The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884) by Mark Twain

 1,001 Novels: A Library of America

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884)

 by Mark Twain

Hannibal, Missouri

Missouri: 9/12

   Huckleberry Finn is as relevant as it has ever been by virtue of the controversy it continues to engender by being both a stone-cold literary classic for young people AND the biggest remaining bastion of the use of the "N-word" left in society.  Listening to the Audiobook made me think of the relationship of Twain to Cervantes and Don Quixote.  It also put me in mind of The Confidence Man by Herman Melville.  As to the former, Twain was surely familiar, as to the later, he surely was not- Melville being well forgotten and The Confidence Man having made no contemporaneous impression.  That got me thinking about Huckeberry Finn itself, and the publication history- turned out that Twain started his OWN publishing company and sold Huckleberry Finn, the contemporary equivalent of selling your fashion line on QVC or self-publishing on Amazon.   I know that the publication history of Don Quixote itself was somewhat complicated in the English language- it is an epic tale and translation standards in the 18th century were loose to the point of non-existent in terms both of care and fidelity of the source material. 

The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek(2019) by Kim Michele Richardson

 1,001 Novels: A Library of America

The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek (2019) 

by Kim Michele Richardson

Sigman Road, Troublesome Creek, Kentucky

Kentucky: 8/16

   During the Work Projects Administration, the Federal Government paid women to schlep library books into the hollows of Kentucky.  Also, in Kentucky there was a family of "Blue People"- the Fugates, who due the chance marriage of a French immigrant to a local girl, inherited a recessive genetic trait that caused their skin to turn blue from a lack of oxygen in the blood.  The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek combines these two true stories into a single novel about a woman- called Bluet, who is the last, blue-skinned woman of her kind, and works for the WPA as a book woman.   Truly, author Kim Michele Richardson stuck some kind of thematic alchemy with her combination of the two subjects, making The Book Woman uncommonly affecting for a book of this type. 

  Most notably was her classification as a "colored' person alongside the only African American woman in the valley.  This part of the book seemed a little far-fetched, since I've made through the entire deep south with many not black but not white characters and it seems like a blue skinned woman of EUROPEAN ancestry would not be classified as "colored."  To me, that sounds more like a definition you would have come across in the urban north, where groups like the Irish and Italians were commonly discriminated against and referred to as non-white, in spite of their European ancestry.

The Dollmaker (1954) by Harriette Arnow

 1,001 Novels: A Library of America

The Dollmaker (1954)

by Harriette Arnow

Pulaski County, Kentucky

Kentucky: 7/16

  Calling The Dollmaker a Kentucky novel is a little misleading, in that the vast majority of this 500 page plus book takes place squarely within Detroit, Michigan.  It's about Kentucky as much as a novel about a New York City immigrant family from Italy is about Italy.  It's also a melodrama, a genre so down on its luck that it has become a pejorative adjective.  Arnow's heroine is a plucky housewife from the holler with a talent for whittling.   During World War II, her husband, a coal miner with a talent for "tinkering" finds work as a skilled machinist in a War factory.   The wife puts up a small amount of resistance before she whisks herself and her children off to city live circa World War II era Detroit.  Spoiler alert: It sucks and she hates it.

  The Dollmaker is squarely in the "protagonist never leaves the house" quarter of the 1,001 Novels: A Library of America.  This lady gets herself and her family to the apartment/townhouse in Detroit, and thereafter she leaves the immediate of the vicinity once for a visit to the school of her children, once to the hospital to accompany an injured child and that is it. End of list. Twice in over five hundred pages of text.  The Dollmaker reminds me of Malone Dies by Samuel Beckett.  Basically, all this lady does is worry and eventually she makes some dolls.  Her children adjust to urban life with varying degrees of success, and not for the first time in this chapter I am reminded that the "upward mobility through education" style American dream doesn't work for children who are taught to feel "less than" at school.

 Another theme from the Kentucky Appalachian area is that holler culture is not the product of degenerate's inbreeding, rather it represents a migration of a specific sort of people: white immigrants who mostly came from the borderlands of England and Scotland without much organization or forethought, settling where no one else wanted the land.  The whole point of mountain Kentucky was to escape elites telling them what to do and how to live, and that persists to today.  It wasn't like there was some well-organized period and then things fell out- Kentucky hill people were the same from the 18th century to the present in their cultural characteristics.

True Grit (1968) by Charles Portis

 1,001 Novels: A Library of America

True Grit (1968)

by Charles Portis

Yell County, Arkansas

Arkansas: 1/8

   Arkansas has to be one of the least literary of the United States of America. True Grit is the only title out of the eight from this state I'd ever heard of before the 1,001 Novels project.  I listened to an Audiobook edition narrated by Donna Tartt, of all people.  As she explains in the afterword, True Grit is one of her favorite books, so she leapt at the chance to be the voice of Mattie Ross, the diminutive narrator and protagonist of the revenge tale best known for the movie version with John Wayne as US Marshall Rooster Cogburn.   Tartt wrote an interesting afterword where she speculates on why such a classic novel (I agree) is hardly read anymore- she places the blame at the feet of the John Wayne starring movie (there was a more recent version with Jeff Bridges and Hailee Steinfeld as Mattie Ross) for being a successful dumbing-down of the plot of the book. 

  True Grit was a real discovery for me- I raced through the Audiobook.  I thought Mattie Ross was a delightful character, and Donna Tartt fairly amazed me with her voicing of the text.  Surely the best novel from Arkansas in the 1,001 Novels project.

Weeds (1923) by Edith Summers Kelley

 1,001 Novels: A Library of America

Weeds (1923) 

by Edith Summers Kelley

Scott County, Kentucky

Kentucky: 6/16

    Author Edith Summers Kelley is the attraction here.  She was a Greenwich village hipster and was engaged to Upton Sinclair for a couple years.  Ended up marrying his roommate, that marriage fell apart, then she married another artist, they moved to Kentucky and cosplayed/larped as tobacco farmers for a few years.  They then relocated to the Imperial Valley desert outside of San Diego- one of my favorite places, where she wrote a second novel about pioneering out in the Imperial Valley.  The second novel was never published, the first fell out of print and was later rediscovered and republished, which also led to her other novel being republished.  Kelley ended up in San Diego- the postscript of the edition I read had an interview with her.

  In that sense, Weeds is just about as inauthentic as a book could be, but the fact that it was published in 1923 excuses the inauthencity, as does the proto feminist POV.   A theme I've noticed from the older novels in Kentucky is an attention to dialect that seems almost Joycean.  I'm almost distracted by the linguistic questions that "Hillbilly" raises.  These days, people recognize that the way people speak in the western Appalachians is not a degraded version of the King's English but its own dialect that is closer to the English of the colonial era than any other remaining.  Thus, a novel set in 1920's Kentucky can put us closer to the 18th century then a 19th century novel set in New England or New York. 

Finn (2007) by John Clinch

 1,001 Novels: A Library of America

Finn (2007)

by John Clinch

100 Center St, Hannibal, Missouri

Missouri: 8/12

    I was surprised that Jim, by Percival Everett wasn't included in this chapter of the 1,001 Novels: A Library of America project.  I suppose Jim wasn't published until after editor had made her picks, but it is hard to imagine a world where the audience is better served by this book, a full-ass novel about Huckleberry Finn's disolute father.  As told by Clinch, Finn is the neer do well son of the local Judge, called "The Judge" from whom he inherits a virulent racism and little else.  Finn the elder is a knock-down, drag-out alcoholic, and the entire book is punctuated by his physical need to get drunk every single day of his life.  In this telling, Finn is of mixed-race, his Mother being a run-away slave that Finn the elder "rescues" after her father is caught in the attempt to hijack a paddleboat to freedom in Illinois.  The virulent racism of The Judge is notable, even after my sweep through the deep south of Alabama and Mississippi- it's long been observed that the worst racists are people who don't have many interactions with black people, and the Judge fits that description- he is known in the book for being alone in having a white servant family instead of black slaves. 

  Finn the elder can fairly be described as a horrific monster, based on his behavior in the book. I was surprised when I listened to an author interview that ran after the Audiobook, when Clinch said that readers he talked to found themselves rooting for Finn despite his notable flaws.  Not me.

River of Earth (1940) by James Still

1,001 Novels: A Library of America

River of Earth (1940)

by James Still

Knott County, Kentucky

Kentucky: 5/16

   I don't think there has been a single work of art talking about the benefits of working in a coal mine. Similar to the art surrounding factory work, contemporary readers might wonder how places like coal mines and nineteenth century factories found anyone to work at all.  The truth is that work that now has a terrible reputation represented an upgrade for most people, like the seasonal coal miners in this book, who work in the coal mine when its open and tend to their hardscrabble family patches when it is not. 

  Something I've noticed is that precious few works of art dealing with this subject actually take place INSIDE the mine or factory, rather what you get is the impact the work has on the workers and their families outside the work environment.  I'd be more interested to read a novel about what it is like to work in a coal mine then what the experience is like seeing one's dad work in the mine, which is the situation here.

  I give extra points for any book in the 1,001 Novels project that is published before 1970, but other than the dialect, I wasn't a huge fan of River of Earth.

Somebody Else’s Mama (1995) by David Haynes

 1,001 Novels: A Library of America

Somebody Else’s Mama (1995)

 by David Haynes 

River Ridge, Missouri

Missouri: 7/11

  The closest geographical neighbor to Somebody Else's Mama is Winters Bone, but tonally the books couldn't be set farther apart. Somebody Else's Mama is set in River Ridge, Missouri, an all-black town near the Mississippi River.  This is a multi-generatonal family saga with a husband/wife/2 teen sons set up reflecting the present and past relationships with their mother's.  Specifically, the plot centers around the wife taking in the mother of the husband, moving her from St. Paul, Minneapolis, to this town in Missouri, where her husband was the longtime mayor and himself the son of an almost unbelievable founder figure who owns most of what counts in the town.  So soon after reading The Warmth of Other Sons I found myself wishing for more information about this founding grandfather, but alas, most of what we get is the wife complaining about their life together.   

  The wife of her husband has her own interesting story- the only daughter of a wealthy St. Louis area insurance agent and his widowed wife.  Their complicated relationship in the past is contrasted wit the complicated "sandwich generation" dynamics of the present.  I do find that the plight of the upper-class American housewife strikes similar notes regardless of the era and ethnicity of the housewife in question. 

The Weight of Blood (2014) by Laura McHugh

 1,001 Novels: A Library of America

The Weight of Blood (2014)

by Laura McHugh

Henbane, Missouri

Missouri: 6/11

  It is hard for me to read Ozark set noir without thinking about the Netflix drama, Ozark, with Jason Bateman.  There is a strong connection between Ozark noir and Appalachia noir: characters who live in or around a "holler."   Few non-white people of ANY kind in evidence. Generally speaking, a world where the lives of people, particularly children are cheap. The Weight of Blood ticks all those boxes, with a story about an attractive Iowa orphan who "ages out' of the foster system and unwittingly signs a labor contract with a man who is going to turn her into a prostitute.  She thwarts his scheme by marrying his brother.  They have a child, who is the central protagonist, interspersed with flashback chapters from the POV of the Mom (now gone) and the two brothers, as well. 

  I think the plot is meant to be a thriller in terms of finding out what actually happened to the Mom of the protagonist and solving the gruesome murder of a local wayward teen.  Normally I'd take a shot along the lines of these characters are uninteresting because they don't do anything or go anywhere, but that is not quite the case here- probably because the central mother/daughter pair are outsiders (half outsider) and the two brothers are well off and reasonably sophisticated about the world.

Corregidora (1975) by Gayl Jones

 1,001 Novels: A Library of America

Corregidora (1975) 

by Gayl Jones

Lexington, Kentucky

Kentucky: 4/16

     Gayl Jones was a Toni Morrison protege in the 1970's who disappeared for over 20 years before recently returning with new work. Corregidora was her fiery debut, about a Lexington, Kentucky jazz singer with a tangled personal history (slave owning great-grandfather who fathered her great grandmother AND grandmother.  Written decades before the phrase "intergenerational trauma" became common, Corregidora is nothing but an expression of the theme. Surely the best book in the Kentucky chapter of the 1,001 Novels: A Library of America- arguably a classic of 1970's American lit.   Something I've noticed is that precious few works of art dealing with this subject actually take place INSIDE the mine or factory, rather what you get is the impact the work has on the workers and their families outside the work environment.  I'd be more interested to read a novel about what it is like to work in a coal mine then what the experience is like seeing one's dad work in the mine, which is the situation here.

All the Living(2009) by CE Morgan

 1,001 Novels: A Library of America

All the Living (2009)
by CE Morgan

Berea, Kentucky

Kentucky: 3/16

   Like Strangers Here Below, All the Living is set in Berea, Kentucky.  Birds of Opulence, the first book in the Kentucky chapter, is also set nearby. I gather from all three books that this whole swath of Kentucky was settled from the north, and settled late, and settled without a landed class of plantation owners, which allowed for alternative ways of life: Interracial schools, communities of free African American.  Here, we have a young man who inherits his family tobacco farm and then moves in to his family home with a local girl he meets at an orphanage.  They live together "in sin" which is surely unusual but the farm they live on is so isolated that literally no one knows.  She finds work as a pianist at the local church- piano being her only skill (something she reflects upon frequently.)  All the Living is another example of the "Go Nowhere, Do Nothing" novel which becomes about the place where it is located because that is the only setting.  Great for the purpose of the project, but these protagonists, white, black, young, old- blend together over time in terms of the limits of their insights about the human condition.

Stangers Here Below (2010) by Joyce Hinnefeld

 1,001 Novels: A Library of America

Strangers Here Below (2010)

by Joyce Hinnefeld

Pleasant Hill, Kentucky

Kentucky: 2/16

   Two books in and I can already tell you that Kentucky had a different racial vibe than the deep South.  Take Berea College, which was founded as an interracial institute of higher education in the 19th century. It had to abandon that mission for a half-century when Kentucky made interracial education illegal in 1904 but then went back to being interracial before such a thing was widespread.  This book details the history of that school as seen through the eyes of one white student and one black student and folds in the story of a nearby Shaker colony that was hanging on by virtue of a single resident into the mid 20th century.   Strangers Here Below is a perfect pick for the 1,001 Novels: A Library of America project because it is specifically about a specific place on the map, but I also liked the underlying history itself- of which I was unaware. 

Rum Punch (1992) by Elmore Leonard

 1,001 Novels: A Library of America

Rum Punch (1992)

by Elmore Leonard

Miami, Florida

Florida: 21/21

  I've long been interested in Elmore Leonard as an example of an author who writes genre books which maybe transcend genre.  I think the standard is wait for the death of the author, give it 20 years, and see if anyone is still reading or writing about said author.  By any standard, Elmore Leonard has achieved canonical status, whether you are measuring by his four Library of American volumes, including an entire volume dedicated to his western era, or the activity on his Amazon author page.  

  After that, the question is, which works best represent the author- pick an early work, a mid-career work and a late career work.  With Leonard, I think the early career pick is Mr. Majestyk (1974) which is an early example of his crime fiction and takes place in Detroit, not Florida or California.  It also leaves out his whole western career which spans 1954 to 1970.  Mid-career and late career kind of blend together with Leonard- he continued publishing until 2012 but you'd be hard pressed to pick anything after Out of Sight (1996).  You've also got Get Shorty, Maximum Bob and this book- all of which were hits, well reviewed and got memorable movie/tv versions (Jackie Brown for Rum Punch.)  

  I would probably go with this book over Get Shorty because of the "inside-Hollywood" angle of that book.  You want an Elmore Leonard Florida title on the short-list.  Rum Punch is a good pick because Jackie Brown, the weary stewardess at the center of the familiar double-cross heavy Leonard plot, is as memorable a heroine as you are going to get.  As for the rest: guns, drugs, murder- you know the drill.

The Perez Family (1990) by Christine Bell

 1,001 Novels: A Library of America

The Perez Family (1990)

by Christine Bell

Miami, Florida

Florida: 20/21

  I had to buy a copy of The Perez Family- a movie edition copy, no less.  The movie was made by Mira Nair, Mayor Mandani's Mom, and starred Anjelica Houston and Marisa Tomei.   Her Amazon product page only has five listings- one is a Japanese translation- none appear to be in print.  At this point, I think I'm good on the Cuban immigrant experience at least as far as it extends through South Florida.  Many people found the move hard, particularly those with a limited skill set.  The inability to speak English as an issue- which frequently arises in immigrant novels of all types, does not appear to be a problem for the Cuban immigrants, nor does categorical racism/blanket discrimination. Due to the circumstances in Cuba almost all (all?) have some kind of lingering PTSD from their Cuban experience, and family and friends who were left behind. 

  Here, we have a character who spent 20 years in a Castro prison for being an opposition newspaper editor, he is sent to the US during the Marielito boat lift- at the tail end- and has difficulty reuniting with his family, but he makes new friends along the way. The New York Times called it "oft maudlin" and I would concur, but I would also say that maudlin is a very Cuban mode and that the shared experience of this group as a class of people has maudlin attributes that you would expect to see in fiction.

  One more Florida title to complete the chapter! And a book from blog-favorite Elmore Leonard. 

Stoner (1965) by John Williams

 1,001 Novels: A Library of America

Stoner (1965)

by John Williams

St. Louis, Missouri

Missouri: 5/11

  This is a good pick for the 1,001 Novels: A Library of America.  As I noted when I read it back in 2019, it had a bit of a revival at the end of 2010's:

Published 10/6/19
Stoner (1965)
by John Williams

  Stoner is not about weed, it's about a guy named Stoner.   I've been aware of Stoner since the New York Review of Books put out a paperback version- that was back in 2005- and then in 2012 it was Waterstone's book of the year, which spurred more interest in the United States- for the last few years I've seen it everywhere that carries New York Review of Books Editions.  Sadly, New York Review of Books doesn't do Audiobooks, but I guess someone else got the rights and BOOM- I'm listening to the Audiobook.

  John Williams spent most of his life in Denver as a tenured assistant professor at the University of Denver.   He wasn't unrecognized in his lifetime- his 1972 novel, Augustus, about the life and times of Caesar (of ancient Rome) won the National Book Award, but he isn't what you would call "canonical."  If he is, it is because of this book- Stoner, his anti-bildungsroman slash existential hero, about a character who bears a marked resemblance to the Author.   William Stoner is what you call a "tragic hero," born to a pair of Missouri dirt-farmers who decide to send him to the then brand new University of Missouri (Columbia) with the thought that he will learn agricultural science and return to the farm.

  Instead, young Stoner- who is, it must be said a "square"- he represents the polar opposite of of Kerouac's Sal Paradise in On The Road- falls in love with English literature and abandons his planned course of study to become a university English instructor.  What follows takes place almost entirely on or near the University of Missouri, making Stoner a charter member of the first generation of the "campus novel" of American literature.

  The pathos really starts to build when Stoner makes the ill-advised choice to court and wed Edith, the mentally ill daughter of a wealthy St. Louis area banker who is affiliated with the university.   Edith is literally the first woman that Stoner dates, so a modern reader won't miss the warning signs, and the use of a third part narrator makes sure that the reader is aware of how bad things are likely to get.   Edith is a memorable character, and the miseries Stoner experiences at her hands are only exceeded by the misery he experiences in his job as a tenured assistant professor- he has a lifetime job, but no guarantee of when or what he will be teaching, a hitch that comes to the fore when Stoner gets into a spat with his department head over the progress of a student.

   Stoner is a sad book, very sad.   It's certainly a nice counter-point to the beat influenced/classic 60's era American books from this period.  One thing that Stoner is not is experimental, nor is it difficult to read.  My understanding of books reprinted by the New York Review of Books is that they are often experimential/modernist/difficult to read, and that was not the case here.

Breaking Out of Bedlam (2010) by Leslie Larsen

 1,001 Novels: A Library of Ameri ca

Breaking Out of Bedlam (2010)

by Leslie Larsen

Joplin, Missouri

Missouri: 5/11

   Breaking Out of Bedlam is a 1,001 Novels: A Library of American mainstay, about a 300 pound, 82-year-old mother of three who has just been confined to an assisted living facility by her "loving" children.  Surprisingly, the narrative structure takes the form of narrator Nora Sledge deciding to tell her story by writing in a journal.  Author Larsen thus avoids the central dilemma of the entire 1,001 Novels project: How to write an interesting book about a character or characters with little or no formal education and never go anywhere or do anything.   As Sledge herself makes perfectly clear, she fits this description.  It's unclear if she has ever read a book.  But she is a lively and engaging narrator, and the low-stakes plot about assisted living shenanigans kept me engaged.

  The 1,001 Novels project has this book mapped but it is hard to say why.  The nursing home where 100% of the action takes place is in suburban San Diego- it sounded like the Clairemont Mesa area to me.  The written flashbacks to Sledge's past live must be happening in or around Joplin, Missouri though Sledge doesn't tell us much about the place other than her own story- getting pregnant as a teenager and then tricking her husband into marrying her to give the illegitimate child a home.

Mrs. Bridge (1959) by Evan S. Connell

 1,001 Novels: A Library of America

Mrs. Bridge (1959)

by Evan S. Connell

Kansas City, Missouri

Missouri: 4/11

     Mrs. Bridge was a genuine pleasure to read and Connell a genuine discovery for me, one of only a limited number of authors thus far in the 1,001 Novels: A Library of America.   Mrs. Bridge is a really well-done portrait of an upper-class matron in Kansas City, Missouri in the early-middle 20th century- apparently based on Connell's sister, who was an upper-class matron in Kansas City, Missouri.   Connell was raised there, though he resided in San Franscico and later New Mexico as an adult.  I couldn't find any information about him being a member of the LGBT community at any point, but his romantic history is limited to a single woman who sounds like a beard to me.  He never got married, never had any kids and shunned publicity.  Sounds pretty LGBT to me!

    Mrs. Bridge works because he tells the story of this objectively uninteresting woman in the form of a hundred little episodes, leaving the reader to piece together the more prosaic moments of her life.  What is fantastic about this technique is that it transforms an uninteresting subject into an interesting subject without demanding an excessive amount of time from the reader.  Surely, Connell was ahead of the curve in that regard.  This approach wasn't characteristic of all his books- later in his career he wrote a 450-page non-fiction book about the life of General Custer that was his biggest commercial hit.

   

How to Leave Hialeah (2009) by Jennie Capo Crucet

 1,001 Novels: A Library of America

How to Leave Hialeah (2009)

by Jennie Capo Crucet

Hialeah, Florida

Florida: 19/21

   Hialeah, Florida is a western suburb of Miami and the most heavily Hispanic city in the nation, with over 95% of the population claiming Hispanic background on the last US census.  Of that 95%, just about 75% claim Cuban ancestry, compared to 30% for the city of Miami.   One important aspect of the post-Castro Cuban diaspora is that it blended with a smaller but still present pre-Castro Cuban-American population, and that it came in waves, with the original wave being largely economic and cultural "enemies" of the new Cuban state (I.e. rich people, their families, and intellectuals who weren't getting with the program and then a second wave of the Marielito's, which, by design contained criminals and maniacs but was mostly just working class Cubans and the relatives of those who had already made the trip.   Those who traveled as part of the Marielito wave have suffered prejudice by association, but they also represented a less well-off social-economic cohort. 

  Author Jennie Capo Crucet is a good example of second-generation Cuban diaspora, a novelist with good reviews, some prizes and no hits, working as a professor at a midwestern college (Nebraska).  Some of the set ups here are familiar- I found myself trying to remember where I had read about the practice of paying people to read to Cuban cigar rollers- one of the stories here.  The title story I'm assuming is auto biographical since it mirrors her actual biographical details.  The experience of coastal Latinos whether they be from NYC of Miami, attending midwestern universities is almost a trope at this point in the 1,001 Novels: A Library of America- as I've learned (and knew beforehand) it is never, ever easy for students to do well in unfamiliar/collegiate settings, particularly when they are visibly members of a minority group.

  Whether that actually applies to Cubans is a good question.  Most Cubans present as white and come from a place in the United States (either South Florida, NYC area or LA) where they are either the dominant group or just one of many.  The experience of students at Midwestern universities is highlighted by so many authors because their "minority-ness" in the rural Midwest is assumed and the more challenging minority groups are often excluded by lack of interest from these parts of the US.  I'm just saying it's a particular circumstance for Cuban Americans vs other groups.

The River of Kings (2018) by Taylor Brown

 1,001 Novels: A Library of America

The River of Kings (2018)

by Taylor Brown

Altamaha River, Georgia

Georgia: 25/25

  I missed The River of Kings my first time through Georgia- so make this novel 25/25 for that state. The River of Kings is interesting and kind of a mess as well- a head scratching combination of settler-fiction with a contemporary tale of two brothers searching for the truth behind their father's untimely death at the hands of a sturgeon on the river.  For the life of me I couldn't figure out the thematic connection between the two tales- besides the shared geography of the river.   The settler tale was of the moder variety, where the western "conquest" of the new world is shown to be much more precarious than history would have it.  The inevitability that constitutes the modern world view would have been a shock to the French settlers of the 16th century who figure in The River of Kings.

  Meanwhile the modern tale of two brothers- one a college student, the other a damaged veteran of the war in Afghanistan, never really sparked to life. Perhaps because they don't do anything except try to figure out their dad's death over a couple of days "on the river."  Author Taylor Brown did a decent job capturing the sophistication of the Native Americans- as we now know, the early European settlers were incorporated into the existing political-military landscape and were far from being the dominant player for hundreds of years.

The Old Man and the Sea (1951) by Ernest Hemingway

 1,001 Novels: A Library of America

The Old Man and the Sea (1951) 

by Ernest Hemingway 

Gulf Coast, Florida

Florida: 18/21

   I like Hemingway TBH.  He gets a bad rap because he was such a cartoon of a human being, but there is no mistaking the impact of his prose- the only idea of minimalism.  I think you can really only appreciate it if you've struggled through the morass of the high modernists.

Published 10/3/15
The Old Man and the Sea (1952)
by Ernest Hemingway

  The Old Man and the Sea is a slim hundred and thirty pages in length.  Generally considered to be Hemingway's last good book, it also won the Pulitzer Prize and was a staple of courses in American literature for decades after publication.   Today, it's popularity has been eclipsed, a victim of the quest for other (non white, non male) voices, particularly when it comes to tales about Caribbean fishermen.  Let the fishermen speak for themselves, in their own language, is what contemporary teachers of literature would most likely say.

 The story concerns an old fisherman and his quest to bring in one last giant marlin.  It is a journey that takes him far out into the gulf stream, off the coast of Cuba.  The Old Man and the Sea is one of those narratives that has burrowed so far into the popular consciousness that you can almost write the damn thing.   Reading Hemingway outside of the constraints of school has been a delight.  I find his restrictive prose soothing, a welcome antidote to the stuffy English and European upper classes of most early 20th century fiction.  Like other Anglo-American authors, he moves into fraught territory with Latin American characters, but you can't really hold him responsible for wanting to write this story and feeling like he was competent to do so.

The Old Man and the Sea, a man, a fish, some sharks, the water and a boat.