Customer Reviews

The Beans of Egypt, Maine

5 star:		(22)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

Reading this novel will make you feel like the brave individuals who want to experience the more unfortunate part of our world...some such adventurous souls take on the garb and guise of a homeless person...actually going out to spend time, sleep on our planets big city streets and "really" find out how the other half lives...Or, barring the misfortune of having been born into and raised in the fictional but epidemically unfortunate true to life community of "Egypt" Maine, and/or not wanting to experience homelessness or extreme poverty and it's trappings yourself...it is possible to get a strong idea of what it's like to live how Ms. Chute describes by working in one of the social services...in particuarly, teaching...

This reviewer has taught in the area of New England ( New Hampshire and Maine ) that Ms. Chute describes...and while I have since been teaching in a nearby state, I can tell you that she is right on in her descriptions of many New England, or for that matter, ANY of the rural and too often depressed locales that cover our country.
Often, as was this reviewer's experience, such counties are indeed populated by three or four "Maine" family names that account for a disproportionate amount of the community and surrounding schools. These "families" or really, distended living groups, certainly with no semblage of a nuclear family, tend to always be at the head of the local police department's blotter and also tend to acquire the lion's share of their self admitted need for help and social services.

It is hard not to read Ms. Chute's work without coming to the "conclusions" that she hopes the fair minded reader will avoid. To be sure, everyone's own background and their own growing up experiences definitely have a strong bearing on what one will take away from this book...

Have such families squandered opportunities given to them over the years...Are they just lazy and no good?...Are they just hardluck folks missing out because of battling a day to day existence?...Is education or lack of it and an inability to follow their own interests and preferences into meaningful life experiences that will help them in their personal pursuits and the work world the problem?...Is there something to this problem that everyone is overlooking including those who live and exist in such poverty?...Perhaps combinations of all of this?...

Love it or loathe it...This book will definitely make you think!

This is not a novel for those looking for a simple, pre-digested read with a typical setting-action-climax structure. This is a literary novel - rife with atmosphere, amazing imagery and allegory - and well worth the extra brain-cell workout it might take to discover all the nuances. Even without the analytical approach, you'll enjoy it as a fresh and unsettling picture of poor poor poor life in America - it's a window to another world.

This collection of inter-related short stories presents a dim picture of life in rural, backwoods America. Chute does a good job of highlighting a largely neglected aspect of poverty in the contemporary United States: the existence of a white underclass whose number may even surpass that of their urban black or Hispanic counterparts. The former are much less conspicuous, largely being rural, more spread out, and less easily identified by their physical characteristics. The groups all suffer from similar malaise, however: poverty, high rates of illegitimacy, violence, run-ins with the law, and alienation from larger society. The author also does a good job showing how the younger characters come to increasingly resemble their older counterparts. Thus, young Beal Bean tragically mimics the violence of his uncle Reuben and Earlene Pomerleau sadly comes to take the place of Reuben's wife Madeline.

All the stereotypes about hillbillies are presented in this novel: incest, mental retardation, bad teeth. One wonders if the cultural elites would lavish their accolades on a similar novel that featured criminal, foot-shuffling, watermelon-eating African-American characters. Still, stereotypes didn't get to be stereotypes if large numbers of real characters who fit the type weren't readily observable. There is a thin line between stereotypes and archetypes, between parodying the traits of a particular group and epitomizing them. It's just hard to decide on which side of this line Chute's novel falls.

The Bean family consists of several generations of poor, uneducated, working folk in the rural town of Egypt, Maine. The author has created a community where the family members (and there are plenty of `em) depend on each other for basic survival needs but little else. I found that very few of the characters were likable; however, I acknowledge the wonderfully crafted language and simplistic prose that make up the novel. I'm glad I read the "finished" version; were it not for this edition, I may have fallen victim to the very classism that the author criticizes in the postscripts. Although the author challenges the reader to empathize with the struggles of the Beans, it was difficult for me to read the book without reading incestuous behavior into the daily lives and inner workings of the family. I don't want to believe that the incestuous overtones I garnered from the text are due to an "upper/middle-class" view of the poorest of America's citizens. I'm more apt to believe that the Beans are a clan without boundaries and with few principles. It is possible to be destitute, uneducated, unemployed, undernourished, and unvalued but still have a few basic human values that extend beyond the shelter and protection of the family . . . isn't it?

The story is interesting. The pace is fitting. Although I never felt like putting the book down, I didn't plough through it either. I consider this a good read because it challenges the way that I think about love and familial affection. This is an excellent group read as well - the more perspectives the better. Have at it!

I wonder if I should be even thinking of reviewing this book, given that I have had the very good fortune of being friends with the author for over 20 years now -- we met before "Beans" was published.

However, I also feel that somebody out there should understand that this is a wonderful, honest, painful, loving, remarkable book. Carolyn writes about things she knows, and then gets very up close and personal about it.

This book is an attempt to show those who have never known [or even seen] the lives of people some would term "unfortunate" and others simply disdain, and to show that THESE PEOPLE ARE PEOPLE JUST LIKE EVERYBODY ELSE. Being poor does not mean that one cannot live with dignity, or honesty, or humor. Being poor does mean that these people are often forced to live in a society that demeans them, insults them, and often forces them into places where they are regarded as nothing but yesterday's garbage.

Let there be no mistake; The Beans are with us, and are not about to go away anytime soon, nor should they. If we have eyes to read and lips to read aloud the story of The Beans, we just might realize that they have much to teach us about truth, honor, respect, and love.

I understand that many people will not understand how on earth I can make this statement because I understand that many people prefer to look for the tawdry and speciousness in environments that they find uncomfortable or even unbelievable.

But this is above all a book of hope. It shows us that everyone lives a life of worth and influence, even if at times some of these "everyones" live lives that are in large part cruel and uncaring. And in that is the challenge of this book; to look below the surface and to see that all of us are part of the Bean family, and that we should value that relationship.

This book is an amazing literary achievement, and this is a statement that I never make lightly -- even if the author happens to be a friend. So read it and try to let its power and honesty confer those qualities in abundance in your lives. You may not find them in your first reading of the book, but trust me -- they're there.

Many years ago, I had to read this book when I began working for our local Legal Aid Society. It's amazing to me how "The Book of Ruth" got so much publicity when this book did a much better job of detailing the desperate lives of people living in poverty.

I write reviews for a local newspaper and when "Ruth" came out, I reviewed it, mentioning this book. Several readers called to tell me they read this book instead of "Ruth" and to express their gratitude for my recommendation.

If you need to look into the eye of abject poverty, forget Oprah's suggestion. Read this book.

This book is unlike any other book I've read, though it does remind me of Faulkner's "As I Lay Dying." It is so completely believable-the imagery is excellent--not excessive--just enough to create an image that you can feel with all your senses. The story unfolds in such an unexpected way...I couldn't put it down, and when I finished it, I couldn't stop thinking about it for days. I highly recommend it.

This is a totally unexpected literary treat. Written with an clear, earthy feel for the characters' ever-revloving entrampment in their culture and destinies, Ms. Chute creates an indelible picture of destitute life in the backwoods of Maine. The writing is creative and well-crafted enticing the reader to boldly view the borderless and interwoven lives of these subjects. This is reading on a par with "The Grapes of Wrath".

For years I have used this book to give a little reality check to students considering direct service work in the human services world. Do they see themselves as open and accepting of so alien a culture? Are they prepared to work with families like the Beans by looking for strengths on which to build?

The Beans are everywhere: in rural Maine, the Ozarks, the Oklahoma panhandle and the dreary delta of the Mississippi.
They have trailer towns full of the Beans in Idaho and Michigan.
They are overlooked because we do not want to see their shacks as we drive down our road, or hear their dogs howling in the cold of long winter nights. To see them is to acknowledge that they have carved out a lifestyle from the underbelly of ours, and that they breed and prosper. And sometimes even have dignity and rights.

This was a hard book to read, because the subject matter is unpleasant. The Beans are those people whose children cannot behave while at the grocery store, and who are blind and deaf to the mayhem they create. They are the ones who drive junky old cars through your neighborhood at 11 PM on a weekday with the radio really loud. They are the ones who chew with their mouths open at the fast food joint. Not a pretty group, not a pretty book.

There is a poem by Khalil Gibran about children, that goes something like: "They come through you, but they are not yours". Ms. Chute should have realized that this could also be applied to novels. She could have saved herself the trouble of inserting some commentary in the "new and improved" finished version. I would have given the book more stars if Ms. Chute had refrained from telling me how wrong I was in my reading of the novel. My consolation is that I was not alone in my mistakes. Apparently, lots of people have approached Ms. Chute with the same errors I have made. These misunderstandings have incensed Ms. Chute so much that she's been compelled to clarify her meaning for us all.

Too bad of a wasted time, because of course I like my reading of the book much better. This is the beauty of literature, this is what makes a book unique for each one. If someone else were doing the reading for us, it wouldn't be as much fun.

So, my advice is to pick up a copy of the "unfinished" version instead, and save yourself the nagging postscript.