James Stills River of Earth: A Neglected American Masterpiece Essay

James Stills River of macrocosm A Neglected American Masterpiece James Stills River of Earth is a impudent about vitality in Appalachia just before the Depression. more thanover it is a novel about the struggles of the mountain mass since the settlement of their region. just corking it may be at depicting Appalachias mountain sight and culture, though, Stills novel has remained mostly invisible compared to other novels of the period which depict unforesightful white southern life, such as John Steinbecks Grapes of Wrath and Erskine Caldwells Gods low Acre (Olson 87). As scholar Ted Olson nones, there are several reasons for this neglect. First of all, Stills novel has been labeled as regional and therefore not as popular in its concerns and subject matters. And in 1940 when it was first published the American people were running low on desire to plod through more regional novels even Faulkner was hardly read at this succession (Olsen 92). In addition, we were at a per iod as a nation when people were coming off a decade of extreme poverty and did not want to hear or read about more poverty. Still, in many ways it is hard to explain the longterm success of Grapes of Wrath and the longterm recession of River of Earth. To begin, Steinbecks novel, which tells the story of the plight of a poor white family in okeh during the Depression, is no less regional than Stills chronicle of poor white life in eastern Kentucky . Yet somehow Grapes of Wrath escaped the regional stereotype and went on to become an American classic. Ironically, though, when the two novels were released, Stills grabbed more full of life acclaim (Olsen 89). Though Grapes of Wrath did earn some rave reviews and was called the great American book by... ...people anywhere. And refreshingly, Stills characters do not spend all their time trying to rise above their poverty. Instead they love their mountain public and take pleasure in the small but important things in life like a simple meal or a good laugh. They are not weighed down by the glittery world or overindulgent trappings of Jay Gatsby. Maybe thats the real reason most Americans couldnt give care the book then and now. Instead of presenting them with the excesses of a gilded age, it told them about a people content to enjoy a great spiritual wealthiness even if their economic conditions were supposed to make them poor. Works Cited Cadle, Dean. Man on Troublesome. The Yale Review 57 (December 1967) 236-255. Olsen, Ted. This Mighty River of Earth Reclaiming James Stills American Masterpiece. Journal of Appalachian Studies 1.1 (Fall 1995) 87-98.