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Cathedrals of Kudzu: A Personal Landscape of the South
Foreword by Fred Hobson and illustrations by Steven Cragg. Hal Crowther prides himself on being one of the last generalists in a professon of specialists. His eloquent essays on culture, history, politics, religion, arts, and literature have established him as one of the most influential Southern journalists of his generation. Cathedrals of Kudzu represents his ambition to "cover" the South-"its writers, politicians, geniuses, saints, villains, and eccentric folkways-with the same wide-angle lens H. L. Mencken used to capture all of America in the 1920s. To cover it, in other words, from a judicious distance, but with the ironical bite of his own not inconsiderable prejudices. "Like Mencken," reads Crowther's citation for the 1992 H. L. Mencken Writing Award, "Hal Crowther has the narrowed pupil of a sharpshooter, the hairy ear of a heavy artilleryman, and the ballistic rifling of an implacable anathematist." In these superb essays, most of them first published in The Oxford American, he sorts out a whole warehouse of Southern idiosyncrasy and iconography, including the Southern belle, Faulkner, James Dickey, Stonewall Jackson, Cormac McCarthy, Walker Percy, Erskine Caldwell, guns, dogs, fathers, trees, George Wallace, Elvis, Doc Watson, the decline of poetry, and the return of chain gangs. Unlike Mencken, who was incorrigibly cynical about his subjects, Crowther is capable of affectionate, even sentimental, concessions-even to some of the most dubious players who cross his stage. These are very personal essays, though they include a wealth of reporting and research. They're conversations with the reader, who is invited to bring his or her experience and prejudice to the topic at hand. There's no quarter given, but no ideological orthodoxies to reassure one faction or alienate another. Crowther is an intellectual free agent. In his essays, the book page and the editorial page find common ground. Taken as a whole, Hal Crowther's pieces offer a portrait of the modern South with a rich backdrop of its history and its classic literature. More personally, they present a vivid intellectual self-portrait of the man Kirkpatrick Sale has called "the best essayist working in journalism today."
- GenresEssaysSouthernNonfiction
177 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2000
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About the author
Hal Crowther
14 books9 followersHal Crowthers current collection of essays, Gather at the River, was 2006 finalist for the National Book Critics Circle prize for criticism. For his first collection, Unarmed But Dangerous, he was cited by Kirkpatrick Sale as the best essayist working in journalism today. Cathedrals of Kudzu, published in 2000, has been one of the New Souths most honored and critically acclaimed works of non-fiction. It received the Lillian Smith Book Award from the Southern Regional Council, the 1999-2001 Fellowship Prize for Nonfiction from the Fellowship of Southern Writers, and the 2001 Book of the Year Award for essays from Foreword Magazine. The Southern Book Critics Circle also chose Cathedrals as a finalist for the Southern Book Award in Nonfiction. "
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
May 9, 2022
Hal Crowther writes well, but reading his collections about the south is like trying to understand every Dennis Miller joke. There's a lot of obscure, deep references to writings that Crowther makes that, perhaps had I read, may have made his essays better.
Also, this is a dated collection from the early 1990s. There's references to Bill Clinton and other newsmakers of the day. And there are things that, in light of today's standards, may not be too politically correct. There's an essay about George Wallace and how he was a good ol' boy. And there's an entire selection on southern religion.
Crowther's south is almost stereotypical of the old days, days when Huey P. Long and Wallace were deemed geniuses. There's the section on religion and on crusty old writers of the south. Had this been written now, there should include more on the political change from Democrat to Republican in many southern states, the prejudice that continues toward Blacks and toward LGBTQ members and maybe the breaking of those stereotypes associated with grits and gothic Faulknarian worlds and all.
Still, for an example of good writing, regardless of the topic, Crowther does shine.
Also, this is a dated collection from the early 1990s. There's references to Bill Clinton and other newsmakers of the day. And there are things that, in light of today's standards, may not be too politically correct. There's an essay about George Wallace and how he was a good ol' boy. And there's an entire selection on southern religion.
Crowther's south is almost stereotypical of the old days, days when Huey P. Long and Wallace were deemed geniuses. There's the section on religion and on crusty old writers of the south. Had this been written now, there should include more on the political change from Democrat to Republican in many southern states, the prejudice that continues toward Blacks and toward LGBTQ members and maybe the breaking of those stereotypes associated with grits and gothic Faulknarian worlds and all.
Still, for an example of good writing, regardless of the topic, Crowther does shine.
July 13, 2009
We don’t need marble crypts to do Gothic any more
than good actors need balconies and ball gowns to do
Shakespeare. We are just profoundly weird.
- Hal Crowther
.
I tend to think of Hal Crowther as a literary sportsman. When reading one of his essays in the bi-monthly Oxford American (arguably the best magazine in America at the present), I tend to see him wading through
the kudzu thickets and broom sage fields of Southern literature with a figurative shotgun loaded with pepper shot. Hal doesn’t want to kill anybody. He just wants to see what he can flush out of the undergrowth.
With practiced ease, he flushes a diversity of creatures which either fly,
skitter, squeal, whimper or rise boldly to turn to face the hunter with cool surmise.
Well, I do like my analogy! I think I’ll push my luck and expand it.
Sometimes Hal merely wishes to observe the cultural wildlife – perhaps even admire its musical trills and brilliant plumage. However, if the critter is irksome, Hal may administer a painful but non-fatal volley of metaphorical buckshot. Sometimes, he captures a specimen, notes its positive and negative characteristics and releases it – He has ruffled its feathers or fur perhaps, but, it returns to the wilds virtually unscathed. Occasionally, he finds the remains of an ancient literary skunk or buzzard, performs an autopsy of sorts, wrinkling his nose at the noisome smell and buries the remains in the dark, fertile soil of the South.
Forgive me for my modest little metaphorical flight. I need to stop now before I get myself in serious trouble. However, I want to make an attempt to justify the analogy.. Among the motley parliament of fowls and critters in this “survey,” the reader will find a beautiful “warts and all” eulogy to the late James Dickey (“The Last Woverine”) who was an offensive, sensual, alcoholic and gifted man Then, there is Cormac McCarthy, (“The Tennessee Stud”) a writer that Crowther both lauds and chastises – “..still the closest thing to heroin that you can buy in a bookstore...” but sometimes guilty of “perishable profundities.” (Crowther also feels that McCarthy needs to “come home.” – back to Tennessee). There is a lucid essay that re-evaluates Faulkner (“A Knight in White Flannel”) in the “new South.” (Are the descendants of the Snopes clan running Wal-mart?)
Each essay is honed and polished – concise and sensible as a scalpel and sometimes as potentially deadly. The most devastating autopsy is performed on Erskine Caldwell, a writer that biographers have revealed to be “cruel, hypocritical, conniving, greedy...a man of few friends who betrayed the few he had.” In addition, his massive creation of leering hillbillies and lecherous, inbred hussies has done extensive and near-irreparable damage to the image of the South since it fostered an embarrassing array of stereotypes that abide to this day. Hal brands Caldwell’s popular novels as“ literary Frankensteins” written by a man
whose preoccupation with perpetual tumescence “diverted a critical supply of blood from Caldwell’s brain.” God help anyone who attracts (and deserves) Crowther’s ire!
The range of topics in Cathedrals of Kudzu touches on an awesome catalogue of “things Southern.” Crowther discusses issues as diverse as New York publisher’s persistent dismissal of Southern writers, to the strange phenomenon of “dying in the middle of the road” in North Carolina. He ponders father and son relationships, gives a half-grudging eulogy to George Wallace and honors Annie Dillard’s For the Time Being; considers spirituality and Walker Percy, the myth of southern women a la Scarlett O’Hara, and makes a near- sentimental celebration on the devotion of dogs to humans (frequently undeserved). There are some surprises - such as Hal’s reaction to the Confederate flag controversy, and his admiration for the forgotten poet, Donald Davidson (as well as the status of poets in America). Especially incisive are his blistering essays on bigotry, red-necks, gun enthusiasts and the misguided legal protection granted to irredeemable sex offenders. I especially enjoyed his ruminations on southern religion (snakes in church), radio evangelism and the senseless orgy of tree-cutting in Southern cities that once were considered tree sanctuaries - from Oxford, Mississippi to Chapel Hill. Invariably, as Fred Hobson notes in the preface of this book, Hal “makes the language dance and sing” in conjunction with generous (and apt) allusions to classical literature – Dante, Eliot, Camus, Celine and Shakespeare – not ordinary journalistic fare!
When Crowther admires someone, he opens the floodgates of praise. One of the most memorable tributes is to Doc Watson, North Carolina’s near-legendary blind guitarist. who has become “a national treasure.” Anyone who loves Doc’s music will find themselves nodding in agreement with Hal’s unabashed praise for the man whose music (and voice) is “as pure as spring water.” The reader may be a bit surprised by Crowther’s admission that he has also, somewhat belatedly discovered (and appreciates) Elvis! I’m pleased. If anything, this admission merely increases my respect for the author.
Some twenty years ago, in my perennial search for gainful employment, I found myself in Raleigh. I was miserable, as I aways am out of the mountains. The cloying stink of magnolia hung in the air on Edenton Street, and I found little to my liking in our “capital city.” (Well, there are a handful of decent bookstores.) Before the year was out, I was looking for an honorable discharge. Yet, I looked forward each Wednesday to my lunch in a little vegetarian cafe that sported a stack of “The Independent” by the door. That is where I first encountered Hal Crowther. Each week, he skewered the stupid and vile and hoisted them into the air while he methodically dissected them. The Klan, Jesse Helms, misguided pundits, the media and bad literature wiggled and squealed on Hal’s petard. Oh, he wrote beautiful eulogies too, about the South and the literary works that depicted our culture with integrity – but being the miserable, homesick wretch that I was at the time, Hal’s vitriol suited me best. When his collection, Unarmed But Dangerous (Great title!) came out, I carried it about and read it aloud to my friends until they began to object. Several years ago, I met Hal at a writers’ retreat in Hindman, Kentucky. Well, actually I couldn’t speak to him. He had sprained his ankle and spent the week limping about and looking disgruntled. I guess I thought that if I irritated him, he might impale me with one of those metaphoric harpoons and I would have to suffer the indignity of dragging it about for the remainder of the week like a rump-shot turkey.
Yes, I confess that when I read one of Hal’s barbed quips, sharp and effective as an Eagle Claw fish-hook, I laugh....and flinch. Hal is profoundly opinionated, but hell, I think he is usually correct. He can be devastating in condemnation or lyrical in praise. The thing is, that if by some wondrous chance someone should say to me that they could get Crowther to “review” my own modest work, I think I would be all profuse gratitude, but I would probably mutter an apologetic demur and duck and roll back down my prairie-dog tunnel.. I’m not sure I could survive his disapproval. The sweep of his lighthouse laser and the accuracy with which he spikes the inept and shallow scares the hell out of me. I think I would rather be judged by a “less perceptive” critic.
than good actors need balconies and ball gowns to do
Shakespeare. We are just profoundly weird.
- Hal Crowther
.
I tend to think of Hal Crowther as a literary sportsman. When reading one of his essays in the bi-monthly Oxford American (arguably the best magazine in America at the present), I tend to see him wading through
the kudzu thickets and broom sage fields of Southern literature with a figurative shotgun loaded with pepper shot. Hal doesn’t want to kill anybody. He just wants to see what he can flush out of the undergrowth.
With practiced ease, he flushes a diversity of creatures which either fly,
skitter, squeal, whimper or rise boldly to turn to face the hunter with cool surmise.
Well, I do like my analogy! I think I’ll push my luck and expand it.
Sometimes Hal merely wishes to observe the cultural wildlife – perhaps even admire its musical trills and brilliant plumage. However, if the critter is irksome, Hal may administer a painful but non-fatal volley of metaphorical buckshot. Sometimes, he captures a specimen, notes its positive and negative characteristics and releases it – He has ruffled its feathers or fur perhaps, but, it returns to the wilds virtually unscathed. Occasionally, he finds the remains of an ancient literary skunk or buzzard, performs an autopsy of sorts, wrinkling his nose at the noisome smell and buries the remains in the dark, fertile soil of the South.
Forgive me for my modest little metaphorical flight. I need to stop now before I get myself in serious trouble. However, I want to make an attempt to justify the analogy.. Among the motley parliament of fowls and critters in this “survey,” the reader will find a beautiful “warts and all” eulogy to the late James Dickey (“The Last Woverine”) who was an offensive, sensual, alcoholic and gifted man Then, there is Cormac McCarthy, (“The Tennessee Stud”) a writer that Crowther both lauds and chastises – “..still the closest thing to heroin that you can buy in a bookstore...” but sometimes guilty of “perishable profundities.” (Crowther also feels that McCarthy needs to “come home.” – back to Tennessee). There is a lucid essay that re-evaluates Faulkner (“A Knight in White Flannel”) in the “new South.” (Are the descendants of the Snopes clan running Wal-mart?)
Each essay is honed and polished – concise and sensible as a scalpel and sometimes as potentially deadly. The most devastating autopsy is performed on Erskine Caldwell, a writer that biographers have revealed to be “cruel, hypocritical, conniving, greedy...a man of few friends who betrayed the few he had.” In addition, his massive creation of leering hillbillies and lecherous, inbred hussies has done extensive and near-irreparable damage to the image of the South since it fostered an embarrassing array of stereotypes that abide to this day. Hal brands Caldwell’s popular novels as“ literary Frankensteins” written by a man
whose preoccupation with perpetual tumescence “diverted a critical supply of blood from Caldwell’s brain.” God help anyone who attracts (and deserves) Crowther’s ire!
The range of topics in Cathedrals of Kudzu touches on an awesome catalogue of “things Southern.” Crowther discusses issues as diverse as New York publisher’s persistent dismissal of Southern writers, to the strange phenomenon of “dying in the middle of the road” in North Carolina. He ponders father and son relationships, gives a half-grudging eulogy to George Wallace and honors Annie Dillard’s For the Time Being; considers spirituality and Walker Percy, the myth of southern women a la Scarlett O’Hara, and makes a near- sentimental celebration on the devotion of dogs to humans (frequently undeserved). There are some surprises - such as Hal’s reaction to the Confederate flag controversy, and his admiration for the forgotten poet, Donald Davidson (as well as the status of poets in America). Especially incisive are his blistering essays on bigotry, red-necks, gun enthusiasts and the misguided legal protection granted to irredeemable sex offenders. I especially enjoyed his ruminations on southern religion (snakes in church), radio evangelism and the senseless orgy of tree-cutting in Southern cities that once were considered tree sanctuaries - from Oxford, Mississippi to Chapel Hill. Invariably, as Fred Hobson notes in the preface of this book, Hal “makes the language dance and sing” in conjunction with generous (and apt) allusions to classical literature – Dante, Eliot, Camus, Celine and Shakespeare – not ordinary journalistic fare!
When Crowther admires someone, he opens the floodgates of praise. One of the most memorable tributes is to Doc Watson, North Carolina’s near-legendary blind guitarist. who has become “a national treasure.” Anyone who loves Doc’s music will find themselves nodding in agreement with Hal’s unabashed praise for the man whose music (and voice) is “as pure as spring water.” The reader may be a bit surprised by Crowther’s admission that he has also, somewhat belatedly discovered (and appreciates) Elvis! I’m pleased. If anything, this admission merely increases my respect for the author.
Some twenty years ago, in my perennial search for gainful employment, I found myself in Raleigh. I was miserable, as I aways am out of the mountains. The cloying stink of magnolia hung in the air on Edenton Street, and I found little to my liking in our “capital city.” (Well, there are a handful of decent bookstores.) Before the year was out, I was looking for an honorable discharge. Yet, I looked forward each Wednesday to my lunch in a little vegetarian cafe that sported a stack of “The Independent” by the door. That is where I first encountered Hal Crowther. Each week, he skewered the stupid and vile and hoisted them into the air while he methodically dissected them. The Klan, Jesse Helms, misguided pundits, the media and bad literature wiggled and squealed on Hal’s petard. Oh, he wrote beautiful eulogies too, about the South and the literary works that depicted our culture with integrity – but being the miserable, homesick wretch that I was at the time, Hal’s vitriol suited me best. When his collection, Unarmed But Dangerous (Great title!) came out, I carried it about and read it aloud to my friends until they began to object. Several years ago, I met Hal at a writers’ retreat in Hindman, Kentucky. Well, actually I couldn’t speak to him. He had sprained his ankle and spent the week limping about and looking disgruntled. I guess I thought that if I irritated him, he might impale me with one of those metaphoric harpoons and I would have to suffer the indignity of dragging it about for the remainder of the week like a rump-shot turkey.
Yes, I confess that when I read one of Hal’s barbed quips, sharp and effective as an Eagle Claw fish-hook, I laugh....and flinch. Hal is profoundly opinionated, but hell, I think he is usually correct. He can be devastating in condemnation or lyrical in praise. The thing is, that if by some wondrous chance someone should say to me that they could get Crowther to “review” my own modest work, I think I would be all profuse gratitude, but I would probably mutter an apologetic demur and duck and roll back down my prairie-dog tunnel.. I’m not sure I could survive his disapproval. The sweep of his lighthouse laser and the accuracy with which he spikes the inept and shallow scares the hell out of me. I think I would rather be judged by a “less perceptive” critic.
October 28, 2019
Let's raise a glass (preferably bourbon) to the Southern white male liberal journalist and columnist of a certain age. Where did they go? This collection of essays by Crowther is nearly twenty years old, and while some of them are now slightly cringeworthy from a 2019 perspective (particularly those around Confederate monuments and James Dickey), others are eerily prescient regarding the polarized state of the U.S. Particular standouts here include homages to Southern women, Doc Watson, Walker Percy, and Cormac McCarthy.
April 7, 2023
Crowther's essay on James Dickey is brilliant. I think what I like about Crowther is his contrariness. I figured he would be more severe in his view of George Wallace, but he showed how his racism is not quite the same as a lot of other racism.
December 21, 2021
This is a delightful collection of essays mainly about Southern authors and other things Southern.
April 24, 2016
I've always identified more with the South and have sought out good Southern writers, but it's been awhile since I've found a good one. This series of essays on four Southern topics: The Pen (Southern writers), The Sword (Civil War and Race), The Cross (Faith and Religion), Sweet Home Carolina (North Carolina), really scratched that itch.
At first on reading the initial writing in The Pen, it was very much inside baseball and unless you have a good knowledge of Southern literature (I don't), you'll be lost. I almost put it down, but Crowther can really turn a phrase and it kept me going. Eventually he started talking about Cormac McCarthy (someone I do know a little about) and I was hooked. The essays are all short - just a few pages each and the book is a fast read. In Goodreads, I see Crowther released another set of essays - Gather at the River - which is now going on my to read list.
Some of my favorite snippets from the book:
"Race is like a big crazy cousin locked in the basement, a red-eyed giant who strangled a dog and crippled a policeman the last time he got loose. We never forget that he's down there. But it's amazing how long we can ignore him, no matter how much noise he makes moaning and banging on the pipes. Our denial's almost airtight, until one day he's out in the yard again swinging a pickax, and all we can do is blame each other and dial 911." p.63
[On UNC students who are protesting that one of the campus buildings is named after a man who was in the KKK] "Their hearts are in the right place, even if their discovery that racists helped to build their university is like kids in Lapland discovering snow." p.69
"There are intellectual people and spiritual people, but very few like Price and Dillard who are both. Religion in this country has become simplistic and undemanding, a buffet of fast-food faith for a fast-buck society. Smug Christians and equally smug atheists behave as if further speculation is a waste of time. The solitary pilgrim feels that his hard-won insights are unwelcome. We brood in darkness until someone like Price or Dillard lights the candles and reassures us that it's all right to argue about God." p.142
At first on reading the initial writing in The Pen, it was very much inside baseball and unless you have a good knowledge of Southern literature (I don't), you'll be lost. I almost put it down, but Crowther can really turn a phrase and it kept me going. Eventually he started talking about Cormac McCarthy (someone I do know a little about) and I was hooked. The essays are all short - just a few pages each and the book is a fast read. In Goodreads, I see Crowther released another set of essays - Gather at the River - which is now going on my to read list.
Some of my favorite snippets from the book:
"Race is like a big crazy cousin locked in the basement, a red-eyed giant who strangled a dog and crippled a policeman the last time he got loose. We never forget that he's down there. But it's amazing how long we can ignore him, no matter how much noise he makes moaning and banging on the pipes. Our denial's almost airtight, until one day he's out in the yard again swinging a pickax, and all we can do is blame each other and dial 911." p.63
[On UNC students who are protesting that one of the campus buildings is named after a man who was in the KKK] "Their hearts are in the right place, even if their discovery that racists helped to build their university is like kids in Lapland discovering snow." p.69
"There are intellectual people and spiritual people, but very few like Price and Dillard who are both. Religion in this country has become simplistic and undemanding, a buffet of fast-food faith for a fast-buck society. Smug Christians and equally smug atheists behave as if further speculation is a waste of time. The solitary pilgrim feels that his hard-won insights are unwelcome. We brood in darkness until someone like Price or Dillard lights the candles and reassures us that it's all right to argue about God." p.142
January 17, 2014
This book is an absolute delight. I had forgotten how much i love to read Hal Crowther. I was sorting papers and cleaning up in my home office and ran across this book that i had picked up at the Friends of the Durham Library book sale a few years back. I just happened to be between books so I placed it on my night stand and started reading it that evening. What a treat! The essays contained in this book, now about 15 years old, are wonderful to read. And, being a Californian and Midwesterner transplanted to North Carolina 28 years ago, I appreciated the selections that gave me a deeper insight into the South, and into North Carolina. Loved, loved this book. I'm resolved to get my hands on the other books Mr. Crowther has published, and also, to be more deliberate in reading Mr. Crowther's articles in our beloved hometown paper, The Indy Week. Thank you Mr. Crowther.
February 6, 2008
Not a memorable book, but I didn't disdain it. If it interests someone, let me know and I'll pass it on.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews