Dixie Bohemia Summary

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John Shelton Reed, in Dixie Bohemia, illustrates life in the New Orleans French Quarter during the 1920s by following the writers, artists, and other socialites of the era. Reed begins the book by describing the setting; he explained the population of people living in New Orleans, why the location in the South was important to the development of this renaissance, and why all of it occurred in the first place. The second part of the book is an annotated version of William Faulkner and William Spratling’s book describing their circle of friends who contributed to the renaissance movement that occurred in the French Quarter. Reed then summarizes the lives of the people involved after the movement ended. It is important to note that while Reed …show more content…

Reed then traces the evolution of the French Quarter from “slum to Bohemia to tourist trap” in which he offers some explanations on how this came to be (6). Aside from the Faulkner and Spratling book, which is a primary source, Reed utilizes a combination of both primary and secondary sources for his argument (as seen from the Notes section). His sources contribute to the validly of the book, especially since the purpose of the book is to portray the atmosphere of the era. The art from Spratling is included, which helps the reader get a better since of the humor from the original book and also a better picture of the personalities described by both Faulkner and Reed. A downside of including all the passages of the people involved in the movement is that the number of people included was large. More than half of the book was just descriptions of people alone and at times it was hard to keep track of all of them. However, on pages eight through ten, Reed includes an index of all of the people discussed with a brief description and the pages that they are featured on and the inclusion of this index did help with the clarity of the book. Additionally, considering the purpose of the subject was to analyze the movement and people, the book did fulfill this with its use of primary sources, especially with the inclusion of Sherwood Anderson …show more content…

The subject and scope of the work therefore is only to examine the Bohemian movement and the famous individuals who contributed to it. Reed handles this subject well by addressing this subject matter and not straying from it. The book starts out with generalizations to give the reader insight into life in the French Quarter in the 1920s to make sure the reader can understand why and how the Bohemian movement occurred, so they can then be eased into the second part of the book, which is much more specific in detail. The organization of the book therefore helped the effectives of Reed’s purpose as a whole. Considering how Reed went about annotating the Faulkner and Spratling book in detail, the thoroughness of the subject also contributed to the effectiveness. Another important feature to note about this book is the year it was published. It is fairly recent in its field. Therefore, we know that the information given is up-to-date, and this also contributes to the effectiveness of the argument and the validity of the work as a

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