Morning Crafts Tito Perdue 9781907166570 Books
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Thirteen-year-old Leland Pefley was minding his own business, enjoying a day's fishing near his father's farm in Tennessee, when the odd, well-dressed and well-spoken man from the city appeared, inviting Lee to accompany him to a more interesting place. Out of curiosity, Lee followed him, and found himself hustled off to a strange, rustic academy in the wilderness with a group of other boys, all of whom had been semi-abducted as he himself had been. None of them knew why they were there. Some believed they had been brought there to be murdered, or worse. The Academy, it turned out, is an actual school, run by eccentric, curmudgeonly teachers obsessed with training an elite band of boys who will grow up with a passion to preserve some vestige of genuine culture amidst the tide of democratic, egalitarian degeneracy which they see ruining the modern world. To this end, the boys' heads are stuffed, day in and day out, with mathematics, Ancient Greek and classical music, among other subjects. Rankling at first under the teachers' bizarre, authoritarian methods, Lee sticks around, knowing that he can slip away at any time he wants. But, for some reason, he doesn't, and before long, he finds that his teachers are starting to make quite a lot of sense... Tito Perdue was born in 1938 in Chile, the son of an electrical engineer from Alabama who was working there at the time. The family returned to Alabama in 1941, where Tito graduated from the Indian Springs School, a private academy near Birmingham, in 1956. He then attended Antioch College in Ohio for a year, before being expelled for cohabitating with a female student, Judy Clark. In 1957, they were married, and remain so today. He graduated from the University of Texas in 1961, and spent some time working in New York City, an experience which garnered him his life-long hatred of urban life. After holding positions at various university libraries, Tito has devoted himself full-time to writing since 1983. This is his seventh novel to be published to date, many of which deal with the life and times of Leland Pefley. His first novel, 1991's Lee, received favorable reviews in The New York Times, The Los Angeles Reader and The New England Review of Books. His other novels have been praised in Chronicles A Magazine of American Culture, The Quarterly Review and The Occidental Observer.
Morning Crafts Tito Perdue 9781907166570 Books
This book started off mysteriously and quite creepy. The creepiness never faded, but I began to dislike the main character near the middle of the book. I think that was the author's intention because I think the author believes the reader's dislike of the character apparently proves how intolerant we are of the allegedly superior man. But that's not necessarily so as I found nothing superior about Leland, other than he taught himself Greek and held his breath underwater longer than some other kid at this creepy school. This book is creepy, but really interesting up until the halfway point.Product details
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Morning Crafts Tito Perdue 9781907166570 Books Reviews
The first page of this novella reveals that the reader will be dealing with a fantasy, when a farm boy fishing in a creek sees "a tall man in suit and tie hiding in the kudzu." This strange man abducts the boy and takes him to a backwoods academy where the boy is forced into a classical education. All this is described in a prose that reminds me of the written descriptions of my memorable dreams over the years. At first, the boy rebels and tries to escape to his farm home; but then he warms to his educational experience and plunges headlong its books. This academy has echoes of Hogwarts about it the professors are a varied sort with odd appearances, and when the boy excels in his studies, he is given a cloak to wear. The head of the school is a far-right caricature who praises the virtues of inequality and the abhors the vices of progressives and universities. By and by, the boy's intellectual snobbishness causes him to look down on all the aspects of his home, northeastern Alabama, as well as his less intelligent fellow students who are forced into farm work at the school. Now, the boy's "morning crafts" have changed from tending to horses and mules to studying Greek verbs. In the end, the school escapes from America into the friendlier climes of Mexico, but the boy goes on into a further search for education and wisdom.
I presume that there's an autobiographical strain in this book, revealing the tension between the author's Alabama upbringing and his accomplishments in the literary world. He is not shy about displaying his own erudition, with references to Lucretius, Burton's Melancholy and so on. However, that sort of stance becomes more embarrassing if you happen to trip, e.g., Vega is not a constellation and things do not "obviate the need" for something else. So, if you like reading about dreams and"reaching for one's dreams", go buy this. It's not long, so you can read it in a day. And then have a day to forget about it.
"Ah, Lee. You will live forever in a sphere of glass, and although they can see you, and sometimes you may see them, the best that you can expect is to communicate across the boundary with hand signals. Remember! We don't equip you here for life, Lee, but rather to supersede it." (page 136).
Tito Perdue, now that's a name you won't forget as easily as John Lee's. Being a great admirer of the short novel (and the long, of course, but there is something evocative with a good short novel), I eagerly awaited this book, knowing from the other quality publications put out by Arktos that there had to be something noteworthy with this one too. I sat down to read it, and more or less spent the entire day with the book, which has such a distinctive atmosphere I have seldom encountered in a work, that I didn't put it down before it was over. I can't really point out why, but for some reason reading the book reminded me of reading another favourite book of mine, which incidentally has an author that Perdue himself enjoys, namely Cormac McCarthy's The Road (Oprah's Book Club). Not that the world has gone under in this book as well, but metaphorically speaking I believe the comparison is fair to both. The whole setting is just splendidly done it feels like venturing to an autumnal South in the 1950's and over it all is this delightful melancholic feeling of loss (and hope) that every sane man by now must feel in this mad world. The thirteen year old protagonist Leland "Lee" Pefley, is spirited away (of sorts) from a leisurely day of fishing in his native Alabama, and trotting along with a much older man he is brought willy-nilly (at first) to a school (of sorts). Now, mind you, this is a very special kind of school. Here the young Pefley is summoned together with other promising boys from all over the South (and some other places), and a whole plethora of teachers, gardeners, stablemen and other vocations train them in the classical arts and crafts of life that until recently were a part of all well-born men's curriculum. Mathematics, ancient Greek and classical music, to name a few of the subjects they are taught, and here they are really taught all day till their eyes bleed and their brains groan. I haven't read the other books by Perdue, but I quickly had to re-prioritize after having read this, for if this book is anything to go by, he appears to be, as even the New York Press pointed out, among the most important present writers in North-America. Also, I have seldom had to learn as many new words in English as Perdue forced me to, but that's a really good thing, as I now am familiar with quite a few Southern phrases and archaic words worthy of H. P. Lovecraft himself!
Ever so quietly (and hesitantly) at first, Leland internalizes the wealth of Europe that he is given, and starts realizing what the teachers are trying to do, and not to mention what his mission in life will be. He will carry the torch of European high- and folk culture forward, when everyone else is forgetting, or not even aware of the rich heritage they are meant to bear. As an arch-reactionary myself, I can sympathize deeply with Pefley's struggle, and I'm over twice his age in the book! For, in an age as dark as this, what else can we do, but remember and carry on as best we are able, attempting to influence those around us and our progeny towards embracing their own identity. I know I will be seeking out the rest of Perdue's books the coming year, for this clever and moving tale of adolescence left me with a great hunger for more tales from the life of this marvellous man named Leland Pefley. In the same sense as The Road did, the book also left with me a clear sense of purpose to carry the torch and never relent, no matter how much the troglodytes attempt to pull us all down to their bog.
Simply put buy it! It is a wonderful read and well deservingly of five stars.
Did not enjoy reading this novel - found it somewhat tiresome - but I don't enjoy most modern fiction - too solipsistic and empty in substance
Greek, abstractions, degeneracy oh my!
This book started off mysteriously and quite creepy. The creepiness never faded, but I began to dislike the main character near the middle of the book. I think that was the author's intention because I think the author believes the reader's dislike of the character apparently proves how intolerant we are of the allegedly superior man. But that's not necessarily so as I found nothing superior about Leland, other than he taught himself Greek and held his breath underwater longer than some other kid at this creepy school. This book is creepy, but really interesting up until the halfway point.
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