EVER THE WINDS OF CHANGE

by Carl Sandburg ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 1, 1983

Two years after the publication of Always the Young Strangers (1953), Sandburg worked on a sequel to that acclaimed childhood memoir--completing 15 chapters that covered the years from 1898 to 1905. But the project was abandoned after 1955, and only those chapters remain, now published in their first-draft form. Sandburg starts at Lombard College in his Illinois hometown here--sleeping at the firehouse (as a $10-a-month ""call man""), eating breakfast at home, plugging away at classes: ""All of the time well did I know I had a mind that was slow and hard driven here and there where other students took it fast and easy."" He recalls favorite professors--including Renaissance man Philip Green Wright. (""There was never a time when he didn't deepen whatever of reverence I had for the human mind and the workings of a vast mysterious Universe."") He remembers first encounters with Browning, Lamb, ""Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde""--reprinting an 1899 essay. (""I didn't put in the paper that I searched myself for the Jekyll and Hyde streaks in me and found several Hyde streaks that it wouldn't do to write about."") There are choir practices, literary projects, flirtation with religion, very mild partying (""booze was not in favor at Lombard""), memorable guest lectures, part-time jobs galore (selling ""stereographs"" door-to-door)--and then the three years after college: traveling in hobo-style, landing in jail, writing poetry in firehouse corners, finally taking the ""Chicago plunge."" Without the texture that further drafts would surely have brought--but a straightforward, appealing fragment for Sandburg scholars and aficionados.

Pub Date: Nov. 1, 1983

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Univ. of Illinois Press

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 1983

Categories: NONFICTION