The Conservative Cave
The Bar => The Lounge => Topic started by: franksolich on April 17, 2009, 02:58:34 AM
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Probably there hasn't been anybody here but myself, who has ever read Mari Sandoz (1896-1966), the greatest writer ever to come out of Nebraska. Willa Cather can't even hold a candle to her, and John Neihardt just wrote poetry.
I read all of her books a long time ago and recently, and then just finished a biography of her, and am curious about something.
According to this biography, she at first had trouble getting her stories and books printed, because publishers in the elite snobbish northeastern states always insisted her "Nebraska Sandhills prose and idiom" was "too alien" for "normal" people to understand.
Many of them said that if she changed her "style," they'd be willing to publish.
She never did, and so all during the 1920s and the first half of the 1930s, she didn't do so well.
But then with the publication of Old Jules, still using "Nebraska Sandhills prose and idiom," she took off, and never again had problems getting published.....after she was well into middle age.
What I'm curious about is this--of course her writing, her language, her style, her vocabulary, is all as familiar and comfortable to me, as are my shoes--but then and again, I was fortunate in having had grown up in the Sandhills of Nebraska.
I myself never noticed her "harder" to read than any other good writer; in fact, I first read her at the age of 11 years (her books were very long, which is usually daunting for younger readers), and she was as natural as strawberries and cream.
If anyone else has ever read her, does one have at least a vague memory of how she struck them? Was she difficult to understand?
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I thought my grandmother had books from all the Nebraska and Kansas female authors...but I guess not. I can't recall ever reading any of Mari's books. :( I'm going to change that...
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Well, it kept on rather silly, even after her books were best-sellers, making the snobbish eastern elites wealthier.
She never gave in, to their demands that she not use "Nebraska Sandhills English," suspecting quite reasonably that people who bought books were more intelligent and sophisticated than people who published books.
She had to make the occasional concession, though; her best book, Love Song to the Plains, was originally titled Nebraska: Love Song to the Plains, but the snobbish eastern elite publishers thought the word "Nebraska" would hurt sales.
Mari Sandoz lived the last twenty-five years of her life in New York City, specifically moving there just to keep her eyes on the snobbish eastern elite publishers to keep them from making alterations.
To the last year of her life, she said, rightfully so, that easterners are the most provincial people one can ever meet.
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She sounds like a very interesting lady. I can't imagine why my grandmother didn't have several of her books. :???: :clueless:
Oh, well, we're due for a trip to the library soon. Maybe I can get my daughter interested...she could tell us if the books are hard to understand. :-)
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pardon me. Born in Gordon.
we read Sandoz in elementary school.
ol' Jules is a staple in his home town.
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pardon me. Born in Gordon.
we read Sandoz in elementary school.
ol' Jules is a staple in his home town.
I wondered when you were going to show up.
Of course. Your fellow townsman was so skilled, so talented, in writing that even we in the Sandhills but hundreds of miles away, read her in elementary school.
Any idiot can write something turgid and complicated--I give you the Bostonian Drunkard--but it takes someone with real talent to write something good enough that it ranks as wisdom for all the ages (bad pun here, sorry).
Mari Sandoz was actually in an enviable position, when it comes to writing. Most of the time, critics are hollering, "make it shorter, cut it down, there's too many words, it's too long, &c., &c., &c."
In her case, they were usually hollering, "make it longer, make it longer."
Interestingly, English was her fifth language, not her first. She first used the Swiss French of her father and the Swiss German of her mother. Given the isolation of the Sandhills of Nebraska, and no radio or television or telephones, there wasn't much opportunity to talk with others.
And then by the time she was five years old, she had learned Sioux and Cheyenne, from all the Native Americans who came to visit her father, the old curmudgeon Jules Sandoz. She was either seven or nine years old--I forget which--before she learned this "Nebraska Sandhills English."
Many linguists, who find no fault at all with her "Nebraska Sandhills English," have remarked that the rhythm, the pattern, of that English is based upon Cheyenne.
But to me, her English has always seemed standard English, nothing fancy or different about it than English used by other writers.
The evaluations of her writing, as done by the snobbish eastern elites, is glaring proof that being congested in dirty, stinking, crowded big blue cities smothers the cerebral cells.
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By the way, I forget to mention, her research was so thorough that she even knew the brands of the rifles used by Crazy Horse.
I'll bet our own Crazy Horse here wouldn't know that minutae of detail.