Carruth, Hayden

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Roquetin's whole life is a bad day!
Not an essay!
There's a reason why we remember him for his plays...
Something we've all felt and have been unable to put it to words.
ended better than it started

Nausea (New Directions Paperbook)
Jean-Paul Sartre
Manufacturer: New Directions Publishing Corporation
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0811201880

Book Description

Winner of the 1964 Nobel Prize in Literature. Jean-Paul Sartre, philosopher, critic, novelist and dramatist, hold a position of singular eminence in the world of French letters. Among readers and critics familiar with the whole of Sartre's work, it is generally recognized that his earliest novel, Le Nausée (first published in 1938), is his finest and most significant. It is unquestionably a key novel of the Twentieth Century and a landmark in Existentialist fiction. Nausea is the story of Antoine Roquentin, a French writer who is horrified at his own existence. In impressionistic, diary form he ruthlessly catalogues his every feeling and sensation about the world and people around him. His thoughts culminate in a pervasive, overpowering feeling of nausea which "spread at the bottom of the viscous puddle, at the bottom of our time—the time of purple suspenders and broken chair seats; it is made of wide, soft instants, spreading at the edge, like an oil stain." Roquentin's efforts to come to terms with his life, his philosophical and psychological struggles, give Sartre the opportunity to dramatize trhe tents of his Existentialist creed. he introduction for this edition of Nausea by Hayden Carruth gives background on Sartre's life and major works, a summary of the principal themes of Existentialist philosophy, and a critical analysis of the novel itself.

Customer Reviews:

Roquetin's whole life is a bad day!.......2007-06-09

As John Lovetts once said in the role of the Critic,"Camus can do, But Sartre is Smartre!"

Not an essay!.......2007-06-02

Picking up this book, I was expecting a philosophical essay, since that's what I've become accustomed to reading from famous philosophers. As I began to read "Nausea", however, it was soon clear that this was a work of fiction, but based around his own philosophical ideas: "philosofiction". This is the first thing from Sartre that I have read, but it won't be the last.

His writing style is really incredible. The solitary figure he creates is wonderfully sick, innocent, sinister, amiable, a truly three-dimensional character. Sartre's imagery is clear, yet subtle in its sickness. I actually began to feel naseous myself a few times reading it; it's just one of those books that has a sort of ineffable feeling pervading from it.

I definitely recommend reading it, if not for the philosophy, then definitely for an extremely well-written novel.

There's a reason why we remember him for his plays..........2007-02-26

There is a very good reason why we adore Sarte for his plays, simply: they are better. This 'novel' or treatise, or manifesto, or journal, or however you choose to classify this work...is well boring. Very boring. I don't understand people...I mean, if you want to share your thoughts, ideas, theories maybe even an answer to the quiz that is life with your fellow man. isn't simplicity the best answer?

I believe ulitmately this work derailed Sarte's purpose.

Something we've all felt and have been unable to put it to words. .......2006-09-08

Everything that is, wants to be. To the hero of this story, everything wants to be in vein: existence is meaningless, actions are meaningless. This is the source of his Nausea. What kept me reading this book until the end was the hope of finding out what, if anything, the hero would do to cure his Nausea. The answer to that question was rewarding and insightful; it has helped me accept my own existence.
We've all wondered (think back to your early 20's) "What's the point? Is it to be successful? What is success? What then shall matter after I am successful?" This being so, this book is easy to relate to.
My favorite minor character in this novel is the Self Taught Man. I felt as if I was reading dialogue and mannerisms written straight from my mind. I especially enjoyed the passage where Antoine (the hero) mentally tore him apart.
My only complaint is that the names of towns and other places were difficult to remember and therefore difficult to place. The hero's wanderings seemed to jumble together which is unfortunate because his wanderings are a big part of the story.

ended better than it started.......2006-07-19

Sartre's "Nausea" is always extolled as possibly one of the greatest novels on the human condition. It truly is a great book but I have yet to see any reviews that offer any critical comments. Personally, I thought the book had a slow beginning. Although it was meant to be a narrative, the inital part did not go so far in analyzing the the main character's feelings and sensations as the latter part did. I expected a lot less of, "I turned left down the street" and more of "my God how strongly things exist today...it is repugnant." The second part of the book went more into depth on this feeling of nausea- the scene in the garden is brillant (pg. 129-135). This is defintely the best part of the book- the angst of existence simply jumps out of the page and it is expressed so eloquently. Overall, a great read that introduces one to the complex mind of Sartre.

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A Poem from this Book Was Broadcast by Garrison Keillor!

Only What's Imagined
Geof Hewitt
Manufacturer: Kumquat Press (VT)
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0967678706

Book Description

Geof Hewitt's third collection of poems, with an introduction by National Book Award winner Hayden Carruth.

Customer Reviews:

A Poem from this Book Was Broadcast by Garrison Keillor!.......2001-01-04

I am the author of this collection of poems. On January 3, 2001, Garrison Keillor read "The Sailor" from ONLY WHAT'S IMAGINED on his daily National Public Radio program, "The Writer's Almanac." Now I sit back and watch the book's sales-ranking spurt in the direction of #1!

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Honest, Funny, Tender, and True

Letters To Jane
Hayden Carruth , and Jane Kenyon
Manufacturer: Ausable Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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Collected Poems

ASIN: 1931337179

Book Description

Jane Kenyon, who was married to the poet Donald Hall, earned wide acclaim for her clear, vivid, deeply spiritual lyrics, many of them written in the face of her own -mortality.

During the year of her dying, Carruth's faithful correspondence, collected here, is a testament to the depth of their friendship, and a rare window into the inner life of a major poet as he confronts the loss of a dear friend. Both Carruth and Kenyon have devoted followings; Letters to Jane offers unique and personal new insight into their poetry.

Of this book, Francine Prose has written, "Reading these beautiful, eloquent, moving letters from one poet to another, you keep forgetting (as you are meant to) even as, paradoxically, it never leaves your mind for a moment, that this is no casual correspondence. Its occasion is urgent and extraordinary. The recipient is dying.

". . . Carruth writes again and again-honest, direct, affectionate accounts of everyday events: writing and reading, visiting friends, traveling to give poetry readings, enjoying good moods and good health, enduring physical and emotional setbacks, feeding the dog and watching bee balm bloom in the garden.

What's most mysterious and marvelous about these letters-which end around the time of Kenyon's death in 1995-is how they manage to be, simultaneously, so relaxed and so intense, so concrete and so reflective, and how every word and every sentence reminds us of the preciousness of ordinary life, and of the enduring and -sustaining consolations of friendship."

Hayden Carruth is the author of more than 20 books, predominantly poetry. His work has been awarded many honors, including the National Book Award, the Lenore Marshall Award, the Paterson Poetry Prize, the Whiting Award, the Ruth Lilly Prize and a Lannan Literary Fellowship. He has also written widely on jazz and the blues. He lives in Munnsville, NY.

Customer Reviews:

Honest, Funny, Tender, and True.......2005-07-29

These letters from Hayden Carruth to Jane Kenyon are an intriguing exploration of a relationship between two great poets. I have always been curious about poets' letters, since they write things in letters they might not reveal under any other circumstances, even, perhaps, in their own poems. For instance, in his letter of May 9, 1994, Carruth writes: "So I frittered away the weekend: read a short manuscript, wrote a few letters, watched a hell of a lot of basketball, read what we used to call cheap-screw fiction. I haven't heard that term for a while. At first it meant under-the-counter porn, but later came to mean any escapist literature. As a consequence, on top of the desperation and depression, I feel guilt. What else is new?" For those who picture the writer's life as one in which the author sits thoughtfully poised over a manuscript 24-hours a day, this may come as a revelation: writers waste time, they struggle to keep themselves on track, they fail, they get depressed as a result of their failures. I find this revelation uplifting rather than sad: it shows Carruth's nuts and bolts existence and in doing so, reveals his humanity. In another letter he talks about having to take his laptop computer to a repair shop because of "excessive cat hair." Carruth, a lover of cats, says that his repairman suggested he get rid of the cat whereupon Carruth admits to Kenyon: "I said immediately, 'Oh, I can't do that,' implying that my wife wouldn't stand for it, which was a cowardly way out, and no doubt sexist too. The fact is I wouldn't stand for it either." Such moments of marvelous self-disclosure are frequent in this book. If you are holding off buying this because you've read other authors' letters and found them boring, don't hesitate any longer. Carruth's presence in these letters is huge. These letters are honest, funny, tender, and true. I am in awe of the relationship Carruth and Kenyon had, and a bit envious, too. I highly recommend this book for writers and for those interested in 20th Century poetry.

The Voice That Is Great Within Us: American Poetry of the Twentieth Century (Bantam Classics)

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Outstanding service
great voices within
Worth Buying Twice
The Ageless and the Aging
Excellent Resource Great Variety

The Voice That Is Great Within Us: American Poetry of the Twentieth Century (Bantam Classics)
Hayden Carruth
Manufacturer: Bantam
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Mass Market Paperback

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ASIN: 0553262637
Release Date: 1983-09-01

Book Description

This famous anthology includes the works of more than 130 major American poets of the modern period--Robert Frost, Paul Goodman, Carl Sandburg and Gwendolyn Brooks among them--along with short biographies of each.

Customer Reviews:

Outstanding service.......2007-02-19

The book was in excellent condition. It was sent on time. Outstanding.

great voices within.......2003-09-19

I purchased this anthology because I love poetry and because I wanted a primer for some college American lit classes. I did get a good book out of the deal, but the latter expectation was never fully satisfied. If you're deciding whether to invest in a collection of "American Poetry of the Twentieth Century," there are some things to consider.

First, it should more aptly be subtitled, "American Poetry of the Mid-Twentieth Century." This anthology was compiled in 1970 with the bulk of its poetry originally published in the 1950s and 1960s (some from a couple decades before). As a result, it's top heavy with Frost, Cummings, W.C. Williams, and Roethke, et al. Naturally this isn't a tremendous problem, but it did make me wonder, for example, why Langston Hughes enjoys a scant two pages of recognition out of more than 700 pages of poetry! Another thing I found was that though this anthology earns points for sheer volume of work, tens of American lit classes later, I have yet to run across many of the authors. While I admittedly was not alive for any of the original publications, clearly most of the writing, however unfortunate, has not survived the passing of time. Thus a twenty-first century reader may find the collection rather dated.

All this said though, I still recommend this anthology because it is, simply, a collection of good poetry. Some of the more famous poems from some of the more famous authors are curiously absent, but again, this isn't a substitute for the Norton Anthology. In fact, I discovered a wealth of good twentieth century American writing that has escaped the Norton and Heath publishers. Most of the work is modern with a few pieces creeping into the shadow of post-modernity. Small biographies are provided for each author. An academic primer you won't end up with, but for all other purposes, this is a sound collection.

Worth Buying Twice.......2003-06-30

I recently purchased my second one of these, because I wore out the first one.

Even if you are untrained in poetry, as I am, (even if you are an engineer, as I am), you will find poems in here that will move you, thrill you, and make you sigh.

See how much language can transcend words. It opened my eyes.

The Ageless and the Aging.......2001-02-08

We venture to say that Hayden Carruth's anthology is necessary for understanding the trends, the vicissitudes, the heights and the depths of American poetry from the First World War to the time of the moonwalk (Neil Armstrong's moonwalk, not Michael Jackson's). A necessary book is not necessarily a perfect book, but there is something here for everyone.

We detect a slight preference for the "new" -- and often the radical -- in prosody and in politics. If we are looking for W H Auden in this book, we will not find him because he seems in the anthologist's opinion to have remained "essentially British." Auden disdained slang and anarchic versification, but I don't think that constitutes sufficient reason for declaring him un-American.

The oldest poet in this book is Robert Frost, born in 1874 (not 75, as the book claims); the youngest poet is Joel Sloman, born in 1943. The titanic modernists of the early part of the century are well-represented: Pound, Eliot, Stevens, Williams, Moore. And Carruth is unfailingly generous to the lesser figures: Aiken, Van Doren, Yvor Winters, MacLeish, Louise Bogan.

This anthology excels in presenting poets born between 1899 (Allen Tate, Hart Crane) and 1929 (Adrienne Rich). We could list the figures, familiar and not-so-familiar: Lowell, Berryman, Roethke, Duncan, Elizabeth Bishop, Charles Olson, Countee Cullen, Robert Hayden, Thomas Merton, Richard Wilbur, Ferlinghetti, Ginsberg, Denise Levertov, Robert Bly.

Donald Hall is not included, perhaps because he had not yet written his very best work; Richard Howard is not included, presumably because he wasn't a beatnik. James Merrill and John Ashbery are here, as is Hayden Carruth in an admirably modest selection prefaced by an endearingly humble biographical note.

When it comes to poets born after 1930, the anthology is at its least satisfying. There are Sylvia Plath and Wendell Berry, Gary Synder and Gregory Corso, but few others that seem to justify Carruth's endorsement. Robert Pinsky, Robert Hass, Louise Gluck, Charles Simic and Mark Strand are conspicuous by their absence; and of course, Seamus Heaney is Irish, and -- as we are often reminded in the preface -- this is an American anthology.

All in all, a capacious, generous, inclusive selection, sometimes culpably inclusive; one that should be read in conjunction with other anthologies, ones which contain the indisputably durable examples of the noble and demanding art of poetry.

Excellent Resource Great Variety.......2000-08-02

I had a professor who used this book as a text. I was amazed at the depth and variety of poems and poets. I have used this book as a teacher also; it has many of those "everybody should read this" poems, as well as many other less known but wonderful titles. This is not a good book if you want commentary; it has poems and very short biographies only.

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Good book
some good stuff, but not worth buying

Luisa Domic and Shawno
George Dennison , and Hayden Carruth (Introduction)
Manufacturer: Steerforth Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Book Description

By the author of Oilers and Sweepers, and Other Stories.Immensely moving --New York Times Book Review

Customer Reviews:

Good book.......2007-03-02

I am reading the book for the second time, and I like it very much.
You have to read Dennison more famous book The Lives of Children, and
than reading this book, you will undersand him even more.

some good stuff, but not worth buying.......2000-12-29

this book is one worth skimming, and i skimmed most of it, actually read about 1/10th, and felt i'd gotten the essence of the book.

set in 1971. all about this "perfect" family in rural maine (seemed far from perfect to me) and some visitors they had for a weekend, one of whom was a chilean refugee woman (luisa) who'd gotten out of the country only weeks after the coup in which her family (husband and chidlren) were massacred before her eyes. the real essence of the book is how she interacts with this "ideal" and "happy" family, and the interest is in the juxtaposition of their comfort and happiness and her trauma and misery. it's like completely different worlds colliding, and where it gets good is how one man from the maine world, actually a visitor from new york, is able to enter the world of the chilean woman through his emotional piano playing. this part is fascinating...but remember, the fascinating part is just 1/10th of the book - and the rest is long descriptions about dull happy family routines and dogs and cider-pressing and pinecones.

Customer Reviews:

A minor work, in the greater canon........2004-09-08

Hayden Carruth, The Sleeping Beauty (Copper Canyon, 1990)

The Sleeping Beauty is a long (125-section) poem from Carruth, one that seems fragmented at first but gradually pulls together; mythology, dreams, jazz, all worked into something that could equally be a poem of love or hate, depending on the reader's perspective. As is usual with Carruth, the language flows, but often with the speed of cold molasses; Carruth's work goes from being accessible to being thick, sometimes within the same poem.

Not a good place to start with Carruth (the best place is Collected Shorter Poems 1946-1991, also released by Copper Canyon), but definitely worthy for established fans. ***

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A remarkable work by a remarkable man who is an old friend.

A Commonplace Book of Pentastichs
James Laughlin , and Hayden Carruth
Manufacturer: New Directions Publishing Corporation
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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Cultural Amnesia: Necessary Memories from History and the Arts

ASIN: 0811213862

Book Description

Poetry. A COMMONPLACE BOOK OF PENTASTICHS is a compilation of 249 poems composed in a fine-line stanza form first introduced in THE SECRET ROOM (1997). It is the last book of his own that Laughlin helped to prepare. Musing on the full collection, Hayden Carruth writes in his introduction: "For the reader it is a survey of literature that will never be found in the classroom ... but indubitably will be found in loving longlasting proximity on many a bedside table." James Laughlin founded New Directions in 1936. His own first book, NATURAL THINGS, appeared nine years later. POEMS NEW AND SELECTED, was completed shortly before his death in 1997.

Customer Reviews:

A remarkable work by a remarkable man who is an old friend........1999-09-10

I am no reviewer but thank you for asking. My name is Herb Slojewski. I've known Mr. Laughlin's work all my life. This is one of his finest books. Mr. L. was an admirer and supporter of Denise Levertov, who died just a short while ago. Don't miss this one, please. Thanks, Mr. Laughlin! Thank you very much. Herb. Thursday night. Eagle Rock, California 9.9.99--9:09 PM

Toward the Distant Islands: New & Selected Poems

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Lyric Journey

Toward the Distant Islands: New & Selected Poems
Hayden Carruth
Manufacturer: Copper Canyon Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Strong Is Your Hold
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District and Circle: Poems

ASIN: 1556592361

Book Description

"Carruth [is] one of the lasting literary signatures of our time."-Library Journal (starred review)

"Carruth...contains multitudes."-Booklist (starred review)

"Carruth is a people's poet... a virtuoso of form."-The Nation

This "portable Carruth" gathers new poems with the essential works from a major American poet. Included are lyrics, short narratives, comic, meditative, and erotic poems that engage politics, music, rural poverty, and the cultural responsibility of artists. As Sam Hamill writes in the introduction:

"Carruth's great body of work is a world... Like the jazz he so loves, his poetry ranges from the formal to the spontaneous, from local vernacular to righteous oratory, from beautiful complexity to elegant understatement."

From "A Few Dilapidated Arias"

"Our crumbling civilization"â€“a phrase I have used often
during recent years, in letters to friends, even in
words for public print. And what does it mean? Can
a civilization crumble? At once appears the image
of an old slice of bread, stale and hard, green with mold,
shaped roughly like the northeastern United States, years
old or more, so hard and foul that even my pal Maxie,
the shepherd/husky cross who eats everything, won't
touch it. And it is crumbling, turning literally into
crumbs, as the millions of infinitesimal internal connecting
fibers sever and loosen. The dust trickles and seeps away.

Hayden Carruth, a longtime resident of Vermont, currently lives in upstate New York, where he taught at Syracuse University. His many honors include the National Book Award and the National Book Critics Circle Award.

Customer Reviews:

Lyric Journey.......2006-10-11

Over many years of reading poetry, I've come to trust that any poetry book published by Copper Canyon Press is going to be an adventure. This collection , hand-picked by Press founder, Sam Hill, is no exception. I'd read enough of Hayden Carruth's work that I expected to be impressed, and I was.

The poems are selected from 12 previous collections (oh, if all of us poets could boast of so many published books!) with an addition of new poems at finish to keep the appetite whetted for more yet to come. It is interesting to watch for change and growth in the whole of Carruth's work, but that his talent was richly showing early on - the first batch selected dates back to 1959's "The Crow and the Heart" - is clear:

Of all disquiets sorrow is most serene.
Its interval of soft humility
Are lenient; they intrude on our obscene
Debasements and our fury like a plea
For wisdom...

Sorrow can shape us better than dismay.

Carruth understands the peaks and valleys of a man's life. As Sam Hill notes in his introduction, this is a poet who has struggled with angels and demons alike, finding both in himself. So his work reflects such struggles, and we swing upwards with him to whisper with angels, just as we slide into shadows with him, to weep and gnash teeth with dark demons. If a poet creates often from the grit inside him, as an oyster its pearl, then this poet proves the old axiom. We must know the demon to recognize the angel; we must strive to be angelic to fully understand the power of the demonic.

Carruth writes glorious love poems to his wife, filled with appetite and relish and adoration. He writes love poems to his daughter, lost too early to cancer. He writes love poems to the natural world around him, and to the characters that are found in humanity. He writes love poems to sorrow.

This is a poet who lives his life seam to seam, depth to height, and journals it into his lyric work. To share in his journey, this is a collection not to be missed.

Scrambled Eggs & Whiskey: Poems, 1991-1995

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Carruth's poems penetrate deep beneath the surface

Scrambled Eggs & Whiskey: Poems, 1991-1995
Hayden Carruth
Manufacturer: Copper Canyon Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Collected Shorter Poems, 1946-1991
Reluctantly: Autobiographical Essays (Writing Re: Writing)
Collected Longer Poems (National Poetry Series)
Doctor Jazz
Letters To Jane

ASIN: 1556591101

Amazon.com

Adrienne Rich has called Hayden Carruth "a part of our country's poetic treasure," and his other admirers include Galway Kinnell and Wendell Berry. A poet's poet, Carruth spins simple lines full of possible meanings, lines that stick in the reader's mind a long time. In "Particularity," for instance, Carruth writes of "this invisible / hereness where I am . . . the center / of mystery." Juxtaposing the mysterious with the tangible, Carruth is writing better than ever.

Customer Reviews:

Carruth's poems penetrate deep beneath the surface.......1998-07-15

Do yourself a favor and pick up SCRAMBLED EGGS & WHISKEY -- and follow Hayden Carruth on a journey that masterfully and humbly moves from the most troubling, trying scenes from life to the most redeeming to the everyday and a whole, whole lot in between. Rhythmic, with obvious jazz sensibilities -- and with so much truth -- these poems get to the heart of the matter in ways that make you nod in agreement, laugh out loud or pause in grieving silence or certain solidarity. I am glad this is the book that introduced me to the huge body of Mr. Carruth's work.

Reluctantly: Autobiographical Essays (Writing Re: Writing)

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Reluctantly: Autobiographical Essays (Writing Re: Writing)
Hayden Carruth
Manufacturer: Copper Canyon Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Letters To Jane
Toward the Distant Islands: New & Selected Poems
Scrambled Eggs & Whiskey: Poems, 1991-1995
Collected Longer Poems (National Poetry Series)
Collected Shorter Poems, 1946-1991

ASIN: 155659089X

Amazon.com

Readers unfamiliar with the poetry of Hayden Carruth will be struck by the honesty and clarity of his new book of autobiographical essays. A solid introduction to his interior world, Reluctantly also serves well as a supplement to Carruth's 50 years of publishing poetry, criticism, and one fine, underread novel, Appendix A. Now in his late 70s, Carruth has witnessed from his seclusion in remote New England the rise and fall of myriad intellectual, political, and poetical movements. In his essays, he sets these passages alongside events in his own life as if to find explanations for the absurdity of one in the chaos of the other. As the title suggests, it is with great reluctance that he discusses his suicide attempts, hospitalizations, nervous breakdowns, divorces, and other disappointments. Yet in his memory these events are so intertwined with his successes and joys, indeed with his whole creative enterprise, that he is compelled to give both equal time. At times, the essays' careful manipulation of style and sound approaches the measured reverie of Carruth's poetry, especially when discussing his years in northern Vermont, the setting for many of his more famous poems. He describes in great detail the cowshed he converted into a writing cabin, and in fact the book's main characters besides himself are his neighbors there, Martin and Frances Parkhurst, through whose friendship Carruth relearned the social skills he felt he lost during a series of bad crackups in his 30s.

For whatever reason, Carruth remains elliptical about some of the more significant details of his life. For many years he was the editor of Poetry. Prior to that he was part of the Allied Army force that invaded Italy during World War II. He mentions these experiences only briefly, then, for example, writes three paragraphs about watching a frozen bobcat slowly decompose during a spring thaw. Unlike Tobias Wolff and Mary Karr, his former colleagues at Syracuse University, who only mildly retooled their styles for their memoirs This Boy's Life and The Liars' Club, Carruth employs the autobiographical mode as a footnote to his real work. There are more specific details of his life in his National Book Award-winning collection, Scrambled Eggs & Whiskey, than in Reluctantly. What Carruth captures here is more ephemeral yet more vital than a mere autobiography. Given a chance to explain his love of jazz, or his suicide attempt, or his psychoanalysis, Carruth indulges in tangents in ways his strict poetics would never entertain. There is something fitting about the author allowing himself a few autobiographical reflections at this point in his career, and his reluctance only heightens their value. --Edward Skoog

Book Description

Autobiographical Essays. These touching and intimate essays reveal the integrity of Hayden Carruth-- one of the most solitary, esteemed, and controversial poets of this century. Despite his wide erudition, he has lived largely outside academia. These essays chronicle a lifetime of wrestling with his personal demons and muses; time spent hospitalized for severe chronic depression; a passionate love of jazz and blues; his suicide attempt; and most of all, his uncommon, unflinching honesty.

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