My white whale is a dimly-remembered tale about the residents in a low-rent hotel, one of whom fancied himself a poet. He wrote a poem about dying in which he shocked all his neighbors by proclaiming himself eager to be present for the event. The poem included the line, "I've loved my life, why should I miss its end?" (or something very like that). I've never been able to find that book again.
When I pasted your first paragraph into Claude, he came back with As I Lay Dying. So I corrected him, whereupon he came up with this:
The scene you're describing — an obese mother, door taken off its hinges, mud and rain, rural Mississippi, early 1900s — sounds like it could be from a different Southern novel entirely. A few possibilities that come to mind:
Erskine Caldwell wrote this kind of grim, grotesque rural Southern domestic scene (Tobacco Road, God's Little Acre)
Flannery O'Connor or Carson McCullers both worked in Southern Gothic with physically outsized characters
It's also possible it's a less canonical novel from the mid-20th century Southern tradition
Thanks, Wood. I'll check these out. It never occurred to me to google the description I wrote. I've read all of these authors, and I think Caldwell might be my best bet. I don't remember this from O'Connor or McCullers, but then . . . that memory thing!
As you describe the scene it brought to mind a movie with a very young DiCaprio and Johnny Depp with a morbidly obese mother who dies. The movie 'What's Eating Gilbert Grape' was based on a novel by the same name by author and screenwriter Peter Hedges.
Thank you, Santina! I wonder if I was reading Faulkner when I watched that movie and just fused the two into one memory. I don't think I read the book, but maybe . . .
Back in the 90s, I read Marge Piercy’s long novel, Gone to Soldiers. I remembered a scene describing a soldier’s death, not in battle, but when paint cans ungloriously fell on him or there was an explosion in an ammunition depot. Something like that. But later, when I tried to read that passage again, I could never find it.
Thank you for telling me this, Ellen. It's an odd thing, isn't it, to remember something from a book that never happened. Makes me leery of memory in general. What the heck do our brains do to alter memory--and why. I just figure human beings are weird and leave it at that . . . :-)
What a delightful post!! Yes, so wonderfully Faulknarian of you!! Sorry I can't help you identifying the book you mentioned. But aren't book-memories a fun curiosity? My book-memory white whale is a short story in an anthology I'd checked out from the public library decades ago. In the story two best friends grow up together and as young men jointly form a business. One of the friends married. The other friend - the main character - over time begins to suspect funds are missing from their business. Other things happen and he begins to doubt the trustworthiness of his friend and his friends wife. But he hasn't got proof of anything. So he begins to work at gathering the proof. Just as he's about to take the proof to a court of law he is killed- by his friend and his wife. After death the main character is reincarnated as a cat. As a cat he goes to his former friends house and is taken in by both of them as a pet. Cat tries to kill them by leaving cat-toys on the stairs, turning on the gas stove (etc). Then when the wife is in the car taking Cat to the veterinary in a cat carrier Cat works the carrier latch, frees himself, jumps on the wife, causes a car wreck which kills her instantly. One down....
But I don't remember the title, the author or the anthology!!! Argh!!! 🤦♀️
Hah!! I love that you call this a "book-memory white whale"! What a memory you have for the details! And of course a cat would do that. Thanks for this. You made me laugh.
My white whale is a dimly-remembered tale about the residents in a low-rent hotel, one of whom fancied himself a poet. He wrote a poem about dying in which he shocked all his neighbors by proclaiming himself eager to be present for the event. The poem included the line, "I've loved my life, why should I miss its end?" (or something very like that). I've never been able to find that book again.
When I pasted your first paragraph into Claude, he came back with As I Lay Dying. So I corrected him, whereupon he came up with this:
The scene you're describing — an obese mother, door taken off its hinges, mud and rain, rural Mississippi, early 1900s — sounds like it could be from a different Southern novel entirely. A few possibilities that come to mind:
Erskine Caldwell wrote this kind of grim, grotesque rural Southern domestic scene (Tobacco Road, God's Little Acre)
Flannery O'Connor or Carson McCullers both worked in Southern Gothic with physically outsized characters
It's also possible it's a less canonical novel from the mid-20th century Southern tradition
Thanks, Wood. I'll check these out. It never occurred to me to google the description I wrote. I've read all of these authors, and I think Caldwell might be my best bet. I don't remember this from O'Connor or McCullers, but then . . . that memory thing!
As you describe the scene it brought to mind a movie with a very young DiCaprio and Johnny Depp with a morbidly obese mother who dies. The movie 'What's Eating Gilbert Grape' was based on a novel by the same name by author and screenwriter Peter Hedges.
Thank you, Santina! I wonder if I was reading Faulkner when I watched that movie and just fused the two into one memory. I don't think I read the book, but maybe . . .
Back in the 90s, I read Marge Piercy’s long novel, Gone to Soldiers. I remembered a scene describing a soldier’s death, not in battle, but when paint cans ungloriously fell on him or there was an explosion in an ammunition depot. Something like that. But later, when I tried to read that passage again, I could never find it.
Thank you for telling me this, Ellen. It's an odd thing, isn't it, to remember something from a book that never happened. Makes me leery of memory in general. What the heck do our brains do to alter memory--and why. I just figure human beings are weird and leave it at that . . . :-)
What a delightful post!! Yes, so wonderfully Faulknarian of you!! Sorry I can't help you identifying the book you mentioned. But aren't book-memories a fun curiosity? My book-memory white whale is a short story in an anthology I'd checked out from the public library decades ago. In the story two best friends grow up together and as young men jointly form a business. One of the friends married. The other friend - the main character - over time begins to suspect funds are missing from their business. Other things happen and he begins to doubt the trustworthiness of his friend and his friends wife. But he hasn't got proof of anything. So he begins to work at gathering the proof. Just as he's about to take the proof to a court of law he is killed- by his friend and his wife. After death the main character is reincarnated as a cat. As a cat he goes to his former friends house and is taken in by both of them as a pet. Cat tries to kill them by leaving cat-toys on the stairs, turning on the gas stove (etc). Then when the wife is in the car taking Cat to the veterinary in a cat carrier Cat works the carrier latch, frees himself, jumps on the wife, causes a car wreck which kills her instantly. One down....
But I don't remember the title, the author or the anthology!!! Argh!!! 🤦♀️
Hah!! I love that you call this a "book-memory white whale"! What a memory you have for the details! And of course a cat would do that. Thanks for this. You made me laugh.
Lol!!! I'm so glad you laughed!!!
That story made quite an impression…
You made me laugh aloud with "how very Faulknerian of me." Lovely turn of phrase!
Thanks, Judy. Sometimes the words just come and the only thing to do is write them down. It was fun to write a post today. You and Sue inspire me.