Customer Reviews

A World Made of Fire

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I can't believe that the reviewer below so totally missed the point of "A World Made of Fire." It's rather silly to criticize an allegory for being allegorical .... and to complain of the use of "Creole" and "Cajun" dialects in a novel very clearly set in Alabama shows us where he or she is coming from.

My advice to Childress fans: check out this remarkable first novel. It contains the seeds of nearly all his themes: tragedy, family, religion, and the supernatural. A wonderful book.

Well, I was warned that this one would not be as comedic as other Mark Childress novels, but I still found myself giggling quite often. You can not help but fall in love with Stella, who manages to always stay positive and keep family, however messed up it is, above all else. The relationship between Stella and Jacko (yes, weird old Uncle Jacko from One Mississippi!) was so touching and their discourse flat out cracked me up. I'm always ready to read more of Mark Childress, and this early novel of his was no let down!

Overall: 4 1/2 stars

Plot/Storyline: 4 1/2 stars

A World Made of Fire is a well-constructed southern allegory. As such, it starts with small fragments that the reader has to slowly gather and connect and later to understand. Gradually, the pieces do add up and the story moves forward.

I was impressed by the way that the story moves both forward and backward at the same time. It progresses in a fairly linear fashion from 1909 to the beginnings of World War I as we witness the endless chain of tragedies that befall Callie and her children. At the same time, it is only as Stella tries to look back and understand her family, that these events become clear.

Near the beginning of the book, each incident seems brief and isolated, but events do build on each other in a way that makes sense and the resolution has the appropriate balance of resolution and uncertainty.

Characters: 5 stars

At first, I found it difficult to connect with the characters in A World Made of Fire. Callie was deliberately opaque, Stella was far too accepting, and the men were southern stereotypes (kindly doctor, half-crazy neighbor). It wasn't really until Little Brown Mary appeared that I began to appreciate the character development.

Once I started to see characters, particularly Stella and Jacko through the lens that Little Brown Mary provided, the subtleties started to shine through. Then, Jacko and Stella seemed to open up and their perceptions help to build the reader's view of the whole community.

In the end, I felt that A World Made of Fire was populated with human, flawed, interesting characters.

Writing Style: 4 stars

There is a lot of good writing in A World Made of Fire. Allegory is difficult to write and it tends to lend itself to a closer scrutiny of the use of language than other writing styles.

The narration is strong and lyrical. Phrases like, "She shook her head as if fate were a hairnet..." stick in the reader's mind in a pleasing way. The dialogue has a nice rhythm and the settings are vivid.

It is the use of imagery that did not entirely work for me. I felt that the images and uses of fire were a little heavy-handed and that the author could have trusted his readers a little bit more. I was also intrigued by all of the hound and dog imagery at the beginning of the book that didn't seem to add up to anything by the end. I kept wanting it to mean more than it did.

Overall, this is a rich, affecting book.

I am so excited to find this book is back in print since it is one of my favorite gift items to send to new friends... if you are a fan of Southern Gothic, you'll fall into the world of Jacko and his associated family of characters like a mayfly into sorghum molasses. Childress's facility for focusing the reader on the tiniest detail then expanding it to encompass the universe in only a few short sentences is mind-blowing. This is a fabulous book, and you'll be so glad you read it!

I am thrilled to find this book is again readily available since it is one of my favorite gifts to new friends. If you're a fan of Southern Gothic, you will fall into the world of Jacko and his associated characters like a mayfly into sorghum molasses. Childress's ability to focus the reader upon the tiniest detail and then expand the vision, in only a few sentences, to encompass the universe is mind-blowing. Read this book. It's unique, compelling, challenging and moving. You will be so glad you did.

Very hard to put down, very character driven, mystical to some extent but not in an implausible way -- it is like twenty-first century hindsight can explain what is going on while the characters understandably attribute so much to fate, religion, or some fear that a little crippled boy holds magic in his mind. That makes for an interesting book that takes the reader to a completely different place that then feels oddly familiar.

The author of Crazy in Alabama and One Mississippi started it all with this one, but it really does not read like a first novel. It is complete in its own right, even though one of the more interesting characters -- the uneducated but intuitive bent-legged Jacko -- reappears some three generations later in One Mississippi too, in more humorous fashion. This one is set almost a century ago but places the reader right there, right then, in a way that is not distracting but immersive.

I note that one the first reviewers was, of all people, Harper Lee -- and she really liked it. That is a good thumbs up, I'd say.

NB. I bought the Kindle edition.

Since I loved Crazy in Alabama, I thought I would go back and read earlier novels by Childress. This was his first, and much different than I expected. The characters were much less defined, often to the point of being ambiguous, and the characters were used to create emotional states, or sensory images, rather than a fleshing out of real people. This novel was laden with allegories, metaphors, sensations, and juxtapositions that were often incongruous and disturbing. Heavy use of a very rural Creole and Cajun vernacular and frame of references which were often to the point of excess. I had trouble following dialogue because of the language.

Unlike Crazy in Alabama which was a funny, human (albeit implausible) adventure depicting the variances in human nature and a real sense of history and it's impact on our socio/cultural development, this novel was steeped in a surreal aura, almost out of time and place, with characters who were very disjointed and disturbed. There was nothing funny, and the storyline was not fluid. However, the author does show that he can create incredible imagery with words and sounds, and give you a sense of "being there" at a given moment. The images linger with you.

Riveting, I couldn't put this book down. Wonderful historical setting and a very dark look at rural america. What makes this so scary is it is completely believable. The characters could be sitting in the room with you. Fast paced. At times it does slip into language of that time which is difficult for some but flows nicely with the tone of the book. One of my favorite reads this year.

I love all of Mark Childress's books, except for "World Made of Fire." I couldn't even get through it. Childress is from the South, and obviously influenced by Faulkner. Seeing as how this was Childress's first book, I can only conclude that it was intended as an homage to Faulkner. However, it's about as close to Faulkner as a Designer Imposters knock off is to Chanel No. 5. It reads as though Childress outlined a Faulkner novel, and then changed a few things and spat out "World Made of Fire." Don't waste your time. Read "V for Victor" or "Tender" instead.