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Topic: Literature and working life (life on the job)

lagatta
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 2534

posted 07 May 2002 12:34 PM

Dear friends -

A friend in Germany asked me for interesting literature (novels, short stories, poems, or narratives of a personal sort, not sociological or historical studies) about the topic of working life / life on the job (not just the more general topic of "working-class life"). In English or in French mainly (though translations available in English, French or German could be interesting too). Of course I'd be particularly interested in sending him Canadian titles, but works by authors anywhere in the world could be of interest.

What writings have stirred your imagination about life on the job "la vie au travail"?

From: Se non ora, quando? | Registered: Apr 2002 | IP: Logged

Arch Stanton
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 2356

posted 07 May 2002 01:16 PM

Here's one of mine from over 20 years ago, inspired by spending 12 (mostly solitary) hours at a time, 3,000 ft. underground, driving a front-end loader all over a potash mine:

Load up on fuel and atomic dust
Clip on my laser light
Illumination is a must
In darkness, less visible than night

Creeps on jeeps and the drivers of the miners
Are of no concern to me
As I float around in my battlestar
In the black hole of Block C

A cruiser of this hollow space
Is all I intend to be
I know that I have found my place
Underground Astronaut at IMC.

For some reason I think there is more that I disremember, but...

From: Borrioboola-Gha | Registered: Mar 2002 | IP: Logged

lagatta
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 2534

posted 07 May 2002 01:39 PM

By the way, Arch, thank you for jumping in when I was being flamed for allegedly downplaying the Nazi genocide in France, displaying McCarthyite logic or whatever. ("shitty little country" thread). I think that there are people who enjoy hurtful argument. Fortunately they are a small minority on this site.

From: Se non ora, quando? | Registered: Apr 2002 | IP: Logged

Trespasser
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 1204

posted 07 May 2002 02:09 PM

This is an interesting topic, I'll find something. For now all I can think of is Mike Leigh's movies, which do not represent the actual work as much.

From: maritimes | Registered: Aug 2001 | IP: Logged

skdadl
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 478

posted 07 May 2002 02:44 PM

There is a splendid Canadian poet, but his name isn't coming to me ... I'll worry over this.

(Besides you, Arch, besides you! )

I suppose they've already thought of Germinal? Too elevated? Too general?

At the level of pop culture, I think everyone should be able to sing "Sixteen Tons":

You load sixteen tons
And whaddya get
Another day older
And deeper in debt
Saint Peter dontcha call me
Cause I cain't go
I owe my soul
To the company store.

From: gone | Registered: May 2001 | IP: Logged

lagatta
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 2534

posted 07 May 2002 03:42 PM

Perhaps you are thinking of Al Purdy? Or of Dan Daniels who died recently? I knew the latter, from Montreal. However, though he wrote a lot about working-class life (not so hard a topic to find) I haven't found a lot by him about life on the job as such...
-
Germinal is fine, although it mostly concerns a strike, it of course deals with the abject working and living conditions of the miners and their families that led to this action. However my European red friend would obviously have read this, probably before a lot of you were born (he's in his 50s). He is looking more for contemporary and fairly recent (post WWII) stuff. Something older might be interesting, but only if it were not likely to be known by a cultivated European leftist.

From: Se non ora, quando? | Registered: Apr 2002 | IP: Logged

grasshopper
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 2330

posted 07 May 2002 04:02 PM

There is a great cd - a compilation of canadian music where all the songs have a work theme - contributors include Randy Sutherland and Sarah Farquhar from Tamarack. I heard it the last time I was in Guelph . Google shows nothing . Maybe someone knows of this compilation ?

From: henry dargers attic | Registered: Mar 2002 | IP: Logged

Terry Johnson
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 1006

posted 07 May 2002 05:35 PM

If you want poetry about work, start with Vancouver poet Tom Wayman. He edited a collection of work poems called "On the Job" (I think), and much of his own poetry (try "A Government Job at Last") deals with work.

And don't forget Howard White, another BC poet (and publisher). He wrote a collection of poems mostly about work in the forest industry called "The Men There Were Then."

From: Vancouver | Registered: Jul 2001 | IP: Logged

'lance
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 1064

posted 07 May 2002 05:38 PM

I like In The Skin of a Lion, by Michael Ondaatje, partly about ironworkers and the working-class movement in early 20th-century Toronto.

From: that enchanted place on the top of the Forest | Registered: Jul 2001 | IP: Logged

skdadl
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 478

posted 07 May 2002 05:43 PM

Terry Johnson, that's the one -- Tom Wayman. Wonderful poet. And thanks for the update as well.

And lagatta, 'lance is right: the passages in Skin of a Lion about the building of the Bloor St viaduct and the filtration plant are stunning, very beautiful.

From: gone | Registered: May 2001 | IP: Logged

vickyinottawa
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 350

posted 08 May 2002 02:43 PM

I'll add my vote for Ondaatje's In the Skin of a Lion.

What kind of "working life" are you looking for? Often we take it to mean blue collar working life, but there are plenty of other kinds of workplaces portrayed in literature...I'm thinking of David Lodge's series of books on academic life, or Jane Smiley's Moo, or even Douglas Coupland's Microserfs.

From: lost in the supermarket | Registered: Apr 2001 | IP: Logged

Arch Stanton
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 2356

posted 08 May 2002 03:11 PM

I spent three years studying literature by and about Lancashire cotton operatives during the Chartist era, as well as some other 19th century writings on the working classes. I don't suppose anyone's interested in that stuff.

From: Borrioboola-Gha | Registered: Mar 2002 | IP: Logged

lagatta
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 2534

posted 08 May 2002 04:54 PM

Dear Arch, I'm VERY interested in labour history and narratives. My friend had asked for more contemporary stuff, but I suspect he'd also like some of the more obscure life histories connected with "the making of the working class". It's just I'm sure he's read Germinal and other well-known classics on work and the class struggle, especially in Europe.
-
No, I was not only thinking of blue-collar or industrial work. Perhaps the main restriction in that respect would be salaried work, but certainly being a computer slave or a white-collar worker is encompassed in this vast topic.

From: Se non ora, quando? | Registered: Apr 2002 | IP: Logged

vaudree
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 1331

posted 08 May 2002 11:22 PM

What about Nellie McClung's Sowing Seeds in Danny - It focused on the rolls of women before the nuclear family - they did work! The first chapter contains a conversation between a rich lady and her washerwoman.
http://digital.library.upenn.edu/women/mcclung/danny/danny.html

[ May 08, 2002: Message edited by: vaudree ]

From: Just outside St. Boniface | Registered: Sep 2001 | IP: Logged

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