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"A brilliant portrait of a community and a way of life long gone, a lost America." -Charles Frazier Against the breathtaking backdrop of Appalachia comes a rich, multilayered post--Civil War saga of three generations of families-their dreams, their downfalls, and their faith. Cataloocheeis a slice of southern Americana told in the classic tradition of Flannery O'Connor and William Faulkner. Nestled in the mountains of North Carolina sits Cataloochee. In a time when "where you was born was where God wanted you," the Wrights and the Carters, both farming families, travel to the valley to escape the rapid growth of neighboring towns and to have a few hundred acres all to themselves. But progress eventually winds its way to Cataloochee, too, and year after year the population swells as more people come to the valley to stake their fortune. Never one to pass on opportunity, Ezra Banks, an ambitious young man seeking some land of his own, arrives in Cataloochee in the 1880s. His first order of business is to marry a Carter girl, Hannah, the daughter of the valley's largest landowner. From there Ezra's brood grows, as do those of the Carters and the Wrights. With hard work and determination, the burgeouning community transforms wilderness into home, to be passed on through generations. But the idyll is not to last, nor to be inherited: The government takes steps to relocate folks to make room for the Great Smoky Mountain National Park, and tragedy will touch one of the clans in a single, unimaginable act. Wayne Caldwell brings to life the community's historic struggles and close kinships over a span of six decades. Full of humor, darkness, beauty, and wisdom, Cataloochee is a classic novel of place and family.… (altro)
Wayne Caldwell’s debut novel, [b:Cataloochee|931843|Cataloochee|Wayne Caldwell|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1179565516l/931843._SY75_.jpg|916831], is an ambitious enterprise, for he seeks to tell not just the story of multi-generations of a family, but the tale of an isolated region of the North Carolina Appalachians, how it was settled and all its inhabitants, as well. The mountains of Cataloochee are as much a character in this novel as the ignoble Ezra Banks or any of the many families that are chronicled between its pages.
That Caldwell pulls off this epic tale so well is little short of a miracle, since it involves the introduction of enough characters to need a family tree to keep track of them, stories within the stories to bring each individual to life, and an almost meandering plotline. Still, it somehow hangs together so beautifully that you never feel any part of that until you have closed the book and are reflecting on its contents.
The character that glues all the stories together is Ezra Banks, who comes to the area at the age of 16, while fighting for the Confederacy at the end of the Civil War, and recognizes it as his own idea of paradise. He returns there when he is able to buy land, marries into the Carter family, well-established landowners and apple farmers, and begins a saga that is laced with foreboding from the beginning. Ezra is a difficult man, and a complex character. I hated him mostly, but there was a part of me that gave him grudging credit for the life he created through hard work and tenacity.
I am so impressed with Wayne Caldwell’s skill as a writer; he paints a picture with his prose that is soft and lyrical, but also hard and concrete. That he understands this region and its people is evident from word one. One of the issues he addresses is the coming of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, and the upheaval that represented for those who lived in these mountains. I have been to this paradise many times, and while I felt and mourned the loss this represented to its inhabitants, I was eternally grateful that it was preserved and is there for ordinary people like me to see and share just a little.
While reading, I was constantly reminded of one of my very favorite writers, Wendell Berry. Caldwell has his own style, which is very different from Berry’s, but he takes the best of Berry’s rural tradition and incorporates it into his own fiction, flawlessly. Caldwell acknowledges this influence openly, and it makes me happy to feel that Berry’s vision is being passed on in Southern Literature and will not be lost to us when he is gone.
Caldwell should be quite proud to have written a novel that is a sweeping saga with an extremely intimate feel. Some of the events might seem mundane or ordinary, like Hannah’s purchase of a Burdick sewing machine, but they are the moments in the book that made me feel attached to these people and ready to celebrate or mourn with them. There is no condescension, no caricature, and no belittling of the people or their way of life, even when those negative traits emerge, which are too often portrayed as defining mountain people.
In short (I know, you are saying “too late for that”), but, in short, it is a great piece of literature, don’t miss it. ( )
Generational historical fiction set in the pre-park Smoky Mountains. If you liked Cold Mountain, or In the Fall, check out Caldwell's excellent first novel. This book takes us through the ordinary lives of several families in the North Carolina mountains from just after the Civil War until 1928, when they learn of the government's plan to turn the land some of them have occupied for 4 generations into a new National Park. June 2010 ( )
Traces the families of this North Carolina valley from mid 1800's to 1930. Tho they have settled and farmed here for several generations, they are about to be displaced by a new National Park. This book traces the families and their reactions to this move. ( )
I'm always sprinkling a dose of southern lit into my reading and this scratched my itch for appalachian lore. Not a perfect novel, it was a little weak on plot development and pacing, but perfectly evocative of a time and place. ( )
Since the Great Smokies is one of my favorite places to be, I enjoyed this book. I know people very much like these characters, and I know the scenery, so it was like putting on a comfortable pair of shoes to read this book. Don't expect a lot of hot action, but do expect to read about families who have spent generations in the hills. There is some action at the end, just enough to keep you reading non-stop! ( )
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Goe little booke: thy selfe present, As child whose parent is unkent.
---Edmund Spenser
Dedica
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For Mary
Incipit
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Prologue: Jake Carter was far from dark-minded, but had inherited a streak of what his mother called "worriment," along with her conviction that while a body ought not hunt for trouble, nonetheless he should be watchful, for woe walks up and down in the world.
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Dati dalle informazioni generali inglesi.Modifica per tradurlo nella tua lingua.
"A brilliant portrait of a community and a way of life long gone, a lost America." -Charles Frazier Against the breathtaking backdrop of Appalachia comes a rich, multilayered post--Civil War saga of three generations of families-their dreams, their downfalls, and their faith. Cataloochee is a slice of southern Americana told in the classic tradition of Flannery O'Connor and William Faulkner. Nestled in the mountains of North Carolina sits Cataloochee. In a time when "where you was born was where God wanted you," the Wrights and the Carters, both farming families, travel to the valley to escape the rapid growth of neighboring towns and to have a few hundred acres all to themselves. But progress eventually winds its way to Cataloochee, too, and year after year the population swells as more people come to the valley to stake their fortune. Never one to pass on opportunity, Ezra Banks, an ambitious young man seeking some land of his own, arrives in Cataloochee in the 1880s. His first order of business is to marry a Carter girl, Hannah, the daughter of the valley's largest landowner. From there Ezra's brood grows, as do those of the Carters and the Wrights. With hard work and determination, the burgeouning community transforms wilderness into home, to be passed on through generations. But the idyll is not to last, nor to be inherited: The government takes steps to relocate folks to make room for the Great Smoky Mountain National Park, and tragedy will touch one of the clans in a single, unimaginable act. Wayne Caldwell brings to life the community's historic struggles and close kinships over a span of six decades. Full of humor, darkness, beauty, and wisdom, Cataloochee is a classic novel of place and family.
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(3.68)
1
Wayne Caldwell’s debut novel, [b:Cataloochee|931843|Cataloochee|Wayne Caldwell|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1179565516l/931843._SY75_.jpg|916831], is an ambitious enterprise, for he seeks to tell not just the story of multi-generations of a family, but the tale of an isolated region of the North Carolina Appalachians, how it was settled and all its inhabitants, as well. The mountains of Cataloochee are as much a character in this novel as the ignoble Ezra Banks or any of the many families that are chronicled between its pages.
That Caldwell pulls off this epic tale so well is little short of a miracle, since it involves the introduction of enough characters to need a family tree to keep track of them, stories within the stories to bring each individual to life, and an almost meandering plotline. Still, it somehow hangs together so beautifully that you never feel any part of that until you have closed the book and are reflecting on its contents.
The character that glues all the stories together is Ezra Banks, who comes to the area at the age of 16, while fighting for the Confederacy at the end of the Civil War, and recognizes it as his own idea of paradise. He returns there when he is able to buy land, marries into the Carter family, well-established landowners and apple farmers, and begins a saga that is laced with foreboding from the beginning. Ezra is a difficult man, and a complex character. I hated him mostly, but there was a part of me that gave him grudging credit for the life he created through hard work and tenacity.
I am so impressed with Wayne Caldwell’s skill as a writer; he paints a picture with his prose that is soft and lyrical, but also hard and concrete. That he understands this region and its people is evident from word one. One of the issues he addresses is the coming of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, and the upheaval that represented for those who lived in these mountains. I have been to this paradise many times, and while I felt and mourned the loss this represented to its inhabitants, I was eternally grateful that it was preserved and is there for ordinary people like me to see and share just a little.
While reading, I was constantly reminded of one of my very favorite writers, Wendell Berry. Caldwell has his own style, which is very different from Berry’s, but he takes the best of Berry’s rural tradition and incorporates it into his own fiction, flawlessly. Caldwell acknowledges this influence openly, and it makes me happy to feel that Berry’s vision is being passed on in Southern Literature and will not be lost to us when he is gone.
Caldwell should be quite proud to have written a novel that is a sweeping saga with an extremely intimate feel. Some of the events might seem mundane or ordinary, like Hannah’s purchase of a Burdick sewing machine, but they are the moments in the book that made me feel attached to these people and ready to celebrate or mourn with them. There is no condescension, no caricature, and no belittling of the people or their way of life, even when those negative traits emerge, which are too often portrayed as defining mountain people.
In short (I know, you are saying “too late for that”), but, in short, it is a great piece of literature, don’t miss it.
(