La mano segura de Dios

by Erskine Caldwell, Rebeca Bouvier (Translator), Jorge Ordaz (Contributor)

Molly Bowser is a thirty-five-year-old woman with a questionable reputation who has led a miserable life marked by an unhappy childhood. Now a widow, she has resigned herself to the fact that her possibilities for remarrying are all but nonexistent. So instead of focusing on whatever last hope she might have for herself, Molly decides to turn her efforts to finding a husband for her sixteen-year-old daughter, Lily. The novel's humorous scenes belie Caldwell's keen sense of a life lived on the margins of respectable society.

 

Molly Bowser es una mujer de treinta y cinco años con una reputación dudosa quien ha vivido una vida miserable marcada por una infancia desgraciada. Ahora que es viuda, se ha resignado al hecho de que sus posibilidades para volverse a casar son prácticamente inexistentes. Por eso es que, en vez de enfocarse en cualquier última esperanza que podría tener para sí misma, Molly decide volcar su empeño en conseguirle un marido a su hija de dieciséis años, Lily. Las humorísticas escenas de la novela ocultan el sentido agudo de Caldwell de la vida a los márgenes de la sociedad respetable.

Genres: Fiction

224 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1947

About the author

Erskine Preston Caldwell was an American author. His writings about poverty, racism and social problems in his native South won him critical acclaim, but they also made him controversial among fellow Southerners of the time who felt he was holding the region up to ridicule.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erskine_...

Reviews

[Howard · Rating 2 out of 5]

Originally published in 1947, this was considered to be minor league Caldwell, and rightfully so. It sold a lot of copies, but it never received the good critical notices that some of his earlier novels had. For one thing, it does seem to be a pale imitation of earlier best sellers such as Tobacco Road and God's Little Acre, and thus comes off as being repetitive without adding anything new.

*****
"Molly and Lily went home after the funeral and pulled down the shades in the parlor and had a good long cry together. They sat side by side on the red sofa, tearfully grieving, and thought about what had happened. Molly had a bouquet of yellow and white chrysanthemums somebody had given her at the graveside and she held the flowers close to her face and smelled their fragrance and wondered how she would ever manage to live and pay the rent now that Putt was gone:

"'What a life for the female element,' Molly said, wiping her tears on the flowers. 'There's nothing in the whole wide world worse than losing the man you've counted on to support you.' Discouraged and heartbroken, she moans inconsolably. 'It's a godforsaken shame, that's what it is,' she muttered to herself."
*****

Molly is a prototypical Caldwell character: At an early age she was dealt a losing hand and she has since done nothing to improve her lot in life; she has only made it worse. Once again Caldwell confused the critics and his readers by describing the situations that had placed his characters in difficult circumstances beyond their control while at the same time showing no apparent sympathy for them. His intermingling of tragedy and humor, sometimes dark and sometimes slapstick, further adds to the confusion.

I'm glad I read the book, but only because it was the only Caldwell novel that I had never read. Case closed.

[Seda · Rating 4 out of 5]

Tüm ahlak kavramlarını durmadan ama hiç durmadan sorgulamalıyız ki içine düştüğümüz toplumun, içimize işleyen iki yüzlü, erkek egemen, para/güce dayalı değerlerini paranteze almak, ve onlardan kurtulmak mümkün olsun.
Ne de güzel alt üst ediyor tüm değerleri!!! Molly’nin ahlaksızlığından söz etme gibi bir durum söz konusu olabilir mi? Ya tüm erkek eylemlerini görmezden gelip sadece Molly’nin şeytaniliğine odaklanan, için için rahibin karısı olma aşkıyla yanan “iyi aile kadını” Lucy’nin ahlaklılığından?
Her şey göz önünde yaşanırken sistem var olmaya devam ediyor. Öfkeyle dol, bir türlü akıl erdireme, kimi zaman da durmaksızın ağla; devam et yaşamaya…
Molly ne de güzel seviyor hayatı, insanları…Ne koşullarda seviyor hem de…
“Yazdığım bütün romanların, öykülerin amacı halka bir ayna tutmaktır. Kitaplarımın yararlı mı, zararlı mı oldukları, okurun bu aynada gördüğü imgeye tepkisine bağlıdır” Erskine Caldwell
Yoksulluk, şiddet, toplumsal adaletsizlikler üzerine sıcak, samimi ve mizahi bir hikaye…8️⃣

[Mr Gerald · Rating 4 out of 5]

Caldwell may not be the most ' descriptive / eloquent writer of our time, his novels get straight to the point and pack a punch. The story lines are good and topical - this deals with how widowers try to cope. His novels are usually around the time of the American Great Depression and often set in the Deep South. He had a wicked sense of humour and this adds greatly to the piece. Most of his books use a few 'terms' that are generally not acceptable these days. Especially regarding race. The writing is pretty up front about sexual matters too - but nothing overly offensive.
Molly Bowser loses her husband and has to bring up her teenage daughter Lily. There's some real characters in here- some nice , some not so nice towards Molly, who at one time was on the game to survive. The folks where she lives are very critical and turn their noses up at her.

[Jordi · Rating 3 out of 5]

Caldwell es uno de mis autores favoritos. Es una lástima que no tenga más renombre. Todas sus novelas son del mismo estilo, enmarcadas en el sur de los EUA con personajes míseros, violentos, lascivos, etc. Destaca por su lenguaje directo, un realismo crudo y a la vez, un toque de humor grotesco. Una combinación que hace que la lectura sea amena y, a la vez, crítica, provocadora e innovadora. Muy recomendable!

[Stephen · Rating 4 out of 5]

I liked this better than his more popular Tobacco Road. It has the same trouble with the main character Molly saying the same things over and over about something on a gin-house roof, and sure as the sun coming up on Wednesday morning, but there were more amusing characters, and surprising plot twists. Late stage Shelley Winters would’ve been great in a movie.

[Lurrid · Rating 5 out of 5]

Caldwell en estado puro. Cuenta la historia de Molly, que trata de organizar su vida, y la de su hija adolescente, tras enviudar y quedarse sin recursos. El sentido del humor de Caldwell y sus característicos diálogos hacen que la historia parezca algo ligera y menor respecto a otros de sus libros; sin embargo, es una historia trágica y conmovedora. Molly Bowser es un personaje fantástico.

[El Viejo Mochales · Rating 4 out of 5]

No la pondría entre sus mejores 5 novelas, pero tampoco me desagradó. Primer personaje femenino como protagonista y un mucho de tragedia y algo de humor.
Erskine Caldwell me revienta las pelotas. Era buenísimo.

[Frank Duke · Rating 4 out of 5]

A typical Caldwell novel about a widow determined to find a husband for her 16-year old daughter. As is his standard, the book centers on the foibles of poorer southerners with few opportunities. An easy read, though definitely a book of its time.

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

A rather toned down Faulkner work with his usual interesting characters and story line. A pleasant days read but not worth reading again.

[Russell Bittner · Rating 4 out of 5]

On p. 104, Molly makes one of her oft-repeated declarations: “‘What a life for the female element,’ she said to Jethro.”

This is obviously a theme Caldwell likes to play upon. And it wouldn’t be too far-fetched to suggest that it might be the overall theme of The Sure Hand of God. Then, on p. 107, we find another one of Molly’s fondest declarations: “‘A lot of women act as dumb as a cat on a ginhouse roof when they’re alone with a man—but not Lily.’” Caldwell—through the mouthpiece of Molly—likes to put a heap of stuff on a ginhouse roof, not the least of which is women acting dumb as a cat or, as on p.. 147, herself—feeling “as chipper as a jaybird” (on that same ginhouse roof). Of course, Molly’s willing to admit she’s got to do something (for Lily), but that she doesn’t “know no more what than a hog on a ginhouse roof” (p. 189). And almost finally, she suggests (on p. 190) that “(m)en are as slippery as a ginhouse roof—onto which she can be “dropped like a rock” (p. 201).

In short, a ginhouse roof seems to be about as wide a universe as this story can abide. And “(l)iving in this place is worse than trying to have some privacy on a ginhouse roof” (p. 207)—even if some women (here: Christine) “took to him (Benny Ballard) like hail to a ginhouse roof.”

Given the frequency (in this one story) with which Caldwell turns to a ginhouse roof as metaphor, I suppose it should come as no surprise when Molly’s and Lily’s universe would appear to be reduced to just that starting with Chapter 18 and continuing for the last twenty-four pages of the book. It’s an apt metaphor, to say the very least, and Caldwell uses it as well as he uses any of most colorful metaphors.

That said, I just don't know that The Sure Hand of God is as accomplished an oeuve as some of his others--hence, four stars rather than five.


RRB
Brooklyn, NY
14 April 2018

[Jose Antonio Moch · Rating 5 out of 5]

God handed a bad set of cards to Molly and Lily from start. The mother was bound to end up living as a whore in the Hollow and her daughter in the state's reform school and most likely following her mother's steps once she was out. It was too late to help them, circumstances made them sell their bodies as easily as it is for you or me to drink a glass of water as Frank Stevens said. All they knew was whoring and asking for money.
It is tragic, but has its comic episodes as when Reverend Bigbee's wife elopes with the farm machinery salesman, and Molly makes him aware of his shortcomings. It is also funny the way Lily amuses herself going from movie theater to the next and reading comics at the hotel where she and Perry Trotter ran away and not getting their marriage license. Their dialogue is among the best in the book. Not to mention Molly's only wish in life of "getting a man with some strenght in the seat of his pants".
Again Caldwell presents us with a tall, swarthy and somber preacher as in Journeyman who pretty much resembles in his tragic end the main character in Somerset Maugham's "Rain". This proves that The Sure Hand of God works in mysterious ways punishing with the same measure both: those who live in sin and those who live by the book.
Man, I shoulda write essays, but I hate it.

[James · Rating 4 out of 5]

A cross between "A house in Palmetto" and "Journeyman". A typical book and style by Caldwell for the time period with its undertones and reference to sex, alcoholism and depravity.

[Reet · Rating 3 out of 5]

Really points out the sadness of how men can destroy a woman.