Emerging Writers Network

Read Along With the EWN - Rails Under My Back by Jeffrey Renard Allen - Part II - Chosen - Chapter 5

To reiterate the idea behind the Read Along With...program here at the EWN, "Reading along with the EWN--where I'll begin to tackle these larger titles and do so in sections, to help push me to a) make sure I tackle all of the books on my pile and not just the shorter novels or story collections, and b) read at least a little bit every day---I've noticed when reading a 2-300 page novel, unless I know I have 2-3 hours carved out to really dig in, that I'll set it aside, which has led to a lot of recent weekend and Holiday reading and not much else."

One thing I hope will be interesting is the process of discovery throughout reading a longer novel--I'm aware that my own thoughts can change drastically through the reading of a novel, especially a longer one. The learning through further reading of what exactly the author is doing, how their writing style might help or harm my understanding, etc.

Jeffrey Renard Allen's Rails Under My Back was originally published in 2000 by FSG. The version I have is the reprinting by his current publisher, Graywolf Press, from 2015 with an introduction by Charles Johnson. I know I read the introduction earlier this year when I pulled this book out for reading, but chose not to this time. Instead I jumped right into Allen's writing.

 

Part Two: Chosen - Chapter 5

 

In this chapter, we see Allen use internal thinking, via italics, to flush out the story as it moves forward. In regard to the family, we mainly see Hatch, Lucifer and Sheila's son. The internal thoughts often blend right into the paragraphs:

 

A red light halted him. He rubbed his throat. His voice hurt from the song. He pulled the sandwiches, greasy, slippery, from the paper bag. Took healthy bites. Damn. Is there any taste in egg white? Green put him back in motion.

 

The in and outs are seamless. Beyond this, Allen's writing is full of energy:

 

     Second Street. Deep Second, Uncle John called it. Edgewater. Woodlawn long gone. South Shore too. An axis of distance. Hatch suffered a furnace of sky. The sun's still yellow wheel. Birds winged high in a windless sky, their voices--yes, voices, high above in the blue-red arch--circling, circling--like explorers--new terrain. The air poked sharp, threading the lungs. A trumpet to the blood. Strange. Cause no wind. Unusual, here in this city of one big lake (Tar Lake) that lifted a hawk from the icy nest of its waters and flapped you in the wind of its cold feathers (stalactites of feathers, dripping winter year-round)--this lake imitating ocean. Like a traveler who had not seen land for months, he saw the world with new eyes. All the colors vivid. Saw two black lines of birds--red-tipped beaks, beaks dipped in inkwells--stiff on two black lines of telephone wires. Trees in green leaf. Brown blazers of barks covering their trunks--And tracks. Networking through the bark, the seed must absorb water to rehydrate; Sheila's green thumb had impressed this lesson, in the middle of his forehead--and brown sleeves of bark enveloping their skinny limbs.

 

What I notice the most is the unique way Allen has of expressing things. The usage of "winged" as a verb; air poking; the brown blazers of barks. The back and forth from a long, rambling sentence or two straight into 16 words covering four sentences. And in terms of specific information, we learn that Hatch is upset that there are things that his father and Uncle John do together while leaving him out.

In terms of page count, I'm about 15% in, in terms of chapters, about 9%. Allen has given me information about some of the names on the family tree in the beginning of the novel, but not everybody. The way the sections have been broken up make a lot of sense and have kept the novel moving forward. And again, more and more I'm finding his usage of language simply fascinating.

The Last Hundred Years Trilogy - Jane Smiley - Some Luck - 1923

The first volume in The Last Hundred Years Trilogy (which seems to truly be one long novel, but more on that as I actually read the trio of books), by Jane Smiley, is Some Luck. Each of the three books follows the Langdon family, year by year (each chapter represents a single year) and the tale begins with 1920.

1923

In year number four, we learn a bit more about the town the Langdon farm is nearby as Rosanna likes to take Jake, the horse, and their buggy regularly. Her various types of trips are described--weekedays vs. Saturdays (dressed nice, but not overly so) vs. Sundays (dressed in her finest and reminding her of how her mother appears). The main reason she has for visiting town is to sell her butter and eggs to Dan Crest for his general store. Her butter is renowned as the best in town, earning her more than other women from Crest for her wares. We learn of the three different churches (with the reminder that Walter and Rosanna have different religious backgrounds) as well as the names of some the other townspeople.

We also learn more about Frank--an oddity, that he likes to lie down underneath Walter and Rosanna's bed (which Walter does not like and he's punished Frank over) as well as the fact that he's quite headstrong. A bit of Smiley's work to explain this:

 

It was beyond Frank to understand why he sometimes did the very thing he was told not to do. It seemed like once they told him not to do it--once they said it and put it in his mind--then what else was there to do? It was like smacking Joey. "Don't hit your brother. Don't ever hit your brother, do you understand? If I catch you hitting your brother, then I will whip you, do you understand?"

     But what was hitting? Sometimes, when Joey was walking along, all you had to do was touch him and he fell down and cried. Other times, a good wallop had no effect. If there was anything Frank liked, it was trying things out. Joey was the most interesting person to try things out on, especially considering that the cat always ran away, even when Mama was not saying that the cat was dirty and shooing him out of the house. It was obvious to Frank that if you had something in your hand, no matter what it was, you had to employ it. If it was a rock, then you had to scrape it on the ground or on a wall.

 

And this continued on, this dip into Frank's mind to understand what was leading him to be so headstrong. He ends up getting caught lying under the bed after getting all dressed to go to Granny's for Sunday dinner and Walter whipped him, pants down, using his belt. Again we dip into Frank's mind to learn of his desire to show as little emotion or need to react to the whipping as possible.

Another excellent chapter and continuation how Smiley has used each chapter for different means of getting we readers a wide range of information about the Langdon family.

Read Along With the EWN - Rails Under My Back by Jeffrey Renard Allen - Part II - Chosen - Chapter 4

Chapter 4 of Jeffrey Renard Allen's Rails Under My Back, like chapter 3, is closer to 20 pages in length and it feels like Allen was able to get more like 30 or 35 pages in that space.

He dips back to what the family tree at the beginning of the book shows to be the second generation (that we'll read of) in the Griffith family, mainly with the firstborn of thirteen children, Beulah, and moving all the way forward to Gracie again, and in doing so, bringing John of the Simmons family again (brothers John and Lucifer having been the focus of chapter 3). The names and where they fall can get confusing to me, even when I'm looking at that family tree, so I'm really glad Allen included it.

The chapter starts with Beulah reading a letter about the death of her nephew Robert Lee, out in California, and discusses how he got out there, some of his lifestyle, while also bringing up her other nephew Dave and one of her younger brothers, Sam, and how the two of them went to the war, and came back, and how various family members moved from Houston up to the north, to the city of Chicago. Allen describes the seasons up north including this sentence:

 

And thinking further of autumn, your favorite season, when the city grew alive with color, the summer's last fires flicking new flames of heat and pigment, red and green and blue and white and pink and red-pink and brown-red and yellow-brown and not just the pinks and greens and whites of budding May.

 

As noted in the discussion of chapter 3, I love how Allen's style bounces around from short bursts of information to long, winding snake-like sentences like this one. He's bouncing back and forth between these and then his italic-strewn backstory rapidly, just as, especially in this chapter, he bounces from character to character, from family to family, in ways that forced me to slow down my reading, to be able to understand what was going on.  And this slowing down forces me to appreciate more and more the prose Allen is putting in front of me.

The Last Hundred Years Trilogy - Jane Smiley - Some Luck - 1922

The first volume in The Last Hundred Years Trilogy (which seems to truly be one long novel, but more on that as I actually read the trio of books), by Jane Smiley, is Some Luck. Each of the three books follows the Langdon family, year by year (each chapter represents a single year) and the tale begins with 1920.

1922

In year number three, while there is the addition of a family member, there's less about the new addition than about the Langdon family and life on the farm. Smiley allows for Walter to internalize some of this thoughts on farming. She does this by allowing for 1922 to be a year that is spent mainly on harvest season. Numerous families from the area help each other out, going from farm to farm and harvesting crops. When they get to the Langdon farm, we find out that a main crop being harvested is oats and get to dip into Walter's head to find out his thoughts on various crops, various animal raising ideas, and how he expects to make money--while also finding out that he can't imagine making enough money to not only pay your mortgage, but also to own a car.

It's interesting learning more about the farming process and some of the other families in the area. Smiley also introduces Joey, Frank's little brother, and we find out that the pregnancy, birth and post-pregnancy were far from easy for Rosanna. Through this we also learn that Eloise was her own mother's most difficult child. We also learn that with Rosanna sick and tired for so much of the year, that Eloise has become almost indispensable to the Langdon's. And in keeping up with the early star of the novel, Frank has grown quite large for his age, and is a boy's boy--roughhousing, pushing back against his father bit by bit, and, once Joey was born, losing some of that very tight mother-son bond he'd had with Rosanna.

Another enjoyable chapter that seemed to both flush out some aspects of the Langdon family, while bringing us another member to look forward to learning about.

 

Read Along With the EWN - Rails Under My Back by Jeffrey Renard Allen - Part II - Chosen - Chapter 3

And we're back to it--one negative thing to owning, reading, buying and stories as many books as I do is that there are times where I misplace a title and the constant digging around to find it among the stacks, shelves and boxes can drive me crazy. I don't know how one can misplace a nearly 600 page novel, but I did. Finally I located the book again and last night and early this morning have had the pleasure of re-reading the first two chapters and then reading chapter three for the first time.

Chapter three is much longer than the four pager that chapter two was, and while it continues to follow John as he's about to travel, it shifts from the relationship between John and his wife Gracie, and instead focuses on that of John and his brother, Lucifer. John calls Lucifer to tell him he's taking off and Lucifer drops everything to meet with him for breakfast and spend the day with him until the two embrace before John leaves via train.

Allen starts the chapter off:

 

John threw his head back, holding his liquor in his mouth. Shut his eyes. Worked the liquor around behind his shut teeth. Swallowed. Places his glass quietly on the table. Removed his spectacles. Lifted them to his mouth and blew ancient dust. He cleaned the spectacles on the tablecloth, rubbing hard--the same way he rubbed his marbles as a boy, polishing them for hours, raising them glinting to his eyes, then polishing them some more with one of Poppa Simmons's old rags--glancing up now and then at Lucifer. He fit the glasses firmly on his face.

 

I love the way this opens--numerous short bursts of information in anywhere from 1 to 10 word sentences setting the scene and then boom, a long sentence that is a memory, comparing his current action to one from John's past, and then another short burst of current information to end the paragraph and open the day-long chapter of Lucifer and John.

It's one of the more enjoyable aspects of reading this novel so far--seeing how Allen uses various styles and aspects of language to engage the reader differently.

Read Along With the EWN - Barkskins by Annie Proulx - Section I - foret, hache, famille 1693-1716 Chapter 2 - Clearings

The second chapter of Annie Proulx's Barkskins continues where chapter one left off--the story is still being told in a direct, straightforward manner. It begins with a note that Duquet was gone and has Monsieur Trepagny becoming a little more talkative with Rene. This leads to his noting:

"Our people in earlier times were badly treated in France. The popish demon church called us heretics and tortured us. They believed they had conquered us. They were wrong. We have held to our beliefs, hand, heart and body in secret for centuries and here in New France we will grow strong again." He extolled the new land, said it would surpass Old France in richness in power.

He also explains to Rene information about both the foresting that they are doing, as well as the trapping industry--and by doing so within conversation, Proulx takes away the TELL factor. As a reader, I didn't find myself taking this information in as the author giving me a big history lesson so I'd understand what comes next. Instead it rolled off of Trepagny's tongue to Rene Sel in a very believable manner.

In similar ways, Proulx allows Rene to learn better methods of fishing and catching eel from Mari, and Trepagny's Uncle Chara shows up, adding to the group and taking Duquet's place--kind of, not much of a worker Chara (though he wasn't replacing much of a worker either).

Again, a chapter that makes me want to bump the next page side of my kindle screen.

Read Along With the EWN - Rails Under My Back by Jeffrey Renard Allen - Part II - Chosen - Chapter 2

Section II of Jeffrey Renard Allen's Rails Under My Back is entitled Chosen and has 38 chapters to it.

Chapter 2 concentrates on Jesus's parents--John and Gracie--and their relationship in a very short (4 pages) bit of writing. He uses italics for flashbacks during this section:

His old running buddy, run off into a dust and dirt cloud of memory, his funky unwashed pea coat billowing out from his shoulder blades like a racing car's parachute. John and Dallas: used to be hard to know where one began and the other left off. Why don't you say what you mean?

By usage of these bits of flashback writing, Allen allows us the knowledge that John fought in the war (at this point I'm guessing Viet Nam) and that early in their relationship Gracie seemed more interested in having fun with John than in having something more serious. We also learn a bit about Gracie's relationships with her mother, Lula Mae, and sister, Sheila, while the current time discussion between John and Gracie allows the reader into their worries over their eldest, Jesus.

It is really a great little chapter for how Allen's specific usage of styles brings forth information and how it's allowing the reader into various aspects of the story and not just plowing along into a single line.

Read Along With the EWN - Barkskins by Annie Proulx - Section I - foret, hache, famille 1693-1716 Chapter 1 - Trepagny

The thing with this Read Along With the EWN series is that it is going to involve big books. Even in paperback form, Allen's Rails Under My Back is a hefty tome to lug around. So there will also most likely always be a concurrent Read Along With title that is on my kindle. In this case it's the new Annie Proulx novel, Barkskins. This beast is 736 pages long and was picked up a week ago or so. I'm going to apologize in advance for not understanding typepad well enough to figure out how to get the various French accents into these posts--they are numerous.

The first section of the novel is "foret, hache, famille 1693-1716" and it is broken into multiple chapters, the first of which is Trepagny.

The end of the first paragraph reads: "Mud, rain, biting insects and the odor of willows made the first impression of New France. The second impression was of dark vast, forest, inimical wilderness." And with these words, Proulx establishes the setting of her novel. New France--the land of the Upper Midwest of what is now the United States and across the now border with Canada on up to Quebec (Kebec in this novel).

Proulx is especially good with descriptions of just how rugged this world was during this stretch of time:

"Mosquitoes covered their hands and necks like fur."

"Bebites assailed them, minuscule no-see-ums like heated needles, blackflies with a painless bite that dispersed slow toxins, swarms of mosquitoes in such millions that their shrill keening was the sound of the woods."

and they continue on. The who involved are Rene Sel and Charles Duquet, both sold to a master Monsieur Trepagny. They are walking through this forest from where he picked them up to the land he owns and is working. They are his engages.

The writing is straightforward. Proulx has done a very nice job of setting up Rene Sel as a character, his setting in New France along with Monsieur Trepagny, and his situation--he's working alongside Trepagny clearing the forest--by chapter's end, Duquet has snuck off into the forest, having let Rene know that his intentions all along were to become a fur trader.

So far, the novel is entertaining, informative and I'm looking forward to chapter two.

Read Along With the EWN - Rails Under My Back by Jeffrey Renard Allen - Part I - Seasonal Travels - Chapter 1

To reiterate the idea behind the Read Along With...program here at the EWN, "Reading along with the EWN--where I'll begin to tackle these larger titles and do so in sections, to help push me to a) make sure I tackle all of the books on my pile and not just the shorter novels or story collections, and b) read at least a little bit every day---I've noticed when reading a 2-300 page novel, unless I know I have 2-3 hours carved out to really dig in, that I'll set it aside, which has led to a lot of recent weekend and Holiday reading and not much else."

One thing I hope will be interesting is the process of discovery throughout reading a longer novel--I'm aware that my own thoughts can change drastically through the reading of a novel, especially a longer one. The learning through further reading of what exactly the author is doing, how their writing style might help or harm my understanding, etc.

Jeffrey Renard Allen's Rails Under My Back was originally published in 2000 by FSG. The version I have is the reprinting by his current publisher, Graywolf Press, from 2015 with an introduction by Charles Johnson. I know I read the introduction earlier this year when I pulled this book out for reading, but chose not to this time. Instead I jumped right into Allen's writing.

 

Part One: Seasonal Travel - Chapter 1

"Long before Jesus entered the world, blades of southern grass sliced up the soles of his grandmother's feet." These words begin Allen's novel and begin a section devoted mainly to this character, Jesus. We do get bits and pieces of his family--his father, John; his mother and her sister; and his cousins. We're also introduced to Jesus' world--a contemporary named No Face (who is missing one eye).

Allen's writing is full of life, bursting at the seams at times:

And John--the man he knew as his father, wild in the face, sensing the stuff in Jesus and Hatch, their young blood purring, gurgling, lifted high, struggling to be heard--John snuck Jesus and Hatch from under the hopeful eyes of the family into the morning, the sun's bare ribs poking through the clouds, Jesus and Hatch perched in the back seat of John's gold Park Avenue, a huge ship of a car.

There are numerous sentences like this spread throughout this section--long, winding, reversing, explanatory sentences. Sentences that beg to be re-read once or twice both for enjoyment, and for better understanding.

Allen bounced Jesus from dinner with his family to smoking with No Face to playing basketball with others. The POV roams from 2nd to 3rd in a way that keeps me on my toes as a reader. Allen also digs into the manner of language that these particular characters use--the various conversations eschewing quotation marks:

 

Like that, huh? A mission.

Hard-core. No Face patted his heart.

Then how come you ain't got no rep?

He looked at Jesus for a long moment. You don't know me from Adam. I got a rep. You jus ain't heard about it.

Yeah. I heard you a busterpunklyinmotherfucks.

Now why you come at me like that?

Jus stop frontin. I got proof. Real proof.

Man, you don't know me from Adam. I got proof too. I--

Jus fire up the Buddha

 

Read along with the EWN - Rails Under My Back by Jeffrey Renard Allen

One thing I have noticed that I tend to do once I'm actually active again here, especially once I begin to review books again, is that I tend to shun larger books for those with a little less heft. It's not entirely intentional but has certainly happened in the past. A book I mentioned earlier this year has sat pretty much untouched until last night--Jeffrey Renard Allen's debut, Rails Under My Back. The version I have (paperback from Graywolf Press) has an introduction by Charles Johnson as well.

That all in mind, I've decided I'm going to start a new series here--Reading along with the EWN--where I'll begin to tackle these larger titles and do so in sections, to help push me to a) make sure I tackle all of the books on my pile and not just the shorter novels or story collections, and b) read at least a little bit every day---I've noticed when reading a 2-300 page novel, unless I know I have 2-3 hours carved out to really dig in, that I'll set it aside, which has led to a lot of recent weekend and Holiday reading and not much else.

So I'm beginning with Rails Under My Back, which is not much less than 600 pages but is broken up into 55 chapters/sections. So, I'm going to read one per day and comment upon it the next day here at the EWN Blog. I hope the notes are of at least some interest--I have noticed over time the differences in my thoughts while reading a book compared to those after completion, after finding out where the writer was intending to go all along. This series will run concurrently with the complete book reviews and interviews I'll continue to do--reading more than one title at a time has never been too much of a problem.