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The Chokecherry Tree
With tenderness and a vast compassion Feike Feikema records the tragicomedy of stubby, red-faced Elof Lofblom, an Iowa farm boy who wanted only his fair chance among the bigger fellows. Behind the often earthy details of this story of youth, Feike Feikema reveals a deeply sympathetic understanding of the little people who struggle against the odds that are - too often - too great.
270 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1948
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
June 1, 2022
Excellent book . Great story line. Thought provoking. Well-written. I'll keep reading this author.
July 25, 2022
Elof Lofbloom hopes to move up in the world -- to be a hero. Nothing works out so he goes home to his father and finally finds a life in his hometown.
January 1, 2023
I love random reads. Some of the best ones come from answers to my constant question: "What are you reading right now??" This book was the answer that came from one of my favorite Aunties. Living in New Mexico, enjoying freedom, long walks and her Gigdet (canine family member), she'd found an old book in an antique store, had purchased and was reading it. I had to get a copy. This is that book: The Chokecherry Tree, by Feike Feikema, published in 1948.
Elof Lofblom, having left home, going to conquer the world, is now coming back home in a rather diminished condition and quashed spirit. His reception from Pa Lofblom is dark and stormy, filled mostly and not delivered gently with news of Ma's death. No warm welcoming, no gifts of comforting parental gestures. In fact, a request for desperately needed shoes (Pa owns and runs a store) is flatly refused.
From there blossoms a book that hooked me in the way retro reads do - not by any of the current, modern hooks, but something more filmy, sepia-toned and filled with sounds and smells from my own past. There is a Dust Bowl feel, a dash of Ma & Pa Kettle (not very funny, though), more awkward sex than I expected, a whiff of Death of a Salesman, and beautiful mentions of the chokecherry motif. . .including a recipe from 1872 for Chokecherry Jelly.
Interestingly, the author prefaces almost every chapter with an italicized preamble of his own thoughts, starting with
. . .Here from the brow of this Siouxland bluff, a stone my seat, I watch your troubled swervelings to and fro. The valley you live in is green and it is moving -- its cells are proliferating and its people are working. I watch all this, and watch you, and this is what my laboring fingers write on the page. . ."
Smack in the middle of Elof's life is Chapter 16 - again italics inform a reader who is speaking, but then in some authorial version of breaking the fourth wall, a letter from the author AND Elof to all powerholders in the world protesting the terrible responsibilities and failures to properly grasp those by America and capitals all over the world - this being the date reference to the letter added between the chapters telling Elof's story:
Sunday, October, 4 A. A.
(Atomic Age; dating from December 2, 1942 A.D., when Man "first achieved self-sustaining chain reaction and thereby initiated the controlled release of nuclear energy.")
The ensuing letter is full-blown, earnest, full of warnings:
But what are we doing? What are we doing? We are giving it into the hands of masters of destruction, to irresponsibles, to Ares of the idiot brain, to our conscienceless armed forces, we are giving it to the quarrelsome, to the Achilles' and their Myrmidons. We are allowing those who do not know its true nature to control it, those who do not seem to worry that if the rug parts, scatters, all of us will be plunged into a void that has neither height nor depth nor width, that has no measurability known to man, that cannot be related to anything touched with the finger tip, seen with the eye, tasted with the tongue, smelled with the nose, heard with the ear, sensed with intuition. . . ."
The letter ends
Mr. President (and fellow Horned Bulls), in the name of God, in the name of humanity, in the name of anything you hold dear, save us from an interstellar calamity! Believe us, sir, faithfully yours, Feike Feikema for Elof Lofblom. PS Ironically enough, if the unraveling does overtake our flying rug, we won't be able to blame you. Neither of us will be here. (Even this page will be gone.) F.F. for E.L.
After the last of the words planted on the last page, left to read or not the conclusion of our vision of Elof's life, the Author Italic speaks again. . .and this is only part:
"We leave you now, Elof. . . .The earth spheres, and the bluff on which we sit is hurled forward into darkness -- and into the next day. And so, gone you are. And when this crisp page at last shreds and rots, too, gone will be the knowledge that you were ever gone.
The generations arise, they come and they go, each leapfrogging over the one previous, hopping off into the future.
Elof, the leaf; Lofblom, the flowered leaf. . . .",
(Clearly there was no inkling of a digital age capturing the pages for posterity's sake.)
Totally interesting, random read. Have already lined up a number of others of his work to read. Feike Feikema later wrote under the name Fredrick Manfred, or Fred Manfred, and most of that work was of the Western genre. A male writer of his time, this book may offend modern sensitivities on a number of levels. Still worth the read!
Elof Lofblom, having left home, going to conquer the world, is now coming back home in a rather diminished condition and quashed spirit. His reception from Pa Lofblom is dark and stormy, filled mostly and not delivered gently with news of Ma's death. No warm welcoming, no gifts of comforting parental gestures. In fact, a request for desperately needed shoes (Pa owns and runs a store) is flatly refused.
From there blossoms a book that hooked me in the way retro reads do - not by any of the current, modern hooks, but something more filmy, sepia-toned and filled with sounds and smells from my own past. There is a Dust Bowl feel, a dash of Ma & Pa Kettle (not very funny, though), more awkward sex than I expected, a whiff of Death of a Salesman, and beautiful mentions of the chokecherry motif. . .including a recipe from 1872 for Chokecherry Jelly.
Interestingly, the author prefaces almost every chapter with an italicized preamble of his own thoughts, starting with
. . .Here from the brow of this Siouxland bluff, a stone my seat, I watch your troubled swervelings to and fro. The valley you live in is green and it is moving -- its cells are proliferating and its people are working. I watch all this, and watch you, and this is what my laboring fingers write on the page. . ."
Smack in the middle of Elof's life is Chapter 16 - again italics inform a reader who is speaking, but then in some authorial version of breaking the fourth wall, a letter from the author AND Elof to all powerholders in the world protesting the terrible responsibilities and failures to properly grasp those by America and capitals all over the world - this being the date reference to the letter added between the chapters telling Elof's story:
Sunday, October, 4 A. A.
(Atomic Age; dating from December 2, 1942 A.D., when Man "first achieved self-sustaining chain reaction and thereby initiated the controlled release of nuclear energy.")
The ensuing letter is full-blown, earnest, full of warnings:
But what are we doing? What are we doing? We are giving it into the hands of masters of destruction, to irresponsibles, to Ares of the idiot brain, to our conscienceless armed forces, we are giving it to the quarrelsome, to the Achilles' and their Myrmidons. We are allowing those who do not know its true nature to control it, those who do not seem to worry that if the rug parts, scatters, all of us will be plunged into a void that has neither height nor depth nor width, that has no measurability known to man, that cannot be related to anything touched with the finger tip, seen with the eye, tasted with the tongue, smelled with the nose, heard with the ear, sensed with intuition. . . ."
The letter ends
Mr. President (and fellow Horned Bulls), in the name of God, in the name of humanity, in the name of anything you hold dear, save us from an interstellar calamity! Believe us, sir, faithfully yours, Feike Feikema for Elof Lofblom. PS Ironically enough, if the unraveling does overtake our flying rug, we won't be able to blame you. Neither of us will be here. (Even this page will be gone.) F.F. for E.L.
After the last of the words planted on the last page, left to read or not the conclusion of our vision of Elof's life, the Author Italic speaks again. . .and this is only part:
"We leave you now, Elof. . . .The earth spheres, and the bluff on which we sit is hurled forward into darkness -- and into the next day. And so, gone you are. And when this crisp page at last shreds and rots, too, gone will be the knowledge that you were ever gone.
The generations arise, they come and they go, each leapfrogging over the one previous, hopping off into the future.
Elof, the leaf; Lofblom, the flowered leaf. . . .",
(Clearly there was no inkling of a digital age capturing the pages for posterity's sake.)
Totally interesting, random read. Have already lined up a number of others of his work to read. Feike Feikema later wrote under the name Fredrick Manfred, or Fred Manfred, and most of that work was of the Western genre. A male writer of his time, this book may offend modern sensitivities on a number of levels. Still worth the read!
December 19, 2008
This is a simple story with a powerful
expression and example of fine writing.
expression and example of fine writing.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews