(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . Contemporary Fiction Views: A way to look at a region, and the passing of a treasured writer [1] ['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.'] Date: 2023-11-21 Faulkner, Robert Penn Warren, Flannery O'Connor, James Dickey, Tennessee Williams, James Agee, Eudora Welty, Jesmyn Ward, Bobbie Ann Mason -- even a child of the Pacific Northwest like myself knows a few of the great Southern writers. Between those writers and movies, TV, music and the culture in general, there is a picture of the South that has grown in my imagination. It is a place of dirt roads, dust, hard physical work that doesn't pay off for the person doing the work, long-held resentment by the progeny of the War of Northern Aggression, a determination by poor white people to blame people of color and anyone else who isn't them for their lot. Except, of course, for wealthy landowners who don't pay taxes. Views held that are belied by the energy and diverse culture of cosmopolitan places. A love of good food and music. A new cultural study by a Southern scholar addresses these ideas and traces how they shaped perceptions of the region from the 1970s to the present. But in The Dirty South: Exploring a Fantasized Region, 1970 - 2020, James A. Crank doesn't rely on the literary giants for his source material. Instead, he cleverly uses material from less prestigious but more beloved sources, such as comic books, horror movies, country and hip-hop music, and cookbooks, to inform his work. Because these are sources he knows well and enjoys, the book has an authenticity not always seen in academic work. Crank, associate professor of American literature at the University of Alabama, whose book was published by LSU Press, employs high academic standards but wants his results to be read, and even enjoyed, by anyone interested. Crank delves into the various ways to use the word "dirt" to show different lens through which the South, and the rest of us, have viewed the region. There is the dirt, the ground, itself. Tropes include barefooted children kicking up the dust and Scarlett O'Hara's father telling her, "It's the land, Katie Scarlett." And then there are the connotations deriving from "dirt" as "trash", whether it's white trash and the tropes of hillbilly horror movies or trash that has been discarded but which was once someone's treasure. And may be again some day. He brings into consideration how the idea of trash is used as a way to view people, especially Blacks and immigrants. Close examinations of everything from outlaw country singers challenging the status quo of big Nashville recording companies, to Swamp Thing, to the cookbooks of Michael W. Twitty that encompass social and cultural aspects of a people's culinary heritage, in addition to the recipes. Book Notes: Last week, we lost the legendary scholar and writer A.S. Byatt. Although her education included both Cambridge and Oxford, and she lectured at universities, it was writing fiction that became the focus of her professional life. ​​​ Her novel Possession has been called "the perfect novel.” It certainly is one of the most engaging and emotionally fulfilling ones. The 1990 Booker winner traces two love affairs, one contemporary and the other in Victorian literature. It begins when an impoverished young scholar accidentally finds love letters in a library tome that unveil a previously unknown love affair between two Victorian poets. The novel goes back and forth between the two time periods. Possession not only tells both of these stories, it tells them well. It also skewers academic politics in a knowing way. And, perhaps most remarkably, Byatt, who was a poet herself, includes poems by the fictional Victorian poets that are in the fashion of the real figures, Robert Browning (although thematically, Alfred, Lord Tennyson also is an influence) and Christina Rosetti, who inspired her characters. This exuberant and audacious novel was my introduction to contemporary literary fiction. Before finding the novel, I mainly read mystery, fantasy, Victorian novelists and poets, biography and history. Because of Possession, I have included literary works in my reading. Especially the ones that reference my other reading loves. If a big novel doesn't suit your reading right now, please do consider Byatt's short stories, "A Stone Woman", which stories by Murakami reminded me of, or her novella Angels and Insects, and not just because of the salacious bits. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2003/10/13/a-stone-woman The National Book Awards were presented last week. The opening remarks by Levar Burton and Oprah Winfrey on how books and reading opened up their lives, and how important it is that everyone be afford that, were heartfelt and true. Justin Torres, whose first novel since We the Animals, entitled Blackouts, was published recently, won the Fiction award. READERS & BOOK LOVERS SERIES SCHEDULE [END] --- [1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/11/21/2206961/-Contemporary-Fiction-Views-A-way-to-look-at-a-region-and-the-passing-of-a-treasured-writer?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=latest_community&pm_medium=web Published and (C) by Daily Kos Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/