Woe to Live On

Several years ago, I read a review of the film "Ride With the Devil" in a decidedly Southern partisan newsletter of some kind.  I wasn't a subscriber, and I think the copy I saw was a photocopy someone mailed to me anyway, and I may not even have seen the title of the newsletter.  But the review made the film sound worthwhile, even though it did rather poorly when released.  A couple of years later, I found the DVD on sale on a rack in the convenience store down the street, surrounded entirely by Spanish-language movies, pro wrestling DVDs, and straight-to-DVD junk.  So I took it home and found it to be every bit as worthwhile as the review had suggested.  Good enough, in fact, that I wanted to read the novel on which it is based.  That's where the acquisition got interesting.  

It turns out the novel, "Woe to Live On", was one of Daniel Woodrell's early novels, and the value of the first editions had run up considerably.  Woodrell, of course, is the author of "Winter's Bone", the story of life and meth labs in the Ozarks that was made into a successful and award-winning film a year or two ago.  He's written several other acclaimed novels also set in the Ozarks where he lives.  

My wife went hunting online for a reading copy of the novel.  She noticed that all the first editions for sale were pretty pricey, but then she found one, I think on ebay, in good condition for FIVE DOLLARS.  The only one I can find online today is priced at $2,399!  I think that's probably overpriced to a significant degree, but all in all I'm pretty happy with my wife's online shopping skills.  

There is some irony in my joy over this great bargain on a novel whose story carries with it so much pain, sadness and despair.  The story is about Missouri bushwhackers (think "The Outlaw Josey Wales") during the US Civil War.  Their existence, tactics and treatment given to and received from their enemies were appallingly brutal.  They fought for the Southern cause, but were motivated as much or more by personal animosity, revenge, greed and a corrupt sense of honor.  Like any good story, there are elements of hope and redemption, but at the cost of great suffering and loss.

One scene sticks with me.  It's in a scene that appears in the book and the film, though the actual lines are only in the film.  The main characters are enjoying a peaceful dinner in the home of a sympathetic supporter who has already lost his son in the war.  They are living in a cave on his farm where they are "holing up" for the winter until they can fight again in the spring, so the proper dinner in his home is a very special treat for them.  They are discussing the cultural differences between the two sides in the war.  The farmer who is helping them, Mr. Evans, explains it this way: 

Mr. Evans: You ever been to Lawrence, Kansas, young man?

Jack Bull Chiles: [scoffs] No, I reckon not Mr. Evans. I don't believe I'd be too welcome in Lawrence.

Mr. Evans: I didn't think so. Before this war began, my business took me there often. As I saw those northerners build that town, I witnessed the seeds of our destruction being sown.

Jack Bull Chiles: The foundin' of that town was truly the beginnin' of the Yankee invasion.

Mr. Evans: I'm not speakin' of numbers, nor even abolitionist trouble makin'. It was the schoolhouse. Before they built their church, even, they built that schoolhouse. And they let in every tailor's son... and every farmer's daughter in that country.

Jack Bull Chiles: Spellin' won't help you hold a plow any firmer. Or a gun either.

Mr. Evans: No, it won't Mr. Chiles. But my point is merely that they rounded every pup up into that schoolhouse because they fancied that everyone should think and talk the same free-thinkin' way they do with no regard to station, custom, propriety. And that is why they will win. Because they believe everyone should live and think just like them. And we shall lose because we don't care one way or another how they live. We just worry about ourselves.

Jack Bull Chiles: Are you sayin', sir, that we fight for nothin'?

Mr. Evans: Far from it, Mr. Chiles. You fight for everything that we ever had, as did my son. It's just that... we don't have it anymore.