Studs Terkel walks now in the same honored league as Anthony Trollope, Charles Dickens, John Steinbeck and the host of other writers called to chronicle their times. This bold statement will provoke debate among those who argue a distinction between fiction and non-fiction. A lifelong advocate for the provocative, Terkel would have loved that.
The public and passionate quest for truth binds Terkel to all honored authors. It is the highest calling in the humanities, a challenge that offers, as its reward, a taste of eternity on the printed page. Lesser men and women have been broken in this pursuit. Those who survive, who succeed, enter a literary pantheon that reaches across the ages.
Their greatest stories will always touch the heart.
Studs Terkel died Friday. He was 96.
God bless Studs Terkel, and i mean that with all my heart, as a born and raised in Chicagoland lad — but what does redemption mean to a Marxist? Studs was of the softer, more Socialist strain (like his fellow Illinoisian, Barack Obama), and would critique Stalin when necessary, but his red shirt was no affectation; it was a representation of who he was as a flannel, plaid Communist. OK, that’s where he chose to stand, and yet he did believe in redemption (he spoke of it often enough on WFMT anyhow). I was hoping for some accounting of what that would be in the end, but it’s between Studs and Jesus now. May grace overwhelming have opening enough to wash over Studs and carry him into the light eternal.
But still i wonder — what does a Marxist mean by redemption?