Una scrittura rodata da anni di mestiere ma ancora affilata, un romanzo che trova nei particolari, nelle descrizioni e soprattutto nei personaggi una forza inaudita, una tridimensionalità più unica che rara. Thomas McGuane, classe ‘39, è un narratore di razza . Il canto dell’erba (Alet, pp. 224 - € 16) - tradotto armonicamente da Simona Sollai - con poche, rapide pennellate mette in scena le vicende della famiglia Whitelaw, una piccola dinastia di imprenditori del Montana su cui grava lo spirito del fu patriarca Sunny Jim che anche dall’oltretomba detta legge grazie a un testamento blindato, che lega indissolubilmente il suo patrimonio alla figura losca e meschina dell’ex genero Paul Crusoe, costringendo così l’intera famiglia a venire a patti con lui. Sullo sfondo, a fare da controcanto, il West con tanto di cowboy e natura incontaminata: un mito polveroso, divorato proprio da personaggi come Paul, ma che in qualche modo entra sempre in scena per sparigliare le carte dei protagonisti, come quando Evelyn si perde nella neve in seguito a una “notte brava” con indosso un vestito da sera degno di un cocktail party a Manhattan o cerca consiglio e rifugio nel ranch dove è cresciuta sotto l’ala prorettrice, e un po’ burbera, del vecchio Bill, che da sempre veglia sui Whitelaw: unica vera figura paterna che McGuane lega proprio al “concetto” di West. Un concetto che l’autore conosce in prima persona vivendo in un ranch a sua volta. In un’intervista rilasciata a Robert Birnbaum di Identitytheory, parlando del titolo del suo libro, lo scrittore del Michigan sottolinea con forza come le vicende umane, anche quelle più abiette, debbano fare i conti con qualcosa di più grande e impassibile come il canto dell’erba: “[…] Sei certo che alla terra non importa un bel nulla se tu resti o te ne vai… E poi, ti prende questa impressione di essere in balia della natura. E la cosa inizia a piacerti. Ti piace la sensazione di vivere all’interno di un ciclo che è più importante di te; e che ha una specie di qualità ritmica, eterna che è rassicurante. È un po’ a questo che si riferisce il titolo.”La stessa sensazione che provano i protagonsti del libro alle prese con la trama e che prova il lettore che si immerge in questo libro. All’inizio ci si trova in balia della narrazione di McGuane, per poi entrare nel meccanismo delle sue parole, il cui ritmo, tra ironia e dramma, inizia a piacere, a diventare familiare. “Il canto dell’erba” entra in circolo lento ma inesorabile. Un classico romanzo americano d’altri tempi, come non se ne vedevano dai tempi di Updike e Faulkner; senza effetti speciali, senza epica o manifesto spessore politico-sociale, eppure dotato di una potenza evocativa straordinaria, quasi metafisica, nascosta nei dettagli e per questo subliminalmente efficace.
He was known in life as the man who never smiled and in death he manages to control his family with his dubious legacy. He leaves his widow a comfortable income but insists that his ex-convict son-in-law, Paul, manage the bottling plant. As if this isn’t bad enough, Paul and Sunny’s daughter, Evelyn, must reconcile.This novel twists and turns through the hills of Montana as it meanders through the dysfunctional Whitelaw family. The story follows the lives of Jim’s wife, daughters, their husbands and Bill Champion in the months that follow his death.The novel conveys serious messages about the passage of time and lost values.I enjoyed the offbeat characters. They do do the unexpected and I loved that in a world where so much is lost in the name of doing the right thing.I have not read any of McGuane’s previous novels, several of which are considered modern classics. I will now.
What do You think about The Cadence Of Grass (2003)?
If this book were made into a movie I would envision it as a combination of the TV shows "Dallas" and "Soap." It's about a rich dysfunctional family in Montana with the friction between the nouveaux riche and the cowboy/settler culture. I think if McGuane were to do an update of this family he would have written them into a reality show like Duck Dynasty or the Kardashians. It's witty, humorous, and with deep profound musing on the paths you take in life. This book reminded me a lot of the satirical masterpieces Evelyn Waugh wrote about the English upper class. McGuane even has a character named Evelyn-a woman. The ending is very dark though.
—Chris
For anyone with a solid familiarity with Thomas McGuane's work, this is a fascinating novel.Here you have a novel with a female protagonist, written by a man who has often been written off as a male chauvinist pig, whose female characters have always been a major bone of contention with critics. You have a novelist who has continually been accused of rewriting autobiography, writing a novel that clearly has little to do with his own life. And you have the recognizable "McGuane protagonist" -- a man with a tendency to take things too far -- this time cast as anything but sympathetic.It's almost as if The Cadence of Grass is a conscious attempt on McGuane's part to repudiate his critics. To say, in essence, no, you half-wits, this is what I've been trying to say.Regarding the one-dimensional women of his early novels, McGuane has pointed to a masculine culture that regards women as unfathomable mysteries; how are his male protagonists to view them as fully realized human beings in this context? Despite the reputation he earned in the 1970s, McGuane is not, in fact, a "male chauvinist pig novelist," and in the (nonetheless tomboyish) character of Evelyn he seems determined to shake off that criticism once and for all.Having repeatedly spoken in interviews about the struggle to write people who are not in any way like himself, McGuane has stepped far outside himself here. He has broken with his conventional close third-person, protagonist-centered viewpoint, using an omniscient narrator for the first time since 92 in the Shade. The result, for a reader familiar with his work, is to force one not only to consider this novel but to reconsider the whole. Have I been making assumptions about his characters, one asks, that have been getting in my way as I read?McGuane's language is less electrifying here than in his early work, but on the other hand he has achieved his oft-stated goal of not allowing the words to get in the way of what he's trying to say. And there is no doubt that he remains a superb writer; the scenes in this novel that deal with horsemanship are surely examples of his finest prose.Without a doubt, The Cadence of Grass marks the high point in McGuane's development as a novelist. It may not be his finest novel, but it is certainly his most mature. This is not the best introduction to McGuane for a new reader (go, instead, with 92 in the Shade or Nothing but Blue Skies), but for anyone who has read him extensively, it is possibly his most interesting novel.
—A.J.
