Raintree County

I have had the novel Raintree County sitting by my bed for months. Because it is over 1000 pages, I wanted to make sure I saw a stretch of time I could devote to reading it. Such a stretch seems to have opened.

A web site has a lot of information about this best-seller from the late 1940s. Set in a fictional Indiana county, the novel tells the story of John Wickliff Shawnessy -- and of the American nation in the middle of the 19th century. It has an experimental form with chapters telling the events of one day (July 4, 1892) alternating with chapters telling of past events.

The movie version, with Montgomery Clift, Elizabeth Taylor, and Eva Marie Saint, is very much a simplification of the novel. During the filming of Raintree County, Clift had a car accident that damaged his face. You can see the difference in the movie. Here is a bit on the making of the movie. And here is the trailer. Nat King Cole sang the theme song.

No one in the cast managed a Hoosier accent -- even though characters comment on it. (And Elizabeth's speech, as a Georgia belle, is excruciatingly inexact. Maybe it is better no one tried a Hoosier accent.)

But, so far (about 100 pages) the novel is interesting in its evocation of the Midwest in the 1840s and 1850s. I'll see how it develops. . .