FRINK Linked Data Fragments server

Matches in SemOpenAlex for { <https://semopenalex.org/work/W2798511577> ?p ?o ?g. }

• W2798511577 abstract "Ah happy happy boughs! That cannot shed Your leaves, nor ever bid the spring adieu; And, happy melodist, unwearied, Forever piping songs forever new. --Keats, on a Grecian Urn Fred Chappell's 1985 novel I Am of You Forever should certainly come in the future to be acknowledged as a classic of American literature. For this is a book by a master storyteller and humorist, absolutely in control of his language and of the nuances of charged moments and telling gestures. But it is likewise a magical book, suggestive of the miraculous, the mysterious, and the transcendent in our lives and in our world. Shining through this entertaining story of family farm in the early 1940s, of zany visiting relatives, of tall tales and practical jokes, is a persistent aura of rich suggestiveness of the transformations and transfigurations that characterize our waking and sleeping hours, our lives and deaths. Something like a kaleidoscope or a many-faceted gem, the book seems to undergo its own transformations in meaning or tone as it is approached from slightly different angles. Ultimately, Chappell is exploring here the very nature of that most puzzling of transformations, the alchemy by which the human imagination turns into art. The title I Am of You Forever is not only an affirmation but also the answer to an implied question, the urgency of which is underlined by the last sentence of the novel, in which the spectral figure of the dead foster brother, Johnson Gibbs, demands of the narrator Jess to know, Well, Jess, are you one of us or not? Chappell here summons up all the powers of his creative imagination to grapple once more with one of the preoccupations of his work, the problem of recapturing--or even knowing--one's past in some way that is meaningful to the present, of asserting that we are not eternally strangers to that which may have gone before. Chappell's tribute to his Appalachian boyhood is developed not only by telling some marvelous stories about it but also by simultaneously exploring the possibility and nature of storytelling itself, the magical process by which the imagination can transform and memory to the timeless realm of art. Reminiscent of Keats's Ode on a Grecian Urn, I Am of You Forever is Chappell's urn of cherished memories, of recollections of the bright happy days that in art will never fade or pass away, the only realm in which it is possible to be One of You Forever. The thirteen stories in I Am of You Forever, loosely arranged as a novel, are told by Jess, a boy of nine to twelve years old in the early 1940s, as filtered through the memories of an adult narrator. Jess relates these stories of his boyhood family vividly, affectionately, and humorously. There is Joe Robert, the fun-loving and practical-joking father; Johnson Gibbs, the beloved adopted older brother; the sterner and more practical yet respected and admired grandmother; and the mother, a paler presence in Jess's narrations but nevertheless in some subtle way the center who lovingly and tolerantly holds the family structure together. About half the book is devoted to accounts of the various wandering aunts and who showed up to break the monotony of a mountain farm life (119). A collection of eccentrics and black sheep, they both demonstrate the essential tolerance of the mountain family for its crazies and become a source of endless fascination to Jess, for whom they assume legendary proportions and serve as the main stimuli for his developing curiosity about various adult subjects, including death, sex, and the imagined excitement of the outside world. It is largely in the context of family rather than community that Jess develops his own identity, but it is both an extended family (with grandmother, uncles and aunts) and a family that can accommodate those who are not blood kin, such as Johnson Gibbs. Uncle Luden, the wastrel and n'er-do-well, a drinker and womanizer of heroic proportions just back from California, seems to Jess to embody not just the Prodigal Son but likewise Santa Claus, Gene Autry, the Fourth of July, and indeed all of the splendor, wickedness, and forbidden knowledge that exist outside his isolated and protected childhood existence. …" @default.
• W2798511577 created "2018-05-07" @default.
• W2798511577 creator A5077293700 @default.
• W2798511577 date "1985-01-01" @default.
• W2798511577 modified "2023-09-26" @default.
• W2798511577 title "I Am One of You Forever" @default.
• W2798511577 hasPublicationYear "1985" @default.
• W2798511577 type Work @default.
• W2798511577 sameAs 2798511577 @default.
• W2798511577 citedByCount "5" @default.
• W2798511577 countsByYear W27985115772014 @default.
• W2798511577 crossrefType "book" @default.
• W2798511577 hasAuthorship W2798511577A5077293700 @default.
• W2798511577 hasConcept C111472728 @default.
• W2798511577 hasConcept C124952713 @default.
• W2798511577 hasConcept C138885662 @default.
• W2798511577 hasConcept C142362112 @default.
• W2798511577 hasConcept C144024400 @default.
• W2798511577 hasConcept C174468945 @default.
• W2798511577 hasConcept C19165224 @default.
• W2798511577 hasConcept C2780430339 @default.
• W2798511577 hasConcept C2780583480 @default.
• W2798511577 hasConcept C2780876879 @default.
• W2798511577 hasConcept C52119013 @default.
• W2798511577 hasConceptScore W2798511577C111472728 @default.
• W2798511577 hasConceptScore W2798511577C124952713 @default.
• W2798511577 hasConceptScore W2798511577C138885662 @default.
• W2798511577 hasConceptScore W2798511577C142362112 @default.
• W2798511577 hasConceptScore W2798511577C144024400 @default.
• W2798511577 hasConceptScore W2798511577C174468945 @default.
• W2798511577 hasConceptScore W2798511577C19165224 @default.
• W2798511577 hasConceptScore W2798511577C2780430339 @default.
• W2798511577 hasConceptScore W2798511577C2780583480 @default.
• W2798511577 hasConceptScore W2798511577C2780876879 @default.
• W2798511577 hasConceptScore W2798511577C52119013 @default.
• W2798511577 hasLocation W27985115771 @default.
• W2798511577 hasOpenAccess W2798511577 @default.
• W2798511577 hasPrimaryLocation W27985115771 @default.
• W2798511577 hasRelatedWork W1140597414 @default.
• W2798511577 hasRelatedWork W128619959 @default.
• W2798511577 hasRelatedWork W1483106153 @default.
• W2798511577 hasRelatedWork W1560976918 @default.
• W2798511577 hasRelatedWork W158340905 @default.
• W2798511577 hasRelatedWork W185310839 @default.
• W2798511577 hasRelatedWork W1969668749 @default.
• W2798511577 hasRelatedWork W2023297805 @default.
• W2798511577 hasRelatedWork W2335677192 @default.
• W2798511577 hasRelatedWork W2403478196 @default.
• W2798511577 hasRelatedWork W2478558838 @default.
• W2798511577 hasRelatedWork W256158903 @default.
• W2798511577 hasRelatedWork W2568846297 @default.
• W2798511577 hasRelatedWork W2606106300 @default.
• W2798511577 hasRelatedWork W274947898 @default.
• W2798511577 hasRelatedWork W307739590 @default.
• W2798511577 hasRelatedWork W2603076589 @default.
• W2798511577 hasRelatedWork W2607439897 @default.
• W2798511577 hasRelatedWork W301623354 @default.
• W2798511577 hasRelatedWork W306243982 @default.
• W2798511577 isParatext "false" @default.
• W2798511577 isRetracted "false" @default.
• W2798511577 magId "2798511577" @default.
• W2798511577 workType "book" @default.