What’s with Baum?

A good passage

Baum in contrast was adamant about not selling out and supported himself freelancing and tutoring. His attempts at fiction showed promise but were never as good as his magazine articles on the world events or cultural issues which sold enough for him to survive in Manhattan.

His erudite style was straightforward, perhaps a tad ponderous at times. The word ‘ponderous’ would haunt him through the years. He would more easily make people think than feel and appeared to be more suited to journalism, but he comforted himself with the fact that any number of great writers began as newspapermen. He had trouble creating characters who too often were merely vehicles for his ideas. I know this man, he wanted the reader to feel about his characters. He is me. He shares my longing, my fears. Having read the book and lived through the valleys and peaks of this man’s experiences I now see life differently. I don’t need God to find meaning. It may be all for nothing but I still say yes to being. That’s what Baum wanted the reader to feel closing the covers of his fiction. The problem was he couldn’t sell all that because he didn’t really buy it himself.