La casa de la colina

by Erskine Caldwell

Libro No. 38 de la Colección Biblioteca Contemporánea Clásicos Best Sellers.

Genres: Fiction, Novels, 20th Century, American, Literature, The United States Of America

196 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1946

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

[°°°·.°·..·°¯°·._.· ʜᴇʟᴇɴ Ροζουλί Εωσφόρος ·._.·°¯°·.·° .·°°° ★·.·´¯`·.·★ Ⓥⓔⓡⓝⓤⓢ Ⓟⓞⓡⓣⓘⓣⓞⓡ Ⓐⓡⓒⓐⓝⓤⓢ Ταμετούρο Αμ · Rating 2 out of 5]

Μια ιστοριούλα της τελευταίας ανάσας στη ζωή της νότιας μυθοπλασίας στην Αμερική της παρηκμασμένης φεουδαρχίας.
Της φθαρμένης και ετοιμοθάνατης νότιας φυτείας όπου νέγροι δούλοι και φτωχοί λευκοί υπηρέτες χωρίς ιδιοκτησίες και δικαιώματα βρίσκονται σε ταξικό πόλεμο με τους αριστοκράτες των θεσμών και των νόμων.

Ένα καυστικό χρονικό του νότου μέτα την ανασυγκρότηση όπου η τοκογλυφία αφεντεύει και άρχει πάνω απο την κλίνη του επιθανάτιου δανείου ζωής για τους ξεπεσμένους και παρηκμασμένους πλούσιους.

Σε αυτή την κοινωνικοπολιτική κατάσταση εμείς διαβάζουμε την κατάντια και την μελοδραματική ιστορία όπου ένας εκφυλισμένος απόγονος γαιοκτήμονας της νότιας αριστοκρατίας έχει υποθηκεύσει τη φυτεία του, τα κτήματα του, τα γεωργικά μηχανήματα και όλα τα στρέμματα της αιματοβαμμένης γης απο το έγχρωμο αίμα μέχρι την τελευταία δεκάρα.

Με μια απογοητευμένη σύζυγο, που την απατά και την εξευτελίζει σε κάθε πράξη που βιώνει στην καθημερινότητα του, επαναστάτες σκλάβοι, εργάτριες που δίνουν σώμα και ψυχή στα χωράφια, τα σπίτια και τα κρεβάτια των λευκών γαιοκτημόνων,και μια παραληρηματική μητέρα του άσωτου νέου που θεωρεί πως οι άνδρες και ιδιαίτερα ο υιός της είναι οι αφέντες που έχουν πάντα δίκιο.
Αυτή η γελοία κατάσταση γεμίζει τη σκηνή με τη συνηθισμένη σειρά από περίεργα στερεότυπα καρικατούρας ενός περασμένου χωρισμένου νότου, με δεισιδαιμονίες, θεοφοβούμενες φιγούρες, έπαρση απο παλαιικά προτερήματα και μια άποψη ζωής να αντιπροσωπεύει κυριολεκτικά και μεταφορικά, την τελευταία ανάσα του παλιού τρόπου ζωής των φυτειών.




Καλή ανάγνωση.
Πολλούς και σεμνούς ασπασμούς.

[Sarah Omar · Rating 1 out of 5]

I nearly killed myself while I was reading this book. 2 thumbs down.

[Vasha7 · Rating 1 out of 5]

A ridiculously overheated melodrama set on a decaying southern plantation, featuring a prideful, spoiled young "aristocrat", his mother who encourages him in those traits, his neglected, weepy wife, their downtrodden servants and field hands, a "modern" cousin, an earthy lower-class tenant... and more tumultuous passions, angry outbursts, tearful scenes, conflicts, financial troubles, and predictable plot developments than you'd wish to count. I guess it's a "classic" because it's so typical of a genre of best-sellers that continues to this day. Even the prose has the flat, descriptive tone of the sort of popular writing that has to tell you exactly what the characters are thinking: "It was an anguish she did not know how to endure... what was more important right then than anything else was to find out whether her suspicions were true or false..." etc. This being published in 1946, there's no actual sex, like there undoubtedly would be now -- we have to content ourselves with our heroine being carried, trembling, in the brawny arms of her neighbor, etc. There's literally a bodice ripped at one point, although with much more anger than lust. (The other difference is that such a story nowadays would be very unlikely to be frank about the racial relations on the plantation. There's no glossing over attitudes or censorship of language. The author obviously thinks that the black characters, in the words of the modern cousin, "have certain fundamental rights", but his depiction of them is just as clichéed as everything else here, and thus necessarily racist.) The theme of the decline and fall of old power in the south is a familiar one too. If I "recognize" things in this book constantly, it's most likely because others imitated it, rather than it being an imitation.

[David · Rating 3 out of 5]

A House in the Uplands—Erskine Caldwell

I like to read Caldwell, because he talks about the society and the culture in which my parents grew up in the South. His short novel, “…the Uplands”, covers the main classes in rural Georgia where he grew up: the “low” whites, the blacks, the wealthier whites, and women, treated here in the story almost as a separate class to themselves. (I used the term “blacks”, but Caldwell, true to the period and the place, refers to them in baser terms as used in the rural South at that time.)

The story is also mainly about abuse—spousal, racial, and worker abuse. It’s hard to read “Uplands” as I’m pretty sure it was just as hard when it was written in the 1940s because of the coarse behavior and language exhibited by the characters. In my view from having read only “Tobacco Road” by Caldwell (see my review on goodreads.com), he seems to show what the ravage of defeat in war does to a nation, namely the Confederacy and the Civil War. That’s not his intention perhaps, but if one reads “Gone with the Wind”, “A House in the Uplands” would be one of the ones to read right after it.

America has gotten itself into wars that it should never have involved herself in, but the South’s leaders led its people into one of the dumbest conflicts in history, the effects from which the southern states are still recovering.

One thing that crops up in the telling of the story of “the Uplands” is what I’m guessing is Caldwell’s having padded the story to make it longer than a short story which he may have started out with. He may not have intended it to come out that way, but It just seems that way. It doesn’t detract from the story though. It’s a good story, perhaps a little Shakespearean with abrupt twists and turns. Some of the cultures I’ve lived in would like the pathos in this story more than Americans might.

There is a passage in the last few pages during a card game in the judge’s quarters that presages the civil rights movement. I found that thrilling, since it was published in 1946.

[Amerynth · Rating 1 out of 5]

Boy, I really didn't like Erskine Caldwell's "A House in the Uplands." It was all melodrama, and not even fun melodrama at that.

Simpering Lucyanne loves her husband, who is a cheating bastard that beats her up. She was such an annoying character that I'm not sure why he would ever have married her in the first place. A series of other one-dimensional characters make weird decisions and declarations to move the story along.

I don't know why this is on the 1,001 list frankly.

[Russell Bittner · Rating 5 out of 5]

“God have mercy on me!” is the most popular refrain of Mama Elsie, Grady’s mother and—if parents can be blamed for turning their children into monsters—the principal author of this modern-day Frankenstein’s Monster, Grady Dunbar. Even Grady would appear to think this when, with his dying breath, he says to Lucyanne, his much-abused wife, on p. 123: “‘I used to try hard, but I couldn’t do anything about it. I guess I was made to be like I am.’”

A House in the Uplands is another Southern saga told in typical Caldwell style. All of the usual Caldwell elements go into the making of this story: poverty; racism; ignorance; prejudice of every kind. But I detected one newer element—at least in the dozen or so novels of Caldwell I’ve so far been privileged to read and review: class warfare. And in this case, it’s a matter of once wealthy (though now decadent and on the edge of their own poverty) Southern whites versus what these same would-be aristocrats refer to as a “low-white” class. It’s just one more sorry ingredient in the whole pathetic porridge, and Caldwell is the master-chef at making us taste every nuance of that porridge.

RRB
Brooklyn, NY
20 April 2019

[Natàlia Cerezo · Rating 1 out of 5]

It is so badly written and the characters are so hateful I couldn't bring myself to finish it, just endured 40 pages or so.

[Monty Milne · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is a grim book which I did not enjoy and I did not think it was particularly successful as a novel. I didn’t find the style of writing particularly effective, and there are passages which are just too overblown to work. Take this for example:

“ “Sometimes I think it would’ve been better if the colored had never been born. They don’t have nothing but trouble as long as they live – “

“You shouldn’t look at it that way, Uncle Jeff Davis. There’s a lot of work in the world that a white man would have to do himself if it wasn’t for the darkies.”

“Yessir”, the old Negro said, in a low resigned tone of voice.”

The views held by the white racist here are – alas – entirely believable, but it strains credulity to imagine he would express himself to his exploited black tenant in such an overtly obnoxious way – and it strains credulity even more that the poor black victim should appear to agree. The whole story is unrelentingly miserable and bleak and horribly depressing. The main female character is so pathetically needy and irritating that it got in the way of my sympathy for her terrible situation.

There is one really good passage in the book which is a meeting between the corrupt judge and the honest lawyer. When the judge – who is, of course, deeply racist and profoundly dishonest - says “Surely you are familiar with the ethics of our profession” he is actually gambling and drinking with a collection of depraved crooks – and has been at it all night long. This is good, and chilling, but also – like the rest of the tale – just a bit too overblown.

[Molinos · Rating 3 out of 5]

La casa de la colina es una historia de Caldwell, creo que la reconocería en cualquier sitio, por lo que cuenta y por cómo lo cuenta. No hay ni una concesión a la belleza ni a la bondad y no porque rehuya contarlo sino porque, muchas veces, en la vida no hay ni belleza ni bondad. Otra vez encontramos familias ricas venidas a menos en el sur de Estados Unidos que se aferran a una vida que ya sólo existe en sus cabezas y sus recuerdos. Sus casas, su estilo de vida, sus convicciones se desmoronan pero ellos se niegan a aceptarlo. La evidencia de la desaparición de su mundo les abruma y se vuelven crueles, vengativos, o quizás siempre lo fueron y es, la desesperación la que acentúa esa maldad. Esta novela es, además, profundamente cinematográfica, me sorprende que no se haya hecho una película de ella, de hecho podría hacerse ahora mismo y tendría vigencia.

[Rafa · Rating 1 out of 5]

Malo, sin más.

[Michał Gajewski · Rating 5 out of 5]

A rather depressing account of the paupered South with egntlemen turned into gamblers and chivalry into cruelty towards women.

[Klaudia Maciejowski · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was very interesting. Not a lot of people like this book, but I’m not gonna lie I thought it was fun. Erskine Caldwell was very talented in his own way.
Erskine Caldwell grew up in Georgia in the early nineteen-hundreds and his books were very controversial because he was very open about how racist America was. I’m sure he opened peoples eyes to the atrocious behaviors of others toward people of color and I thank him for that. 🌸✨

[Kike C. · Rating 3 out of 5]

Novela dura con una historia muy normalita. La traducción de mi edición no ayuda.

[Sean Homrig · Rating 1 out of 5]

To read this book, to get to know the two-dimensional characters within it, and try to absorb the terrible broken-record dialogue is to hate it. There is not a single character who redeems themselves by the end of this story, including the "heroine" who (spoilers!) spends the vast majority of the story pining after her drunken, wife-beating husband when she should be high-tailing it out of the county to live with her parents. Misogyny aside, the book is laced with racism that appears there just to reflect the norms of the community in which the story takes place and hammer it into our heads that Grady is a drunken racist in too many passages. There is but one scene worth reading (the exchange between the lawyer and the judge), but by then it had been an exercise simply to finish the book than anything else. One could argue that it was a story of its time (that being 1947), but I can't even imagine bored housewives consuming this. One of the worse books I have ever read. I would have given it half a star if I could for the aforementioned scene with the judge. Stay away. Far away.

[Snežanat · Rating 3 out of 5]

Urušavanje i propadanje bogate i uticajne porodice na jugu Amerike, koja ne želi da se odrekne snova o staroj slavi iako je bogatstvo odavno potrošeno, a ugled nepovratno okaljan.
Interesantnija mi je pozadina priče o robovlasničkom mentalitetu mnogo decenija pošto je ropstvo zvanično ukinuto i o duboko podeljenom društvu američkog juga, gde se zna ko je gospodin, a ko "belo đubre" isključivo na osnovu toga ko su im bili preci, nego glavni tok romana.
Ne razumem ni Lusijeninu zaljubljenost, a ni "odljubljenost", zanimljiviji su mi sporedni likovi i epizodisti i više me je zanimala sudbina čika Džefa Dejvisa nego šta će biti sa Lusijen i Grejdijem.

[James · Rating 3 out of 5]

A per usual, a very quick and easy read, a typical Caldwell style read and book. I felt for the wife in the story, but, generally as a rule of thumb, I find that once I have read one Caldwell book, the rest are pretty well, the same.

[Judith · Rating 3 out of 5]

Over dramatized saga of stereotypical characters, but it held my interest. I prefer Faulkner.

[Andrés Zelada · Rating 3 out of 5]

Otra novela de Caldwell sobre la decadencia de las viejas familias blancas. En este caso, al contrario que en Una luz para el anochecer, el personaje principal no es un viejo xenófobo y avariento, sino un tipo relativamente joven que dilapida en las casas de juego el escaso capital que le queda. Su casa se cae de vieja y su terreno está ya hipotecado por completo. Vive entre casinos y haciendo infeliz a todo el mundo que le rodea: a su esposa (la protagonista de la historia, que ahora comprende con terror dónde se ha metido), a su madre (que está completamente ciega a los desmanes de su hijo y lo defiende siempre) y a los trabajadores (blancos pobres y negros, a los cuales trata a patadas). Por supuesto, no hay ni que decir que tiene una amante negra de 18 años.

Lo más interesante de este sistema es la descripción del sistema cuasi esclavista que se emplea para mantener vinculados a negros presuntamente libres: cobrarles por todo, incluso por el alojamiento y la comida, de tal manera que sus costes siempre excedan su salario. Los negros no saben leer, así que no pueden demandar. Y, si se escapan, el sheriff los traerá a rastra con una simple denuncia.

[Oscar Espejo Badiola · Rating 4 out of 5]

Muy buen drama del sur de EEUU, como no podía ser de otro modo, quedan en la novela bien descritos todos los problemas que son recurrentes en las novelas de Erskine Caldwell, es decir, la pobreza, la semiesclavitud en la que todavía vivían los descendientes negros de los esclavos, el machismo y la poca importancia dada a la mujer, aunque por otro lado en la novela hay un toque de matriarcado con el personaje de la madre, la sumisión de los jornaleros con la rebelión de las nuevas generaciones, la ruina de las familias tradicionales pero me manteniendo poder con las autoridades y los pocos escrúpulos de alguna muchacha de color con la intención de salir de su deprimente situación.
Todo esto se da en esta historia, dónde una familia venida a menos todavía cree que puede sobrevivir a los nuevos tiempos, con un cabeza de familia alcoholizado y amancebado con una sirvienta negra y gastando lo que no tiene sin posibilidad de hipotecar más su patrimonio, pero con una madre que todo lo disculpa, ya que es el hombre de la casa.

[Ronald Weston · Rating 4 out of 5]

Actually, I liked A House in the Uplands better than most of the Caldwell novels I've read (I'm reading them in publication order). For a change the main emphasis is not on the poor whites but the degenerated remnants of the plantation "elites." As in most of Caldwell's fiction there are few likable characters. While most of his tropes (poverty, racism, harsh language, bawdiness) are present, one is missing -- humor. This novel is dark and psychologically brutal. Not an enjoyable read, but an interesting one, especially if one actually lived in the era depicted.

[John · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well 3 stars means that I liked it, hum , well, I did not put it down after starting it until I finished it. There was nothing great about it, no great characters with great minds or deep thoughts which is normal for Caldwell. But as he always is able to do, he captured the feelings of the times in Georgia of the dying ruling families. I do not think the author spent too much time in writing this book.

[Iván Ramírez Osorio · Rating 4 out of 5]

Una novela del sur de los Estados Unidos, trata sobre la decadencia de la aristocracia sureña y de los cambios sociales que afectaron al mencionado país durante las primeras décadas del siglo XX. Es un libro entretenido, dinámico y bastante descriptivo. Si bien, los personajes resultan un poco planos y predecibles, al igual que la historia, el libro es entretenido y posee algunos pasajes memorables.

[Annemariem · Rating 1 out of 5]

I know I’m wrong to judge this book by today’s standards, but OMG... what a parade of flat characters & casual racism and misogyny. You just wanna scream at the protagonist to for chrissakes grow a pair. Ugh. Kept hanging on in hopes of some narrative twist or insight. Sorry I spent the hours, to be frank. Blegh. On to better books!

[Jordi · Rating 3 out of 5]

Todas las novelas breves que he leído del autor son francamente buenas en su llana y sencilla descripción del embrutecido sur de los EUA de hace un siglo, con un estilo parecido al de Steinbeck. Caldwell, que tuvo bastante fama en su época, parece bastante olvidado cuando debería estar a la altura de sus compañeros de generación.

[Melinda Griffith · Rating 1 out of 5]

1946. I liked the title. It’s been on our shelves for decades.

[Tomek Gunia · Rating 3 out of 5]

Całkiem dobrze napisana historia, ale przewidywalny koniec. Lekka prosta lektura.

[Lurrid · Rating 5 out of 5]

Magnífico. Un libro redondo de uno de mis escritores favoritos.

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