It was "King Lear" set on a farm in Iowa

The year was 1997, and Mama brought home A Thousand Acres for us to watch on a Saturday night. It could have been a Friday night, but that doesn't really matter. I don't remember much about the movie, I was only 14 or so at the time, and I can't say that a movie about two sisters fighting over a farm was that appealing.

What I do remember, however, did not prepare me for the book. It seems that they utilized that creative license to the fullest extent... by basically rewriting it all together. But it could just be my memory.

After all, how could I have forgotten that this beautiful fellow played Jess Clark?
Perhaps I blocked this from my memory, as I preferred to remember him as Mr. Darcy. No girl would daydream about one day meeting a Jess Clark, but he is a much better image than what I came up with on my own.

Forgive me. I digress.

A Thousand Acres won Jane Smiley the Pulitzer in 1992 and is, in fact, King Lear set on a farm in Iowa. Ever book review I have read started out that way, and this brief description was utilized as the summary for the movie. However, I would prefer to talk about the work in its own right.

There was something about Smiley's beautiful prose and Ginny's narrative that pulled me in and made me feel at home. Both sets of grandparents were farmers in one way or another, and there is a certain kind of hardness that comes with the profession. One cannot wallow in tragedy; one cannot simply take a day off because you are tired. The cows will still need milking, and the fields will still need tending. The land doesn't take a holiday, and it can be just as callous as hard working hands.

The storyline is simple. The father, Larry Cook, has decided that the time has come to turn his thousand-acre farm into a corporation that would then go to his three daughters. Ginny, the oldest, simply does as she is told. That's what she has pretty much always done. Rose, the middle daughter, has no problem taking the farm as she feels it is her right, and Caroline, the youngest and a lawyer in the big city, has no interest in the land. Family secrets and forgotten memories are brought to light as the father slowly slips into senility, and the sisters and spouses are at constant odds.

While there is much more going on in this quiet novel, what stuck with me was the father's preoccupation with growing and subduing the land for family and prestige, and in the end, not only is the farm lost, divided up and sold to the highest bidder, but the family is destroyed. Smiley creates a realistic world in where there are no perfect specimens of the human race. Each sister, husband, father, neighbor has their own faults, their own baggage, and their own motives that drive them to the devastating end.

For dirt and water.

For stubbornness and envy.

For the Cooks, blood didn't run that thick after all.

While A Thousand Acres is, in fact, King Lear set on a farm, it is so much more than that. Smiley took a classic story and modernized and twisted it to the American culture, our passions and desires, for better or for worse.

Over the next few months, I will have to deviate from my Pulitzer quest. I will instead read other American greats such as Emerson, Melville, and Alcott among others. In stolen moments of spare time, I plan to read Andersonville by MacKinlay Kantor (1956). However, it may be Christmas before that is accomplished.

Until then, dear readers.... Happy reading.

We meet again, Mr. Faulkner

So I must admit that, even as an English major, I have only read two Faulkner novels: Intruder in the Dust and The Sound and the Fury.  While I can respect him as an excellent spinner of tales, his long-winded sentences left me breathless and (more often than not) confused. Until I realized that Mr. Faulkner is much better understood and appreciated when read aloud. The Reivers was a perfect example.


Winner of the 1963 Pulitzer, The Reivers is a coming-of-age story about a young boy names Lucius Priest from Jefferson, Mississippi. Told as a memory to a grandchild, the book begins: Grandfather said:


What follows is a wonderfully sorted tale of misadventures, and it all begins with a death and a trip to New Orleans (or Mobile or somewhere). And as the old saying goes, when the cat's away....

Boon Hogganbeck, the hired hand, and Lucius take a road trip in Boss's new automobile up to Memphis, only to discover later that Ned, the coachman, had tagged along in the back. Of course, we wouldn't have much of a story, if these three guys didn't get into some sort of trouble. Boon exposes the young Lucius to a great deal in the four days they are in Memphis: racehorses, gambling, drinking, bawdy houses, and a pretentious deputy aiming for a fight. What fun!

What I found most interesting is Lucius revelation upon his return to Jefferson: It hasn't even changed! Because it should have. It should have been altered, even if only a little. I don't mean it should have changed of itself, but that I, bringing back to it what the last four days must have changed in me, should have altered it. What truth!

When I read this, I was immediately reminded of the short story by Stephen King, The Body, in which a group of young boys go off to find the dead body of Ray Brower. When they return, it is impossible to go back to the way things were, yet everything is still the same. Thomas Wolfe always confused me with his quote: You can't go home again. Perhaps, this is what he means.

While some of the language was dated for me, I thoroughly enjoyed this book. I think, so far, it is my favorite work of his. Some may disagree in that they prefer his other Yoknapatawpha County works, but I have nothing at this point to which to compare.

We will meet again, Mr. Faulkner and I. I will pull up a chair, pour a hot cup of coffee, and say, "Hello there old friend. Tell me a story." Then I will sit back and allow his southern drawl to lull me back to Mississippi, to dirt roads and red clay. Until then, Mr. Faulkner, take care.

Up next, A Thousand Acres by Jane Smiley (1992).

Until then... Happy reading.

If you sell the land, it is the end...

The Good Earth is about just that, the good earth, the land that brings forth prosperity or devastation. Pearl S. Buck won the Pulitzer for this work in 1932. Interesting enough, the entire work takes place in China before the revolution and the last emperor still reigned.
We meet Wang Lung on his wedding day. His father had arranged the union with the lady of the House of Hwang. He will marry a servant not to pretty as Wang Lung is not in need of a pretty woman and the trouble she brings. Her name is O-lan, and upon their union, she spends the rest of her days selflessly providing for her less than endearing husband. A hard worker, Wang Lung falls into fortune as the gods bless his fields. Instead of saving the money for hard times, he invests it in the land, slowly buying pieces of soil from the House of Hwang until he owns it all. Even the house itself.

At first meeting, Wang Lung is likable enough, a poor farmer plowing the fields. However, as he grows in his wealth and reputation, he moves into the House of Hwang and way from the fields, becoming lazy and idle and throwing money at problems to make them disappear. Wang Lung returns to the land time and time again to sooth his suffering. It is the land that provides, and while he understood that, it was a lesson he failed to pass on to his sons.  In the end (spoiler alert!!), the sons' knowing smiles imply that they will not heed their father's advise, and as soon as he dies, the land will be sold. The end, in this case, it two fold.

Buck aptly describes what happens when wealth is simply given and not earned. While Wang Lung worked the land to bring forth fruit, his sons merely enjoyed the benefits. Wang Lung wanted better for his sons; they should have better than he, toiling in the fields was for no son of his. My how the circle keeps on turning, and there is nothing new under the sun! It is from the earth that life is sustained, fed and nurtured. Wang Lung's trouble came when he deviated from that. A lesson more easily observed from the outside than from within.

While daunting in size, The Good Earth is a fairly easy read with simple writing and a somewhat engaging plot. There were even a few things I could take away from the novel... maybe, dare I say it, what not to do as a parent.

Up next, The Reivers by William Faulkner, winner of the Pulitzer in 1963. Until then... Happy reading.

Empire Falls

Empire Falls won the Pulitzer Prize in 2002, and while it was a quiet novel, I enjoyed my journey with Miles,  Tick, and the rest of the eclectic cast of characters living in a dying town. Perhaps I enjoyed it because I came from a small town much like Empire Falls, a small community of people living out their existence without ever venturing beyond the city limits. Everyone has history with everyone, and past mistakes are hard to escape. At the heart, I think I enjoyed it most for the characters. In this novel, Richard Russo was able to capture the true essence of each individual, plopping you down in the middle of their world and slowly revealing glimpses of the past as the protagonist, Miles Roby makes sense of what his life has become.

Miles struggles with his divorce, caring for his daughter, and keeping the grill afloat, all under the watchful eye of Francine Whiting. Much like the Eye of Mordor, she sees and knows everything, making it hard for Miles to escape her clutches. However, it is not just Whiting that ties him to Empire Falls; Miles, himself, is innately unable to make a decision, to take control, allowing Whiting to pull the strings and driving his wife to the arms of another man.

While the book description promises hilarity, it is few and far between in these soul-searching pages. However, there is some comic relief in the form of one Silver Fox, the fiancee of Miles' ex-wife and a realtor in Empire Falls. The Silver Fox has commandeered Miles' old life, sleeping with is wife, living in his house, and invading the Empire Grill to salt the proverbial wound. While he is a character one immediately loves to hate, he is necessary to allow the reader to breath under the wait of something quiet but powerful.

I have been told by other avid readers that this is not the greatest of Russo's work, and that may very well be true. I have found on this Pulitzer journey that the committee sometimes misses the mark (in my humble opinion, of course), but I think Empire Falls offers up the life of a small blue-collar town trying to make it. From where I sit now in 2012, isn't that the new American dream? Just to make it?

Perhaps. I don't know. What I do know is that I find joy my daughter's innocence, in a hot cup of coffee and a good book, in a house full of people I love.

Up next The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck, winner of the 1932 Pulitzer Prize.

Until then, my friends.... Happy reading.