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 Click for words events Tale of Two Cities "The City" and "City on the Make"
Algren based his famous book on an obscure poem called "The City."
Algren doesn't mention the poem or its author in "City on the Make,"
but the poet's fingerprints show up all over Algren's book. Sometimes
Algren borrows an image:
"The City": "Children of the cold sun and the broken
horizon..."
"City on the Make": "the high broken horizon of its towers
overlooks this inland sea."
Sometimes a metaphor:
"The City": "I, who all night restive in the unsleeping rain,
awoke and saw the windows covered with tears."
"City on the Make": "And one for midnight subway watches when
stations swing past like Ferris wheels of light, yet leave the moving
window wet with rain or tears."
Sometimes a phrase:
"The City": "where the painter hangs for sale beside his
work.... He who can feign desire, praise poison, or hang by
his teeth, lives well..."
"City on the Make": "Now it's the place where we do as we're
told, praise poison, bless the F.B.I... and applaud the
artist, hanging for sale beside his work, with an ancestral glee."
Also by Jeff McMahon
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