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jade's review
adventurous
challenging
dark
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.75
This was Charles W. Chesnutt's first short story and is the first work by an African American to be published in high prestige literary magazine (The Atlantic).
Indeed, when I first saw the town, there brooded over it a calm that seemed almost sabbatic in it's restfulness, though I learned later on that underneath it's somnolent exterior the deeper currents of life - love and hatred, joy and despair, ambition and avarice, faither and friendship - flowed not less steadily than in livelier latitudes.
A Northerner inspects a property in the South, and while doing so, comes across Uncle Julius, a Black man, eating grape on a log. Uncle Julius tells a cautionary tale about the cursed grapevines, while eating the grapes from those very vines himself.
"Well, I dunno whe'r you believes in cunj'in'er not - some er de w'ite folks don't, er say dey don't - but de truf er de matter is dat dis yer ole vimya'd is goophered."
This is a short story so I don't want to give to much away except to say that when Uncle Julius is recounting his story, it does read in what Nisi Shawl refers to as the 'eye-dialect', with the words written as to how they would have been pronounced. I got used to it, but I did find I needed to read some words or a sentence or two out loud before I was able to understand the context in some parts, which may not be what a lot of more modern readers are used to, especially if they are after a quick short story read, but I would argue that a short story read is exactly the place to practice reading this style.
I enjoyed the tale though like with most short stories, I have questions on it's purpose. Was it, as the story surmises, Uncle Julius' way of scaring off the new owners? Was it describing the poisonous nature of slavery? Was it referring to a deeper meaning to the connection with the land (turning as bad/horrid as the humans on it - eg the slave master?)
I appreciated the old owner 'getting' what he was owed for being greedy. I also noted that that the Northerner is quite respectful to both Uncle Julius and a small Black girl that they pass on the way to the grapevines. A contrast perhaps to the behaviour of the old owner?
Content Warnings
Graphic: Racial slurs and Slavery
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