Tag Archives: Erskine Caldwell

Book Loot: Week Ending May 2nd, 2010

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A warning to all, especially those on self-imposed book buying bans, this post features an obscene amount of books. First, some ebay packages arrived. Then I found out one of my favourite secondhand bookstores in the city was going out of business and selling all their books for $1. Yes, $1. I set myself a modest limit of $20 and let loose, coming out with only (cough, only? My shoulder and hands disagree) 19 books. The day after the sale ended, my sister happened to be wandering by and they were chucking books into a dumpster; she scored some really good stuff too.

And then, yes, that’s just my loot from during the week, there was Clunes. I came well under budget, spending much less than I thought I would. It was a great day, lovely surrounds and buildings, a good vibe, a few friendly dogs and lots of books.  Here’s my haul:

And, a few interesting articles from the week:

God’s Little Acre by Erskine Caldwell (1933)

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God's Little Acre by Erskine Caldwell

God's Little Acre by Erskine Caldwell

Despite my somewhat lukewarm response to Tobacco Road, it made enough of an impression on me that I had to try another Erskine Caldwell book. Having now finished God’s Little Acre, I’m still not sure what the appeal is, the characters are mostly despicable, selfish and lazy; the writing isn’t particularly evocative or revealing or poetic. I think what frustrates me with Caldwell is that I can not identify what, if any?, point he is making with his novels. That people are stupid, narrow-minded and spiteful? That lust takes precedence over any sort of social decency or dignity? Families are fraught with treachery, betrayal and violence? I just really don’t know what to make of Caldwell’s writing. Am I looking for and expecting too much?

Pluto was anxious to get back to Georgia, and Griselda was frantic. She did not know what Buck might do to her for not returning home immediately, and it frightened her to think about it. She was glad to stay as long as she could, though, because it was the first time she had ever been in Horse Creek Valley, and the feeling of the company town gave her a pleasure she had never before experienced. The rows of yellow company houses, all looking alike to the eye, were individual homes to her now. She could look into the yellow company house next door and almost hear the exact words the people were saying. There was nothing like that in Marion. The houses in Marion were buildings with closed doors and uninviting windows. Here in Scottsville there was a murmuring mass of humanity, always on the verge of filling the air with a concerted shout.

God’s Little Acre, like Tobacco Road, revolves around a struggling family living on a failing farm. Ty Ty Walden (Caldwell has a knack for great character names, I’ll give him that.) is the patriarch of the family, forsaking the usual cotton growing in order to dig up his land in the hopes of striking gold. His sons, Buck and Shaw, assist him with the physical labour but without the belief of their father. Ty Ty’s daughter, Darling Jill (see what I mean about character names?!) is a promiscuous young lass being primed for marriage to the bumbling candidate for sheriff, Pluto Swint, but her interest in him depends largely on the proximity of other potential suitors. Buck’s wife Griselda is lauded as being the most attractive woman in the land, mainly by her father-in-law no less. In town, Will Thompson is fighting a battle with the cotton mill unions and drinking too much and running around on his wife, Ty Ty’s other daughter, Rosamond.

“Nothing started it, Pa,” Shaw said. “And it wasn’t about sharing the gold. It wasn’t about anything like that. It just happened, that’s all. Every time that son-of-a-bitch comes over here he invites a beating. It’s just the way he talks and acts. He acts like he’s better than we are or something. He acts like he’s better because he works in a cotton mill. He’s always calling Buck and me countrymen.”

The story is so lurid and overwrought that I don’t know what to make of it. Ty Ty wrangles an albino to help divine the location of gold on his property, the family take some trips in to town to gather Will and Rosamond for help in digging for gold, Pluto follows around a bit complaining that he should be on the campaign trail, the women sleep around, the men sleep around. Jealousy abounds, avenged usually with acts of violence. If I sound a little nonchalant about the narrative, it is because I just don’t feel anything about it. The writing is functional, it doesn’t make me think about things in a new way, it never extends beyond what is happening, but it compels me to keep reading. However, I want more from the books I read than to find out what happens next, Caldwell!

And yet, in spite of this confused response, I find myself eyeing off the other Erskine Caldwell books the local library has buried in their stacks?

Tobacco Road by Erskine Caldwell (1932)

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Tobacco Road by Erskine Caldwell

Tobacco Road by Erskine Caldwell

Erskine Caldwell’s Tobacco Road examines the harsh poverty in the daily life of the Lester family. Jeeter Lester is a failed sharecropper whose family are starving and all but two of his seventeen children have abandoned him. Jeeter’s sister, a widowed preacher, arrives and lures his son Dude into marriage.

Jeeter Lester is such a curious character. He is driven by a faith in nature, a faith in God, despite numerous setbacks which he solely accredits to the work of God; but it is a misguided religious faith, almost an excuse for not taking responsibility for his own livelihood. Then there is the faith of preacher Sister Bessie, whose religious devotion does not seem to be any more active that Jeeter’s. Her motivation for marrying Dude is unclear, the marriage doesn’t seem to benefit her – and this is a tale devoid of all love, marriage is a business transaction.

Pearl would not talk. She would not say a word, no matter how persuasive Lov tried to be, nor how angry he was; she even hid from Lov when he came home from the coal chute, and when he found her, she slipped away from his grasp and ran off into the broom-sedge out of sight. Sometimes she would even stay in the broom-sedge all night, remaining out there until Lov went to work the next morning.
Pearl had never talked, for that matter. Not because she could not, but simply because she did not want to.

There is always the undercurrent of suggested violence, especially against women. Lov and his child bride Pearl Lester, all of 12 years old and refuses to speak to or sleep in the same room as him. The position of women in Tobacco Road is perplexing. They are wives who fail, according to their husbands, their duties both around the home and sexually. Ellie May and Sister Bessie are physically deformed: Ellie May with her reparable harelip (which Jeeter keeps talking about how he will take her to get it fixed, but after eighteen years still hasn’t managed to provide for her), Sister Bessie with her absent nose – just two black holes in her face. The male characters continually point out these physical attributes, often claiming that it prevents them from being able to find a man. This continual degradation of the female characters made me feel uncomfortable.

The novel sometimes appears to be repetitive – characters repeat the same action or speak the same words over and over. At first I thought it was lazy writing, reducing the characters to mere simpletons with very little internal, emotional processes; but the more I thought about it, the more it seemed that this repetition worked to keep them within the vicious cycle of poverty. Jeeter talks about how all he needs is a mule and cotton seed – at least once each chapter – but he just doesn’t have the motivation or means to actually do it. Talking about it, knowing the way out, but being unable to translate that into action keeps the Lester family in their state. Jeeter prides himself on maintaining tradition, without realizing that it comes at the expense of progress.