Comments on: Blood and Tobacco: Robert Penn Warren’s “Night Rider”

By: J.D. Salyer

J.D. Salyer — Sat, 13 Feb 2010 18:33:04 +0000

Thanks all, for the informative and/or amusing comments.

@ John: I appreciate your reflections. You are correct, my conclusion does not, of course, do justice to the novel — I don’t even mention Willie Proudfit, much less try to make sense of his role. Based on ATKM, clearly Warren has an intriguing habit of employing the story-within-a-story.

In this piece I consciously limited myself and condensed my commentary, based on my assessment of what would be suitable length for a web-based forum.

I suppose a big part of the motivation behind the article — aside from my actual thesis, of course — is a desire to get people interested in RPW and the novel, as well as to get them to realize that literature can be a source of insight into real life as opposed to being mere highbrow entertainment.

Should I ever compose a longer, expanded essay on *Night Rider*, I will be sure to take your remarks into account.

By: John

John — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 01:18:51 +0000

Interesting essay on RPW, but it may give the wrong impression of the novel as a whole. You do well to point to the ambiguity in the narration, but I’m not sure your conclusion does justice to that narration. If Front Porchers are contempo-agrarians, Warren is surely the most ambiguous regarding his membership in the association. The ending–of Perce Munn and the novel–provides some credence that there is something to the claim that there is more to fanaticism than impersonal social economic forces. That’s part of the reason for the juxtaposition of the Willie Proudfit sections to the general story of the Perce and the Association.

BTW –”As is typical of Warren’s later novels”–though Night Rider is Warren’s first novel based on an earlier long-short story called “Prime Leaf.”

By: hcat

hcat — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 05:20:13 +0000

Why, if I smoke at all, it’s American Spirit Reds.

By: Forgotten History: The Real Tobacco Wars | Conservative Heritage Times

Forgotten History: The Real Tobacco Wars | Conservative Heritage Times — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 16:51:21 +0000

[...] though, the story deviates from the script, for the farmers refused to roll over and die… | | | | | [...]

By: Bob Cheeks

Bob Cheeks — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 22:36:17 +0000

Mr. Sayler, this is an outstanding study and one I truly enjoyed. Bravo, and thank you.
A few years ago I did a paper on RPW and spent a great deal of time on the phone with his daughter a kind, gracious, and considerate human being and a terrific poet in her own right. It must have been a challenge to be the daughter of RPW but she loves her “Papa.”

By: John Médaille

John Médaille — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 18:49:52 +0000

Why did they refuse to love their freedom?

Know ye the market, and the market shall set you free.

By: sdf

sdf — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 17:50:33 +0000

“Entrusting it with moral order is guaranteed to produce fire and ruin.”

And terrorism.