Upper Middlebrow

Chris and Jesse devour Steinbeck's 1936 novel In Dubious Battle, which follows a group of communist agitators who try to establish a strike in California's Torgas Valley. The lads agree that Steinbeck's novel boasts incredible sensory detail and beautiful prose, and they go digging into just what, exactly, Steinbeck wanted to say in this short, sharp account of a labor struggle—it's not a capitalist novel, for sure, but is it a Marxist novel?

Upton Sinclair spent about seven months in the Chicago stockyards, dressed as worker, making notes about poor working conditions, corrupt bosses, unsanitary conditions, and inhumane slaughter. And in his debut novel, he tried to include nearly everything he saw. Sinclair’s 1906 novel contains a litany of outrages. Its publication brought about some important reforms. But, the lads suspect he tried to cram too much in, to the detriment of good storytelling. We have a Patreon! https://www.patreon.

The lads follow up Phillip Roth's 1959 eponymous novel with Larry Peerce's 1969 film version. The film was the 10th highest grossing film of 1969, which is quite an achievement, given the other films that surfaced that year, and Peerce deploys his significant powers in delivering a commercial success. Jesse and Chris discuss the nature of adaptation and whether the film, ultimately, rises to the level of its source material. We have a Patreon! https://www.patreon.com/c/upper_middle_brow And a Di

Roth's 1959 novella begins with an account of the protagonist, Neil Klugman watching the lovely Brenda swim while he holds her glasses. Immediately, we're transported to the poolside, and into Klugman's brain. But, is Klugman's brain worth visiting? Klugman is charming and manipulative, funny and arrogant. We watch him pursue Brenda, begin and relationship and (spoiler alert) predictably louse it up. The UMBs discuss the virtues in inhabiting the world of a bad person who doesn't improve.

Chris and Jesse watch one of Chris' favorite films: Claire Denis' 1999 masterpiece Beau Travail, starring Denis Lavant and Colin Gregoire. The film is plot-light but significance-heavy, and the lads agree that it is beautiful and poetic and uncondescending. Can the power of imagery, sound, and implicated action balance a plot that sheds many of our usual expectations around how action unfolds in books and film?

Herman Melville's Novella Billy Budd, Sailor was not published until 1924, thirty-three years after his death. The literary world was in the midst of the Melville revival, suggesting that his themes of existential dread, guilt and innocence, right and wrong, and the conflict between what is good verses what is allowed had become salient to readers in the 1920s. The lads find it to be an absolute masterpiece: delightful in it's language, haunting in its human insight. We have a Patreon! https://w