DONNIE has been studying the works of HAMLIN GARLAND these days and has some interesting observations.

"After winning the Pulitzer in 1922 for his childhood autobiography, Garland decided he was better at telling his own real story than making up fiction, so he wrote several more volumes of personal reminiscences. I'm reading one from his New York years at the time of WWI.

Garland was pretty good buddies with Teddy Roosevelt, but most of his celebrity contemporaries of those times are now long forgotten. So a lot of the book is tedious tales of dinner parties. It is clear Garland, despite his humble background and his tales set among simple people, became himself quite a snob, and he often talks dismissively of more common folk. But he is occasionally funny.

The motion picture industry was just taking off, and at that time was centered in the East. There was much talk of making Garland's books into films, so he was engaged with producers. But he drew pretty negative conclusions about the whole business, which he could not consider serious art. (Apparently this changed, as he ended up living in Hollywood.)

He also makes a trip to a spa, a rural health clinic, for homeopathic treatment of his arthritis. His description of the place is very good, funny--he scorned it all and soon went home. Perhaps also typical of his Midwest upbringing, he seemed unduly preoccupied with health. The New York years corresponded with his 50s, and he was already lamenting old age and poor health. Yet he would live on to age 80."