This week’s homecoming theme: “Tennessee Traditions.”
As easy as it may be to cry crocodile tears of anguish after the Vols’ 10th straight loss to the Florida Gators, I’d like to focus on a different tradition in Knoxville. Let’s try to forget the fact that our losing streak has reached a decade – a span of time defined by a word that encompasses entire childhoods – and look past UT football traditions entirely.
Just a few days after UT had itself a premature erection of Butch Jones on Neyland Stadium, let’s focus on the history and famous figures of a completely different building: the library.
It could be that you’re reading this column as you stand in the line at Starbucks or study amidst the stacks of John C. Hodges Library, named for the long-time UT English professor. Hodges passed away in 1967, but not before authoring a little textbook called the Harbrace Handbook. First published in 1941 as a pocket-sized maroon hardback, the legendary grammar textbook has now been published in 17 editions. The university says the book is “possibly the most widely used college text in the country,” and the book’s publisher says it’s the top-selling textbook ever.
If you took English 101 and 102 at UT (or any other school, really), you used Hodges’ book. And if you bought it, some of your money went to a fund for the good ole stacks; Hodges assigned 75 percent of future royalties from the sale of the textbook to fund the library. Today, Hodges Library employs more than 211 people, ranking as the 50th most expensive, big-deal library in American academia.
Knoxville’s other literary sons – the ones who didn’t leave a ton of money to the university – receive less recognition, but in the murmurs of Hodges’ first floor, you can find their statues. Dim hallway fluorescence illuminates the busts of several famous writers, including James Agee and Cormac McCarthy.
Agee grew up in a house on 15th Street and Highland Avenue in our very own Fort Sanders. Times were different – the opening chapter of his Pulitzer Prize-winning masterpiece, “A Death in the Family,” describes the yards we now litter with solo cups and bad decisions: “The houses corresponded: middlesized gracefully fretted wood houses built in the late ’90s and early 1900s, with small front and side and more spacious back yards, and trees in the yards.”
Though his Pulitzer was posthumous, Agee found success in other fields; most notably movie reviewing. In the 1940s, he pioneered the modern movie review, legitimizing film’s entrance into the art world by the wit and intensity of his critiques. And when he endeavored to write his own films, he wrote good ones: His 1951 screenplay for “The African Queen” helped secure Humphrey Bogart’s only Academy Award, and his 1955 screenplay for “The Night of the Hunter” has influenced the likes of Martin Scorsese, David Lynch and the Coen brothers.
As Agee’s life drew to an untimely close in the mid-1950s, another Knoxville writer was just getting started. After originally leaving UT to serve in the Air Force, a young Cormac McCarthy returned in 1957 to publish two short stories in the Phoenix literary arts magazine and study liberal arts. He left again – never graduating – and launched a significant literary career that continues today. “The Road,” “No Country for Old Men” and “All the Pretty Horses” have each won awards and earned film adaptations, and “The Road” even scored him an interview with Oprah.
We won’t see Butch Jones following McCarthy to a guest spot on Oprah anytime soon. Despite UT’s premature erection, I don’t think he’ll have a building named after him just yet. At this rate, forget buildings – he may not even get a dog park.
But in a scruffy little city often consumed and defined by football, there is a dog park named for a legendary figure: James Agee Park, on the corner of 15th Street and Laurel Avenue.
If you get a chance, examine the lasting legacy of one of Knoxville’s non-football heroes. Bring a book (maybe Cormac McCarthy’s “Suttree,” based in Knoxville) and a Pumpkin Spiced Latte (or something) and have a moment.
As homecoming calls us to reflect on our Tennessee Traditions, let’s put Butch Jones and the Vols aside for a few days. Let’s enjoy the fall beyond football.
Neyland knows we need to.
R.J. Vogt is a senior in College Scholars. He can be reached at [email protected].
