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Deep South Books
The Untidy Pilgrim
This classic coming-of-age novel, winner of the Lippincott Fiction Prize for Young Novelists in 1954, is a deliberately comic portrayal of "Mobile madness," a malady specific to the Gulf Coast but recognizable by all.
Eugene Walter's first novel is about a young man from a small central Alabama town who goes south of the "salt line" to Mobile to work in a bank and study law. As soon as this unnamed pilgrim arrives, he realizes that--although he is still in Alabama—he has entered a separate physical kingdom of banana trees and palm fronds, subtropical heat and humidity, old houses and lacy wrought-iron balconies. In the "land of clowns" and the "kingdom of monkeys"—in the town that can claim the oldest Mardi Gras in America--there is no Puritan work ethic; the only ruling forces are those of chaos, craziness, and caprice. Such forces overtake the pilgrim, seduce him away from the beaten career path, and set him on a zigzag course through life.
The Untidy Pilgrim celebrates the insularity as well as the eccentricity of southerners—and Mobilians, in particular—in the mid-20th century. Cut off from the national mainstream, they are portrayed as devoid of that particularly American angst over what to "do" and accomplish with one's life, and indulge instead in art, music, cooking, nature, and love. In this novel Walter eschews the "gloom and doom" southern literary tradition established by Faulkner, Capote, and McCullers to illuminate the joyous quirkiness of human existence.
In 1954 this refreshing approach to the southern scene garnered the praise of the judges for that year's Lippincott Fiction Prize, Jacques Barzun, Diana Trilling, and Bernard DeVoto. This reissue of the paperback in The University of Alabama Press's Deep South Books series assures yet another generation the delight of Eugene Walter's award-winning romp through Mobile.
Eugene Walter's first novel is about a young man from a small central Alabama town who goes south of the "salt line" to Mobile to work in a bank and study law. As soon as this unnamed pilgrim arrives, he realizes that--although he is still in Alabama—he has entered a separate physical kingdom of banana trees and palm fronds, subtropical heat and humidity, old houses and lacy wrought-iron balconies. In the "land of clowns" and the "kingdom of monkeys"—in the town that can claim the oldest Mardi Gras in America--there is no Puritan work ethic; the only ruling forces are those of chaos, craziness, and caprice. Such forces overtake the pilgrim, seduce him away from the beaten career path, and set him on a zigzag course through life.
The Untidy Pilgrim celebrates the insularity as well as the eccentricity of southerners—and Mobilians, in particular—in the mid-20th century. Cut off from the national mainstream, they are portrayed as devoid of that particularly American angst over what to "do" and accomplish with one's life, and indulge instead in art, music, cooking, nature, and love. In this novel Walter eschews the "gloom and doom" southern literary tradition established by Faulkner, Capote, and McCullers to illuminate the joyous quirkiness of human existence.
In 1954 this refreshing approach to the southern scene garnered the praise of the judges for that year's Lippincott Fiction Prize, Jacques Barzun, Diana Trilling, and Bernard DeVoto. This reissue of the paperback in The University of Alabama Press's Deep South Books series assures yet another generation the delight of Eugene Walter's award-winning romp through Mobile.
264 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1954
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
January 23, 2011
Not many people know about Eugene Walter outside of the deep south and a few very literary people who have broad interests. The edition I have with this cover has a foreword by George Plimpton who knew Eugene in Paris when they started the Paris Review. I love this book and have given it as gifts many times to my erudite friends who've never heard of Eugene. I think this is one of the best southern novels. It reflects the deep Gulf Coastal south in a realistic way that few books do--of people eating and talking and going to parties and visiting with one another. It has not one iota of cuteness in it and there is an undercurrent of the darkness that is always there in the south. It's sort of Portrait of the Artist on the Gulf Coast. If you want an antidote to all the dramatic and melodramatic southern fiction, this is it.
October 2, 2013
Absolutely fantastic! I loved every minute of it! Walter has now become a favorite of mine by this book alone. The way everything in the story is weaved together to create the sometimes mystical and outlandish feel of Mobile, AL that few outside of this city very few know about, including myself before I moved here, having now experienced it for myself and am continuing that experience every day. It gets right to the heart of this beautiful town through the coming of age of a boy, soon to be man, molded by Mobile and it's endearing and enriching quirks.
July 18, 2022
The most interesting thing about reading The Untidy Pilgrim, is that my discovery of its author was more interesting than reading the book. Wikipedia tells me that Eugene Walter (1921-1998) was an American screenwriter, poet, short-story author, actor, puppeteer, gourmet chef, cryptographer, translator, editor, costume designer and well-known raconteur. After a dreadful childhood spent partly on the streets, he seems to have become a free spirit, gadding about and living a "pixilated wonderland of a life".
Born in Mobile Alabama, he was fending for himself in his late teens when WW2 broke out and he became an army cryptographer in the Aleutian Islands (off the coast of Alaska or Russia depending on exactly where he was). He then pitched up in Greenwich Village in New York City and pioneered spontaneous performance art at the Museum of Modern Art. He got himself to Europe on a cargo ship and lived in Paris during the 1950s, where he helped launch the Paris Review , which published his short story 'Troubadour' in the first issue. He interviewed people like Isak Dinesen and Gore Vidal, and went on to edit a multilingual literary journal called Botteghe Oscure in Rome. And after that, he acted in the films of Federico Fellini and translated Italian films into English. His dinner parties were legendary, with guests who included T. S. Eliot, William Faulkner, Judy Garland, Anaïs Nin, Gore Vidal and Richard Wright (whose biography by Hazel Rowley in on my TBR). That's an astonishing CV for a street kid. How did he get an education, I wonder?
Anyway, Walter returned to Mobile in 1979, and that's where The Untidy Pilgrim is set. It's a coming-of-age novel, deliberately comic, so they say, and it won the Lippincott Fiction Prize for Young Novelists in 1954. Kirkus found that it had a vernal, rollicking charm that will seduce even the moral-minded and the University of Alabama saw fit to reissue it (with a terrible cover) in 2001, but it didn't do much for me.
According to the description at Goodreads, Walter's lightweight style may have been what charmed the judges because of its contrast with the southern literary tradition. That tradition was my first serious introduction to American literature at university: it was established by William Faulkner, (Light in August, The Sound and the Fury) Truman Capote ( In Cold Blood, and Summer Crossing) and Carson McCullers (The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, Clock without Hands and The Member of the Wedding). Yes, it's generally cheerless, but exploring significant themes in memorable novels often is.
To read the rest of my review please visit https://anzlitlovers.com/2022/04/23/t...
Born in Mobile Alabama, he was fending for himself in his late teens when WW2 broke out and he became an army cryptographer in the Aleutian Islands (off the coast of Alaska or Russia depending on exactly where he was). He then pitched up in Greenwich Village in New York City and pioneered spontaneous performance art at the Museum of Modern Art. He got himself to Europe on a cargo ship and lived in Paris during the 1950s, where he helped launch the Paris Review , which published his short story 'Troubadour' in the first issue. He interviewed people like Isak Dinesen and Gore Vidal, and went on to edit a multilingual literary journal called Botteghe Oscure in Rome. And after that, he acted in the films of Federico Fellini and translated Italian films into English. His dinner parties were legendary, with guests who included T. S. Eliot, William Faulkner, Judy Garland, Anaïs Nin, Gore Vidal and Richard Wright (whose biography by Hazel Rowley in on my TBR). That's an astonishing CV for a street kid. How did he get an education, I wonder?
Anyway, Walter returned to Mobile in 1979, and that's where The Untidy Pilgrim is set. It's a coming-of-age novel, deliberately comic, so they say, and it won the Lippincott Fiction Prize for Young Novelists in 1954. Kirkus found that it had a vernal, rollicking charm that will seduce even the moral-minded and the University of Alabama saw fit to reissue it (with a terrible cover) in 2001, but it didn't do much for me.According to the description at Goodreads, Walter's lightweight style may have been what charmed the judges because of its contrast with the southern literary tradition. That tradition was my first serious introduction to American literature at university: it was established by William Faulkner, (Light in August, The Sound and the Fury) Truman Capote ( In Cold Blood, and Summer Crossing) and Carson McCullers (The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, Clock without Hands and The Member of the Wedding). Yes, it's generally cheerless, but exploring significant themes in memorable novels often is.
To read the rest of my review please visit https://anzlitlovers.com/2022/04/23/t...
Want to read
May 4, 2010I've just stumbled across this author/actor/chef from my home town. I'm anxious to take in some of his descriptive Southern Lit.
November 2, 2014
Heartwarming!
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews