BLURB"Set during the Depression in the depleted farmlands surrounding Augusta, Georgia, Tobacco Road was first published in 1932. It is the story of the Lesters, a family of white sharecroppers so destitute that most of their creditors have given up on them. Debased by poverty to an elemental state of ignorance and selfishness, the Lesters are preoccupied by their hunger, sexual longings, and fear that they will someday descend to a lower rung on the social ladder than the black families who live near them."COMMENTJeeter Lester could have moved away to the cotton mills, like everybody else, when the soil was so depleted of nutrition that neither tobacco nor cotton could grow in it anymore. But Jeeter was a man of the land. He would rather dream of trying to plant a cotton crop than go to Heaven. He was made to farm. He couldn't farm, due to his financial situation, but he was a religious man. God would provide, even if Jeeter sometimes had to steal sweet potatoes and turnips from the neighboring places, or even rob his son-in-law, until there was nothing left to steal. Ada, his wife, needed snuff to kill the hunger pains. He was unable to provide that. Neither could he buy her a decent dress to die in one day. Not that it was a priority for the head of the family. His needs came first, and he was not going to die and have the mice eat half his face away in his coffin, like it happened with his father. No, he had clear instructions on how he was to be handled when his time would come. Ada would just have to wait her turn.He was a very sinful man. Probably the most sinful man in the country, he claims, with some of the neighboring children bearing his resemblance, and the new couple who moved in years ago ...Ada did not want him to finish his sentences, when he got this excited about his legacy. Seventeen legitimate children born by Ada later, with twelve surviving, he was a man who knew how to plant seed and let them grow. He did not see any other future for himself or his land, than planting as much seed in any way he could. That is God's plan for a man like Jeeter Lester.Occassionaly his conscience would remind him of his sins. Fortunately, there was neighbors like, Bessie, who could save his soul.“The Lord told me to come to the Lester house,” the woman preacher said. “I was at home sweeping out the kitchen when He came to me and said, ‘Sister Bessie, Jeeter Lester is doing something evil. You go to his place and pray for him right now before it’s too late, and try to make him give up his evil goings-on.’ I looked right back at the Lord, and said, ‘Lord, Jeeter Lester is a powerful sinful man, but I’ll pray for him until the devil goes clear back to hell.’ That’s what I told Him, and here I is. I came to pray for you and yours, Jeeter Lester. Maybe it ain’t too late yet to get on the good side of the Lord. It’s people like you who ought to be good, instead of letting the devil make you do all sorts of sinful things.” “I knowed the good Lord wouldn’t let me slip and fall in the devil’s hands!” Jeeter shouted, dancing around Bessie’s chair. “I knowed it! I knowed it! I always been on God’s side, even when things was the blackest, and I knowed He’d jerk me out of hell before it was too late. I ain’t no sinner by nature, Sister Bessie. It’s just the old devil who’s always hounding me to do a little something bad. But I ain’t going to do it. I want to go to heaven when I die.” Shocking, graphic, heartbreaking, bleak, often humorous, in a brilliant way. I can clearly see why Erskine Caldwell is regarded as a literary giant in the American psyche. He not only captured a situation completely with his observational and journalistic skills, in his graphic realism, but he also captured the heart and souls of the people he exposed to the world in their own language. I couldn't decide if the dire poverty and destitution could be termed a tragicomedy or not. There was singular moments in which only humor could deflate a situation, but the underlining message was a tragic one. In other instances I was shocked to the core with the cold, inhumane actions of the family members who have lost their sense of dignity and compassion a generation or two ago.Angela's Ashes by Frank McCourt had the same effect on me than this book. I laughed and cried simultaneously. Nobody or nothing in the book endeared me to the situation. Yet, I could not help but keep on reading, hoping that something good will happen for the family. The author, in an almost cold calculating voice and graphic detail, described the lives of the Lester family; the situation of dehumanized paupers, the sharecroppers, living on the isolated back-roads of America. He meticulously painted the harsh realities of life in the American South during the Great Depression. But behind the ruthless exposure, hides the compassionate soul of someone who deeply cared and wanted their story told as part of the social history of a country. These people were exploited to the last quarter in their pocket by the affluent members of society. The Lesters, and all the hundreds of families like them, were regarded as the scavengers of humanity. Yet, he managed to give them a warm, endearing voice in which to tell their stories themselves.The author clearly was way ahead in his thinking and wrote his stories for many generations later to appreciate and understand. During his own lifetime he was not appreciated. "His first two books, Tobacco Road (1932) and God’s Little Acre (1933), made Caldwell famous, but this was not initially due to their literary merit. Both novels depict the South as beset by racism, ignorance, cruelty, and deep social inequalities. They also contain scenes of sex and violence that were graphic for the time. Both books were banned from public libraries and other venues, especially in the South. Caldwell was prosecuted for obscenity, though exonerated."It takes a few hours to spend with a family like the Lesters, reading their story. It takes a lifetime to appreciate the message behind it.HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.
“Quel sentimento era di nuovo dentro di lui. Jeeter lo sentiva più profondamente che mai, perché per sei o sette anni, ogni volta che aveva desiderato coltivar la sua terra, si era salvato dalla disperazione sperando di poterlo fare l’anno seguente. Ma quest’anno sentiva che se non riusciva a mettere nella terra il seme di cotone e il guano, non avrebbe potuto farlo mai più. Capiva che non poteva continuare eternamente ad aspettare ogni anno un credito che non arrivava mai. Egli s’indeboliva ormai ogni giorno di più, e presto, anche se gli accordavano il credito, non sarebbe nemmeno più riuscito a camminare dietro l’aratro. Scoraggiato com’era, Jeeter sentiva più forte e pungente l’odore delle saggine bruciate e della terra dissodata di fresco, che riempiva l’aria. I coltivatori bruciavano dappertutto i boschi e i campi di saggina, e aravano la terra nei vecchi e nei nuovi campi di cotone.Il desiderio che provava Jeeter di dissodare la terra e di seminarvi il cotone, e di starsene poi seduto all’ombra nei mesi caldi, guardando le piante germogliare e crescere, era anche più forte dei morsi della fame nel suo stomaco. Egli poteva starsene calmo sopportando il morso della fame, ma non avrebbe resistito a lungo, ne era convinto, allo struggimento di dover guardare ogni giorno, inoperoso, i campi non arati. La testa gli ricadde in avanti sulle ginocchia, e presto il sonno lo vinse, portando riposo e pace al suo cuore e al suo corpo stanchi.”Fantastico! Un libro al quale, dopo le prime pagine, avrei sicuramente dato cinque stelle. Poi a metà gliene avrei date quattro. Ma la fine! La fine completa il cerchio, regala in dono al lettore il Senso. Bellissimo.Il libro si apre su una scena da documentario alla Quark, uno di quei documentari con delle belve in circolo che si studiano attentamente per aggiudicarsi la preda. Solo che in queste prime pagine troviamo della gente, delle fiere inumane, la cui preda è un misero sacco di rape. Che gente senza umanità! Gente povera senza mezzi di sussistenza che appunto ucciderebbe per un misero sacco di rape. Contadini senza più mezzi per coltivare la terra, genitori screanzati che hanno messo al mondo diciassette figli per vederne morire alcuni e per lasciarne andare via altri. Ognuno in questo libro è bestia a modo suo: c’è la figlia col labbro leporino soggiogata dai suoi istinti sessuali, la predicatrice prostituta, il figlio, l’unico che è rimasto, al quale l’unica cosa che importa è suonare il clacson della macchina; c’è la figlia dodicenne venduta in matrimonio, la nonna ridotta ormai al mutismo, una creatura costretta a nascondersi e a raccattare gli avanzi degli altri come la belva allontanata dal capobranco, perché non si decide a morire. L’autore sapientemente racconta il tutto con uno stile semplice, asciutto, infarcito di dialoghi, con la voce però di chi stia raccontando una parabola. Perché è vero che in tutto il libro troviamo numerose tracce di un umorismo tragico, grottesco, ma è anche vero che quella di Caldwell è una parabola, quasi la storia di un popolo, di questa povera gente bianca della Georgia senza umanità. Ma che ha perso l’umanità perché gliel’hanno rubata! E infatti molte sono le critiche sociali, molti i quesiti che si pongono questi poveri: perché non è più come una volta, quando i soldi della contea venivano equamente divisi tra tutti? Perché ora i ricchi non fanno più credito?E c’è il sangue che scorre nelle vene di questa povera gente, il sangue di Jeeter che si scalda al sentire l’odore della saggina e dei pini bruciati; c’è il suo istinto primordiale che si eccita quando le zolle vengono rivoltate. Ah quel desiderio di coltivare la terra! Se solo si riuscisse a trovare il credito per i semi di cotone e il guano! L’odore della terra bruciata che risveglia la voglia di rinascita. La rivincita: è per questo che il personaggio di Jeeter è un uomo che non riesce mai a concludere, che rimanda sempre le azioni. “April is the cruellest month, breeding lilacs out of the dead land, mixing memory and desire, stirring dull roots with spring rain.” Memoria e desiderio, che gran guaio il desiderio di rinascita! La risposta, la morale direi quasi, della parabola, è nel sangue.Con un cuore gonfio così ho percorso la via del tabacco, una via che va dalle pendici del Piedmont fino al fiume Savannah, e non ho potuto fare a meno ogni tanto di canticchiare un blues di uno dei padri proprio del Piedmont Blues, Blind Boy Fuller. Una voce che ricorda bene la terribile distanza tra il cielo e la terra, sebbene il suo intento sia quello di ridurla; quella musica che ti ricorda, appunto, le lunghe strade sterrate e il tanto dolore. Un blues che è un inno al Signore e che molto probabilmente nessuno dei personaggi del libro avrebbe potuto cantare con sincerità ma che, credenti o meno che siamo, non potremo fare a meno di volerlo cantare noi per loro: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xSluNh...
What do You think about Tobacco Road (1995)?
Such a harsh story of hard times in a hard place. Though the Lesters definitely appear to be more a type than a real family (in fact no one seems particularly real) rural poverty certainly was (and still is) real. There are many messages here about the loss of land, the state of tenant farmers, etc, but there are also messages about personal responsibility.I have seen Tobacco Road labeled as satire -- and I wondered given the degree of realism present. But then I think of Granny behind the chinaberry trees, Pearl with the almost unnaturally beautiful blond hair, Bessie the lustful preacher woman with "the face" no one can abide, and lastly the car -- the object that both embodies so much emotion and is the "vehicle" for so much pain and evil. So I guess satire is there after all.Caldwell occasionally steps somewhat clumsily into the narrative to discuss his message more boldly. Otherwise he lets the story provide the details of the rich in power, tenant farmers set loose with nothing, the land being lost to poor use practices over generations.While I agree that government and ownership policy were long to blame, I also find individual actions (or inactions) very much at fault and Caldwell seems to point to that also. But isn't that the problem in much of life -- the complexity of much of life -- which requires us to think beyond easy solutions or quick fixes. Jeeter planned the same action every year with every year the same non-result. Caldwell would lile us to look further, I believe.
—Sue
Just not feeling this book. At times I thought this book was a comedy act. Is it possible that these people would continue to starve instead of actually doing something about it....like working?! I don't blame the children for leaving that life behind. Nothing was changing and it wasn't "life's greatest mystery" as to why they never had anything. Poverty and starvation are no laughing matters but when you do nothing to make a go of it, that's wrong. Also, two lives were lost due to car accidents caused by the same character and one was a family member living in the house with them and nothing was done. Hmmm, who is the heartless one in this scenario. This seems like more than ignorance to me.
—Laura
Brutal. Horrific. Terrifying.Tobacco Road has haunted me for days. The characters and their shenanigans have permeated my subconscious. I cannot help but dwell on it even when I am not actively reading.Jeeter Lester and his family are unforgettable. They live in rural Georgia during the height of the Great Depression and practically starving to death on their sharecropper cotton farm. The men are amoral, ruthless, and liars. The women have physical deformities and are just as mean-spirited. It is an unpleasant story to be sure.Erskine Caldwell aims to take the reader out of their comfort zone into unknown territory. He wanted to challenge us. And he succeeded. Many scenes were filled with cruel images.This is not a simple tale. There are complex layers that kept me thinking and thinking. The social injustice issues of the 1930's, the racial hatreds, the war between rich and poor, and the role of evangelical religion among the poor.But despite all this there are hints of humor within the bleak landscapes and several times I couldn't help but laugh. A strange paradox.Caldwell highlighted the cruelty of humanity and many will not like it one bit. Read at your own risk.
—MSJ (Sarah)
