Sampiro, great insights on Souther Literature. I’m impressed, but not too surprised.
I do though, have to take you to task on one issue. I don’t have my books around me right now, so I can’t hit you with cites, but Toqueville’s comments about prejudice are the most problematic in his book (and that’s saying something). I side with the scholars who believe he was misinformed by individuals with white supremacist tendencies, and bought the whole “Everybody’s happy here because we all know our place” line. It goes hand in hand with all that julep and magnolia blossom crap that gives Southern Literature a poorer reputation than it deserves. On that note, may I suggest a substitute quote?
OTOH, nearly a century after Alexis de Tocqueville the Klan was flourishing in Oregon, Nebraska, Indiana, Illinois and many other states that were not part of the Confederacy. Malcolm X, one of the most severe critics of American racism and the white power structure, never lived in the south or in any state where slavery had been legal within a century of his birth and, as did MLK, reached similar conclusions to Al. d. T.- that in the south it was a different form of racism, far more open and institutionalized, but as such, easier to fight.
This is not to romanticize the south at all- events like Chaney/Schwermer/Goodman and Emmet Till horrified the world- but there was institutionalized discrimination outside the south and unabashed racism outside the south as well. Much is made of the fact that Hattie McDaniel was not allowed to attend the Atlanta premier of GWTW because the theater was whites only, which is true, but also true is that she was forbidden burial in Hollywood Cemetery when she died 13 years later strictly due to her color (even though the grounds held Bugsy Siegel and Rin Tin Tin), while Bert Williams and Bojangles received similar injustices in NYC, and the south has seen nothing like the Rodney King Riots in almost a century.
Speaking of Flannery- a dichotomy of her own was that she spoke against Southern racism frequently, yet when James Baldwin asked to meet her at Andalusia (her mother’s farm outside of Milledgeville) she refused. “I honor the traditions of the society I feed on.” She later said he could call on her if he was ever in Milledgeville but he would have to use the rear entrance; he basically told her what to do with her “honorable” self.
I will not deny that racism exists in the north. I’ll bet there’s an active Klan chapter in every state in the union. But bear in mind there is no northern equivalent to Hugo Black: an ambitious liberal who joins the Klan out of political expediency. In Arthur Schlesinger’s history of the Roosevelt Administration, he points out that Huey Long claimed that he would say he was part black before northern audiences, but would accuse his opponents of that before southern audiences.
True, but nothing to compare with LA (or even with the 1906 Atlanta riot).
Sticking just to Black’s contemporaries, how about Ralph Owen Brewster (born best remembered today for Alan Alda’s portrayal of him in The Aviator who it’s believed by many joined the KKK and definitely received their support? (The KKK was powerful in Maine due to hatred of French Canadian immigrants.) Or Joseph Kennedy (also born in 1888) who never joined the KKK but certainly didn’t shy away from anti-Semitic organizations (or comments, and was an open admirer of Hitler until it was a liability) and chummed with mafia figures for expedience? Or the politicians who joined openly anti-Catholic organizations when Al Smith was running? Then there were many who jumped on anti-union or anti-communist or anti-immigrant or anti-[whoever’s hated at the moment] bandwagons when expedient and off the second it wasn’t. Cliche because it’s true about politics and strange bedfellows.
One fact of Southern literature that can’t be overstated: absence makes the heart grow fonder. Lots of Southern novelists wrote their best works either while living away from the South, or shortly after returning from a long absence…during which, they usually hammed up their Southernness for all the (publishing) world to see. My favorite example is Eugene Walter, who, despite his bon vivant lifestyle in New York and Paris (for what, 20 years?) and appearing in Fellini films, constantly pined (pined!) for the sweet, sweet South. How do I know? Well, he said so. Lots. After, y’know, he got back.
Not to say he wasn’t sincere, but he was probably just a little less sincere than he let on.
It’s not unusual to write from the perspective of time and distance.
I suspect that some of those so-called clever people on television are actually “ignorant Southerners” who have decided to get the last laugh by losing their Southern accents. That makes it harder to know how ignorant they really are.
The accent has really softened, due in large part to television and media I would think. You still hear thick drawls on a daily basis, but they’re a lot less common than they used to be. I have very little Southern accent in spite of growing up in the middle of nowhere with a father who sounded like Orson Welles imitating Foghorn Leghorn. Ogre and his Ogress also are umpteenth generation southerners with only as much of an accent as they want to have and the same’s true of most of my friends- we all have very distinct accents from our parents who grew up without television. I’m glad in a way because some southern accents are irritating as all hell, but there are a few varieties I like that I miss.
A generous reading could allow that “coarse, vulgar and inartistic” refers to the ungrammatic vernacular Huck speaks in (on the other hand, it could refer to the content), but otherwise, I don’t see anything in any of the reviews you linked, whether pans, raves or in between, that had a problem with Huck’s voice per se. It’s hard to see what the Boston Evening Traveller disliked - the writer never really said what made him hate it so much.
Capote’s another example. He had massive unresolved issues over separation from his family (the aunts, uncle and especially “Sook”) in Monroeville, a major factor in his lifelong friendship with Harper Lee (who he really only knew for about three years- very few childhood neighbor friendships last that long). His best short stories all recount Monroeville and even some of his work in Music for Chameleons set in the then present (late 70s/early 80s) draws heavily on his southern roots (including his exchange with “Big Junebug” and the prostitute with a voice “like bananas taste” in the French Quarter).
Frank Yerby was one of the (if not the) biggest selling authors of the 1950s with his plantation novels and potboiler historical fictions. His publicists and publishers tried to conceal the fact that he was black (well, to be technical he was multiracial- he had far more caucasian and Cherokee ancestry than black, but in the 50s black was what mattered) until he insisted that put his photo on the back cover and, of course, his sales (white women were his core audience) plummeted. Rich and not wanting his kids to grow up in the 60s south, he expatriated to Spain and continued writing a lot of easily forgettable books (and one really good and strange and bitter novel about Christ- Judas My Brother, out of print but really good), but when he returned to writing about Georgia and the southern U.S., even in historical fiction, his writing came alive again. It’s like he drew his strength from the red earth of … oh wait, that’s someone else.
The novel Gone With the Wind is a bit edgier on the race issue than the movie. It’s still very much a product of its times and unapologetically paternalistic, but there are some parts I really wish had made it into the movie. One line that I LOVED from the book occurred in the scene where, if you’ve seen the movie, Scarlett is going to Atlanta to con Rhett out of the money to pay the taxes on Tara dressed in “Miz Ellen’s porteers” and Mammy, finally convinced of the necessity even if she doesn’t approve, announced “I’m gwine wid ya”. In the movie the scene ends with the exchange
Sc: Now Mammy darling…
Mammy: I said I’se gwine wid ya to Atlanta and gwine I is!
and the next scene they’re in Atlanta together. In the book Scarlett forbids her to go and Mammy responds with “Miz Scarlett… I’m free. I’ll go where I please” followed by a line to the effect of "If Mammy had said ‘I shalt see thee at Philippi’ it would have been less ominous to Scarlett’ (that’s paraphrased, I don’t have the book handy). Though it’s only one line it lets you know a LOT about Mammy, namely that for all her love and devotion to the family over the decades, she resented being a slave and though sorry for the ruination it’s caused herself and her loved ones she’s glad the South lost. (The author of The Wind Done Gone picked up on the thing that obsessed me as a kid reading the novel and surely did others in the 30s though it was never address- if Mammy was wet nurse to Ellen O’Hara and to Scarlett, she had at least two children of her own 16 years apart- what happened to them?)
Well, that’s kind of my point. Brewster may have been in the Klan; he kept it a secret. Their anti-Catholicism would have guaranteed that the Irish and Canadian immigrants would have turned out in force to defeat him. See, they were despised, but could still vote. There was certainly prejudice against blacks in the north, along with prejudice against Fra-Cans, trade unionists, jews, and everybody else. Southern raciscm was different in kind from that. A French Canadian might scandalize Mainers if he had sex with Barbara Bush’s grandma. He would not be burned alive for it, though.
Crap, I did it again. Also, Joe Kennedy wasn’t an admirer of Hitler, but he didn’t believe Churchill’s warnings about the threat Hitler posed to Europe. Also, I know of no evidence that Joseph Kennedy chummed with Mafia figures. He legally purchased an exclusive license to import several brands of liquor. Since he did this during Prohibition, he got them for a song. He then threw all his energy into getting elected a man who promised to repeal the 18th Amendment.
Also, just plain heat. Hard for us to appreciate, now, what it was like living in the South before electrification and air conditioning. From The City in Mind: Notes on the Urban Condition, by James Howard Kunstler, p. 57: