THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, October 20, 1996 TAG: 9610200240
SECTION: COMMENTARY PAGE: J2 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Book Review
SOURCE: BY AUDREY KNOTH
LENGTH: 75 lines
FAREWELL, I'M BOUND TO LEAVE YOU
FRED CHAPPELL
Picador USA. 228 pp. $21.
The art of poetry centers on the nuance of well-chosen words. So when a gifted poet crafts prose, the writing can be especially deft.
Such is the case with Fred Chappell's novel, Farewell, I'm Bound to Leave You. The award-winning poet not only uses words well, he highlights the power of language in linking the generations.
The novel opens during a gusty pitch-black night in the western North Carolina hills. Jess, the youthful narrator, is sitting with his father in the front room of his dying grandmother's house while his mother keeps watch over the frail woman in the bedroom.
The exact time isn't clear, because the ``wind had gotten into the clocks and blown the hours awry . . . (they) read 2:03 or 11:00 or 6:15 . . . When I told my father what was happening, he said, `Yes, time is getting ready to stop.'
`` `Stop?'
`` `Yes. For our family at least. Time will have to stop for us and it's hard to think how it can start up again.' ''
As Jess sits through the long night, he thinks back on his own life, and the meaning of his father's words becomes clear. Jess' recollections serve as chapters of the novel: In each, Jess remembers his grandmother and his mother telling him tales about relatives from years gone by. The youth realizes that this storytelling will diminish with his grandmother's death.
``I had begun to feel that Time Past contained secret messages meant for me Library in its 12 colorful volumes in my brick and board bookcase; the persons my mother and grandmother told me of were as startling as the planet Saturn swimming in space, the way it was pictured in my father's discarded general science textbooks.''
Eloquently conveying the significance of language in tying one generation to another, Farewell, I'm Bound to Leave You is both entertaining and moving. The recollection chapters are titled after women, such as ``The Wind Woman,'' ``The Silent Woman'' and ``The Fisherwoman.'' In each, Jess' relatives tell him of fascinating women from his family's past.
For instance, ``The Figuring Woman'' centers on Aunt Sherlie Howes, known as the smartest person in the region because of her ability to figure out problems. According to Jess' grandmother, ``She had a gift for listening and the patience to draw out facts that looked as little as liver pills until she put them in a proper light. Then they rose as big as boulders.''
The way Aunt Sherlie Howes unravels the circumstances of a neighbor's elopement is as good as any mystery story. Each chapter offers a similar mix of humor, compassion and insight - all spiced by author Chappell's exquisite writing.
Through his remembrances, Jess comes to understand the symbolism of those wind-blown clocks with the ``hours awry.'' With his grandmother's passing, he will have to become a storyteller himself or the family will fragment.
Says his father, `` `If we lose your grandmother . . . a world dies with her, and you and I and your mother and little sister will have to begin all over. Our time will be new and hard to keep track of. The time your grandmother knew was a steady time that people could trust. But you can see for yourself we are losing it.''
Chappell, who teaches at the University of North Carolina in Greensboro, has written numerous books of poetry as well as other novels, short stories and essays. His work has captured many awards, including the Bollingen Prize in Poetry, the Award in Literature from the National Institute of Arts and Letters, and a Rockefeller Grant. This newest work is yet more evidence of what is clearly a splendid gift for writing. MEMO: Audrey Knoth is a free-lance writer and executive director of
public relations at Goldman & Associates in Norfolk. ILLUSTRATION: Photo
Fred Chappell by CNB