historixeditions

[historixeditions]

In Memoriam: Madison P. Jones (1925-2012)

On Personal Ground

Madison Jones looks at the Civil War

NB: Novelist and educator Madison P. Jones passed away Monday, 9 July 2012, at the age of 87. It was this writer’s pleasure, while serving as contributing editor of the “Books” section of the Nashville Scene, to have interviewed Mr. Jones, a Nashville native, for that page in the summer of 1998. The occasion was the recent publication (1997) of Jones' novel Nashville 1864: The Dying of the Light — for which he subsequently received the inaugural Michael Shaara Award for Excellence in Civil War Fiction.

By Marc K. Stengel

JULY 13, 1998:  In one playful sense, the very career of Madison Jones is a war between the states. Although he is a Tennessee native and one of Nashville's favorite literary sons, he has, since 1956, been claimed by Alabama as writer-in-residence and professor — now emeritus — of English at Auburn University. Last fall, Jones released his 10th novel, as if to signify the well-rounded symmetry of an acclaimed career. Nashville 1864: The Dying of the Light was published in Nashville by J.S. Sanders & Company. His first foray into the crowded and prickly field of Civil War writing, the novel has just garnered the first annual Michael Shaara Award for Civil War Fiction, presented by the United States Civil War Center at Louisiana State University.

"I have to admit that Nashville 1864 was a bit of a departure for me," Jones confides. "I'm not really a Civil War buff in the sense of someone who reads everything he can get about the Civil War. I haven't really read a great deal about it at all, in fact. I had never read [Nashvillian] Stanley Horn's The Decisive Battle of Nashville, for example, until I began to kick around the idea. As it turned out, his book was essential to me, especially for figuring out some geographical matters.

"The Battle of Nashville sort of got shuffled off in Civil War history. In the first place, the West in general was shuffled off. There was so much glamour connected with Lee and Jackson and Virginia as the heart of the old, old South. People just sort of neglected the war in the West in fact and in history. Not much weight was put on the loss of Nashville in 1862 and then, of course, in the final battle in 1864. But actually, that was the end of the war for all practical purposes. After that, Lee was simply brilliantly hanging on."

Jones, now 73, grew up in Nashville and on a family farm near the Sycamore Creek community in Cheatham County. As an undergraduate at Vanderbilt University, he studied with Donald Davidson, the noted and uncompromising Agrarian poet and historian. Jones then took his stand as a master's degree candidate at the University of Florida, where another revered Agrarian, Andrew Lytle, helped forge the student's literary talents into that rare blend of fiction which is at once "serious" and popular.

"Although it's hard to say just how much influence my familiarity with Nashville had on me," he says, "I did have the sense of being on personal ground; and I assume that has contributed to whatever virtues the book has in terms of making fiction seem as real as it can seem. My grandfather, who was born before the war, lived with his family on White's Creek Pike. The Yankees did come and take all of their stock and whatnot. From the time of about my 6th birthday, I lived in a house that belonged to my grandfather, and I spent a lot of time with him.

"He would sometimes read to me about the Civil War and tell me some about his own personal experience in it. He remembered a good deal about it. He was a little bit younger than my hero in the book [Steven Moore]. In 1864, he would have been only 9 years old; I made my hero 12 years old. But when I wrote the book, it was a little bit like writing about family. I mean, I just felt familiar with everything. My grandfather certainly didn't do anything like what Steven did, nor did anything specific about his life suggest my story. I just got to thinking about a boy looking for his father after the war, which in a certain way made me think of all the sons of the South looking for their fatherland, so to speak."

Jones' depiction of the Civil War South is far more than a hard chronicle of belligerent actions and army bivouacs. It is a delicate portrait, too, of the extended and complicated family that antebellum Southern society represented before its lambent, fading flame was forever extinguished.

"Another thing I took from my grandfather was the slave boy Dink," he explains. "I don't know what Dink was actually like, although my grandfather used to talk about how he and Dink played together. He was my grandfather's companion.

"One thing, I think, might well be said: I have presented my story as the memoir — the recollection — of a man writing in 1900 about his boyhood experiences of the Civil War. I represented what I thought a man like that would think and feel. I purposefully did not give it any 20th-century perspective. This device, I think, has wrongfully laid the book open to the interpretation of some rather bigoted folks — politically correct folks — who said it was pro-slavery and that I was so biased, and so forth.

"Well in fact, the point is, this was a man who was telling a story and seeing it as he would have seen it at that time and from his own experience. I think the better reviewers and readers have accepted that premise rather than become alarmed or outraged as a few others did. Steven Moore didn't defend slavery, but he said a lot of things that certainly modified the supposed horrors of it."

It is hard if not impossible to get Jones to acknowledge the awards his work has attracted, or the esteem in which he is held both as novelist and as teacher. He will, however, fall comfortably into conversation about the larger topic of fiction as an enterprise — the aim of which, ultimately, is to merge writer and reader in a unique and mysterious communion.

"There is what I consider genuine, serious fiction and then what I consider entertainment," he observes. "It's hard to make any absolute distinction, and there are other examples that seem to fuse the two. But certainly you can tell whether the writer has anything on his mind. I guess that's what you'd say: anything on his mind.

"Even so, I sincerely believe that if you really get into the life of a piece of fiction, your philosophical ideas tend to fade away, and you just get absorbed in what unfolds. That's what should happen; and if it does, the reader will not have a sense of being preached to, or of things being set up to bear out the author's opinions. Once it becomes apparent that the author is changing things around to make his point, then you cease to believe; and the fiction ceases to be really effective, or any good at all."

— Marc K. Stengel

[historixeditions]

  Heywood Hill, the Mayfair bookseller celebrating its 75th year, shows how much such shops can still contribute to our culture

– Stoker Devonshire, in The Spectator, 3 December 2011; p. 20

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As heard on NPR's "All Things Considered," 16 November 2011:

In the wake of bookstore closings large and small throughout the U.S., co-founders Ann Patchett & Karen Hayes dare to defy the digital tide by opening a new indie bookstore in the Green Hills neighborhood of Nashville, Tennessee:

Parnassus Books 3900 Hillsboro Pk., #14 Nashville, TN 37215-2714 (615) 953-2243

MAP: http://g.co/maps/kthbb

[historixeditions]

"The Andromeda Strain" as you've never heard it before!

AstroCantus converts the celestial map, stars, galaxies, nebulæ into an infinite musical soundtrack for a sonic experience of cosmic proportions. A sonogram, in effect, of Time's embryo. http://astrocantus.com/ & http://j.mp/uLPpB2

Watch the video on YouTube: http://youtu.be/HSz843fFjzw

[historixeditions]

"Power of the Voice"

by Marc K. Stengel

Nashville Scene, 24 April 1997

NB: The gifted and insightful Rebecca Bain, longtime broadcaster and literary interviewer for WPLN-FM 90.3 (Nashville Public Radio), passed away, age 58, on Saturday, 15 October 2011. It was this writer's pleasure to have once "reversed tables" and interview Ms. Bain for the "Books" section of the Nashville Scene during his stint as contributing editor of that page in the late 1990s.

By any measure, Rebecca Bain is the leading lady of local literati. Although she has worn many hats at Nashville Public Radio in a career now entering its third decade, she is best known to book buffs in connection with a series of interview programs that she has produced and hosted. Her latest such broadcast is The Fine Print, which airs on WPLN-FM90.3 noon Saturdays and 9 a.m. Sundays.

An admitted obsessive-compulsive about reading, Bain nevertheless sees no contradiction in the use of radio—technically a non-literate medium—to promote the cause of literature. “Radio and books are about words—the power of words—and where those words can take you and what they can make you think about and the places they can make you visit and the emotions that they can elicit.

“When you’re reading an author interview on paper, it can be interesting; but you’re still hearing it in your voice. There is no sense of that person outside of the words. But when you’re hearing a radio interview, there’s their voice, and you get to hear the nuances of the feeling. It’s a very compelling thing. You are hearing the writer talk about what he does. And that’s not just the power of the word but the power of the voice.

“Authors make the best interviews—writers, I should say—because they’re so used to plumbing their emotional depths for their art that there are very few questions that a writer feels are intrusive. As a matter of fact, they’ll generally tell you more than you were asking to begin with.”

Bain can wax positively exultant about the Nashville book scene. “God, it’s a wonderful book town,” she declares while reminiscing about the literary chats she’s helped package for public consumption, first on Coffee Break, then on Authors Talk, and now on The Fine Print, which began airing on WPLN in January.

Bain doesn’t doubt that the city’s affection for books was influenced by—and perhaps even originated from—the denominational publishers who first cranked their presses here in the early 19th century. But it hasn’t stopped there. “I think the religious publishing aspect has enhanced secular reading. It promoted reading, and once you let The Word out of the bag, a lot of things get said—a lot of things get said. It transcends just religion and becomes political and historical. Any time you’ve got someone pushing literacy, for whatever reason, this is going to be good for books in general.”

As much as the books, however, it is the writers themselves who claim Bain’s deepest fascination...and respect. “You know, there are 1.3 million titles in print today. I think your chances of winning the lottery are better than your chances of getting your book published. But people who are writing literature—who are writing good books—without exception, they do it because they have to. They have got something they have to say, something they need to share. I’ve heard so many of them say, ‘I often wish I didn’t have this compulsion to write.’

“Writing...is not a career you pick. And I can appreciate that. I’m in exactly the same boat. I keep thinking, ‘Well, maybe I should do something else.’ And I can’t. My need to connect with the audience drives me. I love sharing things with people, and sharing writers is just the best.”

[historixeditions]

HISTORIX EDITIONS wants you to know about... "The Country of Criticism": Book review by Allan Massie of Karl Miller's TRETOWER TO CLYRO, in which Seamus Heany & Andrew O'Hagan make important cameo appearances. Excerpt from the review: "The tone of the book is given by the first essay, ‘Country Writers’, the only previously unpublished piece. It is hard, actually for me impossible, to summarise, for it wanders as charmingly as a walk through a countryside, part familiar, part unknown, with no destination in mind. Writers, landscapes, moments are dwelled on, tenderly and inquiringly, then left behind. Francis Kilvert rubs shoulders with D.H. Lawrence, Raymond Williams, Henry Vaughan, Seamus Heaney, Kazuo Ishiguru and a fox adopted by George Melly’s wife, Diana. Most paragraphs have sentences worth pondering. Only Matthew Arnold’s ‘Scholar Gipsy’ is missing. His absence is strange, for Miller, like Arnold, sets up the ideal of the pastoral in contrast to ‘this strange disease of modern life’." SOURCE: The Spectator (13 Aug. 2011) If the book is not stocked at Parnassus Books, Nashville, it is available here: US: http://tinyurl.com/4556ws3 UK: http://tinyurl.com/3buugn2

[historixeditions]

Top Gear presenter Jeremy Clarkson’s attack is the latest to vilify Welsh, coming hot on the heels of a Daily Mail book review which described Welsh as an “appalling and moribund monkey language”. [ http://tinyurl.com/3o4prga ] SOURCES: Wales on Sunday (4 Sept. 2011); MailOnline (12 Aug. 2011)

[historixeditions]

"There's been a perfect storm of a recession, a smoking ban, increased taxes on alcohol and supermarket price cutting that have all taken their toll on the licensed trade, with 25 pubs closing down every week." SOURCE: Mirror.co.uk Opinion (24 Aug 2011) COMMENTARY: A 21st-century Scylla and Charybdis—Which is the worse shipwreck? The shuttered bookshop? Or the padlocked pub? To wit: "Internet and supermarkets kill off 2,000 bookshops: The number of bookshops in Britain has halved in the past six years and nearly 600 towns have none at all." SOURCE: The Telegraph (3 Sep 2011) http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/booknews/8738701/Internet-and-supermarkets-kill-off-2000-bookshops.html

[historixeditions]

HISTORIX EDITIONS wants to spread the word: The number of bookshops in Britain has halved in the past six years and nearly 600 towns have none at all. SOURCE: The Telegraph (3 Sep 2011)

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"W. Ambrose Bebb, Marc K. Stengel & A Welsh Hundred"

S4C [Sianel 4 Cymru / Channel 4 Wales] video package about the publication of the works of W. Ambrose Bebb (1894-1955) for the first time in English by Marc K. Stengel.

[Welsh with English subtitles]

Reporter: Gerallt Pennant; produced by Tinopolis, Caernarfon, Wales

First broadcast: 23 September 2009: TRT: 4:30

TO PURCHASE A COPY OF "A WELSH HUNDRED":

USA: http://tinyurl.com/W100BebbUS

UK: http://tinyurl.com/W100BebbUK

[historixeditions]

Profile of Marc K. Stengel, translator of A Welsh Hundred, by W. Ambrose Bebb

SOURCE:

Y Cymro [The Welshman], 9 September 2009, p. 17.

[Article text translated by Marc K. Stengel]

TO PURCHASE A COPY OF "A WELSH HUNDRED":

USA: http://tinyurl.com/W100BebbUS

UK: http://tinyurl.com/W100BebbUK

[historixeditions]

Book review of A Welsh Hundred, by W. Ambrose Bebb; translated by Marc K. Stengel

SOURCE:

NINNAU – The North American Welsh Newspaper; Jan.-Feb. 2010; p. 20.

TO PURCHASE A COPY OF "A WELSH HUNDRED":

USA: http://tinyurl.com/W100BebbUS

UK: http://tinyurl.com/W100BebbUK

[historixeditions]

HISTORIX EDITIONS wants to spread the word:

A Bard for Highgrove, a satirical novella by Meic Stephens (Cambria, 2010)

When the Prince of Wales takes it into his head to appoint a Household Bard he hasn’t reckoned on the delectable but subversive Cerys Gifford Huws, fine poet in the strict metres and staunch Nationalist, who tries to teach him Welsh and encourages him to make his Principate more truly reflective of the country from which he takes his title.  Under her influence, not only does he introduce Highgrove and Floomerwormwood, his little place down in Wales, to all things Welsh but insists on innovations like bilingual road-signs in England, Welsh on the school syllabus and in the law-courts, a Welsh page in all the Sunday papers, and much else besides. ‘Do remember,’ he says, ‘English was thrust upon the Welsh for centuries and they didn’t complain.’ But eventually the English Establishment reacts against ‘the Welsh Prince’ and the monarchy falls into disrepute.  By 2020, the Yookay having broken up after Scotland’s secession, Cymru is an Autonomous Republic within the Celtic Confederation and ruled by a permanent green-red coalition. Charles has renounced his title and his claim to the throne, and gone to live quietly at Gregynog, where he has found contentment at last and no longer fidgets with his cuff-links. At the last, with the death of his mother at the age of 91, and William’s succession, the Windsors troop out on to the balcony of Buckingham Palace and in a scene reminiscent of the Winter Palace in 1917, the sound of gunfire is heard echoing down the Mall. And all this happens because of a Welsh poet . . .  This novella, at once provocative and percipient, but never bland, is partly a critique of the institution of monarchy and partly a satire on the culture and politics of contemporary Wales. Laying no claim to ‘literary merit’ (the bane of so much of what is published in Wales nowadays), but elegantly written, it will make some readers grin and get up the noses of others, in about equal measure. 

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HISTORIX EDITIONS wants to spread the word:

The Welsh Books Council is a national body, funded by the Welsh Government, which provides a focus for the publishing industry in Wales. It provides a number of specialist services (in the fields of editing, design, marketing and distribution) with a view to improving standards of book production and publication in both Welsh and English. It also distributes grants to publishers. The Books Council actively promotes reading and literacy in Wales.

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HISTORIX EDITIONS wants to spread the word:

The Institute of Welsh Affairs is an independent, membership-based think tank, dedicated to promoting the economic, social, environmental and cultural well-being of Wales. It owes no allegiance to any political or economic interest group. Its only interest is in seeing Wales flourish as a country in which to work and live. It believes that can be done only by the effective mobilisation of all Wales's intellectual resources. It is a company limited by guarantee (Company No.: 02151006) and a registered charity (UK Charity No.: 1078435).

[historixeditions]

A Welsh Hundred : Glimpses of Life in Wales drawn from a pair of family diaries for 1841 And 1940, by W. Ambrose Bebb; translated by Marc K. Stengel (2009)

TO PURCHASE A COPY OF "A WELSH HUNDRED":

USA: http://tinyurl.com/W100BebbUS

UK: http://tinyurl.com/W100BebbUK

[historixeditions]

By T. H. Lewis; translated and adapted by Marc K. Stengel

SOURCE: Y Genhinen [The Leek]; 1970-71, vol. 21; pp 65-69.

TO PURCHASE A COPY OF "A WELSH HUNDRED":

USA: http://tinyurl.com/W100BebbUS

UK: http://tinyurl.com/W100BebbUK