Delusions Before Nightfall

Artz Carbuncle's Thoughts on Politics and Culture

by Ty Bouldin

Hardback

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Product description...

50 Years of Self-deception?

Delusions Before Nightfall: Artz Carbuncle's Thoughts on Politics and Culture is a selection from the writing of a fictive poet, Artz Carbuncle, the stage name of the rebellious son of Thomas Stern Elliotte, a Cleveland banker. The pieces vary in tone from whimsy to satire to solemn expressions of horror at human folly, but all are responses to the gradual transformations of American culture since the 1960's. The picture of the country that emerges is of a nation fractured by an accumulating history of false judgments and cultivated divisions of opinion.
The earliest writings are shadowed by the violence of the Vietnam War, the collapse of any social consensus about national policies for defining our values and place in world affairs, and the growing tensions between young and old expressed in the growth of pop culture. The next set of writings reflect the post-Vietnam culture of increasing "identity politics" — the rising centrality of issues of race, gender, sexual identity, and economic inequality. The final section of the book compiles essays, poems, and stories completed during the growing environmental crisis. A central theme in these pieces is the role played by commercial values and financial systems on the nation's capacity for constructive response to the challenges we face.
The overall cast of the book is dark, but many of the selections suggest there is hope — if we can face the delusions that hold us in thrall. The pieces are arranged under four headings: A Nation That Incorporates Oppression examines the effects of decisions by which the American political system has increasingly handed over power to corporate business interests. A Culture That Engenders Conflicts of Identity explores the effects on individual lives of our increasing awareness of issues of gender and gender identity. A Culture That Cultivates Intergenerational Division reflects the tensions between generations that have been so prominent since the 1960's. The last section of the book, A Nation That Rejects Nature Turns Biopathic, muses on our failure to respond meaninfully to the environmental crisis.

Product details...

Hardback
Format: 6 x 9 Black & White Dust-Jacketed Hardback, 297 pages
Publisher: Outskirts Press (Oct 10, 2023)
ISBN10: 1977266509
ISBN13: 9781977266507
Genre: FICTION / Literary

Author Information...

Ty Bouldin was born in 1947 in Charleston, West Virginia, a city whose economy is heavily dependent on international chemical corporations, and capital of a state dominated by extractive industry. As a child he spent his free time exploring the woods and forests, the creeks and rivers near his home and around the state. Following his father’s death when Ty was 16, he attended Concord College majoring in English; took advanced degrees at Miami University and RPI; and taught and administered college-level English and humanities courses in WV and Arizona. Following retirement, he and his wife returned to their farm in West Virginia, where they have participated in citizens’ groups opposed to a major fracked gas pipeline threatening the area where they live.

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