Mid-Century New York City: as seen through the New Yorker stories of Joseph Mitchell
LIT5-5a-Mon2
Ollie Curme
This course will take place virtually on Zoom. Participation requires a device (ideally a computer or tablet, rather than a cell phone) with a camera and microphone in good working order and basic familiarity with using Zoom and accessing email.
March 10 - April 7
Joseph Mitchell arrived in New York City in 1929 and quickly became a celebrated newspaper reporter, chronicling crime and writing features about all manner of New Yorkers, from famous celebrities to flea-circus operators, oystermen, ship captains, fan dancers, and nudists. In 1938 Mitchell joined the non-fiction desk at the New Yorker magazine, where he specialized in long form portraits of common people looking back on their lives, remembering a New York City that was outrageous, exciting, and fading from view. Malcolm Cowley of the New Republic said, “Reading some of his portraits a second time, you catch an emotion beneath them that curiously resembles Dickens’: a continual wonder at the sights and sounds of a big city, a continual devouring interest in all the strange people who live there, a continual impulse to burst into praise of kind hearts and good food and down with hypocrisy.”
Mitchell was highly prolific in the 1930’s and 1940’s and then his work dwindled as the pre-war New York culture died and a modern culture rose up to take its place. He stayed on the New Yorker staff until his death in 1996.
We’ll read portions of his collected works, focusing on his mid-century New Yorker pieces and we’ll also read a biography of his life. In addition to celebrating his craft as a writer, we’ll explore the messages Mitchell was trying to tell us and question how these poignant stories can elicit such a heartfelt response in us so many years later.
More facilitated discussion than lecture.
My Ears Are Bent by Joseph Mitchell, Up In The Old Hotel by Joseph Mitchell, Man In Profile: Joseph Mitchell of the New Yorker by Thomas Kunkel
All books are available on Amazon.com but much cheaper used at Abebooks.com
Between 100 and 150 pages of reading per week. Budget 3 hours.
Ollie Curme joined BOLLI in 2018 and has been a member of the Study Group Support Committee since shortly thereafter. Ollie has led numerous study groups, mostly in the fields of history, politics and science. He has never taught, nor even taken a course in literature. “Nevertheless”, Ollie said, “Mitchell’s writing is so terrific that I’m sure we’ll muddle through just fine.”