Fetch The Heavenly Table Presented By Donald Ray Pollock Visible In Copy

من العيار الثقيل عن المجتمع الأمريكي في بداية الحرب العالمية الأولى. أزاح الكاتب القناع عن وجه أمريكا الحقيقي الوجه المظلم والسوداوي الفقير أخلاقيا ودينيا وعلميا.

الرواية تنتقد زيف الإعلام والصحافة الأمريكية في تضخيم الأحداث وتلفيق القصص الكاذبة. تعسف رجال الشرطة في استعمال سلطتهم. عنصرية البيض ضد السود واضطهادهم الكحول الدعارة والشبق الجنسي. كل ذلك في قالب مأساوي تراجيدي وكوميدي أحيانا.

بالرغم من أن الرواية طويلة والشخصيات كثيرة والبذاءة والعنف والجنس والكلام الفاحش لا يعد ولا يحصى! إلا أن أسلوب الكاتب وجمال وسهولة السرد شدني لإنهاء الرواية.


اقتباسات


“مهما سلك الإنسان من طرق سينتهي به الأمر على العادة وهو يتمنى لو أنه سلك الطريق الأخرى”,

“ما دام المرء يتعامى عن معظم عيوبه فإن أول ما يفقده عندما يخوض غمار السياسة هو إنسانيته”.

“كلما وجدت نفسك في موقف ليس لديك ما تقوله فيه تذكر فحسب أن معظم الناس يميلون إلى التحدث عن أنفسهم. إذ يمكن لإنسان محكوم عليه بالإعدام أن يؤخر عملية إعدامه خمس عشرة دقيقة ثمينة بمجرد أن يسأل الجلاد عن أصله وفصله”.

“ما أشد فقر العالم إلى الأشياء القليلة التي ستضع كل الناس في المرتبة نفسها بصرف النظر عن مستواهم التعليمي أو مقدار ثروتهم أو مكانتهم الاجتماعية ولكن الحزن الشديد هو أحد الأمور التي تساوي بين البشر جميعا”.

“ما زال يحيره كيف يمكنك أن تعمل ليل نهار وتظل عالقا في أقصى أعماق الكآبة ومن ثم يحصل شيء رائع على ضآلته ويغير فجأة نظرتك إلى كل الأشياء شيء ينقل عالمك من العتمة إلى النور شيء يجعل السرور يسري في جسدك لمجرد أنك لا تزال تدب على هذه الأرض”.

“كل كذبة تنجب كذبة أخرى والفائدة الوحيدة للأكاذيب هي أنها تؤجل الحقيقة الحتمية. فعاجلا أم آجلا ستنجلي الحقيقة من ألفها إلى يائها”. "It still amazed him how you could just be plugging along, stuck in the deepest depression, and then something a little bit wonderful happened that suddenly changed your outlook on everything, that turned your world from darkness to light, made you glad you were still walking the earth.
"
Donald Ray Pollack, The Heavenly Table



I really liked Pollock's first novel sitelinkThe Devil All the Time.
I thought of it as a mashup between Chuck Palahniuk and Dashiell Hammett, I've heard people talk about this book in terms of Gogol, Meyer, or McCarthy, Pollock has a lot of talent and is a master of transgressive fiction, but his prose in this novel just seemed to me a bit thin.
The novel didn't drill me as hard as 'The Devil All the Time', It just seemed a bit too messy and contrived, I think sitelinkMel captures the essence of Pollock's fiction, He writes "angry, bizarre, violent, raw, raunchy, and darkly hilarious novels", He seems like balancing between the world between the outcast, the carny, the pervert, and the creep, In this novel he spends a couple hours in the fecal swamps to find a couple silver dollars, I guess it would have been worth the shit swim if the payout was just a bit more,



When I sat down with The Heavenly Table by Donald Ray Pollock, I was all set to have my love for Southern Gothicism stoked hereforget that, even just my love for a great read in the Southern tradition.
Anyone who follows my reviews knows that Im a sucker for it, Yet, The Heavenly Table fell unexpectedly flat for me, Im sorry to say,

Here youll find the story of the Jewett boys, regular hillbillies turned cowboys inGeorgia, chasing a Buffalo Billtype dream and their own versions of “the heavenly table,” a metaphor used throughout this novel.
Here, youll also find an entire cast of colorful characters whose big personalities jostled for space within these pages,

For me, the problem with this read came down to two very important counterparts that didnt marry well here: plot and soul.
You can have a wonderful premisea killer idea and plot all sketched outbut that doesnt mean that it will be executed with a real feeling of ambiance and depth.
And for a novel whose blurb wants it to live up to

the Southern Gothic tradition with references to Quentin Tarantino, no less! it has to have soul.
Period. Otherwise, peel that label off and call it something else, Call it “Django with aStooges cowboy twist, ”

The premise of Pollocks The Heavenly Table was greatthe characters filled the pages the vernacular added some awesome local color the setting was rich and there were a couple of Gothic elements that tipped their hat toward the tradition of OConnor and Faulkner.
I even saw Tarantino here, featuring cartoonlike descriptions of gore and debauchery that were cinematic and would translate well on the big screen, In fact, this one would probably make a better movie than it did a read, In short, the fundamentals of the story itself were fine, maybe even good, but I never felt any depth, I'm not even talking "feels," just enough depth to make it funny, to make it feel real even in its raucousness,

The Heavenly Table was beautiful as a metaphor but fell short in that it never gripped me and pulled me in.
True enough, each character had some spit and dirt to themin that way, it was grittybut the rest of the grit came off as superficial and referential to other great works, to others great styles, and not fully of its own character.
It didnt make me yearn for the next flip of a page to see what lay in wait on the other side, To me, it read as classroomlearned writing with no natural swag, This was my first foray into Pollocks works, It read like ast novel, which is surprising coming from an author with the renown that Pollock has amassed thus far, What I will say about thisrd major work of Pollocks is that he did let his own Southern Ohio, bluecollar roots hang out with a confident flamboyance and devilmaycare flair that I appreciated, making the read feel authentically Southern.


But Ruleis always: Dont tell me show me, And I think that one was tossed to the wind here in favor of superfluous character plot lines and backstoriesI still cant figure out what some of those characters were even doing in there, let alone why they had entire backstories of their ownand debaucherous accounts of adventure that I could see but not feel, not taste, not touch myself.
It fell short of being fullyD for me, cinematic though the plot aimed to be, Without that added depth of flavor, without that thickened roux at its base, the cinematic appeal lost a little of its verve and sparkleit lost some of its Rabelaisian humor appeal.
gt

That extra word count from all of those storylines wouldve been better served filling out the story of the main characters.
This one had too many ideas that could have been narrowed down to a much better read, Yes, yes, I get the attempt at weaving several intricately woven stories together so that they come together surprisingly in the endits aweinspiring when done rightbut this wasnt that.
This was too many ideas with the end result being me confused about who was who and whether or not they would show up again often enough in the novel for me to even care about them sometimes the answer was no.
Really, this read took the long way to its finale and dragged in too many characters to do it, with the end result not having the kick that it could have.
There were serial killers tossed in for the hell of it, like “oh by the ways” tossed in just for good measure, just to make sure the read was good and raunchy.
I didnt respond well to that kind of fabricated grit, Was Heavenly Table gritty as the blurb stated because it had heart or because debauchery was heaped on debauchery Id say the latter, like a bawdy and mildly depraved version of the Slapstick genre: events were just happening just to be happening at some times, and that really turned me off.


Yet, to others, this might be a real selling point, as it was indeed Rabelaisian, For those who want to ride along with a good ole earlyth century American adventure story, complete with liquor, whores, murder and debauchery, this is most definitely the read for youand youll LOVE it! But if youre looking for more depth based on the blurb, dont be fooled by the OConnor referenceyou wont find that kind of true soul of allegory here.
.

I received an advanceread copy of this book from the publisher, Doubleday, via NetGalley, in exchange for an honest review,

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