★★★★☆ Eclipse memories

South Moon Under

Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings

As a college undergrad I went through a Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings phase. It was a brief phase, unfortunately, because she published only a few books -- three main fiction works that I know of: The Yearling (her most famous novel), The Sojourner (my favorite), and this one, South Moon Under. One of these days I will get around to reviewing the first two.

I was reminded of South Moon Under last Sunday, 7-Apr-2024. That was the day before a total solar eclipse visible in North America. A FaceBook friend of mine posted a meme showing a picture of a full moon with the words "Don't forget, tonight the Moon will be visible from Earth. The last time this happened was last night." IMO this joke would have been funnier were it not 100% wrong. On the night before an eclipse the Moon is close to the sun in the sky. That means that at night, when the sun is hidden behind the Earth, the Moon is also hidden. There is no Moon the night before and after a solar eclipse.

The Florida woodsmen who are the subject of the stories in this book understood this perfectly, and they even had a name for this position of the moon "South Moon Under". They were conscious of the moon because it affected the behavior of the plants and animals in the forests they hunted for their living. Of course it is not a surprise that animals would respond to the Moon -- a bright light in the sky at night. But the characters also see animal behavior responding to South Moon Under, although the Moon is at that time invisible on the other side of the Earth. The title South Moon Under evokes this connection -- concrete but aware of things unseen -- of the Florida woodsmen to their natural world.

This is not my favorite of Rawlings's books, but it is nevertheless a very good book, with the best title!

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