THE BOOK OF DAMN
YANKEES
OTHERWISE KNOWN AS THE BOOK OF MANIFEST DESTINY
Franklin Roosevelt gets reelectedThe Yanks ignore Europe pretty firmly
Chapter 100
And so, Yank culture finally started getting serious,
2qAnd talking about real life,
3Including a writer named rJohn Steinbeck,
4sWho had noticed that poor white trash didn’t have any money,
5tAnd a writer named uJohn Dos Passos who had noticed that life in America wasn’t completely fair,
6vAnd a writer named wJohn O’Hara who had noticed that life in America wasn’t completely fair even if you had a little money,
7xAnd a writer named yF. Scott Fitzgerald who had noticed that life in America wasn’t completely fair even if you had lots and lots of money,
8zAnd a writer named aaWilliam Faulkner who had noticed that life in the south was so bbunfair that it could drive you to drink,
9ccAnd a playwright named Eugene O’Neill who had noticed that life was like some tragic comedy of errors,
10ddEspecially if you have a bunch of alcoholic relatives,
11eeAnd a certified literary genius named ffHemingway who noticed that life wasn’t completely fair even if you used a lot of picturesque Spanish words in italics,
12aEspecially if you were trying to blow up a fascist bridge in Spain,
13bWhich is such a universal experience that it kind of proved how everybody was really in the same boat,
14cEven if the overwhelming majority of Yanks still didn’t have any interest at all in getting involved with the Europeans again,
15dNo matter how picturesque they were.
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Chapter 100 / 154