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From: olaf@ihwpt.UUCP (olaf henjum)
Newsgroups: net.wobegon
Subject: Re: 95 Theses 95
Message-ID: <1021@ihwpt.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 29-Jul-86 11:53:34 EDT
Article-I.D.: ihwpt.1021
Posted: Tue Jul 29 11:53:34 1986
Date-Received: Thu, 31-Jul-86 04:40:40 EDT
References: <397@tove.UUCP>
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories
Lines: 46

> ... the 95 Theses 95
> which appeared in a (longest I ever seen) footnote near the end
> bothered me tremendously.  They were almost venomous in tone, and
> very sarcastic in places.  I thought they were out of style with
> the rest of G.K.'s writing and monologue.  I don't think I had
> ever heard him do more than poke some fun at his upbringing,
> but here it seems that a lot more is boiling to the surface.

I agree with your analysis; in this particular passage, I see something
I have long suspected, that much of what we call humor starts as an
attempt to mask or deal with pain, and that G.K. is no exception.
I tend to believe that the "very young man" who wrote "95 Theses"
"so many years ago" was actually Garrison Keillor himself as
a very young man, and that this passage is included in "Lake Wobegon Days"
for a variety of reasons that Keillor himself may or may not be
fully conscious of; it could be something as simple and indirect
as "look how far I've come from what I used to be."  But whatever the
original motives, the strong undertone of rebellion and even
self-hatred that appears in that passage IS VERY MUCH UNLIKE anything
I've ever seen him put into words before.

I'm not sure whether anything like that "belongs" in the book or
not, but I do know from my own life that parts of it sounded VERY familiar,
a little look at "the dark side" of growing up in Lake Wobegon.
The self-repression and unusual desire for "security" that he so
often makes gentle fun of is nevertheless very, very real, and
trying to break out of that cultural/genetic (I've never been sure
which one it is :-)) mold, as a teenager, can be a traumatic experience
for everybody concerned, especially if the teenager is (as G.K. almost
certainly was) of an unusually sensitive, insightful, and even
romantic bent.

You may recall that Mark Twain had a similar capacity to switch from
poignant humor to biting sarcasm at the drop of a hat, and sometimes
did both at once (Huck Finn's moral turmoil over whether or not he
should turn in the runaway slave Jim comes to mind; if you'll
forgive the expression, all of the (moral) blacks are whites and
vice versa, which is made abundantly clear to the reader but not to
the character.)

:-) But armchair psychoanalysis is not exactly my specialty, and in any
event G.K. is only human; why should he ALWAYS be consistent??? :-)
-- 
ucbvax ___ ihnp4!ihesa!olaf       -- Olaf I. Henjum
seismo _/! "Unless explicitly stated otherwise, any
cbosgd __!  opinions I give are strictly my own."