Sunday, July 10, 2005
Slavery and the Evolution of Cherokee Society, 1540-1866 - Theda Perdue
An excellent small book that focuses on the issue of slavery and the Cherokees. It examines the traditional role of "slaves" in the pre-historic period and the evolution of the economic practice of slavery for the Cherokees as well as the Cherokees who were sold into slavery. It then examines the activities of the Cherokee nation after removal and in the civil war.
The Road to Disappearence - Angie Debo
A disappointing book that presents a biased and subjective view of Creek Indian history. Compared to "Creek Country" by Etheridge this book is an embarrasement.
For instance, examine the desciption of the beginning of the Creek War, the attack by the creeks on Fort Mims. In this attack 107 soldiers, 160 civilians (women and children) and 100 blacks were killed. Debo has this to say "Owing to the criminal negligence of the commander the attack was a complete surprise." No mention of guilt for the attackers, she places the blame on the commander, who failed to place an adequate quard on the gate. She sums up with "It must be counted to the success of the white man's tortuous diplomacy that it was only a minor faction of a distracted and weakened people that set itself to check the growing power of the young republic."
There are facts presented in the book that make it a useful source, provided that the obvious bias is overlooked.
For instance, examine the desciption of the beginning of the Creek War, the attack by the creeks on Fort Mims. In this attack 107 soldiers, 160 civilians (women and children) and 100 blacks were killed. Debo has this to say "Owing to the criminal negligence of the commander the attack was a complete surprise." No mention of guilt for the attackers, she places the blame on the commander, who failed to place an adequate quard on the gate. She sums up with "It must be counted to the success of the white man's tortuous diplomacy that it was only a minor faction of a distracted and weakened people that set itself to check the growing power of the young republic."
There are facts presented in the book that make it a useful source, provided that the obvious bias is overlooked.
Thursday, July 7, 2005
Creek Country: The Creek Indians and Their World - Robbie Ethridge
This is an excellent book, full of detail, well researched and amply footnoted. I read this as another source for my historical novel.
It is not a history book, but a snapshot of Creek life about the beginning of the nineteenth century. It relies heavily on the correspondance and notes of the Indian Agent Hawkins.
Truth is stranger than fiction, and I really enjoyed the tidbits of truth that can be found here. It is amazing how different the world of the Creeks is than the history I was taught in school.
It is not a history book, but a snapshot of Creek life about the beginning of the nineteenth century. It relies heavily on the correspondance and notes of the Indian Agent Hawkins.
Truth is stranger than fiction, and I really enjoyed the tidbits of truth that can be found here. It is amazing how different the world of the Creeks is than the history I was taught in school.
The Life of Andrew Jackson by Robert Remini
This is the abridged version in one volume. It is also published as a three volume set! There is plenty of detail in the abridged version, especially for my purpose. I am researching another novel, a historical novel set from 1815 to 1838 in the Creek and Cherokee lands.
Naturally I need to have a good understanding of Jackson, his life and politics. This book is perfect for that task. The author doesn't sugar-coat Jackson's life, something that must have been hard to do. I couldn't imagine devoting my life to the study of one man without becoming so attached to the subject that I didn't color the biography with my own bias. Remini has done a good job.
Naturally I need to have a good understanding of Jackson, his life and politics. This book is perfect for that task. The author doesn't sugar-coat Jackson's life, something that must have been hard to do. I couldn't imagine devoting my life to the study of one man without becoming so attached to the subject that I didn't color the biography with my own bias. Remini has done a good job.
Thursday, May 5, 2005
Absalom, Absalom!
I would sooner drive a nail through my hand than read this book a second time. Faulkner's endless rambling sentences in endless paragraphs in endless chapters where all the action takes place forty or fifty years ago and it's just someone else's guess or secondhand narration about people long dead who no one is even related to anymore and we don't really care anyway make my head hurt. And that last sentence is as close to a Faulknerian sentence as I will ever write.
He had a good story to tell, with interesting characters and convincing motivations, but he obfuscated it so much that it's almost impossible to follow. If it weren't for the glossary of characters in the back of the book I would still be scratching my head. None of the action is immediate. All of it is narrated by someone else, some of it even guessed at. It's not told in chronological order either, but constantly skips back and forth.
The book does have a few moments that I admired, but they were few and far between. Some of his metaphors are nice, and that's about the only compliment I can personally give him.
Of course, plenty of people who presumably know better than I do think this is great fiction. Faulkner did win the Nobel prize and two Pulitzer prizes for similar work. I could never adopt this "stream of consciousness" style of writing - it would drive me nuts. I prefer to tell my stories simply and plainly.
It's about miscegenation. A big deal in the 19th century and enough to ruin this particular family. Here I am, a Southener of the 20th/21st centuries, and it's a little hard to imagine that it could be so important. But Faulkner does a good job of showing how the characters feel about it, even if he does do it over and over at length. The whole point of telling it at the distance of a generation removed is to show how important it was at the time? Possibly.
So I read this because it is another example of the Southern gothic style. If you like Faulkner's style then by all means read it. If you don't care for his style it will drive you crazy.
He had a good story to tell, with interesting characters and convincing motivations, but he obfuscated it so much that it's almost impossible to follow. If it weren't for the glossary of characters in the back of the book I would still be scratching my head. None of the action is immediate. All of it is narrated by someone else, some of it even guessed at. It's not told in chronological order either, but constantly skips back and forth.
The book does have a few moments that I admired, but they were few and far between. Some of his metaphors are nice, and that's about the only compliment I can personally give him.
Of course, plenty of people who presumably know better than I do think this is great fiction. Faulkner did win the Nobel prize and two Pulitzer prizes for similar work. I could never adopt this "stream of consciousness" style of writing - it would drive me nuts. I prefer to tell my stories simply and plainly.
It's about miscegenation. A big deal in the 19th century and enough to ruin this particular family. Here I am, a Southener of the 20th/21st centuries, and it's a little hard to imagine that it could be so important. But Faulkner does a good job of showing how the characters feel about it, even if he does do it over and over at length. The whole point of telling it at the distance of a generation removed is to show how important it was at the time? Possibly.
So I read this because it is another example of the Southern gothic style. If you like Faulkner's style then by all means read it. If you don't care for his style it will drive you crazy.
Friday, April 15, 2005
Fried Green Tomatoes - Fannie Flagg
This is a very entertaining book, full of interesting characters and stories. The movie is different - of course - but the book is much better I think.
I read this because I want to write a novel that takes place in two different generations, much like this novel does, and I was unsure how to proceed. After reading this I'm still not sure. Flagg's technique is to tell very short scenes, jumping around in time from scene to scene. No scene is really longer than a few pages, some are a single page or less. Interspersed are newspaper accounts of some of the events. Although there are many characters, we are really only privy to the thoughts of one of them - Evelyn, in the "present" time.
I have to say that the rest of the scenes are written in a more omniscient viewpoint, something that is not done much in modern fiction. Those scenes that consist entirely of Ninny narrating are written in the third person. Those scenes that take place in the earlier time are also in third person, but are not restricted to one viewpoint, changing quickly within the scene, and rarely showing us any interior monologue. This is why I think those scenes are really omniscient, although there is quite a bit of distance from the characters.
Writing the novel this way was understandable, of course, since the novel as a whole seems to be a story, or sequence of stories, told to us by the omniscient author. For instance Ninny never knew who killed Bennet, and could not tell Evelyn, but the reader knows.
Looking at that particular scene as an example, the chapter dated Dec 13, 1930, at first it seems to be in Sipsey's viewpoint, since Artis is asleep, then Artis, then we get a glimpse of what Frank Bennet was thinking. Then it returns to Artis and stays until the end. It's not really confusing though, and flows easily and quickly.
I have to say there are some errors. For instance, early in the novel, in the chapter dated Oct 15, 1929, Davenport Iowa Hobo Camp, there is an opening paragraph that we assume is in Iowa, then a long flashback to fill us in on Smokey's early years. When we return from the flashback we are in Alabama. Elsewhere in the book there are repeated words and typos. None of this really distracts from the enjoyment of the book however, and you have to be really paying attention to catch them.
I can't write my novel like this. I prefer well established viewpoints, close psychic distance, and a clear, unconfusing sequence of events. I am still unsure how to hadle the jumps between time though - I do like the dates at the beginnings of the chapters, and will definitely use something like that - see my short story "Alabama 1910".
I read this because I want to write a novel that takes place in two different generations, much like this novel does, and I was unsure how to proceed. After reading this I'm still not sure. Flagg's technique is to tell very short scenes, jumping around in time from scene to scene. No scene is really longer than a few pages, some are a single page or less. Interspersed are newspaper accounts of some of the events. Although there are many characters, we are really only privy to the thoughts of one of them - Evelyn, in the "present" time.
I have to say that the rest of the scenes are written in a more omniscient viewpoint, something that is not done much in modern fiction. Those scenes that consist entirely of Ninny narrating are written in the third person. Those scenes that take place in the earlier time are also in third person, but are not restricted to one viewpoint, changing quickly within the scene, and rarely showing us any interior monologue. This is why I think those scenes are really omniscient, although there is quite a bit of distance from the characters.
Writing the novel this way was understandable, of course, since the novel as a whole seems to be a story, or sequence of stories, told to us by the omniscient author. For instance Ninny never knew who killed Bennet, and could not tell Evelyn, but the reader knows.
Looking at that particular scene as an example, the chapter dated Dec 13, 1930, at first it seems to be in Sipsey's viewpoint, since Artis is asleep, then Artis, then we get a glimpse of what Frank Bennet was thinking. Then it returns to Artis and stays until the end. It's not really confusing though, and flows easily and quickly.
I have to say there are some errors. For instance, early in the novel, in the chapter dated Oct 15, 1929, Davenport Iowa Hobo Camp, there is an opening paragraph that we assume is in Iowa, then a long flashback to fill us in on Smokey's early years. When we return from the flashback we are in Alabama. Elsewhere in the book there are repeated words and typos. None of this really distracts from the enjoyment of the book however, and you have to be really paying attention to catch them.
I can't write my novel like this. I prefer well established viewpoints, close psychic distance, and a clear, unconfusing sequence of events. I am still unsure how to hadle the jumps between time though - I do like the dates at the beginnings of the chapters, and will definitely use something like that - see my short story "Alabama 1910".
Thursday, April 14, 2005
A Man in Full by Tom Wolfe
I started reading this novel right after I finished Faulkner's "Absalom, Absalom!", and it was as if my fever had broken and I had risen from my sick bed and walked again. The contrast between the two cannot be greater. Wolfe's prose is clear, powerful and engaging.
The book is huge, over 300K words, but it is not repitition that fills the pages, it is detail. Super-realistic detail about the lives and surroundings of the characters continues untiringly to the end. It is not considered a Southern gothic novel, although I could make an argument that it is. Scenes like the breeding stable and the prison, characters like Conrad Hensley and Charlie Croker, and the examination of race and greed are worthy of the rest of the Southern gothic genre. It is a novel about the South, set for the most part in south Georgia and Atlanta. The plot is not especially complex, but it is detailed. The story revolves around the wealthy businessman Charlie Croker and those people in his sphere of influence.
It is very interesting to examine how this huge novel is constructed. It is 3rd person POV with five viewpoints. For the most part the viewpoint changes occur at breaks in the narrative, but beginning in about the last third of the novel Wolfe starts to speed things up and viewpoint changes occur within scenes more and more frequently. In the last full chapter (not the epilogue) the viewpoint changes 20 times between the five characters, sometimes just for a short paragraph to tell us what someone is thinking. This is all done very smoothly and seamlessly.
In a novel this size pacing has to be important. I have to admit the first half seemed to drag. The only character I really felt empathy for was Conrad, the young man laid off by Croker's business decision that ended up in prison, etc. etc. I was hoping he would have a major part to play in the novel and I was not disappointed. The strange coincidences involving Croker and Conrad and the stoic philosophy underline the whole moral point of the novel.
One of those coincidences, the earthquake that occured at just the right time to free Conrad from prison was almost too much for me to swallow. I started questioning the whole point of that deus ex machina. Cynically I wondered if Conrad had been placed by the author in California instead of the South just so that he could be freed by the earthquake. It doesn't matter, I suppose, but that was the weakest point of the plot.
I was also disappointed by the ending. I thought that Charlie would do something different and his attempt at evangelizing the audience just did not seem right to me. I always thought the stoics spread their beliefs by example?
Tom Wolfe has gotten somewhat of a bad reputation by having an ego, and after reading this book I am surprised by some of the things I have read in his interviews and essays. It seems that a man with a large ego would not write a book like this, espousing the stoic philosophy. The paperbook copy that I have gives you a good example of his ego though. In large red letters on the front "Tom Wolfe" - the title of the book seems almost an afterthought, in small black text, appearing almost as a nickname - Tom "a man in full" Wolfe.
It's an excellent book though, and I highly recommend it - if you have the time to read it. For the student of the craft of writing novels it is an excellent example to study.
The book is huge, over 300K words, but it is not repitition that fills the pages, it is detail. Super-realistic detail about the lives and surroundings of the characters continues untiringly to the end. It is not considered a Southern gothic novel, although I could make an argument that it is. Scenes like the breeding stable and the prison, characters like Conrad Hensley and Charlie Croker, and the examination of race and greed are worthy of the rest of the Southern gothic genre. It is a novel about the South, set for the most part in south Georgia and Atlanta. The plot is not especially complex, but it is detailed. The story revolves around the wealthy businessman Charlie Croker and those people in his sphere of influence.
It is very interesting to examine how this huge novel is constructed. It is 3rd person POV with five viewpoints. For the most part the viewpoint changes occur at breaks in the narrative, but beginning in about the last third of the novel Wolfe starts to speed things up and viewpoint changes occur within scenes more and more frequently. In the last full chapter (not the epilogue) the viewpoint changes 20 times between the five characters, sometimes just for a short paragraph to tell us what someone is thinking. This is all done very smoothly and seamlessly.
In a novel this size pacing has to be important. I have to admit the first half seemed to drag. The only character I really felt empathy for was Conrad, the young man laid off by Croker's business decision that ended up in prison, etc. etc. I was hoping he would have a major part to play in the novel and I was not disappointed. The strange coincidences involving Croker and Conrad and the stoic philosophy underline the whole moral point of the novel.
One of those coincidences, the earthquake that occured at just the right time to free Conrad from prison was almost too much for me to swallow. I started questioning the whole point of that deus ex machina. Cynically I wondered if Conrad had been placed by the author in California instead of the South just so that he could be freed by the earthquake. It doesn't matter, I suppose, but that was the weakest point of the plot.
I was also disappointed by the ending. I thought that Charlie would do something different and his attempt at evangelizing the audience just did not seem right to me. I always thought the stoics spread their beliefs by example?
Tom Wolfe has gotten somewhat of a bad reputation by having an ego, and after reading this book I am surprised by some of the things I have read in his interviews and essays. It seems that a man with a large ego would not write a book like this, espousing the stoic philosophy. The paperbook copy that I have gives you a good example of his ego though. In large red letters on the front "Tom Wolfe" - the title of the book seems almost an afterthought, in small black text, appearing almost as a nickname - Tom "a man in full" Wolfe.
It's an excellent book though, and I highly recommend it - if you have the time to read it. For the student of the craft of writing novels it is an excellent example to study.
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