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The Fathers by Tate, Allen (1959) Paperback
Set during the Civil War, The Fathers is the story of two old Virginia families, the Buchans of Pleasant Hill and the Poseys of Georgetown. It tells of the collapse of a way of life, hastened not by the onslaught of Yankees but by a tragic flaw within the civilization of the Old South. Major Lewis Buchan, patriarch of the family, is the consummate southern aristocrat; his son-in-law, George Posey, is the modern man, steeped in the southern tradition yet restless and outside it. Young Lacy Buchan, just coming into manhood, narrates the sequence of events that tears his father and brother-in-law apart and his family asunder - betrayal, rape, madness, murder, suicide - and his tale foreshadows the paradoxical love and respect Posey will ultimately command in him. In the end, both "fathers" are heroes, and the values of both are retained, a lesson not just for Lacy but for the South.
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First published January 1, 1938
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About the author
Allen Tate
94 books16 followersPoetry of especially known American writer and editor John Orley Allen Tate includes "Ode to the Confederate Dead" (1926); a leading exponent of New Criticism, he edited the Sewanee Review from 1944 to 1946.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allen_Tate
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allen_Tate
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Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews
December 13, 2012
Three stars because it was well written, but I don't buy into the "fatal flaw" theory of Southern society. This seems to be more a novel about Allen Tate and his difficult relationship with his Southern inheritance. I have no objection to Tate having problems, or to his writing a novel about them, but I don't think his projection of them onto antebellum Virginian society was convincing. For instance, where did Posey come from? He was as much a Virginian as Major Buchan, but Tate did not give a good explanation for how his entirely contrary set of values could have arisen naturally from his traditional society (unless it was that his family had an overdeveloped refinement, due to town life, that ended in neurosis). And while some individuals, like Major Buchan, may have certainly been to weak to deal with a flouter of the conventions like Posey, I do not see historically that Virginian society as a whole could not have handled such men effectively--probably by shooting them.
Judging from Underwood's biography, it is Tate himself who could not reconcile gentility with strength, or manners with practicality. At points in his life he criticized both Davis and Lee for failing to do the "effective" thing in the War instead of the ethical thing. But Lee and Davis themselves suffered from no such conundrum. For them the choice was clear: uphold their code, because they believed it was right, even at the cost of defeat. The dilemma and the flaw Tate sees in this choice is his own and the twentieth century's--not antebellum Virginia's.
Judging from Underwood's biography, it is Tate himself who could not reconcile gentility with strength, or manners with practicality. At points in his life he criticized both Davis and Lee for failing to do the "effective" thing in the War instead of the ethical thing. But Lee and Davis themselves suffered from no such conundrum. For them the choice was clear: uphold their code, because they believed it was right, even at the cost of defeat. The dilemma and the flaw Tate sees in this choice is his own and the twentieth century's--not antebellum Virginia's.
December 21, 2009
Like Allen Tate’s poetry, this novel is not an easy read. Mr. Tate shares the images, events and dialogue that he finds significant, but leaves plenty of blanks for the reader to fill in. If it seems cryptic at first, like his poems, keep reading and reread as necessary. Allen Tate has a point to make. I was assigned Mr. Tate as an author to sample and report on during an American Literature course I took at Weber State University. I’m glad my professor pointed me to Tate, who I otherwise probably would have never come across.
As an unapologetic look into Southern sentiments and culture in the 19th Century, this novel is engrossing and thought-provoking. Don’t expect Mr. Tate to provide a novel that “Yankee” readers of modern times will find appealing. These are outspoken, self-assured Southerners watching their centuries-old culture crumble around them (for better and worse). Having some Southern heritage myself, I found this book a valuable way to get more in touch with it while following an intriguing storyline to its brutal and tragic end. For readers with an interest in fiction about, and by, Southerners, I strongly recommend The Fathers..
As an unapologetic look into Southern sentiments and culture in the 19th Century, this novel is engrossing and thought-provoking. Don’t expect Mr. Tate to provide a novel that “Yankee” readers of modern times will find appealing. These are outspoken, self-assured Southerners watching their centuries-old culture crumble around them (for better and worse). Having some Southern heritage myself, I found this book a valuable way to get more in touch with it while following an intriguing storyline to its brutal and tragic end. For readers with an interest in fiction about, and by, Southerners, I strongly recommend The Fathers..
November 2, 2016
One critic has noted that if The Fathers had enjoyed the popularity of its contemporary, Gone with the Wind, the present debate about the mythos of the Old South would never have taken place, that Tate speaks with a nuance to reflect the reality of the antebellum world. I would not shame Mitchell by agreeing, as these two novels are extremely different, but I will concede that Tate is not interested in the mythology of the Old South, but in living with it.
Like his Ode to the Confederate Dead, Tate's The Fathers is as much about how the past influences the present as it about commemorating the past. There are no heroes and villains, only a series of influences on the feelings and minds of the speaker. And regarding that speaker, Tate speaks with such confidence and verisimilitude in the first person that I had to double-check that he was not referring to events from his own life; the narrative is derived from stories told by his father and uncle.
I would recommend The Fathers to anyone interested in the Old South and Southern historiography, as well as fans of William Faulkner; the Kentuckian and the Mississippian were cut from the same cloth
Like his Ode to the Confederate Dead, Tate's The Fathers is as much about how the past influences the present as it about commemorating the past. There are no heroes and villains, only a series of influences on the feelings and minds of the speaker. And regarding that speaker, Tate speaks with such confidence and verisimilitude in the first person that I had to double-check that he was not referring to events from his own life; the narrative is derived from stories told by his father and uncle.
I would recommend The Fathers to anyone interested in the Old South and Southern historiography, as well as fans of William Faulkner; the Kentuckian and the Mississippian were cut from the same cloth
May 27, 2020
Guilt got me to read this book since I'd failed to do so when in grad school decades ago. It actually fell apart as I read it; perhaps that was appropriate since the Buchan and Posey families suffered the same fate in the story. The Southern writers, like Allen Tate, give us a unique insight into the thinking and culture of the South, especially during the days before and during the Civil War. The Fathers, a story woven under the pall of division, intrigue, cover ups, half-truths, and evolving dark family awareness, draws the reader into a family maze that attempts to create understanding of the times. Full of symbolism and realistic detail, traditionalism and change, race tensions and resentments, this book strikes a nerve on many levels.
July 30, 2021
⭐️⭐️.5 rounded down from three.
Published in 1938, The Fathers is a story of a family set at the outbreak of the Civil War. Told in the first person by Lacy, he was a boy of fifteen in 1860. His family is symbolic of the Old South, wild, weak and violent. The story opens at Lacy’s mother’s funeral. We see Lacy’s father, Major Buchan, be more concerned with the funeral guests than his own bereavement at the loss of his wife. We meet George Posey, who is Lacy’s brother-in-law, married to Lacy’s sister Susan. Major Buchan represents the Old South, gentlemanly and genteel, while George Posey is the New South, pragmatic and undisciplined. He is actually quite a violent man. This was a deep and slow moving book - published just two years after Gone With the Wind, it received lavish praise from the reviewers of the day, but never really enjoyed the same wild success. I’m not sorry I read it, but will definitely be donating 1984 paperback edition.
Published in 1938, The Fathers is a story of a family set at the outbreak of the Civil War. Told in the first person by Lacy, he was a boy of fifteen in 1860. His family is symbolic of the Old South, wild, weak and violent. The story opens at Lacy’s mother’s funeral. We see Lacy’s father, Major Buchan, be more concerned with the funeral guests than his own bereavement at the loss of his wife. We meet George Posey, who is Lacy’s brother-in-law, married to Lacy’s sister Susan. Major Buchan represents the Old South, gentlemanly and genteel, while George Posey is the New South, pragmatic and undisciplined. He is actually quite a violent man. This was a deep and slow moving book - published just two years after Gone With the Wind, it received lavish praise from the reviewers of the day, but never really enjoyed the same wild success. I’m not sorry I read it, but will definitely be donating 1984 paperback edition.
May 10, 2017
I thought this book was technically and stylistically flawless. It was rich with meaning and layers of conflict both personal and societal. I don't often do this, but I would like to quote from Arthur Mizener's introduction to this edition:
"The central tension of The Fathers, like that of its structure, is a tension between the public and the private life, between the order of civilization, always artificial, imposed by discipline, and at the mercy of its own imperfections, and the disorder of the private life, always sincere, imposed upon by circumstances, and at the mercy of its own impulses. We see, on the one hand, the static condition a society reaches when, by slow degrees, it has disciplined all personal feeling to custom so that the individual no longer exists apart from the ritual of society and the ritual of society expresses all the feelings the individual knows. We see on the other hand, the forces that exist--because time does not stand still--both within and without the people who constitute a society, that will destroy the discipline of its civilization and leave the individual naked and alone."
I came upon Allen Tate via Cleanth Brooks, and I am happy to have discovered him. His critical reflections on the decline of the Antebellum South are equal to the complexities of that time. I am looking forward to reading his essays.
"The central tension of The Fathers, like that of its structure, is a tension between the public and the private life, between the order of civilization, always artificial, imposed by discipline, and at the mercy of its own imperfections, and the disorder of the private life, always sincere, imposed upon by circumstances, and at the mercy of its own impulses. We see, on the one hand, the static condition a society reaches when, by slow degrees, it has disciplined all personal feeling to custom so that the individual no longer exists apart from the ritual of society and the ritual of society expresses all the feelings the individual knows. We see on the other hand, the forces that exist--because time does not stand still--both within and without the people who constitute a society, that will destroy the discipline of its civilization and leave the individual naked and alone."
I came upon Allen Tate via Cleanth Brooks, and I am happy to have discovered him. His critical reflections on the decline of the Antebellum South are equal to the complexities of that time. I am looking forward to reading his essays.
September 24, 2018
DULLLLLLLLLLLsville. I couldn't finish it. So many family saga books are so dreadfully BORING.
February 27, 2023
A little tough to follow from me. Kinda Faulknerish in temporal sense. Drifting from past, present and future. I am not part of the literary elite that this must attract..
January 20, 2013
Romanzo stupendo, l'unico di Allen Tate, poeta e saggista americano del Sud. Comprato da libraio che aveva acquistato un grosso lotto da eredi costretti da cause di forza maggiore o incapaci di apprezzare il lascito. Peccato, perché la collezione rivela un gusto raffinato e sicuro, e tutti i libri provenienti da questa ignota biblioteca privata milanese sono minuziosamente annotati, oltre che in eccellente stato di conservazione. Le annotazioni mi hanno accompagnata e a volte aiutata: è stato un po' come leggerlo insieme, per questo voglio riportare il giudizio del Lettore ignoto, in omaggio a lui e al suo amore per la lettura:
"Alle soglie del capolavoro. Per esserlo gli manca quel timbro inconfondibile - di stile, d'imponenza, d'aggressività - che costituisce la cifra ineffabile e per certi versi misteriosa dei pochissimi sommi autori."
"I nostri padri" è un romanzo storico ambientato all'inizio della guerra di secessione, momento cruciale che ha ossessionato l'immaginario collettivo americano, in cui l'evento è stato mille volte rivissuto attraverso racconti, romanzi, film e sceneggiati televisivi. Riguardo a ciò, posso dire che per la prima volta ho avuto l'occasione di penetrare a fondo questo pezzo di storia americana: proprio il fatto di non trovarmi di fronte le abituali classificazioni schematiche mi ha reso difficile la comprensione di alcuni passaggi e mi ha fatto riflettere su quanto fossi condizionata da tutte quelle storie viste al cinema (cinque stelle anche solo per questo). Ma "I nostri padri" è anche, e soprattutto, un allucinante romanzo psicologico e una tragedia greca in tre atti: "Colle ameno" (uno scenario idilliaco già percorso da tensioni violente), "L'ora cruciale", "L'abisso". La scelta di un punto di vista unico e interno alla narrazione, quello di un adolescente disorientato e privo di capacità di giudizio (e che racconta da vecchio, ma ci fa vedere con i suoi occhi di ragazzo, senza "sporcare" quasi mai lo sguardo vergine di allora con la consapevolezza acquisita successivamente, o, meglio, tenendo ben separati i due momenti), fa sì che la storia collettiva e individuale, i moventi delle masse e dei singoli, risultino misteriosi, incomprensibili, terrificanti. E vedendo con quegli occhi anche a noi sembrano così, e ci facciamo mille domande.
Su questo libro si potrebbe dire molto, e alcune notazioni utili si trovano (sebbene a mio avviso se ne manchi il "cuore"), nell'articolo che potete leggere qui, con un consiglio: se l'argomento vi interessa, evitate di chiuderlo tirando un porcone al primo paragrafo (è stato pubblicato su "Il Foglio", del resto):
http://www.ilfoglio.it/soloqui/14107
"Alle soglie del capolavoro. Per esserlo gli manca quel timbro inconfondibile - di stile, d'imponenza, d'aggressività - che costituisce la cifra ineffabile e per certi versi misteriosa dei pochissimi sommi autori."
"I nostri padri" è un romanzo storico ambientato all'inizio della guerra di secessione, momento cruciale che ha ossessionato l'immaginario collettivo americano, in cui l'evento è stato mille volte rivissuto attraverso racconti, romanzi, film e sceneggiati televisivi. Riguardo a ciò, posso dire che per la prima volta ho avuto l'occasione di penetrare a fondo questo pezzo di storia americana: proprio il fatto di non trovarmi di fronte le abituali classificazioni schematiche mi ha reso difficile la comprensione di alcuni passaggi e mi ha fatto riflettere su quanto fossi condizionata da tutte quelle storie viste al cinema (cinque stelle anche solo per questo). Ma "I nostri padri" è anche, e soprattutto, un allucinante romanzo psicologico e una tragedia greca in tre atti: "Colle ameno" (uno scenario idilliaco già percorso da tensioni violente), "L'ora cruciale", "L'abisso". La scelta di un punto di vista unico e interno alla narrazione, quello di un adolescente disorientato e privo di capacità di giudizio (e che racconta da vecchio, ma ci fa vedere con i suoi occhi di ragazzo, senza "sporcare" quasi mai lo sguardo vergine di allora con la consapevolezza acquisita successivamente, o, meglio, tenendo ben separati i due momenti), fa sì che la storia collettiva e individuale, i moventi delle masse e dei singoli, risultino misteriosi, incomprensibili, terrificanti. E vedendo con quegli occhi anche a noi sembrano così, e ci facciamo mille domande.
Su questo libro si potrebbe dire molto, e alcune notazioni utili si trovano (sebbene a mio avviso se ne manchi il "cuore"), nell'articolo che potete leggere qui, con un consiglio: se l'argomento vi interessa, evitate di chiuderlo tirando un porcone al primo paragrafo (è stato pubblicato su "Il Foglio", del resto):
http://www.ilfoglio.it/soloqui/14107
August 19, 2016
This is old school writing, precise in its words as well as its philosphy. More akin to Faulkner than to anything more recent. Tate, of course, was one of the Southern Agrarians but was mainly a poet and served as Poet Laureate in the 1940s. He was also widely published as an essayist; this is his only novel.
One might think Tate would write a "Lost Cause" type of work, but this is not that. The plot takes place over about a year, from the spring of 1860 until just before the battle of Manassas in July 1861, and details the decline - moral, emotional, and monetary - of two esteemed Southern families, the Buchans, of Fairfax County, Va., and the Poseys, of Georgetown. The families' fall is supposed to mirror and symbolize the fall of Virginia itself. Readers can debate whether it does that successfully, and to be sure, there are some racial attitudes depicted that may shock and surprise. However, this is a well written book that offers much for modern readers to ponder, particularly in the ways the tensions between the two families mirror those in the nation at large.
One might think Tate would write a "Lost Cause" type of work, but this is not that. The plot takes place over about a year, from the spring of 1860 until just before the battle of Manassas in July 1861, and details the decline - moral, emotional, and monetary - of two esteemed Southern families, the Buchans, of Fairfax County, Va., and the Poseys, of Georgetown. The families' fall is supposed to mirror and symbolize the fall of Virginia itself. Readers can debate whether it does that successfully, and to be sure, there are some racial attitudes depicted that may shock and surprise. However, this is a well written book that offers much for modern readers to ponder, particularly in the ways the tensions between the two families mirror those in the nation at large.
June 13, 2023
I usually donate my books when I’m done reading them with the exception of a special few that’ll stay in my library. Although I’ll recommend it to the right person, I doubt I’ll ever loan out my personal copy
This story is such an intricate look at a misunderstood & mis-told time in US history. The writer lived later than the antebellum period he’s writing about but you’d only know that if you read his bio
This one is definitely not for everyone but if it’s for you, you’ll read it & feel the same
Hope I can get my kids to read it one day but their brains are just about good & melted, this book is worth picking that battle for
This story is such an intricate look at a misunderstood & mis-told time in US history. The writer lived later than the antebellum period he’s writing about but you’d only know that if you read his bio
This one is definitely not for everyone but if it’s for you, you’ll read it & feel the same
Hope I can get my kids to read it one day but their brains are just about good & melted, this book is worth picking that battle for
December 9, 2012
A difficult and beautiful book, that frustrates you with its insistence on going nowhere--until you realize that going nowhere is exactly what Tate wanted to convey, to show as the only defensible reaction to the confusing evil that is men trying to live in times of moral uncertainty and confusion. Perhaps the truest book written about the experience of the Civil War I've ever read, as I think it evokes what the people caught up in its myriad confusions and evils must have felt.
December 28, 2007
This is an extraordinarily ambitious, even philosophical book about the South. The (small-ish) part of this book that I liked, however, was its sketch of the traditional Southern gentleman (something I partially identify with).
Restrained, polite, forceful (even brutal) when necessary - he's a person for whom "nothing is ever personal".
Restrained, polite, forceful (even brutal) when necessary - he's a person for whom "nothing is ever personal".
February 5, 2009
Magnificent. Who'd of thought there exists a work of fiction written as the utter manifestation of the Nietzschean Will to Power. Good and bad have nothing to do with who is the hero/protagonist of this book. We learn that the only heroes are those who act, whether that action be right or wrong. Wild.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
April 13, 2016
Definitely Southern! As the story jumps in time somewhat, it can be a little tricky to follow at times. I thought I could guess where the book was going, but it kept me guessing at almost every turn. As the character Lacy is telling the story of his youth from old age, we realize early on that he will survive; the tragic character(s) in this story being the Buchan family itself.
October 31, 2008
rape, murder, (fratricide, natch) madness, the civil war. typical southern novel.
May 1, 2014
More than loved. Best book of my life.
May 30, 2016
Excellent Gothic Southern novel, lots of interior horror, a la Faulkner. Gripping. Not always easy to follow. Delivers an intense emotional impact.
Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews