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Summary: WHY IS MY REVIEW NOT BEING PUBLISHED
Review: I SUBMITTED MY REVIEW TWICE! WHY IS IT NOT BEING PUBLISHED? PLEASE REPLY ?
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Summary: FAST TIMES IN THE DEPRESSION ERA SOUTH
Review: If Andy Griffith and Hugh Heffner were to co-author a Shakespearian tragedy it would be a lot like "God's Little Acre." When there ain't no money in planting cotton and the mill's shut up there ain't but one thing for men and women to do to keep their minds off of their troubles: SEX!TyTy Walden is as obsessed with finding gold on his land as Captain Ahab was about finding the great white whale. Greselda Walden has to be one of the most desired and fought over women in all of American literature. And what red blooded American male would not have wanted a date with Darling Jill. This book alternates from being light-hearted and silly to being very serious and profound. There is great pathos in the description of the desperation of Will Thompson and the other starving mill workers to re-open the mill and go back to work. The death of Will Thompson is a great reminder of the struggle of working people to be treated fairly in this country. This book accurately recounts the hopes and fears of the thousands of working class people who were forced to live in "company towns" and who "owed their soul to the company store." Although I found some of the more explicit sexual content of this novel to be silly and somewhat overdone (I don't think that most people in rural Georgia in the 1930's were this open about their sexualty!), this is a great American novel and Erskine Caldwell should be remembered as one of the great American writers of this century.
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Summary: FAST TIMES IN THE DEPRESSION ERA SOUTH
Review: If Andy Griffith and Hugh Heffner were to co-author a Shakespearian tragedy it would be a lot like "God's Little Acre." When there ain't no money in planting cotton and the mill's shut up there ain't but one thing for men and women to do to keep their minds off of their troubles: SEX! TyTy Walden is as obsessed with finding gold on his land as Captain Ahab was about finding the great white whale. Greselda Walden has to be one of the most desired and fought over women in all of American literature. And what red blooded American male would not have wanted a date with Darling Jill. This book alternates from being light-hearted and silly to being very serious and profound. There is great pathos in the description of the desperation of Will Thompson and the other starving mill workers to re-open the mill and go back to work. The death of Will Thompson is a great reminder of the struggle of working people to be treated fairly in this country. This book accurately recounts the hopes and fears of the thousands of working class people who were forced to live in "company towns" and who "owed their soul to the company store." Although I found some of the more explicit sexual content of this novel to be silly and somewhat overdone (I don't think that most people in rural Georgia in the 1930's were this open about their sexualty!), this is a great American novel and Erskine Caldwell should be remembered as one of the great American writers of this century.
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Summary: With A Roar And A Rank Odor
Review: Like his two other classic novels, Tobacco Road (1931) and the less popular Journeyman (1935), Erskine Caldwell's masterpiece, God's Little Acre (1933) is a funny, sensual, raw, and powerful novel whose tragic story is loosely structured within a mythological framework. Uneducated protagonist and patriarch Ty Ty Walden is a Georgia farmer who is gleefully obsessed with the idea that there is a literal gold mine somewhere in his land's soil. Optimistic Ty Ty (whose two favorite expressions are "what in the pluperfect hell?" and "Well I'll be a suck - egg mule") has spent almost two decades fruitlessly digging fifteen - foot holes across his farm, like an archetypal searcher after fairy gold or buried treasure. Far from reflecting Thoreau's conservatorial ideas about nature at Walden Pond, the Walden farm is slowly falling to ruin; fewer and fewer crops are planted each year, and the huge craters in the earth are left gaping. To make the process more "scientific," Ty Ty and his two antagonistic sons, Buck and Shaw, have violently kidnapped albino Dave Dawson, who they believe will be able to "divine" the location of the lode due to his freakish "betwixt and between" status. The starving black sharecroppers on the farm perceive the swamp - dwelling Dave as a daimonic "conjur" figure, and flee in terror. Hoping to pacify his creator and perhaps turn his luck, Ty Ty has continually designated one parcel of his land as "God's little acre." Though he has promised himself he will always forward the proceeds of the acre to the church, Ty Ty, fearing that he may be accidentally promising away his as - yet undiscovered gold, moves God's little acre from one area to another whenever the whim strikes him. Thus, one of the book's subtle motifs is a semi - conscious denial of divine forces. Ty Ty half - heartedly appeases his god with one hand while reneging on the deal with the other. "Blood on my land," a not uncommon motif in Western literature, is the result. Though the Walden family is far more socialized than the Lesters of Tobacco Road, they are nonetheless all blissfully ignorant and happily unconscious of themselves. Ty Ty, his sons, and his son - in - law think nothing of making aggressive, groping passes at one another's wives or any other woman they think attractive, whether alone or in one another's company. "It's all in the family, ain't it?" says visionary son - in - law Will. Ty Ty goes so far as to say to Buck's beautiful wife Griselda, "The first time I saw you...I felt like getting right down there and licking something." Blushing Griselda, embarrassed but also touched by what she perceives as a compliment made in front of the gathered family, merely says, "Aw, now, Pa." For all of the men and most of the women, just about anyone is fair sexual game, regardless of age, race, creed, or status within the family or society. Daughter Darling Jill, continually on the lookout for erotic novelty, seduces her sister's husband and escorts Dave into the darkness behind the house on his first night of capture. For all of the Waldens, ardent sexual desire is a sign of vigor, health, and stamina; for everyone except Buck and daughter Rosamund, almost all sexual activity is of little or no consequence, either before or after the fact. Contrarily, a drowsy spell also seems to hang over the farm: several of the characters, including Ty Ty, lose their impetus, momentum, and motivation from moment to moment, so that a thirty - second return to the house to retrieve a forgotten item delays a motor trip by several hours; simply rising from a chair in the late afternoon sun is an action that takes concentration, will, and decisive resolve. When election hopeful Pluto Swint (Pluto has eyes the size of "watermelon seeds" and is grossly overweight: appropriately, his surname a cross between 'squint' and 'swine'), the novel's loudly - dressed, sweating, bumbling court jester and patsy, arrives on the farm to canvas votes (upon encountering albino prisoner Dave, the first thing Pluto says is, "Who's that? Is he a voter?"), he immediately falls prey to the family's miasmic collective consciousness and the torpor in the air. Like the Lesters, the Walden clan, rutting animals all, are as much a tribe as a family. "Share and share alike" could be their motto; no high premium is set on individuality or personal development. The book's secondary plot revolves around Promethean son - in - law Will, the leader of a group of striking mill workers in a small South Carolina town. Unlike the rest of the Waldens, Will has visionary power in addition to a robust physique and 'willful' determination and inner confidence. Throughout the novel, Will has a series of dreamy reveries in which the mill is again fully operational, the hungry strikers are gainfully employed, and pretty, respectful young local girls, with their luscious "rising beauties," are awaiting their bread - earning spouses and lovers outside the factory walls at dusk. Like his father - in - law Ty Ty, Will has more than a touch of the enchanted poet about him. As if momentarily captured by fairies, Will awakens from his visions to find that he has been taken "away" and then "returned" to the present. Despite his penchant for alcoholism, womanizing, and spousal abuse, the still Christ - like Will is the heart and soul of God's Little Acre, and the subject of some of Caldwell's most beautiful writing. Banned in Boston and attacked by the New York Society for the Suppression of Vice upon release, God's Little Acre, which has one of the most powerful climaxes in twentieth century American literature, went on to sell more than 10 million copies. Ultimately more hopeful, warm, and uplifting than the farcical, more hilarious Tobacco Road, God's Little Acre displays Caldwell's vision at its broadest and finds the author at the height of his fictional powers.
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Summary: Mr. Caldwell painted pictures with words...
Review: Mr. Caldwell used words like an artist uses brushes. His use of humor, earthy characters, and raw descriptions titillated all five senses. I read this book for the first time when I was a 12 year old girl. It was my first glimpse of adult life and its struggles. As I look back, I can only think of one author similar to him...Ernest Hemmingway.
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Summary: It's a crime that this book isn't taught in Lit courses!
Review: This is a great book -- better, even, than Tobacco Road. Caldwell is like Hemingway and Faulkner got together and had a baby, fed it lots of bad liquor, kicked it around and finally taught it to love this sorry, sordid world. It's a damned shame people don't read him much anymore.
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