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The Old Order: Stories of the South from Flowering Judas, Pale Horse, Pale Rider, and The Leaning Tower
A number of Porter’s finest stories have their setting in the South at the turn of the century. The Old Order brings these together in a single volume, including six stories from The Leaning Tower, three stories from Flowering Judas, and the short novel “Old Mortality” from Pale Horse, Pale Rider.
175 pages, Paperback
First published August 4, 1955
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About the author
Katherine Anne Porter
154 books350 followersKatherine Anne Porter was a Pulitzer Prize-winning American journalist, essayist, short story writer, novelist, and political activist. She is known for her penetrating insight; her works deal with dark themes such as betrayal, death and the origin of human evil.
See also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katherin...
See also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katherin...
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Displaying 1 - 25 of 25 reviews
August 5, 2018
5 stars for all six of the connected stories from The Leaning Tower. Taken separately, they are each wonderful. "The Source" and "The Old Order" detail the last years of a strong-willed grandmother, matriarch of her clan, and steerswoman for their fortunes. Moving and often endearing. "The Witness" and "The Last Leaf" portray the waning years of two ex-slaves who served her. Also quite moving and endearing. Porter's ability to navigate and explore the complications of race and former slavery in a way that doesn't ignore how uncomfortable and often awful the topic is while always providing humanity and dignity to her characters was very, very impressive. The later two stories are a needed match to the first two stories, balancing out those tales of a strong and humane former slaveholder with the very separate lives of the idiosyncratic, misanthropic, (forcibly) married couple who have been with her since childhood; without the latter two stories, the lack of balance and the lack of black voices would have felt not just lopsided, but really problematic. The remaining two stories detail key moments in the life of Miranda, granddaughter to the matriarch. "The Circus" and "The Grave" are strange stories, bold and unsettling in their imagery, darkly comic at times, and resonant in surprising (and somewhat unpleasant) ways. Miranda's inexplicable display of hysterical fear while at a circus and her nearly unwilling recognition of a circus performer as a human being felt odd yet also made an odd kind of sense. This story is the first step in Miranda's move towards truly understanding the world around her. And the second step is made in the unnerving second tale (and the last of this cycle), which paints a portrait of Miranda the tomboy, exploring the lands around her with her brother, and having new and disturbing feelings after seeing the dead babies of a mother rabbit shot by her brother. I have never read the likes of either story; they were uniquely affecting experiences.
Taken apart, each story is a marvel of economy, wit, and depth; they say so much, and so distinctly and even eccentrically, and they waste no time saying it. Beautiful prose with resonant themes. But taken together: truly a marvel. A portrait of a certain time and place; a log of an extended family's trials and tribulations; an exploration of multi-faceted and often surprising human nature; and a prologue to the powerful novellas of Miranda as an adult: "Old Mortality" and "Pale Horse, Pale Rider"
1-2 stars for the following three stories. I'm not sure what caused such a distinct change in Porter's outlook on life and her views on the human condition in between writing the earlier stories from "Flowering Judas" and the latter stories I've written about above. Something deepening must have happened in that decade or so, because these early stories lack most of the virtues and all of the wisdom of those six stories. The prose is top notch, of course: Porter was an ingenious writer even then. But "The Jilting of Granny Weatherall" and "He" and "Magic" lack humanity in their morbid, at times vindictive, often pathetic tales of three deluded, venomous women who add nothing to the lives around them and barely have lives of their own. I just don't dig portraits of monsters. I want shading. If there's cruelty and poison, I also want grace and an antidote.
4 stars for "Old Mortality". I detailed my feelings about this novella in my review for Pale Horse, Pale Rider.
Taken apart, each story is a marvel of economy, wit, and depth; they say so much, and so distinctly and even eccentrically, and they waste no time saying it. Beautiful prose with resonant themes. But taken together: truly a marvel. A portrait of a certain time and place; a log of an extended family's trials and tribulations; an exploration of multi-faceted and often surprising human nature; and a prologue to the powerful novellas of Miranda as an adult: "Old Mortality" and "Pale Horse, Pale Rider"
1-2 stars for the following three stories. I'm not sure what caused such a distinct change in Porter's outlook on life and her views on the human condition in between writing the earlier stories from "Flowering Judas" and the latter stories I've written about above. Something deepening must have happened in that decade or so, because these early stories lack most of the virtues and all of the wisdom of those six stories. The prose is top notch, of course: Porter was an ingenious writer even then. But "The Jilting of Granny Weatherall" and "He" and "Magic" lack humanity in their morbid, at times vindictive, often pathetic tales of three deluded, venomous women who add nothing to the lives around them and barely have lives of their own. I just don't dig portraits of monsters. I want shading. If there's cruelty and poison, I also want grace and an antidote.
4 stars for "Old Mortality". I detailed my feelings about this novella in my review for Pale Horse, Pale Rider.
July 13, 2016
I was looking for something a bit nostalgic and this was a great choice. A couple of the first stories were about large matriarchal families and those seemed to be my favorites. I don't know why but I always find hard working indomitable women amusing! I have to admire because I could never hold up to that kind of work load. K.A. Porter really knows how to compose a short story and ends each one with a nice flourish.
January 23, 2008
Scrambling to finish this one before tomorrow night's class. Oddly, I'd already read most of these stories in their original collections, so I knew "Granny Weatherall," "The Old Order," and "Old Mortality" already. Loving "He," "Magic" and some of the smaller Old Order pieces ("The Grave"). (Side note: As the editor of the modern volume of the Heath Anthology of Am Lit, I decided to shake up the Porter selections and axe "Granny" in favor of "He." Some teachers will hate the change, but I worry about KAP becoming known only for "Granny" and "Flowering Judas.").
My overall reaction is that I wish publishers wouldn't cobble together books out of bigger, better collections---THE OLD ORDER feels like a compilation (Katherine Anne Porter Sings the South!) through no fault of KAP's own. Methinks it was put together to give teachers a teachable text (my alliteration is working overtime for some reason).
What I like best here is the anti-storiness of it all. Most of the selections---"Old Mortality" in particular---read like a flip through a memory book or photo collection. Old family stories flow together without a determining sense of time or plot---we just know that everything has receded into a lost past. Very powerful in that regard. KAP is underrated IMHO.
My overall reaction is that I wish publishers wouldn't cobble together books out of bigger, better collections---THE OLD ORDER feels like a compilation (Katherine Anne Porter Sings the South!) through no fault of KAP's own. Methinks it was put together to give teachers a teachable text (my alliteration is working overtime for some reason).
What I like best here is the anti-storiness of it all. Most of the selections---"Old Mortality" in particular---read like a flip through a memory book or photo collection. Old family stories flow together without a determining sense of time or plot---we just know that everything has receded into a lost past. Very powerful in that regard. KAP is underrated IMHO.
December 5, 2017
Excellent windows into this extended family's life in the Southern USA of 1800's until just about up to the time of WWI. The "old order" is exactly what these narratives hold. Usually told from one voice, each story is 4.5 star but the dialect is so deep at points, I could not round it up. And be warned that it is as far from PC as you can get. But also outstanding in their perceptions and their realities of interchange with the world around them, each story is semi-related in personal connections or cousin tangents to each other. The two Grandmothers' stories are superb.
I've read the last and one other within her other novella pieces, they are taken from "Leaning Tower", "Pale Horse, Pale Rider", and "Flowering Judas". But they do stand alone. And I also have to add that I did get another aspect out of each I had read before. It's about memory. It's about the child loved who is not whole, sick, cannot ever become adult in his mind. It's about sickness. It's about will for a lifetime of work to support all those who are gone early. It's about tradition and acceptance of relationship for its core and the reality of the world it exists within. It's about self-identity to never take charity. But it also has a much higher than average regard for the aged and those last years and moments whenever they do occur than almost any author I've read in this format and size of work. Death at home and how it has usually happened. And did for my family in all cases.
Sounds far from cheery? Well, believe it or not- it's not sad sack at all. And also more centered in actual human life reality than 90% of the fiction AND non-fiction you will read.
She was a tremendous writer.
There are also some tidbits of a certain scene here that are outstanding "time" frame snapshots.
"The Circus" was one of them. But I will remember some of these with their final placements the most. "The Last Leaf" was one. But the best of all was a scene I've lived through, almost exactly at least 2 times. Almost 3. It's "The Jilting of Granny Weatherall". I had never read this before and it is absolutely a 5 star story.
I've read the last and one other within her other novella pieces, they are taken from "Leaning Tower", "Pale Horse, Pale Rider", and "Flowering Judas". But they do stand alone. And I also have to add that I did get another aspect out of each I had read before. It's about memory. It's about the child loved who is not whole, sick, cannot ever become adult in his mind. It's about sickness. It's about will for a lifetime of work to support all those who are gone early. It's about tradition and acceptance of relationship for its core and the reality of the world it exists within. It's about self-identity to never take charity. But it also has a much higher than average regard for the aged and those last years and moments whenever they do occur than almost any author I've read in this format and size of work. Death at home and how it has usually happened. And did for my family in all cases.
Sounds far from cheery? Well, believe it or not- it's not sad sack at all. And also more centered in actual human life reality than 90% of the fiction AND non-fiction you will read.
She was a tremendous writer.
There are also some tidbits of a certain scene here that are outstanding "time" frame snapshots.
"The Circus" was one of them. But I will remember some of these with their final placements the most. "The Last Leaf" was one. But the best of all was a scene I've lived through, almost exactly at least 2 times. Almost 3. It's "The Jilting of Granny Weatherall". I had never read this before and it is absolutely a 5 star story.
May 3, 2016
The story "Old Mortality" holds a position of honor even in my short story Hall of Fame. It's a story I come back to again and again, year after year. In terms of both length and structure, it's really more of a novella. Having read all of KAP's stories (and the shockingly shite novel 'Ship of Fools'), I have to consider it her quiet masterpiece. Another story that had haunted me for decades is "The Grave," which somehow contains in itself all the mysteries and horrors of uncomprehending childhood, repulsive fecundity and inexorable death. It leads you to that mirror in which you finally see yourself for what you are: a soul trapped in flesh. At some point in life, your body is no longer the housing for your being (or soul, if you believe in such things), but the thing you have become.
"The Jilting of Granny Weatherall" is absolute anathema to me. I hate this story and I am sick unto death of it. Let us never speak of this again.
In my own personal hell, I will be forced to read "The Jilting of Granny Weatherall" and "A Rose for Emily" over and over, without cease, world without end.
"The Jilting of Granny Weatherall" is absolute anathema to me. I hate this story and I am sick unto death of it. Let us never speak of this again.
In my own personal hell, I will be forced to read "The Jilting of Granny Weatherall" and "A Rose for Emily" over and over, without cease, world without end.
October 3, 2011
"old mortality", "pale horse, pale rider", and "the jilting of granny weatherall" are three of the most perfect, unforgettable works of fiction I have ever read.
March 30, 2022
These stories are very low key, with little admitted drama. They show the southern attitude and ongoing narcissism after the civil war and the characters are recognizable to another Southerner. Porter has a way of illustrating and characterizing life with simple description and action. I was taught Flannery O'Connor, I wonder why not Katherine Anne Porter.
March 20, 2014
My affair with Katherine Anne Porter has been going on for some time now, and I revisit her stories more than any other author.
This collection is like a weird mixtape where someone chooses to focus on a certain tone of a particular artist. All of the stories are excellent, but they don't present you with all Porter can achieve and only a handful of them are her at her absolute best. Because of this, it's not a good introduction for her, I feel.
The best introduction is 'Pale Horse, Pale Rider', a perfect book of American fiction. One story in 'The Old Order' is from 'Pale Horse, Pale Rider' and that is 'Old Mortality', a Miranda story where she is "not a girl, not yet a woman", to quote the scintillating Britney Spears pop classic.
BUT I really would have loved to read Porter addressing her roots more directly. You see, the 'Miranda stories' so-called, are kind of like the Nick Adams stories of Hemingway: Partially autobiographical, deeply romantic and wistful, while simultaneously self-mythologizing. For Porter, she sort of suggests a history as a Southern belle from a prestigious old southern family (she also suggested this in person when telling anecdotes to enraptured listeners) that's weirdly grafted on to a Texas setting (in the early stories). If you know her biography, she was a poor child who grew up in Central Texas, but she was always a little hesitant to embrace this, and had reservations about her home state (I feel you, Katherine). Reading a story where she inhabited her past more directly would be a great joy to me. You get a glimpse of what might have been in 'The Grave', the best story in this collection. It's a story about a brother and sister exploring a graveyard, a story about punishment and memory and fleeting joy. The ending, where she is far away in another country and remembering that day and sees her brother's face again, well, just read it:
One day she was picking her path among the puddles and crushed refuse of a market street in a strange city of a strange country, when, without warning, in totality, plain and clear in its true colors as if she looked through a frame upon a scene that had not stirred nor changed since the moment it happened, the episode of the far-off day leaped from its burial place before her mind’s eye. She was so reasonlessly horrified she halted suddenly staring, the scene before her eyes dimmed by the vision back of them. An Indian vendor had held up before her a tray of dyed-sugar sweets, shaped like all kinds of small creatures: birds, baby chicks, baby rabbits, lambs, baby pigs. They were in gay colors and smelled of vanilla, maybe. . . . It was a very hot day and the smell in the market, with its piles of raw flesh and wilting flowers, was like the mingled sweetness and corruption she had smelled that other day in the empty cemetery at home: the day she had remembered vaguely always until now as the time she and her brother had found treasure in the opened graves. Instantly upon this thought the dreadful vision faded, and she saw clearly her brother, whose childhood face she had forgotten, standing again in the blazing sunshine, again twelve years old, a pleased sober smile in his eyes, turning the silver dove over and over in his hands.
Takes your breath away doesn't it?
Sadly, one of the finest Miranda stories is missing from this, 'Holiday', set on a farm of German immigrants in Central Texas. Maybe it wasn't available when this was published?
This collection is like a weird mixtape where someone chooses to focus on a certain tone of a particular artist. All of the stories are excellent, but they don't present you with all Porter can achieve and only a handful of them are her at her absolute best. Because of this, it's not a good introduction for her, I feel.
The best introduction is 'Pale Horse, Pale Rider', a perfect book of American fiction. One story in 'The Old Order' is from 'Pale Horse, Pale Rider' and that is 'Old Mortality', a Miranda story where she is "not a girl, not yet a woman", to quote the scintillating Britney Spears pop classic.
BUT I really would have loved to read Porter addressing her roots more directly. You see, the 'Miranda stories' so-called, are kind of like the Nick Adams stories of Hemingway: Partially autobiographical, deeply romantic and wistful, while simultaneously self-mythologizing. For Porter, she sort of suggests a history as a Southern belle from a prestigious old southern family (she also suggested this in person when telling anecdotes to enraptured listeners) that's weirdly grafted on to a Texas setting (in the early stories). If you know her biography, she was a poor child who grew up in Central Texas, but she was always a little hesitant to embrace this, and had reservations about her home state (I feel you, Katherine). Reading a story where she inhabited her past more directly would be a great joy to me. You get a glimpse of what might have been in 'The Grave', the best story in this collection. It's a story about a brother and sister exploring a graveyard, a story about punishment and memory and fleeting joy. The ending, where she is far away in another country and remembering that day and sees her brother's face again, well, just read it:
One day she was picking her path among the puddles and crushed refuse of a market street in a strange city of a strange country, when, without warning, in totality, plain and clear in its true colors as if she looked through a frame upon a scene that had not stirred nor changed since the moment it happened, the episode of the far-off day leaped from its burial place before her mind’s eye. She was so reasonlessly horrified she halted suddenly staring, the scene before her eyes dimmed by the vision back of them. An Indian vendor had held up before her a tray of dyed-sugar sweets, shaped like all kinds of small creatures: birds, baby chicks, baby rabbits, lambs, baby pigs. They were in gay colors and smelled of vanilla, maybe. . . . It was a very hot day and the smell in the market, with its piles of raw flesh and wilting flowers, was like the mingled sweetness and corruption she had smelled that other day in the empty cemetery at home: the day she had remembered vaguely always until now as the time she and her brother had found treasure in the opened graves. Instantly upon this thought the dreadful vision faded, and she saw clearly her brother, whose childhood face she had forgotten, standing again in the blazing sunshine, again twelve years old, a pleased sober smile in his eyes, turning the silver dove over and over in his hands.
Takes your breath away doesn't it?
Sadly, one of the finest Miranda stories is missing from this, 'Holiday', set on a farm of German immigrants in Central Texas. Maybe it wasn't available when this was published?
June 5, 2013
The Old Order: Stories of the South by Katherine Anne Porter is a book that I've read many times, although not recently until this time. It's a collection of short stories and a novella. The first six stories and the novella, all put together, depict a family's life on a farm in Texas from 1885-1912, mostly as seen through the eyes of children Maria and Miranda as they grow up.
Katherine Anne Porter's superb writing style, her ability to create characters, and to explore the depth of life through daily activities, takes my breath away. The six short stories set post-Civil War. There's a town house and a farm where the children spend the summer. Grandmother visits the farm annually and inspects it, gets it into good shape. After her death, things begin to deteriorate. Her comrade Nannie, her former slave, is portrayed in the story "The Lasr Leaf" and Nannie's discarded husband, Uncle Jimbillie, talks about slavery in "The Witness". In the last story, "The Grave," Miranda and her brother Paul explore the excavated tombs of a farm graveyard being moved to a city cemetery. Remembrance is buried in Miranda's mind, but it explodes years later when she sees something in Mexico that reminds her of it.
Three additional stories are also set in rural Texas, except one (not specified) seems to be in New Orleans.
The novella, "Old Mortality," traces the life of Aunt Amy through the memories Grandmother and other relatives treasure about her. They recall her as so beautiful, so wonderful,it was obvious why Gabriel courted her for years while repeatedly rejected. The story continues through their eventual marriage, her suicide (?), Gabriel's deterioration and finally his funeral. Horse races are a frequent setting for events; Gabriel owns racehorses.
What's the key to this story, why is Amy so anguished in spite of being a belle, so complex, so difficult to please? There are references to the feminist movement as it stood in the early 1900s; Amy and other women wish for independence, but none of them achieve it.
Independence is in Miranda's mind as she rides with her father and his cousin Eva to the farm house where they've returned for Gabriel's funeral. She's planning to leave the husband she'd married despite her father's disapproval. The last two pages of the novella portray Miranda's argument in her mind about her past, her future. "I can't live in their world any longer...Let them tell their stories to each other....At least I can know the truth about what happens to me,...making a promise to herself, in her hopefulness, her ignorace."
Katherine Anne Porter's superb writing style, her ability to create characters, and to explore the depth of life through daily activities, takes my breath away. The six short stories set post-Civil War. There's a town house and a farm where the children spend the summer. Grandmother visits the farm annually and inspects it, gets it into good shape. After her death, things begin to deteriorate. Her comrade Nannie, her former slave, is portrayed in the story "The Lasr Leaf" and Nannie's discarded husband, Uncle Jimbillie, talks about slavery in "The Witness". In the last story, "The Grave," Miranda and her brother Paul explore the excavated tombs of a farm graveyard being moved to a city cemetery. Remembrance is buried in Miranda's mind, but it explodes years later when she sees something in Mexico that reminds her of it.
Three additional stories are also set in rural Texas, except one (not specified) seems to be in New Orleans.
The novella, "Old Mortality," traces the life of Aunt Amy through the memories Grandmother and other relatives treasure about her. They recall her as so beautiful, so wonderful,it was obvious why Gabriel courted her for years while repeatedly rejected. The story continues through their eventual marriage, her suicide (?), Gabriel's deterioration and finally his funeral. Horse races are a frequent setting for events; Gabriel owns racehorses.
What's the key to this story, why is Amy so anguished in spite of being a belle, so complex, so difficult to please? There are references to the feminist movement as it stood in the early 1900s; Amy and other women wish for independence, but none of them achieve it.
Independence is in Miranda's mind as she rides with her father and his cousin Eva to the farm house where they've returned for Gabriel's funeral. She's planning to leave the husband she'd married despite her father's disapproval. The last two pages of the novella portray Miranda's argument in her mind about her past, her future. "I can't live in their world any longer...Let them tell their stories to each other....At least I can know the truth about what happens to me,...making a promise to herself, in her hopefulness, her ignorace."
August 23, 2009
Though I've never read any Katherine Anne Porter, other than something in a literature anthology in a seminar as an undergrad, from what I can gather from a recent article in Harper's this collection of short stories is not representative of the rest of her work. Dealing mostly with various dying families of the south, mostly Texas, this collection reads like a Nine Stories/Franny and Zooey for a very different sort of America. The skeletons in the closets of these folks are far more moldy and rank than those of the Glasses, and their history might run deeper - and I think this is more a result of Porter's grasp of what makes a family tick than anything else - than most characters in American fiction.
Porter effortlessly shifts between voices as disparate as a slave girl, a woman mad for life and pageantry, a dying matriarch, and a little girl finding her way out of a tomboyish phase.
In "The Old Order," the passing into the antebellum period of a family, particularly a grandmother, whose compassion and equanimity to her slaves is lovely, but certainly not representative, is a dangerous sugar-coating of a society with twisted priorities and morals.
"The Jilting of Granny Weatherall" is a nice first person account of the death of an old woman, with all her inconvenient sensations and memories flooding her consciousness.
In "He" the centrality of a child with special needs is shown in a family that focuses all its energy and pronouns on one slow boy.
"Magin" is a little black magic, voodoo whore-conjuring servant tale, The Old Order's bawdy folklore.
"Old Mortality" is again framed as family remembrances. Porter's story gets at the gaps between generations, the walls built up between family members, and the inability of relatives to understand each other, or appreciate any sort of old beauty.
Porter effortlessly shifts between voices as disparate as a slave girl, a woman mad for life and pageantry, a dying matriarch, and a little girl finding her way out of a tomboyish phase.
In "The Old Order," the passing into the antebellum period of a family, particularly a grandmother, whose compassion and equanimity to her slaves is lovely, but certainly not representative, is a dangerous sugar-coating of a society with twisted priorities and morals.
"The Jilting of Granny Weatherall" is a nice first person account of the death of an old woman, with all her inconvenient sensations and memories flooding her consciousness.
In "He" the centrality of a child with special needs is shown in a family that focuses all its energy and pronouns on one slow boy.
"Magin" is a little black magic, voodoo whore-conjuring servant tale, The Old Order's bawdy folklore.
"Old Mortality" is again framed as family remembrances. Porter's story gets at the gaps between generations, the walls built up between family members, and the inability of relatives to understand each other, or appreciate any sort of old beauty.
November 5, 2013
I don't know why more people don't talk about or read Katherine Anne Porter. This was a tremendously powerful, interwoven series of stories firmly set in the Southern Gothic tradition. The lengthy Old Mortality is by far the strongest of the stories, and is a kind of Sound and the Fury light.
Blood, sex, slavery, honor, purity, the past. All the gem themes of Southern Lit show up in here, and are handled quite deftly.
Blood, sex, slavery, honor, purity, the past. All the gem themes of Southern Lit show up in here, and are handled quite deftly.
September 28, 2007
I am actually giving this five stars for the bitterly funny story "The Jilting of Granny Weatherall" -- the King Lear-like title character's pinched nihilism is literally and figuratively breathtaking.
May 23, 2009
More character study than short stories, which makes Ship of Fools make even more sense. Great sense of place and time. Weak plot, always. Generally no plot.
August 14, 2015
I enjoy Katherine Porter short stories. They take you back to a different time. Knowing her history I always think I see a bit of Porter in her stories.
October 2, 2025
Holiday by Katherine Anne Porter
Another version of this note and thoughts on other books are available at:
- https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list... and http://realini.blogspot.ro/
This is yet another fascinating story from the wondrous Katherine Anne Porter.
And it won the O'Henry Prize.
In fact, the author has told the tale of this account.
It was written in three versions and then placed in a box and forgotten.
Katherine Anne Porter had had an experience similar to the one described in the narrative.
Indeed, the story teller is a young woman who decides to get away from the city and probably...
- "Far From The Madding Crowd"
A friend has been visiting a farm in Texas and is impressed with that vacation.
So it is suggested that this would the perfect location, with the attic which has shingles of various colors on account of the rain that is entering at times.
It sounded bucolic and enticing, so the narrator gets on the train and arrives at the station.
Alas, the first impression is not favorable and there is no one to meet her, at least for a few minutes.
Then a young boy appears and he takes the luggage and they get to the "spring carriage".
The boy proves to be not just exceptionally strong, but also very well balanced, managing to get the trunk on his head and the suitcase in the other hand while climbing steps.
At the farm, there is a large family of Germans called Muller.
Mother and Father Muller have many daughters, sons, sons in law and grandchildren.
They speak German and their guest does not understand, but enjoys this situation.
There is a lot of work at the farm, which has cows, pigs, a lot of land to be cultivated.
But they all work hard and rise early, before dawn so that they have their hearty breakfast and get to the fields.
Their large meals are cooked and served by the other main character of this account.
The protagonists of this tale are the narrator and a girl called Ottilie.
She is very deformed and the guest learns later that she was very maimed by a serious illness.
Nobody seems to mind or talk to Ottilie, who has symptoms like hand and head shaking which nevertheless do not prevent her from being so active and busy preparing and serving food for twenty people.
When they have guests, she is the one making cakes, coffee and serving them.
She does not speak, but at one moment her howling is heard in the house.
Father Muller plays chess with his eldest son in law and is strange in his atheism that is disliked in the community.
The villagers would not have one of his sons in law for a sheriff because of his atheism.
But Father Muller pointed out that he allows the community to rent his land for much lower rates than any other and gives them free interest loans.
For he cherishes Das Kapital, which is his bible, alas.
He knows full passages from the book and I hate that, for I know what communism meant for my family and my country.
In fact, it killed even more people than Nazism in Russia and China, a fact which is heinously forgotten.
There is a dark secret regarding Ottilie, without a spoiler alert at the start I would not reveal it.
I will just say that the narrator is touched by the suffering girl and gets close to her and relieved some of that long endured pain.
Another version of this note and thoughts on other books are available at:
- https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list... and http://realini.blogspot.ro/
This is yet another fascinating story from the wondrous Katherine Anne Porter.
And it won the O'Henry Prize.
In fact, the author has told the tale of this account.
It was written in three versions and then placed in a box and forgotten.
Katherine Anne Porter had had an experience similar to the one described in the narrative.
Indeed, the story teller is a young woman who decides to get away from the city and probably...
- "Far From The Madding Crowd"
A friend has been visiting a farm in Texas and is impressed with that vacation.
So it is suggested that this would the perfect location, with the attic which has shingles of various colors on account of the rain that is entering at times.
It sounded bucolic and enticing, so the narrator gets on the train and arrives at the station.
Alas, the first impression is not favorable and there is no one to meet her, at least for a few minutes.
Then a young boy appears and he takes the luggage and they get to the "spring carriage".
The boy proves to be not just exceptionally strong, but also very well balanced, managing to get the trunk on his head and the suitcase in the other hand while climbing steps.
At the farm, there is a large family of Germans called Muller.
Mother and Father Muller have many daughters, sons, sons in law and grandchildren.
They speak German and their guest does not understand, but enjoys this situation.
There is a lot of work at the farm, which has cows, pigs, a lot of land to be cultivated.
But they all work hard and rise early, before dawn so that they have their hearty breakfast and get to the fields.
Their large meals are cooked and served by the other main character of this account.
The protagonists of this tale are the narrator and a girl called Ottilie.
She is very deformed and the guest learns later that she was very maimed by a serious illness.
Nobody seems to mind or talk to Ottilie, who has symptoms like hand and head shaking which nevertheless do not prevent her from being so active and busy preparing and serving food for twenty people.
When they have guests, she is the one making cakes, coffee and serving them.
She does not speak, but at one moment her howling is heard in the house.
Father Muller plays chess with his eldest son in law and is strange in his atheism that is disliked in the community.
The villagers would not have one of his sons in law for a sheriff because of his atheism.
But Father Muller pointed out that he allows the community to rent his land for much lower rates than any other and gives them free interest loans.
For he cherishes Das Kapital, which is his bible, alas.
He knows full passages from the book and I hate that, for I know what communism meant for my family and my country.
In fact, it killed even more people than Nazism in Russia and China, a fact which is heinously forgotten.
There is a dark secret regarding Ottilie, without a spoiler alert at the start I would not reveal it.
I will just say that the narrator is touched by the suffering girl and gets close to her and relieved some of that long endured pain.
June 1, 2022
Read as an appetizer to Pale Horse, Pale Rider, so I didn't read "Old Mortality" in this volume, but will in that. The other stories here are tremendous examples of Southern Gothic set during the turn of the Century - or just prior - during a period of significant societal shifts. They have little to no plot, but are filled with sparse, insightful language. The stories are character studies, from the points-of-view of different members of an extended family and their former slaves. They thus aren't just about glances into individuals, but a collective unit tied by both genetics and oppression, sometimes both. The short "Magic" is probably the only part of the collection that I did not care for in any way. It differs from the other by following a denser stream-of-consciousness style. But it shows Porter has both depth and variability to her writing, and I look forward to seeing more of that in the short novels of Pale Horse, Pale Rider.
November 17, 2018
4.5* I regretfully only read the first couple stories back when this was assigned to me in a Southern Lit class... almost ten(?!) years ago. But it stayed on my shelves over the years and I finally got back to it. And now I need to read the books these stories were pulled from! Particularly, the ones that the first cycle of six stories and the final novella are from. The middle three stories did less for me but the beginning and end were fantastic.
January 24, 2024
What a tremendous collection of short stories, all so human and relatable. Not a whole lot “happens”, but reading this feels like getting a glimpse into someone’s life from the late 19th/early20th century and actually being inside their brain and feeling their emotions. While all the stories were great, the final novella that ends the book, “old mortality” from ‘pale horse, pale rider’, had to be my favorite. Will for sure be diving into more of porter’s work in the future.
July 23, 2025
Southern Gothic stories (plus a novella) in the vein of Flannery O’Conner. To be honest it’s not my genre of choice and it’s often difficult to read re: era / content. I do think Katherine Porter is a great writer, her characters were vivid and the stories were gripping. Maybe even more so than those of ol’ Flannery (who I haven’t read since I was the ripe old age of 16).
September 14, 2022
Fascinating read.
February 20, 2023
beautiful reflections on every moment of womanhood
August 17, 2023
I just didn’t get the point. :(
March 11, 2017
Reading this book made me feel like I was back in my university lit class. After every short story, I longed to delve into the symbolism and the characterizations. Some stories, like the series of interconnected ones that opened the anthology, were rather dull and even problematic in their portrayals of race relations and the South. However, as the anthology went on, I couldn't help but be reminded of Flannery O'Connor's writings. Some of Porter's tales had strong moral themes like O'Connor's. However, it was the last short story, "Old Mortality," that was the strongest by far. Set in three different time periods, and framed as a story within a story, it hit on feminism, gender roles, and family ties. As its young protagonist comes to terms with her family's demise, I couldn't help but feel that her experience served as symbolism for the death of the "romantic" notion of the South.
July 10, 2016
I bought an old paperback copy of this book at Weller Books in Salt Lake City. It smells so good. It's like inhaling the past.
February 25, 2025
I read this for a graduate course at Penn State. I recall nothing of the book.
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