Crown-Fire by Erskine Caldwell, 1933
The magic trick:
A creepy story of sexual desire that is somehow obvious and ambiguous at the same time
I read somewhere online that James Dickey apparently called this the best story in the English language, or some such bold statement.
Should probably read it then, I thought.
And it’s good. It really is. Best story ever? Well….
It tells the story of a man who stakes out a girl’s walk home so that he can join her and express his desire for her. It’s a very strange story in terms of locating the narrative moral core. Are we to judge this man as a stalker guilty of sexual harassment and assault? Are we to see this as part of some kind of romantic song and dance between the two? It’s unsettling.
Anyway, the key symbol in the story is the titular fire raging through the fields next to this couple as they walk home. It’s a great metaphor because it’s at once obvious and vague. Certainly, its multiple potential meanings are a big reason why the story’s morality is so slippery. Perhaps the fire is after us all.
And that’s quite a trick on Caldwell’s part.
The selection:
I did not know what Irene was going to do when I jumped up and surprised her. I did not want her to run away from me again; each time I had tried to walk home with her in the evening she had run so fast that I could not keep up with her. But I had to see her and to talk with her. I had wished all that summer to be able to walk along the road with her. Once she had said she did not hate me; but no matter what I said to her, she continued to run away from me, leaving me alone in the road.
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