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Vintage Vanderbilt
The Hawk's Done Gone
The stories of Mildred Haun, collected here for the first time, are unique in the annals of American literature. Set in the Smoky Mountains of East Tennessee and covering a span of family history from the Civil War to 1940, these tales achieve the forceful, intractable simplicity of the traditional ballads. But one also finds in these twenty-three stories an overview of the forces of nature, the paradoxes inherent in the human condition, and a full acceptance of the real world and the supernatural.Born to the milieu about which she wrote, Mildred Haun recorded a world which combined stark natural phenomena and passionate supernatural forces. And because the supernatural is woven into the dramatic fabric of the stories, it contributes, paradoxically, to the final credibility of events.Few writers in the twentieth century have set down so rich and complex a rendering of folk tradition and such a comprehensive treatment of superstition in the southern Appalachians. In these tales we meet a talking apple tree, a boy with the “hant bleach” of doom upon his brow, a bleeding ghost, a child’s winding sheet wet with tears, and God’s revelation in a blue bird.No other dialect collection from the South has been as close to the oral tradition or has achieved the same distinctive flavor and natural tonal qualities. The speech strikes the ear directly from the printed page. The language is simple and strong. A sparse, direct economy prevails. The total impact is explosive.Although Miss Haun dramatized themes of cruelty, revenge, and the loss of personal dignity in a harsh world, the comic tales in this volume call to mind the Native American humor of the Old Southwest and demonstrate that a female humorist, without coyness or bawdry, can hold her own alongside Davy Crockett, Sut Lovingood, and the nameless spinners of tall tales.
384 pages, Paperback
First published October 7, 1968
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
January 29, 2017
As a child of Appalachia and one who studies her stories, I have heard of Mildred Haun, but I had never read this book! From the first story, it was like going home - like Sunday dinners when I was a child at my grandparents which always included "porch-setting" and stories.
Mildred Haun's stories were like soothing balm. I wallowed in their language, legend, and most of all, their people. So much of the language used in these stories is disappearing from central Appalachia, and it is stories like this that preserve that wonderful turn of phrase such as "a crow's nest don't hatch an eagle". The superstitions and legends are also disappearing such as "A dove sitting on top of a house hollering means that one member of the family will die within the year" or "a honeybee or newsbee flying around one's head means good luck". I am thankful that Mildred Haun recorded this way of life in "The Hawk's Done Gone: And Other Stories".
Mildred Haun's stories were like soothing balm. I wallowed in their language, legend, and most of all, their people. So much of the language used in these stories is disappearing from central Appalachia, and it is stories like this that preserve that wonderful turn of phrase such as "a crow's nest don't hatch an eagle". The superstitions and legends are also disappearing such as "A dove sitting on top of a house hollering means that one member of the family will die within the year" or "a honeybee or newsbee flying around one's head means good luck". I am thankful that Mildred Haun recorded this way of life in "The Hawk's Done Gone: And Other Stories".
April 2, 2013
These were some very sad stories about a very different way of life.
January 21, 2012
I had a hard time with this book. I've heard a lot about it and read essays by other Appalachian writers who call it a classic, but to me it seems more valuable as a work of anthropology than one of fiction. Haun definitely gets the dialect right and preserves an astonishing number old superstitions and turns of phrase, but often the stories read more like anecdotes or fables than fully realized stories. Sometimes the stories just kind of end without any real conflict taking place or being resolved, and other times some poetically just comeuppance is meted out to the characters.
The stereotypes are also laid on thick and it's hard to give that a pass, even though Haun grew up in the area she writes about. Almost all the women are docile pushovers for lazy and/or abusive men, and almost all the stories involve at least one, and sometimes all three, of the following: a baby dies; a woman is abused and/or raped by a man who is often one of her own family members; a woman dies.
Some of the stories are quite funny, though, and some are truly heartrending. This is especially true of those narrated in the first person by Mary White Kanipe, the third person narrator of most the other stories. In one story her lazy and abusive husband and step-son sell off all her belongings to "antique hunters" for the newly-created Smoky Mountain National Park, which gives a painful insight into the complicated nature of the park's creation.
Still, I can't quite grasp why this book has been compared to the works of Homer and The Canterbury Tales. I wonder if there's something I'm just not getting, or maybe if I would have benefitted more by reading it as part of an Appalachian literature class. As it is, the book was a long slog that I won't likely revisit any time soon.
The stereotypes are also laid on thick and it's hard to give that a pass, even though Haun grew up in the area she writes about. Almost all the women are docile pushovers for lazy and/or abusive men, and almost all the stories involve at least one, and sometimes all three, of the following: a baby dies; a woman is abused and/or raped by a man who is often one of her own family members; a woman dies.
Some of the stories are quite funny, though, and some are truly heartrending. This is especially true of those narrated in the first person by Mary White Kanipe, the third person narrator of most the other stories. In one story her lazy and abusive husband and step-son sell off all her belongings to "antique hunters" for the newly-created Smoky Mountain National Park, which gives a painful insight into the complicated nature of the park's creation.
Still, I can't quite grasp why this book has been compared to the works of Homer and The Canterbury Tales. I wonder if there's something I'm just not getting, or maybe if I would have benefitted more by reading it as part of an Appalachian literature class. As it is, the book was a long slog that I won't likely revisit any time soon.
February 10, 2012
Debilitatingly good.
March 12, 2014
4 stories in and I like is so far. Some pretty sad stuff, in an overall kind of way, but not quite as heavy as the other stuff i've been reading from these parts...
February 4, 2008
i was read this book at the age of 28. thats right it was read too me by teacher. the book was out of print once and a group of writers got with one another and refused to publish any other books with the publisher until this was brought back into print. i have dog eared the my copy so much that it falls apart.but i tell you that when i am in the mood for an old fashioned story tellin nothin else will do
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews