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Title: God's Little Acre by Erskine Caldwell, John MacDonald ISBN: 0-7861-0926-2 Publisher: Blackstone Audiobooks Pub. Date: 01 February, 1996 Format: Audio Cassette Volumes: 5 List Price(USD): $39.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.25 (12 reviews)
Rating: 2
Summary: Pot-Boiler Trash
Comment: Erskine Caldwell (1903-1987) was considered a major author in the 1930s; today, however, his name is most often mentioned in derision, for his great claim to fame consists of two novels that are bynames for potboiler trash: TOBACCO ROAD and GOD'S LITTLE ACRE.
Read today, it is difficult to imagine how something like GOD'S LITTLE ACRE actually managed to sell over eight million copies. First published in 1933, it tells the story of what Caldwell's apologists describe as uneducated, impoverished, rural white Southerners during the Great Depression--but which any one else with a grain of sense would more specifically describe as no-count trash. And then as now, there are a great many Southern farmers who fly into a rage whenever Caldwell's name is mentioned, so thoroughly did he blacken their reputation.
The reason the novel sold well is very simple: sex. And while the sex is tame by today's standards, in 1933 it was pretty hot stuff. Everybody in the novel is in a state of lust. Daddy TyTy lusts over his daughter-in-law and yes, even his own daughters. His sons lust over anything in skirts. His son-in-law lusts over his sisters-in-law. And daughter Darling Jill just lusts, plain and simple, and there ain't a-nothin' no one can do about it, honey, that's just the way she is.
Most particularly, the family lusts over gold. TyTy has gotten it into his head that there is gold on his farm, and in consequence he has spent the last fifteen years digging holes in it. Trouble is, he never bothers to fill the holes back in, so now he doesn't have any land to actually farm. But not to worry. A wannabe sheriff (who is, of course, in lust--in this case with Darling Jill) has told him where he can find one of them-there albinos, and TyTy is convinced that albino mojo will lead them to the gold for sure.
There is one thing that troubles every one, though, and it's the thought that when they find the gold it might just be on "God's little acre"--a tiny portion of the farm that TyTy has set aside to provide for the Lord's work. Everything that comes out of God's little acre goes to the church... not, of course, that any one bothers to farm it. But not to worry. Every time TyTy begins to suspect that the gold might be on God's little acre he just up and decides to put God's little acre somewhere else.
Throw in gun shots, rattle-trap cars, racism, a mill strike, a rich son with his nose in the air (who is, of course, in lust--in this case with his sister-in-law) and every other distasteful and dehumanizing cliche you can imagine and you have GOD'S LITTLE ACRE. Now, there have been a number of writers who have turned their talents to such lurid tales with considerable success--William Faulkner, Tennessee Williams, and John Steinbeck to name but three. But don't kid yourself: Caldwell isn't among the great masters, not by a long shot, and you're not going to find him listed among the great authors of this or any other era. When all is said and done, the absolute best that can be said for GOD'S LITTLE ACRE is that it is fairly short. Two stars for historical significance as a publishing phenomena, but zero for intrinsic merit.
GFT, Amazon Reviewer
Rating: 3
Summary: Some consider it a classic, I don't.
Comment: I give God's Little Acre 3 stars for it's place in literature, history, and an interesting set up for the story. Other than that, I feel that it did not meet it's potential.
The varied themes of race, poverty, social classes, ignorance, identity, and relationships were set for a magnificent statement. Yet, it seems like the author wanted to make a statement, but couldn't quite find it in the ending - making the plot disintegrate to a weak existential expression. This is also probably why I felt that the author was trying to mimic a mixture of Hemingway and Steinbeck styles.
Read it to satisfy curiousity if you'd like, but if you're looking for treasures in this genre, I suggest Grapes of Wrath.
Rating: 5
Summary: With A Roar And A Rank Odor
Comment: 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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Title: Tobacco Road by Erskine Caldwell ISBN: 082031661X Publisher: University of Georgia Press Pub. Date: February, 1995 List Price(USD): $14.95 |
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Title: Georgia Boy by Erskine Caldwell, Roy Blount ISBN: 0820317365 Publisher: University of Georgia Press Pub. Date: August, 1995 List Price(USD): $12.95 |
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Title: Journeyman by Erskine Caldwell, Edwin T. Arnold ISBN: 0820318485 Publisher: University of Georgia Press Pub. Date: July, 1996 List Price(USD): $14.95 |
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Title: Trouble in July by Erskine Caldwell, Bryant Simon ISBN: 0820321052 Publisher: University of Georgia Press Pub. Date: May, 1999 List Price(USD): $14.95 |
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Title: The Stories of Erskine Caldwell by Erskine Caldwell, Stanley W. Lindberg ISBN: 0820316946 Publisher: University of Georgia Press Pub. Date: October, 1996 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
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