Class : a guide through the American status system PDF
Preview Class : a guide through the American status system
AUTHOR OF BAD OR, THE DUMBING OF AMERICA A GUIDE THROUGH THE AMERICAN STATUS SYSTEM "HIGHLY AMUSiNG .... A WITTY, PERSNICKETY, AND ILLUMINATING BOOK .... FUSSELL HITS THE MARK." - CHICAGO SUN-TIMES CLASS A Guide Through the American Status System PAUL FUSSELL With illustrations by Martim de Avillez A TOUCHSTONE BOOK Published by Simon & Schuster New York London Toronto Sydney Tokyo Singapore 711' TOUCHSTONE Rockefeller Center 1230 A venue of the Americas New York, New York 10020 Copyright © 1983 by Paul Fussell All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. First Touchstone Edition 1992 TOUCHSTONE and colophon are registered trademarks of Simon & Schuster Inc. Manufactured in the United States of America 9 10 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available. ISBN 0-671-44991-5 ISBN 0-671-79225-3 (pbk.) "Aberdarcy: The Main Square" from Collected Poems, 1944-1979 by Kingsley Amis, copyright © 1979 by Kingsley Amis. Reprinted by permission of Viking Penguin, Inc. "Come with Me" from The Light Around the Body by Robert Bly, copyright © 1964 by Robert Bly. Reprinted by permission ofH arper & Row, Publishers, Inc. Acknowledgments I am grateful to the many people who have interested themselves in this project or who have-sometimes inadvertently-supplied me with data. Especially helpful have been James Anderson, Jack Beatty, Jake Blumenthal, Henry E. Bradshaw, Alfred Bush, Ed ward T. Cone, Theodore and Mary Cross, Kit Davies, Ira and Judy Davis, Eileen Fallon, Betty Fussell, Angeline Goreau, John Hutchinson, David Johnson, Patrick J. and Marian Kelleher, Mi chael Kinsley, Fletcher and Laura Berquist Knebel, Don Kowet, A. Walton Litz, Donald and Fleury Mackie, Anthony Manousos, Edgar Mayhew, Joyce Carol Oates, George Pitcher, Miles Rind, James Silberman, Claude M. Spilman, Jr., Brian Stratton, Rod Townley, and Alan Williams. During work on this book I have enjoyed the friendship of Harriette Behringer and John Scanlan. I want to thank both for their generosity. To . TUcky and Sam Contents A Touchy Subject 15 II An Anatomy of the Classes 24 III Appearance Counts 51 IV About the House 76 V Consumption, Recreation, Bibelots 97 VI The Life of the Mind 128 VII "Speak, That I May See Thee" 151 VIII Climbing and Sinking, and Prole Drift 170 IX The X Way Out 179 Appendix: Exercises, and the Mail Bag 189
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