Cold Sassy Tree by Olive Ann Burns Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of Cold Sassy Tree
Book Review: I'd Love to Visit Cold Sassy Tree
Summary: 5 Stars
This is a wonderful story with surprise upon surprise. The simplicity of human nature is interwoven with the complexities of relationships at all levels. Life is a simple tapestry that is woven to reveal deep roots.
The story is written in a southern dialect. It is about Tweedy and his grandfather. Three weeks after his grandmother's death, Will's grandpa marries Miss Love, about half his age. The scandal that envelops Cold Sassy Tree is a sight to behold. We also have bossy Aunt Loma married to a nincompoop who kills himself while wrapped in plastic so as not to leave a mess for his wife to clean up.
The story is delightful and humorous but also tragic. It's about a young man's coming of age and an old man's love of life. It is filled with wonderful characterization, imagery and dialogue.
Book Review: I'm sorry I waited so long to read this!
Summary: 5 Stars
So many people read this book in high school or college, but for some reason, I was never required to do so. I don't know what made me pick up this book so much later in life, but I am so glad that I did. This is a wonderful, beautifully written, heart felt story that will stay in your memory forever. It is clear why it is considered a classic. In short, the story is that Will grows up in a quaint little Georgia town in the early 1900's. He learns about life, love, and loss through his grandfather, his grandfather's new young wife, and their life stories. You will taste the southern food, smell the dust in the old store, and feel the heartache. It's all very vivid. Great story. I am so sorry that Olive Ann Burns did not live long enough to bless us with more wonderful novels.Book Review: In a Town This Size
Summary: 5 Stars
This book was on my daughter's summer reading list for ninth grade. It's the story of life in small Cold Sassy, Georgia in the early 20th century, told through the eyes of a young boy whose grandfather marries the milliner from his general store just days after his wife of many years dies. Burns wrote this book, based on the memories of her grandfather, when she was diagnosed with a life-threatening disease in middle age. She finished it and part of the followup Leaving Cold Sassy before she died.
Looking back, the story had a lot in common with one of my favorite musicals, Fiddler on the Roof (Special Edition), except that it's the older generation that tries to break with tradition. Grandson Will Tweedy, whose grandfather always addresses by both names, represents the future of Cold Sassy and other small towns--torn between the comfort and support of tradition and the promises of happiness and progress based on new ways of thought. Personally, I'm happy to live in a world where everyone's just a little more detached from their neighbor's business than were the people of Cold Sassy. On his duets album In Spite Of Ourselves, John Prine and Dolores Kane sang a duet about the situation, "In a Town This Size"--"In a town this size/There is no place to hide. . ." Ironically, the Internet is taking us back in time, but on a larger scale, where everyone can know everything about everyone, at least to the extent that someone is willing to share it on line.
But that's getting away from Ms. Burns' book, which shimmers with authenticity of time, place and language. You'll almost choke in the dust roiled up by grandpa's first trips in his new Buick. And, boy howdy, you'll try out some of the Southernisms out loud just to test whether people could really talk that way. (My daughter and I got a big kick out of this.)
With "Cold Sassy Tree", Ms. Burns accomplishes everything she set out to do--preserve the memory of a place and time in her past; honor the life of her grandfather; and entertain generations of readers. Five enthusiastic stars for all readers from 12 to 112.
Book Review: Incredible First Novel [70]
Summary: 4 Stars
In this 1984 novel about 1906 events in small town U.S.A., Faulkner-like melodrama meets the turn of the century post-construction Georgia. Will Tweedy, as eldest grandson to bossy but friendly Rucker Blakeslee, narrates the story of adult issues with his youthful and naive perspective, but somewhat refined as this book is drafted as though rewritten from a childhood journal made in 1906.
Grandpa Blakeslee, who lost only one fight in his life - the Civil Way - runs a shop, which runs the town of the title name. Within the confines of the simple small town live great kiddish pranks amid bigger than life paradoxical concepts of that time: how long to mourn; how many years to separate a proper marriage between man and wife; whether having a second family can be allowed; suicide; incest; and civil separations between "white trash" cotton pickers and the rest.
This literary quilt is folded among great stories told to the author by her grandfather. I fathom that the author's ear is acute as the book brilliantly meshes the above-referenced concepts within the confines of thick southern dialect depicting folklore and southern convention. The characters are southern folk who may seem cold and remonstrate to northern visitors. But, they are warm, and to all. The white characters are not running out to the barn to jump on their horses while wearing sheets over their faces and carrying torches to burn or lynch. These are more like the people we met in Faulkner's Yoknapatawpha County. Albeit this is Georgia, and Faulkner is Mississippi, each touches upon the intermeshed and cooperative lives of former slaves or descendents of slaves, poor white, agrarian, or working-class Southerners, Southern middle class. Unlike the anthem for Southern literature, Gone with the Wind, this book is devoid of Southern aristocrats.
Eventually, like many novels centering upon the town's and family's patriarch, death ensues. And, after the death, the book must leave its pithy and remarkably well written dialogue to have things like Rucker's will read and other issues be reviewed without the accent, syntax or Southern charm of Will's "way of talkin'."
The infectious manner of the speech, combined with the vividness and uniquity of the tales, make this book special. At the end, in a Faulkner vein, one would ask for a sequel. And, Olive Ann Burns complied with less successful Leaving Cold Sassy. Maybe she is no Faulkner, and I am sure that was not her ambition. And, anyway, who is a Faulkner? This is good fiction. Very good fiction - especially for a first novel.
Book Review: Laugh out loud funny
Summary: 5 Stars
I would laugh out loud reading this book. My husband, who reads only newspapers, picked up the book to see what was so funny. He read it through in one sitting. It has been years since I read it, and I count it as one of my favorites