Oral History

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Summary: Oral History Became Real to Me
Review: I have just finished this book and I can't say enough good things for what it brought to me. I had heard of the book from something on Public TV and just had to have it. I am 60 and my mother's family was from this area, but mother never talked much about that part of her history. I had felt like there was an important part of me that I didn't understand. This book just delighted my mind as I followed the closeness of the many people and how they lived and thought. It was most interesting to me and I hope to read more of these tales if I can find them in large print. I feel like a part of me is now alive as I understand more about the people and times in these mountains.

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Summary: $15 Southern Sleeping Pill
Review: I was required to read this book for a college level Appalachain Appreciation class. This book was praised for its story telling abilities and discription of Appalachain culture. While it succeeded in telling a story of a cursed, inbred family, it failed to keep me awake long enough to finish in time for the deadline. The book entertains a host of narrators (maybe entertains isn't the right word) that losely follow a century of the Cantrell family. This book was the fifth book author Lee Smith wrote, following four massive failures. She continued the trend here dragging out a campfire tale for 300 pages. I reluctantly finished the book hopeing for a smashing ending to save myself from feeling like I had waisted my time. Unfortunatly that didn't happen. I don't want to spoil the ending for you, Lee Smith will though. Long story short, save your money.

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Summary: Oral History lives up to its title.
Review: On the plus side, Lee Smith's Oral History lives up to its title. While reading it, I felt as if I were camped at the feet of an old uncle or a grandmother who was telling tall tales--based on truth, but making a lot of it up as he or she went along. Another plus is that Smith, having grown up in the hollers of Southwest Virginia, has a genuine ear for the dialect and the cadence of speech her characters use (although there were some instances where an uneducated Granny Younger used phrases that were probably more educated than their speaker, making them sound as if someone else [Lee Smith] was talking). Smith paints a colorful story around equally colorful characters that seem very real. I grew up not too far from this area, and I could identify with many of the people in Smith's story.

On the minus side, the story felt disjointed somehow. The beginning and the end felt tacked on. The ending felt especially rushed and contrived, as if the author couldn't think of any other way to end it, so she threw it all together somehow. But to Smith's credit, that's sometimes how tall tales and legends feel, as if the storyteller rushes to an ending just to end it all.

I also felt that as the story went along, that I was led down some bunny trails that never were dealt with. For example, what was the deal with Pricey Jane's earrings? I know she had them when she arrived in the holler, and she passed them on to Dore, who passed them on to one of her twin daughters. But Pricey Jane was good, so why did the earrings represent evil? They popped up too many times in the story for there to be no real explanation.

Overall, Oral History was good, though it plodded at times and I had to force myself to keep reading. But if you can get through those few points, it's worth it. Smith is a good writer and a decent storyteller, and I look forward to reading more of her work.

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Summary: Evocatively written but grindingly slow
Review: Smith is a talented writer who evocatively recreates the speech and culture of the holler people of Appalachia. The book suffers, however, from such a slow pace that it verges on the moribund through some of the narrative. In conveying the culture and landscape of Appalachia, Smith sometimes lets that overtake pace, plot and characterization leading not to just a slowing of the pace of the narrative but its grinding halt.

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Summary: Gorgeous writing, enter minds of the characters
Review: The language is beautiful. She uses it to really bring us into the minds of the characters, who vary immensely in their personalities. That in itself is a joy to read - to observe the differences between the upper-class educated romantic self-involved young man who travels to this remote area, and the dutiful spinster whose inner passions have not been wholly untapped, and the 12-year-old boy on the day he becomes a man by killing pigs and drinking rotgut. You will probably fall in love with at least one of these characters.

The stories follow a family's history from post-Civil War era up to the 80s. I agree with the reviewer who said the book was terribly disjointed, which is its major flaw and it took me three months to finally push through to the end. The first section of the book is really fascinating, dwelling in the supernatural. But then it abandons its supernatural mystery and never really comes back to answer it. That was a great disappointment for me.

Still, for love of the language and the characters, I can recommend this book.

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Summary: Pure Appalachia
Review: This book was a little difficult to understand at first. The East TN slang was difficult to get past (the Grandma) and I am from East TN. It was an intriguing look (as always with Lee Smith) at Appalachia. Her stories are always well told. I love Lee Smith's writing and her way of writing but this was not her best effort. I'm not at all sorry I read it I just wished it had had more oomph. I hope Lee Smith continues writing for another 20+ years.

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Summary: A piece of Appalachia
Review: This is the only Lee Smith book I've read, so comparisons with other Smith books are impossible.

The story traces the history of an Appalachian family from the late 19th century to the late-mid 20th century. It is told from various points of view, by various characters, at various times, resulting in a book which on the surface might seem "downright Faulknerian." However, Smith's main concern is the story and not the experience of reading it (which could, on some level, be said of Faulkner's literary goals), hence readings don't have to wrestle with the language. That being said, readers unfamiliar with the grammatical and lexical idiosyncracies of Appalachian English might sit scratching their heads at some of the characters' utterances, but the language is far from incomprehensible.

"Oral History" offers a view into a period and location that, until recent years, has remained fairly secluded. It's a pleasurable and rewarding read.

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Summary: My First Lee Smith book
Review: This is wonderful!!! It tells the story of a family streching back for 100 years. It starts out with stories that seem normal, bt always have a deeper meaning. My favorite narrator is "Granny Younger" the old women that lives on top of Hurricane Mountain(and in her spare time battles Imps of the devil).

The bottom line is that even though this story may be long you never lose interest in it. I plan to continue reading books but this author.

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Summary: The start of a love affair with the writings of Lee Smith
Review: This was the first book of Lee Smith's that I read - and still one of my favorites. Two things make Oral History memorable: (1) the accuracy of her portrayal of folk beliefs, the folklore, of the region and (2) a wonderful plot line that is never contrived. It doesn't hurt that Lee Smith has mastered her craft as well. A must read for anyone interested in folklore as a way of life - not a musuem piece. If the Foxfire series is for you, so is this novel.

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Summary: Sensitive, touching and chilling
Review: To complete an assignment for a college class, Jennifer takes her notebook and tape recorder to the tiny mountain town in Virginia where her Mother grew up. She meets family members and learns of a mysterious curse that has followed them for generations. Her grandfather and her great-aunt actually left their mountain cabin because of ghostly screams and noctural visitations. Jennifer learns about herself as she chronicles the lives of her ancestors.

This is a beautifully written, absorbing story. Characters are fully developed and Smith captures the character and the hard life of the Appalachian mountaineer with sensitivity and empathy, not without sending a chill or two up the reader's spine.

Here's a world you may not know but if it's a familiar one, you may see it with new insight after reading ORAL HISTORY.