A Study Guide to

Red Mountain, the Novel, by Charles Entrekin

by Paul Dolinsky, Ph.D

A passion for ideas is the original glue which binds a group of young Birmingham students, circa 1965. For about 7 years, we follow this group of college friends. They regard conventional views on family, religion, career, social and sexual mores, as false and hypocritical. The Civil Rights struggle, including events in Birmingham, provides the background, as our characters struggle to balance elements within themselves to achieve happiness, while also striving for social justice. The first person narrator, is a student of philosophy and literature.

The author of Red Mountain, like his narrator, grew up in Birmingham during the time frames in the novel, and so, there is a keen attentiveness to details of time and place, that help make the accounts vivid. This sense of detail carries through to the other cities, and to the historical events, brief accounts of which, preface some of the chapters.
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In Red Mountain, we have at once, an existentialist drama and a kind of morality play – can people can live on the edge, in absolute freedom from conventions, and survive?  The inscription of the book, Nietzsche’s famous quote from Beyond Good and Evil sets the tone –  the lack of fixed boundaries in non-conforming attitudes and behaviors, could lead one to destructive attitudes and behavior.  But there are successes too, as we watch our narrator and main character, learn to balance his life, and try to help his wife, too.    

The attitudes and life-style choices of the characters give us living vantage points from which to survey philosophy, in theory and practice. So arose the idea of Study Guide for Red Mountain, the Novel.  Should one live for today, apart from consequences? How should one combine, in daily living ; the life of the mind, and the life of the heart?   What are the implications of unbridled hedonism?  How free are people to make choices, as free will vs. determinism, on the individual and social levels; and  social conventions vs. social justice?

This Study Guide is designed for different people: individual readers; philosophy tutors; students in college classes, and teachers of college level courses in philosophy, humanities, and liberal arts.  Red Mountain, the novel, presents a wealth of issues for discussion in such classes as Introduction to Philosophy, Philosophy and Literature, Ethics, Existentialism, and Social Philosophy. To study philosophy in the context of literature helps the readers appreciate the importance of both art and ideas, and how these are combined, in our daily lives. Readers who have lived through this tumultuous period in American history, can experience again, the flavor of that time, with its trials and successes. Younger readers could  gain a real sense of those times, by reading Red Mountain, the novel, with a gentle assist from this study guide.  Red Mountain, the novel, is beautifully written, and its engaging style will keep readers reading and thinking.