over his words. He was a “man” of the Left. The politicians got their way and PAT took over. Almost all of the streetcars were replaced with belching busses, ride cost increased, and, as alway, the Democrats decreased the quality of life.