Word: starrs
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...things to remind them: the way all the books in Pangloss are catalogued in one binder for easy reference, for instance. Or the way Harvard Book Store absolutely and unflinchingly charges half the original price for all of its used paperbacks. But give them a place like the Starr Book Shop with its crazy castle exterior and its piles and shelves of musty, dust-covered, unalphabetized books, and their romanticism goes wild. Visions of Bloomsbury circles and artistic Jamesian bookbinders flit through their minds. No doubt they imagine the booksellers themselves -- the tall, thin man with the distinguished-looking, white...
...much for the romantic image. In fact, Milton Starr (he's the one with the pipe--the other is his assistant, Ernest Morrell) is the epitome of the self-made businessman. He always refers to selling books as "the business...
...same time as Starr, with his 20th century values, is sympathetic to the dreams of Californians, he is quick to point out the false and narrow ideals Californians often had. London's delusions are only one example in the long history of the California mind going astray. The first visitors viewed with disgust the polyglot racial mix of Hispanic California, while later Protestant settlers hated the Catholics. Starr dutifully chants the litany of violent gold rush crimes and horrible racist acts against Indians and Chinese, but he makes it clear that these social realities are secondary matters. "...California concealed...
...Starr is not a historian in the contemporary social scientist mold. The direct and discernible influences on his style are 19th century romantic American historians like Prescott and Bancroft. They developed a style of history which demands literary excellence and imagination and Starr has both. It is a style which is narrative rather than analytical; the author's analysis is implied in and intuited from his selection and presentation of materials. It reads like an epic poem, like a saga of heroes, and it means to evoke a feeling of continuity: movement forward along not always logical but inevitable lines...
...Starr has succeeded with the technique so far, but if he hopes for a total success he should pursue the history of California to its present resolution. He is leaving Harvard for California this summer to work for Mayor Alioto in San Francisco and teach as a visiting professor at Berkeley. He writes that he plans two more installments on the California experience. Perhaps he will finally explain to me the Beach Boys and Ronald Reagan...