THE WORST HARD TIMETimothy Egan ~ BOiPod
Personal Rating: 3.5/5
Yearly Count: 106
Drought. Dust. Wind. If I hear any of those three words anytime soon, I think I might just scream! If that's how I feel with hearing the words, I can only imagine living with the meaning of those words as the people did in portions of 10 states during the 30's. It was devastating.
I found the first half or so of this book to drag, but eventually I got drawn into this horrible disaster. The information and details were so repetitive that at times I really wanted to give up, but once again ... what about those people who lived it? Many did give up on their land and moved, while many still stayed. They lived for approximately 8 years with, yes - drought, dust and wind. These conditions didn't allow proper farming, hence proper living. It caused hunger, powerful static electricity, inability to see past their own hand, drifts of dust that blocked their doorways and had to be shoveled liked snow and death from dust pneumonia.
The most incredibly sad piece of information out of The Worst Hard Time was that it could have all been prevented. The Dust Bowl was man-made.
I might have to get to this book sometime. I grew up on a farm, so I'm interested in this type of stuff.
ReplyDeleteAs to the Christmas Challenge, I think it's still open. Wendy wasn't able to contact her about, so she changed it on the novel challenge website. However, on the yahoo group list someone said the hostess re-posted about it. I think you just sign up on the link on the button that I gave in my post.
3M ~ You may really like it. I think it's worth a try.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the info about the Christmas Challenge. I'll try again. :)
AND...hopefully I fixed all my typos in this post. UGH! lol
Just reading those first three words makes me want to avoid this one like the plague. Dry dusty wind is the kinds of weather that sets my teeth on edge. But I had never heard that the Dust Bowl was man made so I'm also intrigued.
ReplyDeleteFramed ~ Sad to say...that's what the man claims. And, it makes sense.
ReplyDeleteI'm sorry you didn't like this one more. I almost always feel the same way about a book as you do (of course, I read a teensy-weensy fraction as much as you!). Anyway, I really enjoyed this one. Maybe that's because my FIL grew up on the fringes and I got to hear some real life stories.
ReplyDeleteDebi ~ I'm sure having a personal connection has an impact on the reality of this time frame. I really did think it was good, just too repetitive.
ReplyDelete