Woody Guthrie - Seeds of Man

 

This was yet another impulse buy, as I wanted to help out a bookstore that was closing. Of course, I am a Guthrie fan though I was not familiar with this book at all, but it was in very good shape for a very good price, and I wanted to see what else the man had to say.

Turns out this is a sorta/kinda autobiographical story, although, per the forward, he took a number of liberties with the facts and even with the people involved - which I guess is why the sub-title is "An Experience Lived and Dreamed". The tale is told mostly through conversation, with an emphasis on the dialects spoken - plenty of slang, nicknames, abbreviations, made-up words and hillbilly /Mexican /Native American/etc. accents. 

Here, Woody is set to ramble on to Canada with some family members when the women-folks talk the men outta it (it was in the middle of a blizzard) and instead, Woody convinced several of them to go with him searchin' for a lost gold mine down south on the Mexico boarder! Cobbled together from at least a couple of different manuscripts, the story flows well and you get the feel for the different folks involved. Considering the time it was written - mostly in the 40's - there are fairly explicit sex scenes which kinda surprised me, as did some of the language used.

The men run into quite a cast of characters on their treacherous way down south, sometimes pushing their truck up hills (with humorous notations of people walking alongside the truck without getting left behind) or flying down declines with little or no brakes or spending time in a little town while waiting for someone to give them directions. Cowboys, children, medicine men, and, of course, more enticing women.

Nineteen year old Woody learns some life lessons - at least presumably/hopefully he does - as the men go through multitudes of changes and discover things they never knew about each other and the world. There's not an easy/happy/precise ending, but each of the four go searching for themselves in the end.

While it takes a bit to get used to Woody's dialectic writing style, it does work within the confines of the tale and it ends up being quite enjoyable. Well worthwhile!