We Came Along with a Hammer

All I have to say about these characters is this: poor slight things, to bear the weight of all those creaky ideas and angst.

There’s a controversial word that has gone in and out of the Pulitzer fiction mandate, but was firmly in place in the early years: “wholesome.” His Family is probably the perfect novel to illustrate the “wholesome” American outlook of its time: preoccupied with hearth and home, conflicted about women’s role in society, and highly suspicious of immigrants. Looking forward, this greatly foreshadows the Rabbit Angstrom books that win later Pulitzers by generally stating that everything after the main character’s sun-dappled youth has gone to hell in a handbasket. Roger Gale, That Old Coot, rapidly moves between upholding and denouncing his daughters’ various points of view, sometimes shifting alliances in the same paragraph. This probably mirrors the ambivalence of his age, but is extremely tiring as a narrative device.

As for Poole’s voice, the tone of the novel is pleasantly lyric at times, but mostly verges on histrionic. I kept waiting for the sentence describing the city as “that sad old, gay old, gloomy old, merry old town” or something of that sort. I can’t imagine a modern reader who would have patience for the politics of this book; the hysterical fear of immigrants is particularly distasteful,  and Poole’s late-Victorian fussiness about the details of sex and reproduction. The passages in which Roger hovers outside the door of his birthing daughters are particularly uncomfortable for both the character and the reader.

All in all, the little that I’ve read about Poole so far suggests that His Family isn’t even his best work! Apparently an earlier book called  The Harbor is better-known for its union sympathies. So I’m a little pissed that I’ve read a book by this author-that-time-forgot that won the first major award for American fiction and it isn’t even HIS best work.

So after book one, I’m starting to feel great anxiety about the number of multi-generational family sagas that reveal the tenor of their time awaiting us. D.V., are we fully prepared for this challenge? I don’t know if I’ve ever read so many “wholesome” books in one stretch.

This entry was posted on March 13, 2008 at 3:55 am and is filed under Ernest Poole, His Family with tags His Family, Poole. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.