A Short History of a Small Place is set in the imaginary town of Neely, North Carolina, which Wikipedia suggests is closely based on Reidsville, and from the references to nearby towns (Burlington, Greensboro, etc) that makes good sense. The narrative loosely concerns Southern lady Miss Myra Anglique Pettigrew and her pet monkey Mr. Britches, from her suicide from the town water tower as an elderly woman to the death of Mr. Britches two years later, and many periods before this and many other people associated with her or not, in no particular order.
There is little dialogue, mainly long paragraphs descriptive of humorous behavior which is often not humorous, often digressive, often in long, repetitive, rambling sentences. The following is just one example sentence which is by no means atypical:
'Generally speaking, Mrs. Vestal attends all gatherings and viewings and funerals and burial services in the honor of an acquaintance, no matter how marginal, and she attends all gatherings and viewings and funerals and burial services in the honor of a relative of an acquaintance, and she attends all gatherings and viewings and funerals and burial services in the honor of a neighbor of an acquaintance, and she attends all gatherings and viewings and funerals and burial services in the honor of an acquaintance of an acquaintance, and when she is hard pressed for exhilaration she attends the gatherings and viewings and funerals and burial services of people whose names indicate to her that they might possibly have been related to and/or did know someone Mrs. Vestal could have heard of at one time or another.'
I was tempted to say that this book is a runaway train, but at least that would have to stay ontrack. But no, this is a mad monkey let loose, wandering all over, screeching loudly, causing havoc. There are patches of brilliance in this novel, and I think it must be those that made me continue to the end.
For the joy of reading about the Methodist Church Christmas pageant, with Mayhew the camel sniffing men's shoes as he shambled down the aisle, I forgive every literary lapse T. R. Pearson has made or will make, forever and ever, amen.
ReplyDeleteI'll start again.
ReplyDeleteThere was another comment made to this post some time back, but I must have been having a bad day when I inadvertently deleted a number of comments going back a way, which is a pity. The comment was to the effect that the example sentence from the book is pretty much how some people in the South speak, or perhaps it was used to speak.
Certainly I haven't come across that phenomenon, I don't think, but maybe I unnecessarily gave Pearson a hard time: I'll give him another go sometime, although with a different book.