There are several aspects of Agee’s novel that I would like to address. First off, it baffles me that Agee makes such an effort to outright defy art, and yet he style of work comes off, in my opinion, as extremely artsy. In my fourteen years of formal education, I have never encountered a book like Let Us Now Praise Famous Men. Not only does he not have chapters or divisions of any form, but the book also starts with photographs. Instead of starting his book with words or a clear-cut message, he begins it in the artistic manner of allowing the reader to first encounter the characters through photographs. If that is not artistic, I do not know what is!
It also confuses me that Agee offers the idea that his readers should just take his work for what it is rather than try to read into it. How can he expect his readers to take such a complex, intricate piece of literature for what it is, without any kind of contemplation, consideration, or contradiction? Honestly, I respect Agee for producing such a bold book and as a historian; I especially admire him for quoting men so controversial as Marx during a time when this certainly was not considered socially acceptable.
Even the most elite literary critics are still unsure of what Agee meant to do with this book, or why he felt the need to structure it the way he did. After reading his book and discussing it in class, I am only sure of one thing: I possess a passionate admiration for Agee in his ability to fully divulge himself in his work. He clearly spent an intense amount of time investigating the lives of his characters and attempting to truly understand their lives. I would argue that his style of work is certainly artistic and that it is nearly impossible to take a piece of work such as this simply at face value, but despite these criticisms, there is no doubt in my mind that Agee has produced a revolutionary piece of literature.
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