Understanding Ron Rash

John Lang

Description

In this first book-length study of Ron Rash's fiction and poetry, John Lang explores the nature and scope of Rash's achievements, introducing readers to the major themes and stylistic features of his work as well as the literary and cultural influences that shaped it. After a brief survey of Rash's life and career, Lang traces Rash's development through his fourteen books of poetry and fiction published through 2013.

Beginning with Rash's first three collections of short fiction, Lang analyzes the author's literary style and techniques as well as Rash's richly detailed settings and characters drawn from the mountain South, primarily western North Carolina and upstate South Carolina. Then, in an assessment of Rash's four volumes of poetry, Lang investigates their thematic and linguistic grounding in Appalachia and emphasizes their universal appeal, lyrical grace, and narrative efficiency. Moving to the early novels One Foot in Eden, Saints at the River, and The World Made Straight, Lang traces Rash's evolving narrative skills, intricate plotting, and the means by which he creates historical and philosophical resonance. Then Lang examines how vivid characters, striking use of dramatic techniques, and wide range of allusions combine in Rash's best-known book, which is also his most accomplished novel to date, Serena.

After a study of Rash's most recent novel, The Cove, Lang returns to Rash's latest work in short fiction: his Frank O'Connor Award-winning Burning Bright and Nothing Gold Can Stay, both of which demonstrate his wide-ranging subject matter and characters as well as his incisive portraits of both contemporary Appalachian life and the region's history. An extensive bibliography of primary and secondary materials by and about Rash concludes the book.

Sujets

• Literary Criticism
• Trickster (arquetipo)
• A sangre fría (película)
• América
• Fearful Symmetry (Frye)
• Sympathetic character
• Ron Rash
• Felix culpa
• Incorruptibility
• Fabulation
• Jeremiad
• Revenge play
• Good and evil
• Negative capability
• In Cold Blood
• Parable of the Good Samaritan
• General officer
• The Great Gatsby
• Simile
• Exultet
• General
• Sherwood Anderson
• Trickster
• American
• De sang-froid (film)
• Gatsby le Magnifique
• Thomas Kyd
• Adage
• Ambrose Bierce

Informations

• Publié par: University of South Carolina Press
• Date de parution: 13 août 2014
• Nombre de lectures: 2
• EAN13: 9781611174120
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

UNDERSTANDING RON RASH
UNDERSTANDING CONTEMPORARY AMERICAN LITERATURE
Matthew J. Bruccoli, Founding Editor
Linda Wagner-Martin, Series Editor
Volumes on
Edward Albee | Sherman Alexie | Nelson Algren | Paul Auster
Nicholson Baker | John Barth | Donald Barthelme | The Beats
Thomas Berger | The Black Mountain Poets | Robert Bly | T. C. Boyle
Truman Capote | Raymond Carver | Michael Chabon | Fred Chappell
Chicano Literature | Contemporary American Drama
Contemporary American Horror Fiction
Contemporary American Literary Theory
Contemporary American Science Fiction, 1926–1970
Contemporary American Science Fiction, 1970–2000
Contemporary Chicana Literature | Robert Coover | Philip K. Dick
James Dickey | E. L. Doctorow | Rita Dove | John Gardner | George Garrett
Tim Gautreaux | John Hawkes | Joseph Heller | Lillian Hellman | Beth Henley
James Leo Herlihy | David Henry Hwang | John Irving | Randall Jarrell
Charles Johnson | Diane Johnson | Adrienne Kennedy | William Kennedy
Jack Kerouac | Jamaica Kincaid | Etheridge Knight | Tony Kushner
Ursula K. Le Guin | Denise Levertov | Bernard Malamud | David Mamet
Bobbie Ann Mason | Colum McCann | Cormac McCarthy | Jill McCorkle
Carson McCullers | W. S. Merwin | Arthur Miller | Stephen Millhauser
Lorrie Moore | Toni Morrison’s Fiction | Vladimir Nabokov | Gloria Naylor
Joyce Carol Oates |Tim O’Brien | Flannery O’Connor | Cynthia Ozick
Suzan-Lori Parks | Walker Percy | Katherine Anne Porter | Richard Powers
Reynolds Price | Annie Proulx | Thomas Pynchon | Theodore Roethke
Philip Roth | Richard Russo | May Sarton | Hubert Selby, Jr. | Mary Lee Settle
Sam Shepard | Neil Simon | Isaac Bashevis Singer | Jane Smiley | Gary Snyder
William Stafford | Robert Stone | Anne Tyler | Gerald Vizenor | Kurt Vonnegut
David Foster Wallace | Robert Penn Warren | James Welch | Eudora Welty
Edmund White | Tennessee Williams | August Wilson | Charles Wright
UNDERSTANDING
RON RASH
John Lang

The University of South Carolina Press
© 2014 University of South Carolina
Published by the University of South Carolina Press Columbia, South Carolina 29208
www.sc.edu/uscpress
23 22 21 20 19 18 17 16 15 14 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Lang, John, 1947–
Understanding Ron Rash / John Lang.
pages cm. — (Understanding Contemporary American Literature)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-61117-411-3 (hardback) — ISBN 978-1-61117-412-0 (ebook)
1. Rash, Ron, 1953—Criticism and interpretation. I. Title.
PS3568.A698Z73 2014
813'.54—dc23
2014007288
For Nathan and Lesa, Sarah and Joseph
CONTENTS
Series Editor’s Preface
Acknowledgments
Chapter 1 Understanding Ron Rash
Chapter 2 The Night the New Jesus Fell to Earth, Casualties, and Chemistry
Chapter 3 Eureka Mill, Among the Believers, Raising the Dead, and Waking
Chapter 4 One Foot in Eden, Saints at the River, and The World Made Straight
Chapter 5 Serena and The Cove
Chapter 6 Burning Bright and Nothing Gold Can Stay
Notes
Bibliography
Index
SERIES EDITOR’S PREFACE
The Understanding Contemporary American Literature series was founded by the estimable Matthew J. Bruccoli (1931-2008), who envisioned these volumes as guides or companions for students as well as good nonacademic readers, a legacy that will continue as new volumes are developed to fill in gaps among the nearly one hundred series volumes published to date and to embrace a host of new writers only now making their marks on our literature.
As Professor Bruccoli explained in his preface to the volumes he edited, because much influential contemporary literature makes special demands, “the word understanding in the titles was chosen deliberately. Many willing readers lack an adequate understanding of how contemporary literature works; that is, of what the author is attempting to express and the means by which it is conveyed.” Aimed at fostering this understanding of good literature and good writers, the criticism and analysis in the series provide instruction in how to read certain contemporary writers—explicating their material, language, structures, themes, and perspectives—and facilitate a more profitable experience of the works under discussion.
In the twenty-first century, Bruccoli’s prescience gives us an avenue to publish expert critiques of significant contemporary American writing. The series continues to map the literary landscape and to provide both instruction and enjoyment. Future volumes will seek to introduce new voices alongside canonized favorites, to chronicle the changing literature of our times, and to remain, as Bruccoli conceived, contemporary in the best sense of the word.
Linda Wagner-Martin, Series Editor
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The initial research for this book was undertaken with the assistance of funding and released time provided by Emory & Henry College through the Henry Carter Stuart Chair in its English Department. I am grateful for that institution’s support and encouragement over the twenty-nine years (1983-2012) I taught there. I would also like to thank Jane Caldwell and Patty Greany of the college’s Kelly Library for their help in locating elusive materials about Ron Rash and his work. Special thanks to my wife, Esther, whose love and understanding have helped to sustain my academic career for more than forty years, although during the past fifteen months she has wondered aloud more than once, “When is your retirement really going to begin?”
My principal indebtedness, however, is to the subject of this study, Ron Rash, whose fiction and poetry have earned my respect and admiration for nearly two decades. During the writing of this monograph, he promptly answered every question I sent to him and insured that I received an advance reading copy of his latest book, Nothing Gold Can Stay, well before it was released by HarperCollins. He spent time with me answering additional queries at the 2013 meeting of the Fellowship of Southern Writers, an organization into which he was inducted in 2011. He also agreed to read the final draft of this book’s opening chapter to verify the accuracy of its biographical information. It has been a great pleasure to see his publications receive wider and wider acclaim over the past decade, including international recognition.
I can only hope that this volume will generate further interest in his achievements as a poet, novelist, and short story writer.
For permission to quote extensively from Rash’s poetry, acknowledgment is made to the publishers and individuals listed below:
From Eureka Mill by Ron Rash. Copyright © 1998 by Ron Rash. Used by permission of Ron Rash and Hub City Press.
From Among the Believers by Ron Rash. Copyright © 2000 by Ron Rash. Used by permission of Ron Rash.
From Raising the Dead by Ron Rash. Copyright © 2002 by Ron Rash. Used by permission of Ron Rash.
From Waking by Ron Rash. Copyright © by Ron Rash. Used by permission of Hub City Press.
CHAPTER 1
Understanding Ron Rash
In a brief essay, “The Importance of Place,” Ron Rash states, “one of the most interesting aspects of literature is how the most intensely regional literature is often the most universal,” and he goes on to cite the examples of William Faulkner’s Mississippi, Alice Munro’s Ontario, Gabriel García Márquez’s Colombia, and James Joyce’s Dublin. 1 Elsewhere Rash has noted the difference between “regional” and “local color” writing: “Local color is writing that is only about difference—what makes this particular place exotic. Regional writing is writing that shows what is distinct about a place—its language, culture, and all of that—yet at the same time says something universal.” 2 Having chosen to ground his work firmly in the history and culture of the American South’s Appalachian region, where his ancestors have lived since the mid-1700s, Rash has seen his fiction celebrated not only regionally but also nationally and internationally. Chemistry and Other Stories (2007) was a finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award in 2008, as was his novel Serena (2008) in 2009. His fourth collection of short stories, Burning Bright (2010), won the prestigious Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award, and his books have been translated into more than a dozen languages, including French, Dutch, Spanish, Japanese, Turkish, and Chinese, evidence that his writing does, indeed, address features of human experience that transcend the local and regional. Responding in the negative when an interviewer asked if he ever consciously thought about being a southern writer, Rash added, “The best of Southern writing has always been universal—the region merely a starting point, not an ending point.” 3 Like many other writers from Appalachia and the broader South, Rash is “always wary … of adjectives before the word writer ” because they can easily become terms of disparagement or diminishment, limiting and reductive. 4 Yet the subject matter of his fiction and poetry testifies to his fierce allegiance to Appalachia—its people, its landscape, its vernacular language, its history, its folklore. Thus Rash’s writing has contributed substantially to what Robert Bain and Joseph Flora termed in 1994, the year Rash’s fi