Study The Hue And Cry At Our House: A Year Remembered Originated By Benjamin Taylor Available In PDF

grew up in Ft, Worth in a wealthy loving Jewish family, Though the Kennedy assassination is a focal point of his youth, the real focus is family, He had shaken hands with Kennedy the morning he was killed, His father is a character and appears to be committed family man, Though that doesn't turn out to be true, The father sees antiSemitism everywhereclaims

even the curtains were antiSemitic at a country club! But the real charm of this short, beautifully crafted memoir are Taylor's memories of growing up within a loving extended family.
Having photos of the relatives was a special bonus, Engaging and unique approach to revisiting his life and that of his parents', the author uses the Kennedy assassination and a deadly family fire as both metaphor and defining moment.
It mostly works as the author intended although his story would have been compelling enough without the added gimmickry, To wit, a second child, ten years younger than the first, is on the Autism Spectrum, gay, Jewish and unusual for his family, not just his Texas neighborhood in the late's early's when this book describes his childhood.
He grows into himself and is a gifted writer but makes clear that he was an unusual child in almost every way.
The slice of life, and history, that the author provides is fascinating and welltold, I received my copy from the Penguin First to Read Program, e mezza, o quattro meno meno, This experience must be old hat to those who grew up in cities more heavily chronicled than Fort Worth, Texas, but it is both a novelty and particular pleasure to read this brief account of a life lived simultaneously to my own across town in the's.
I expected a bit more from this book, given that the author and I are almost the exact same age, I found some of the digressions to be disruptive, in a book that is too short and feels like it should be more focused.
Enjoyable overall. This memoir touched my heart, Although I am slightly older than the author, I grew up in the same era in the South, For Benjamin, JFKs assassination was the end of his childhood for me, it was the end of my adolescence, But we were both devastated, for similar reasons, And, like Benjamin, in school I was one of the bookish outsiders, I wish I could give him a hug, The author is just two years older than I am so a lot of the book I could relate to, But a lot of it was sad, too, I didn't expect the Asperger's diagnosis and the author's struggles to fit in with classmates and friends, Seems like it has been a lifelong struggle, He's a good writer and I hope to read more from him, Published a year after his excellent Proust: The Search, Benjamin Taylor's memoir of his year following the JFK assassination is many multiples shorter than 'In Search of Lost Time's.
million words. But it contains in it no less engaging character studies, feelings and insights, "Nothing experienced is ever gone, only submerged, The least detail waits upon unprompted recollection" he writes, a nod to Proust's involuntary memory, Of his mother he says: "She fights the battles we know nothing about, " He concludes: "What has happened cannot be made not to have happened, What has happened cannot happen again, My mother was borndays after my father in the summer ofand dieddays after him in the spring of, Their having been here defies all undoing",

Whilst the times and events during which Benjamin lived his youthful life were the The Hue and Cry at Our House's most vivid characters, a close second were his dad, mom, brother Tommy and the extended family all emigrated from Europe's Pale of Settlement.
When this The Hue and Cry at Our House'spages were finished I wished for more, Taylor's brilliant 'Naples Declared' is still my favorite of his, if only one could be taken to a desert island, But I really enjoyed, in Hue and Cry, getting to know this author as a young man and his process of reflection on hisyear old self, looking back as ayear old.
Un breve memoir che comincia con una storia letteraria a mo' di exemplum: Emily Webbs, personaggio di un'opera di Thorton Wilder, è appena morta ma le viene offerta la possibilità di tornare a vivere per un solo giorno.
Lei sceglie un giorno qualunque, un momento in cui tutti i componenti della sua famiglia sono vivi e le tragedie che li colpiranno sono di là da venire.
Soltanto lei percepisce la felicità di quel momento, tutti gli altri sono presenti ma inconsapevoli: la vita non è compresa mentre si sta vivendo.

Allo stesso modo Taylor sceglie un anno, il, quando lui avevaanni, per raccontare con il senno e la consapevolezza di poi, e attraverso il microcosmo familiare, uno scorcio di America in un momento cruciale della sua storia.

Il racconto comincia con l'esaltazione di un bambino l'autore per avere stretto la mano al presidente degli Stati Uniti, Era ilnovembre e Kennedy sarebbe stato ucciso proprio quel giorno,
Taylor racconta, anche, i caratteri della propria diversità e ci lascia immaginare il viaggio intrapreso per accoglierla come unica e peculiare essenza di sé.
Racconta i suoi genitori, scomparsi a brevissima distanza l'uno dall'altra, ma, come il personaggio di Wilder, il suo sguardo li abbraccia e li comprende perché "il loro essere stati qui resiste a ogni rovina".
I wrestled with myself overorbut decided to round up, This is an unusual autobiography, written by a man who came of age nearly at the same time I did, Our lives were different in almost all ways, but certain big national eventsthe Cuban missile crisis, the assassination of JFKstruck small boys hard whether they grew up Jewish in Fort Worth, Texas or Lutheran in Clarinda, Iowa.


This was a monthly choice of our book club, and Ive written a great deal about it, In many ways, I didnt like the author and so I couldnt really like the book, In other ways, its a unique book, wellconceived and crafted, It did generate a lot of interesting commentary by the club,

I cant really recommend it, but I wouldnt argue against it either, Its a thin volume and is not a difficult read, Many will find it worth the time and effort, as I did at base, Author Benjamin Taylor examines one year of his life in order to analyze the whole of it, He begins with hisyear old self shaking hands with President Kennedy in Fort Worth, Texas several hours before the president's assassination on November,.
There is even a picture of it, presumably by a newspaper, He and his mother were fans of the president, making them somewhat odd in that part of Texas,

Taylor offers a poetical snap shot of that year when America lived in a state of aftermath, He weaves stories about his extended family of Jews living in Texas, There's a few nuts in the group as there are in all families but what makes them stand out, is their warmth and acceptance of him as a quirky, bookish outcast, especially his parents.
Just as the country is slowly awakened from its mourning period by the gentle exuberance of the Beatles, the author's love of literature, opera, and theater blossoms, giving him a world to retreat into when his differentness is noticed by classmates.
There's a lot of beauty in this little book, After John F. Kennedy's speech in front of the Hotel Texas in Fort Worth on November,, he was greeted by, among others, anyearold Benjamin Taylor and his mother waiting to shake his hand.
Only a few hours later, Taylor's teacher called the class in from recess and, through tears, told them of the president's assassination.
From there Taylor traces a path through the next twelve months, recalling the tumult as he saw everything he had once considered stable begin to grow more complex.
Looking back on the love and tension within his family, the childhood friendships that lasted and those that didn't, his memories of summer camp and family trips, he reflects upon the outsized impact our larger American story had on his own.


Benjamin Taylor is one of the most talented writers working today, In lyrical, translucent prose, he thoughtfully extends the story of twelve months into the years before and after, painting a portrait of the artist not simply as a young man, but across his whole life.
As he writes, "Any twelve months could stand for the whole, Our years are so implicated in one another that the least important is important enough, . . Any year I chose would show the same mettle, the same frailties stamping me at eleven and twelve, " This book felt so hugely personal, as it covers a pivotal time when I was growing up, The feeling of our Country around the time of JFK's assassination, combined with a deeply personal narrative, made this a deeply affecting read.
This is a short book, but feels important and complete,

A piece that resonated with meRepublican Presidential Primary: "It is essential that this convention repudiate here and now," shouted Nelson Rockefeller.
. . "any doctrinaire, militant minority, whether Communist, Ku Klux Klan, or Bircher, . . which would subvert this party to purposes alien to the very basic tenets which gave this party birth, . . Precisely one year ago today, on July,, I warned that the Republican Party is in real danger of subversion by a radical, wellfinanced and highly discipined minority.
. . The methods of these extremist elements I have experienced at first hand, " I liked the writing, but thought it would be more confined to, though no ones life is that small Benjamins world was similar to mine in terms of pop music, and going to camp in the summerAmazing to learn about the Jewish immigrants who ended up in the South.
I felt jealous of all the music and opera in Benjamins life at this age, I love this memoir, which seems "small" in length and even in the The Hue and Cry at Our House's size, and perhaps in its limited moment in timea year in the author's childhood, though he jumps backward and forward to other times, but it's quite large in that it successfully knits a single life into a larger cultural moment, and renders both seem connected and important.
The writing, and the author's voice and reflections, are charming and smart, Brief, literary memoir give a feel for the lives of Benjamin Taylor and his family, but leaves many questions unanswered, As the author is not much older than myself, I can place myself into his cultural and historic references, I won this book in a Goodreads giveaway, All American families have stories of where family members were when they heard about the assassination if President Kennedy, Benjamin Taylor's story is heightened by the fact that as a child he shook JFK's hand at a rally in Fort Worth the morning before the assassination.
In this memoir, he writes about his life in the year after the assassination, although his writing touches on events throughout his childhood and some parts of his adulthood.
He grew up in a welltodo Jewish family in Fort Worth, Texas, He is currently a writing professor at Columbia, I have read many memoirs of people with whom I have little in common, but usually can find some thread of humanity which allows me to empathize with the writer.
I struggled to find that thread while reading this book, I found Taylor's namedropping of his famous friends to whom he passed on his mother's effects distasteful, Ho scelto questo libro semplicemente dopo aver letto una recensione che mi aveva incuriosito, spinta anche dalla mia passione per i memoirs in genere, ma devo dire che è stata una vera sorpresa positiva, perché Taylor è un grande narratore e il suo racconto di un anno di vita, tra iled illui aveva circaanni è commovente e profondo.
Bambino “problematico” solo molti anni dopo si iniziò a parlare della sindrome di Asperger ed eccezionalmente sensibile ed intelligente, vede passare davanti a sè eventi grandi e piccoli, delluccisione di J.
F. Kennedy alla concitata ed animata vita della sua famiglia, e racconta con uguale fervore gli aspetti “pubblici” e politici di quegli anni, caratterizzati da grandi tensioni sociali e razziali negli Stati Uniti, e quelli più intimi e privati: le bizzarrie dello zio “svitato”, la tragica morte della nonna e di tre cugine, il fratello maggiore affascinante e popolare.
. .
Mi è piaciuto moltissimo.
“Nulla di ciò che è vissuto è mai completamente sparito è solo sommerso, Il minimo dettaglio serve a suscitare ricordi non richiesti”, .