Toni Morrison--not on !00 Best Books of the Century list???
Ange...@aol.com
on in my personal life, but I just heard a news story on the Doug Banks show
that Toni Morrison's work was not included in the list of "Best 100 Books of
the Century". This is not suprising, but it's still an outrage to me. Nothing
else in that vast wasteland of white-men-with-self-induced-angst-about-every-
damn-thing that everyone considers to be "great American literature" comes
even slightly close to Ms. Morrison's work. My view may be subjective of
course, but is it any less valid than theirs? They voted for their self-
absorbed view of life with their choices, and somehow it's the "best". I'm
totally disgusted.
Angela D. Shortt
holman
It actually kind of bears out what an English prof. (African Amer) who
shall remain unnamed says: White folks dearly love crowing over the
works of Ms. Morrison when in reality they have no idea what she said or
was trying to say. Its simply the proper thing to do. Kinda like Colin
Powell's popularity OUTSIDE the voting booth having NO relationship to
his popularity INSIDE the booth.
What amazed me was that James Baldwin, Richard Wright and Ralph Ellison
DID make it.
What was disgusting beyond belief for ME was that that racist idiot
Joseph Conrad made it THREE times. I won't even mention that Hemmingway
character.
alice
Rose Marie Holt
> Ange...@aol.com wrote:
> >
> > I haven't been around here very much lately because there's been a lot going
> > on in my personal life, but I just heard a news story on the Doug Banks show
> > that Toni Morrison's work was not included in the list of "Best 100 Books of
> > the Century". This is not suprising, but it's still an outrage to me.
Nothing
> > else in that vast wasteland of
white-men-with-self-induced-angst-about-every-
> > damn-thing
That pretty much sums up the sorry tone of that list.
> > My view may be subjective of
> > course, but is it any less valid than theirs?
In article <35B513...@carbon.cudenver.edu>, holman
<aho...@carbon.cudenver.edu> wrote:
>
> It actually kind of bears out what an English prof. (African Amer) who
> shall remain unnamed says: White folks dearly love crowing over the
> works of Ms. Morrison when in reality they have no idea what she said or
> was trying to say. Its simply the proper thing to do. Kinda like Colin
> Powell's popularity OUTSIDE the voting booth having NO relationship to
> his popularity INSIDE the booth.
>
>
> alice
Just because a publisher interested in promoting his product ginned up
this list probably with the help of his buddies from English Lit 30 yrs
ago, that that means we "mainstreamers" think it's any less crap-acious
than you do.
I read that list and I thought it was pretty subjective. The list was
overpopulated with dark depressing and in some cases somewhat pornographic
stuff. No George Eliot. Very few women at all.
I dont have any problem saying this list is far too subjective and
one-sided to apply to me as a reader of good English Language novels.
I was planning to give it the attention it deserves - scanty.
FWIW, I have read some Toni Morrison, and I got something meaningful out
of it. Maybe not what you got out of it, or what she meant, but that is
the dialogue between writer and reader. I doubt JD Salinger feels that
most of his White Male readers got out of his books what he meant to put
in them, for instance. I got more out of her books than out of Go Tell It
On the Mountain, not to say which is "better", but which meant more to me.
The list *did* give me some material for my ever-growing reading list. I
have attacked Ulysses four or five times and have yet to get past the 6th
page, and I have a guidebook ;')
Since you mention Colin Powell, I was listening to the radio during the
Repub convention wondering who that eloquent speaker was who was saying
all that sensible smart stuff (Not what I expected from the Repub
convention). Turns out, of course, it was Powell. If he had decided to
run, he would have had a he** of a shot at doing well, perhaps winning.
He chose not to, to the disappointment of many White folks - even in
Idaho. (We're suckers for that uniform ;') )
Jerome Walker
[ edit ]
>What amazed me was that James Baldwin, Richard Wright and Ralph Ellison
>DID make it.
Why were you amazed?
--
"Ignorance is the thing that makes most men get into a political party and
shame is what keeps them from getting out of it." - George Savile
Jerome Walker
holman
>
> In article <35B513...@carbon.cudenver.edu>,
> holman <aho...@carbon.cudenver.edu> wrote:
>
> [ edit ]
>
> >What amazed me was that James Baldwin, Richard Wright and Ralph Ellison
> >DID make it.
>
> Why were you amazed?
>
spectacularly boring stuff.
alice
Gabrielle Theresa Daniels
> What amazed me was that James Baldwin, Richard Wright and Ralph
> Ellison DID make it.
Because they were men, because they were concerned with other (ahem!)
weighty issues other than being black, because they made the appropriate
noises.
Wright thought of himself as an existentialist. Baldwin was concerned
with the life of the writer and Ellison was an integrationist as well as
being well-known as an essayist and music critic who also gave the
cosmic smack to some knowitalls (see "Shadow and Act").
It just goes to show how scary women writers are. But what can you
expect? Time magazine talked about the 100 revolutionaries and
earthshakers--most white men and few women.
> What was disgusting beyond belief for ME was that that racist idiot
> Joseph Conrad made it THREE times. I won't even mention that
> Hemmingway character.
I like Conrad for "Heart of Darkness." Hemingway is still missing in
action in my book.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
"La pauvete napas ene vis, mes li ene bien gros coulou."
(MAURITIUS Creole)
-"Poverty isn't a screw, but it's a very big nail."-
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Gabrielle Theresa Daniels+...@ea.oac.uci.edu++gdan...@uci.edu
UNDER CONSTRUCTION: GRAND OPENING JULY 10
http:// www.geocities.com/~merlekinbona or
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Troy/7094
=======================================================================
Artclemons
>I haven't been around here very much lately because there's been a lot going
>on in my personal life, but I just heard a news story on the Doug Banks show
>that Toni Morrison's work was not included in the list of "Best 100 Books of
>the Century". This is not suprising, but it's still an outrage to me.
>Nothing
>else in that vast wasteland of white-men-with-self-induced-angst-about-every-
>damn-thing that everyone considers to be "great American literature" comes
>even slightly close to Ms. Morrison's work. My view may be subjective of
>course, but is it any less valid than theirs? They voted for their self-
>absorbed view of life with their choices, and somehow it's the "best". I'm
>totally disgusted.
I'm not sure that anything written by Morrison has risen to the level of
let's say a Baldwin, Wright, or Invisible Man. Works which although
dated remain powerful and have the ability to affect the reader.
Morrison's work also frankly doesn't offer all that much for male
readers to appreciate, especially African-American males. I note
for example that Giovanni's Room by Baldwin is not one of his best
books, nor is it one of the two thousand best books of the century.
Morrison may affect you strongly, but I suspect that away from her
apparent target audience, female and of African heritage, her message
misses more than it covers.
-art clemons-
Jerome Walker
Her writing style is too convoluted. There is no reason why a person should
have to read the same sentence or paragraph multiple times to get an
understanding of what is happening. And Morrison proudly states that she
writes that way on purpose.
holman
>
> I dont have any problem saying this list is far too subjective and
> one-sided to apply to me as a reader of good English Language novels.
>
> I was planning to give it the attention it deserves - scanty.
>
> FWIW, I have read some Toni Morrison, and I got something meaningful out
> of it. Maybe not what you got out of it, or what she meant, but that is
> the dialogue between writer and reader.
Would you be surprised (yes, I think) to find that in spite of the hype
and the Oprah book club that MANY African Americans are not all that
fond of Morrison or Alice Walker's writing. Me thinks you got touchy for
the incorrect reasons. Of course, I did NOT go on to say that that AA
professor (and a couple of her buddies - male AND female AAs) are not
that enamored of Ms. Morrison. It is one of those strange situations
where if you ask PUBLICALLY what somebody thinks of one of those
writers, you will get a glowing report. If you ask privately, a wnole
'nother story emerges. Its almost as if its a sacrilige if you "say"
you'd rather NOT read Morrison. Like admitting that you didn't think
Marin Luther King was all that all the time.
Being an incredibly lazy reader, I prefer authors to say it down front,
in simple language and spare me obscure dark overtones - as in the
writings of Richard Wright and Ralph Ellison - no doubt whatsoever what
those brothers were talking about. Sort of the same with James Baldwin
although he sometimes got mired in black/white love relationships that
got REAL deep for the time he was writing. I think his best was Go Tell
It On The Mountain. Now, Chester Himes - great old down-to-earth spinner
of hilarious yarns.
snip:
>
> Since you mention Colin Powell, I was listening to the radio during the
> Repub convention wondering who that eloquent speaker was who was saying
> all that sensible smart stuff (Not what I expected from the Repub
> convention). Turns out, of course, it was Powell. If he had decided to
> run, he would have had a he** of a shot at doing well, perhaps winning.
> He chose not to, to the disappointment of many White folks - even in
> Idaho. (We're suckers for that uniform ;') )
I think Powell is one of the great illustrations of Americas schizoid,
bi-polar, double talk, double standard reactions to things black and
white.
There is a need to hold certain black folks - be they writers,
politicians, preachers or crazy folk - up in an almost reverant light so
that down the road when we wish to blast all black folks and the
liberties and liscense they take (my grandma said white folks said of
them "give 'em an inch and they'll take a mile") we can point back to
the reverant ones as proof that we are not racist - or in the case of
black folks - being TOO hard on our peoples.
But writing - and what you like - is a personal choice.....me I LOVE
Barabara Neeley, Eleanor Taylor Bland, and many more with a fast read,
some lively entertainment, some fun and a real look at black life in
America. I re-read Wright and Baldwin just for kicks.
BTW, I've been TRYING to read Morrison for years - I have trouble and in
l984 I made a vow to stop forcing myself to read stuff for
"entertainment" that didn't entertain me.
alice
holman
>
> On Tue, 21 Jul 1998, holman wrote:
>
> > What amazed me was that James Baldwin, Richard Wright and Ralph
> > Ellison DID make it.
>
> Because they were men, because they were concerned with other (ahem!)
> weighty issues other than being black, because they made the appropriate
> noises.
Oh, I don't know if I would fully agree with you on this. Richard Wright
was very concerned with blackness and so was Baldwin. Richard Wright -
when I discovered him in jr high - opened the doors for me for many
wonderful hours of reading and exploring other black authors.
>
> Wright thought of himself as an existentialist. Baldwin was concerned
> with the life of the writer and Ellison was an integrationist as well as
> being well-known as an essayist and music critic who also gave the
> cosmic smack to some knowitalls (see "Shadow and Act").
All that being true, they were still very much into life as black folks
which is what I was looking for. Prior to that (hanging out in all white
schools) I was force fed white writers and it was just wonderful to know
that WE were out there also. And they spin darn good yarns - now I
wasn't all that thrilled with Baldwin's Tell Me How Long the Train Has
Been Gone but.....plus he was such a NICE man...so easy to talk to, so
friendly, so kind and very much into the civil rights movement. Of
course, I was an impressionable teen but very definately in love. I
know, I know (Giovani's Room) he was gay. And so?
snip:>
> I like Conrad for "Heart of Darkness." Hemingway is still missing in
> action in my book.
"Heart of Darkness" left a taste of sawdust in my mouth - all those
little cullud folk runnin' around. (Its been a while and I don't
remember it all that well - thak goodness) Hemingway - such gratuitous
racism!!!! Really uncalled for. Didn't help the plot or develop the
characters.
alice
holman
>
> I'm not sure that anything written by Morrison has risen to the level of
> let's say a Baldwin, Wright, or Invisible Man. Works which although
> dated remain powerful and have the ability to affect the reader.
> Morrison's work also frankly doesn't offer all that much for male
> readers to appreciate, especially African-American males. I note
> for example that Giovanni's Room by Baldwin is not one of his best
> books, nor is it one of the two thousand best books of the century.
> Morrison may affect you strongly, but I suspect that away from her
> apparent target audience, female and of African heritage, her message
> misses more than it covers.
HOLY COW!!!! You actually said that. I expect folks to hunt you down,
kill you and then look for your first born. Geez! You got cojones! I
have been afraid to voice those opinions except among people I am sure
are friends (and I make sure they ain't carrying, either, friend or not)
But when I have made vague comments to NOT getting all riled up about
her writing, some folks have timidly chimed in with a "I thought it was
me and that I was terminally stoopid" kind of response.
What blew me away was on the Oprah show - she (oprah) got all carried
away about reading Sula. She went into this long thingee about what she
had to do to prepare properly to enjoy the book. I decided that if I had
to do all that it was an outright chore - not an enjoyable interlude.
Shucks, that's why I gave up opera and ballet - it was a chore trying to
enjoy it. Books I really enjoy I usually read standing up because it
cuts down on the guilties about the laundry, rabid dust bunnies, dirty
dishes etc. Now that's enjoyment!
Cheers, babeeee!
alice
Pilar Quezzaire
: In article <35B513...@carbon.cudenver.edu>,
: holman <aho...@carbon.cudenver.edu> wrote:
: [ edit ]
: >What amazed me was that James Baldwin, Richard Wright and Ralph Ellison
: >DID make it.
: Why were you amazed?
I think the Top 100 shows not only blackwomen being marginalized, but
women at all. Tah-dah!
--
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Pilar Quezzaire-Belle Art Geek quez...@fas.harvard.edu
"What's this about ass-dragging? I think I'm a little behind..."
--Pilar Quezzaire-Belle
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
NY...@hotmail.com
wal...@panix.com (Jerome Walker) wrote:
> Toni Morrison is over hyped.
> Her writing style is too convoluted. There is no reason why a person should
> have to read the same sentence or paragraph multiple times to get an
> understanding of what is happening. And Morrison proudly states that she
> writes that way on purpose.
I guess it's one of those "to each his own" thangs. I love Morrison because
she challenges you. And because her books have some relevance to our history
(_Song of Solomon_ and _Beloved_ especially).
Is she the greatest writer? No. She is deserving of being listed though. She
is no more convuluted than Baldwin or Ellison, IMO. Part of the problem, I
believe, is her strong female characters. Many AfAms cannot deal with it and
simply label their interactions with _some_ negative male characters as
"bruvah bashing."
m. o. mutuembe: I haven't seen the list, but I think Jean Toomer's "Cane"
should definitely be included.
-----== Posted via Deja News, The Leader in Internet Discussion ==-----
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Ange...@aol.com
>
> I'm not sure that anything written by Morrison has risen to the level of
> let's say a Baldwin, Wright, or Invisible Man. Works which although
> dated remain powerful and have the ability to affect the reader.
> Morrison's work also frankly doesn't offer all that much for male
> readers to appreciate, especially African-American males. I note
> for example that Giovanni's Room by Baldwin is not one of his best
> books, nor is it one of the two thousand best books of the century.
> Morrison may affect you strongly, but I suspect that away from her
> apparent target audience, female and of African heritage, her message
> misses more than it covers.
I wasn't aware that people found Toni Morrison difficult. I guess the years
of being stuck in a desk as an English major has kept me insulated from those
opinions. But I have to disagree with your assumption that other readers find
no revelancy to her work. I just completed a theatre workshop with a group of
inmates in the California Youth Authority, and Ms. Morrison was one of the
authors they listed as one of their favorites. I thought that they would bring
up the subject of male bashing (which I really don't see in her work, at least
not to the degree of Alice Walker, Ntozake Shange and others), but they
didn't. They all said, interestingly enough, that they liked reading the
"sistah's point of view". Could have been a line to please the workshop
facilitators (me, another AA woman and an AA man), though. Anyway, Ralph
Ellison is my second favorite author, James Baldwin my third, so I don't have
any objections to their inclusion on the list. But "Giovanni's Room"? Please.
What's wrong with "Another Country?" That was my favorite Baldwin novel, but
again, that is a subjective opinion. No more subjective than the group that
voted this group of authors as "the best", however.
Richard Wright presents a problem for me, personally. I found his obsession
with either light skinned or white women tiresome after "Native Son", and I
have to agree with Zora Neale Hurston's criticism that he was part of the
"sobbing school of Negritude" (I'm paraphrasing). Maybe that's unfair,
considering that he was writing during Jim Crow. "Native Son" was powerful,
but in the midst of all that overwhelming racism the novel was Bigger's sexual
obsession, which led to disaster. And Wright's disdain for women was even more
pronounced in "Black Boy". But just as you say you can understand why I would
love Toni Morrison, Art, I can see why some men would think Richard Wright's
work to be extraordinary.
Angela D. Shortt
DarkStar
put forth:
> It is one of those strange situations
>where if you ask PUBLICALLY what somebody thinks of one of those
>writers, you will get a glowing report. If you ask privately, a wnole
>'nother story emerges. Its almost as if its a sacrilige if you "say"
>you'd rather NOT read Morrison. Like admitting that you didn't think
>Marin Luther King was all that all the time.
that's what i hear!!!!!
----- Sign Below The Dotted Line -----
Welcome to my virtual reality!
Ed Brown - dark...@flash.net
http://www.charm.com/~darkstar (Under construction)
Copyright, 1998 Edwin Brown
B...@my-dejanews.com
holman <aho...@carbon.cudenver.edu> wrote:
> Rose Marie Holt wrote:
> >
>
> > I dont have any problem saying this list is far too subjective and
> > one-sided to apply to me as a reader of good English Language novels.
> >
> > I was planning to give it the attention it deserves - scanty.
> >
> > FWIW, I have read some Toni Morrison, and I got something meaningful out
> > of it. Maybe not what you got out of it, or what she meant, but that is
> > the dialogue between writer and reader.
>
> Would you be surprised (yes, I think) to find that in spite of the hype
> and the Oprah book club that MANY African Americans are not all that
> fond of Morrison or Alice Walker's writing. Me thinks you got touchy for
> the incorrect reasons. Of course, I did NOT go on to say that that AA
> professor (and a couple of her buddies - male AND female AAs) are not
> where if you ask PUBLICALLY what somebody thinks of one of those
> writers, you will get a glowing report. If you ask privately, a wnole
> 'nother story emerges. Its almost as if its a sacrilige if you "say"
> you'd rather NOT read Morrison. Like admitting that you didn't think
> Marin Luther King was all that all the time.
>
> in simple language and spare me obscure dark overtones - as in the
> writings of Richard Wright and Ralph Ellison - no doubt whatsoever what
> those brothers were talking about. Sort of the same with James Baldwin
> although he sometimes got mired in black/white love relationships that
> got REAL deep for the time he was writing. I think his best was Go Tell
> It On The Mountain. Now, Chester Himes - great old down-to-earth spinner
> of hilarious yarns.
I'm surprised to hear this. I have encountered very few AfAms that disliked
Morrison. Most of my friends and colleagues (as well as most of my former
fellow students) loves her work. Those that expressed a dislike either
limited their books to lite reading or were politically inclined to label any
book by an AfAm with even a hint of a negative AfAm man as "bruvah bashing"
and didn't read her on principle.
People tend to forget that Morrison was widely read before Oprah and will
continue to be so long after Oprah leaves the airwaves. Her work has that
type of appeal and the simple fact that she is a Nobel recipient
automatically makes her a must-read.
m. o. mutuembe: I started reading Morrison as a sophomore in high school and
love almost every thing she's written. Chester Himes?
Gabrielle Theresa Daniels
The closer we get to the millenium, the more it seems like it is being
brought to us by Post Toasties or Kellogg's Corn Flakes.
We had the damn AFI 100 greatest American movies, with tie-ins to The
Wherehouse and some popcorn manufacturer.
I finally read about the 100 finest English-language novels published in
this century. It was compiled by Random House. It owns the Modern
Library. Therefore, this is a strategy put forth to get people to buy
books out of a line-up which has been going on since Random House was
started in the 1920s to show the best of English and American
writers--that is, THE CANON.
There was a 10-member editorial board. Eight of them were Random House
authors. They were Christopher Cerf (son of Bennett who used to be on
"What's My Line?" so many years ago), Gore Vidal (he should know
better), Daniel Boorstin, Shelby Foote (lord help us), A.S. Byatt,
Edmund Morris (biographer of Ronald Reagan--lord help us), John
Richardson, William Styron (lord help us). The non-Random House members
were Vartan Gregorian (former head of the N.Y. Public Library) and
Arthur M. Schlesinger (Kennedy chronicler).
Don't get me wrong. I like reading some of these people. But I would
like to see myself mentioned here, meaning someone like Morrison. And
with this kind of crew running the show, especially two very
controversial authors like Styron and Foote, both no friends of black
folks (no matter what Styron professes about his friendship with James
Baldwin, who wrote a novel or two in his summer house; and Foote, an
unrepentant old racist historian), there is no doubt people are going to
be snowed with the same old, same old.
And don't think that of color authors would support each other when the
deal goes down. Like Wanda Coleman said today in the L.A. Times, "...the
finger of culpability [points] at the voraciously vocal coterie of black
male critics who led a recent protest over the exclusions of black males
when Morrison was honored as the first African American Nobelist, male
or female. To these critics, the commercial success of Terry McMillan
added insult to injury, as did a significant period wen three works
written by black women made the New York Times bestseller list." To
these guys, Morrison getting the Nobel instead of say, Ralph Ellison or
Richard Wright, posthumously, was a declaration of war. Black male
writers are in jealous competition with black female writers and the
same goes down the line for other people of color. And no, Derek
Walcott don't count. Don't say the Man ain done his homework.
The list should have included international authors who write in English
as well as women of color. I see this list lauding two empires, the
British which handed over its power to the American at the end of the
Second World War. But "Portnoy's Complaint"? Booth Tarkington? "The
Studs Lonigan Trilogy"? Who reads this stuff? The wet dreams of an
obsessive? I haven't read Tarkington since grade school. Just what
makes him so unforgettable?
Sad and pathetic.
holman
>
>
> m. o. mutuembe: I haven't seen the list, but I think Jean Toomer's "Cane"
> should definitely be included.
I don't. He got "fame" in that odd way some folks do.....there was a
surge to "recognize" black writers for a period of time (like they do -
like black folks aren't writing all the time) and I'm glad he got
published and got famous but WHAT THE HECK WAS HE SAYING? Once again I
feel it is that nutzo attitude white folks sometimes (periodically) take
toward black folks - "we need to do something. oh yeah, here's one. must
be deep. yeah. sure. let's go for it." And nobody wants to say, "I
didn't understand a word that brother said." Everybody pretends. But
just my thoughts....frankly I think he had a mentally unbalanced moment
that got recorded as a book.
alice
David White
wrote:
>Toni Morrison is over hyped.
>Her writing style is too convoluted. There is no reason why a person should
>have to read the same sentence or paragraph multiple times to get an
>understanding of what is happening. And Morrison proudly states that she
>writes that way on purpose.
>
>--
>"Ignorance is the thing that makes most men get into a political party and
>shame is what keeps them from getting out of it." - George Savile
>
>Jerome Walker
>
Judging by the #1 book on the list -- Ulyssess, by James Joyce --
writing in a convoluted style is not necessarily a bad thing.
David
coqui...@my-dejanews.com
>
> What amazed me was that James Baldwin, Richard Wright and Ralph Ellison
> DID make it.
>
Just curious....were there any other women of color on the list?
Were women slighted generally? Were there other ethnic groups
represented? Other than WASP, i mean
Better yet, can you tell me where to find the list?
Kim
Gabrielle Theresa Daniels
[...]
> Is she the greatest writer? No. She is deserving of being listed
> though. She is no more convuluted than Baldwin or Ellison, IMO.
And they could get that way.
Ellison, unfortunately, could not finish his second book and stayed with
essay writing for the rest of his life. And Baldwin got dogged for
rehashing the same old, same old, time and again.
> Part of the problem, I believe, is her strong female characters. Many
> AfAms cannot deal with it and simply label their interactions with
> _some_ negative male characters as "bruvah bashing."
Double check.
> m. o. mutuembe: I haven't seen the list, but I think Jean Toomer's "Cane"
> should definitely be included.
TELL THE TRUTH...!
...and if not Hurston, Nella Larsen.
Artclemons
>James Baldwin my third, so I don't have
>any objections to their inclusion on the list. But "Giovanni's Room"?
>Please.
>What's wrong with "Another Country?" That was my favorite Baldwin novel, but
>again, that is a subjective opinion. No more subjective than the group that
>voted this group of authors as "the best", however.
GR didn't make the list, that was my point. His writing had ups and
downs and if Baldwin chose the wrong focus, the reader suffered
ala GR. The book was more of a coming out statement for Baldwin
than it was a great book. That's why I said it wasn't one of the two
thousand best books of the century. I think Morrison misses some
of her audience unless the audience is prepped for her. If an
author can't grab you, well that author may write well, but it's not
a great book. I'll give you the alternate test I have for a great book,
that's can I read the book, and 20 years not only remember it fondly,
but find new things that I missed the first time. I don't think Morrison
will pass that one for me, but then again I don't think that people like
David Bradley will either.
>Richard Wright presents a problem for me, personally. I found his obsession
>with either light skinned or white women tiresome after "Native Son", and I
>have to agree with Zora Neale Hurston's criticism that he was part of the
>"sobbing school of Negritude" (I'm paraphrasing). Maybe that's unfair,
>considering that he was writing during Jim Crow. "Native Son" was powerful,
>but in the midst of all that overwhelming racism the novel was Bigger's
>sexual
>obsession, which led to disaster. And Wright's disdain for women was even
>more
>pronounced in "Black Boy". But just as you say you can understand why I
>would
>love Toni Morrison, Art, I can see why some men would think Richard Wright's
>work to be extraordinary.
Wright either hits it off with a reader or he doesn't. I'll bet that no amount
of prepping will make the man's writing more palatable to you either.
Besides imagine if they'ld selected the books based on sales instead.
Hello Peyton Place!
-art clemons-
Carol Chandler
> In article <6p3k7g$7...@news1.panix.com>,
> wal...@panix.com (Jerome Walker) wrote:
> > Toni Morrison is over hyped.
> > Her writing style is too convoluted. There is no reason why a person should
> > have to read the same sentence or paragraph multiple times to get an
> > understanding of what is happening. And Morrison proudly states that she
> > writes that way on purpose.
>
> I guess it's one of those "to each his own" thangs. I love Morrison because
> she challenges you. And because her books have some relevance to our history
> (_Song of Solomon_ and _Beloved_ especially).
>
I've only read one Toni Morrison novel - Paradise. If all of her
novels are written in this style, then I think I'll enjoy them as well.
I felt comfortable with the way she was able to move between scenes
and integrate the characters so that you had to think about the real meaning
behind their actions and words. The characters felt
like they had more depth to me because of the way their stories
unfolded. Life is complex, so I can understand why
this story was complex as well. Reading a story written in this style
makes you think harder, but the feeling evoked by the story
may stay with you longer when you've read something that has
forced you to really examine the motivations and actions of the characters.
I only found that I had to re-read a section once, but I've
found that to be the case with other writer's novels, so I don't think this
is something exclusive to Toni Morrison.
If she writes this way deliberately, it worked for me. I haven't read
enough novels by _critically acclaimed_ writers to be able to say if
any of her work should be on a 100 Best Books list, or not.
I do admire her talent though.
Carol
Rose Marie Holt
> Rose Marie Holt wrote:
> > FWIW, I have read some Toni Morrison, and I got something meaningful out
> > of it.
> Would you be surprised (yes, I think) to find that in spite of the hype
> and the Oprah book club that MANY African Americans are not all that
> fond of Morrison or Alice Walker's writing.
What, are you trying to pull my chain? Will you next be asking me if I
think Al Sharpton or Cornel West or Maya Angelou or Oprah Winfrey speaks
for all Blacks?
I'm being too hard on you - I also know how ignorant people can be, myself
especially included ;'), as you probably can see.
No I do not presume that I could guess what kind of writing someone else
likes unless I know him or her quite well. I certainly do not assume that
all Blacks like the same kind of writing or think the same way about the
world or American society. I also understand that if I want to know what
a particular person thinks about something I am just going to have to ask
or be really observant of that person.
> Me thinks you got touchy for
> the incorrect reasons. Of course, I did NOT go on to say that that AA
> professor (and a couple of her buddies - male AND female AAs) are not
> that enamored of Ms. Morrison.
I felt a need to comment about that statement you quoted.
Re: Morrison, I bogged down hopelessly in "Beloved", but really enjoyed
one book (cant remember the title) and finished another which seemed like
a thinly veiled but well-presented screed against the White race. Again,
forgot the title. Didnt say I loved it all, said I got something out of
it, maybe not what she meant me to or what some Black people think I ought
to. I am too old to worry about what I say in public vs private.
> where if you ask PUBLICALLY what somebody thinks of one of those
> writers, you will get a glowing report.
> I think Powell is one of the great illustrations of Americas schizoid,
> bi-polar, double talk, double standard reactions to things black and
> white.
Yeah, he is seen IMHO by some Whites as one of the "good Blacks" - some of
my conservative White friends here make me shake my head sometimes.
> There is a need to hold certain black folks... up in an almost reverant
light so
> that down the road when we wish to blast all black folks ...or in the case of
> black folks [etc]
Right, AFAIK.
>
> But writing - and what you like - is a personal choice.....me I LOVE
> Barabara Neeley, Eleanor Taylor Bland, and many more with a fast read,
> some lively entertainment, some fun and a real look at black life in
> America. I re-read Wright and Baldwin just for kicks.
Well, I still recall Maya Angelou writing about how her brother loved
Huckleberry Finn - how ironic if he had been prevented from reading it
because of its use of offensive language.
> BTW, I've been TRYING to read Morrison for years - I have trouble and in
> l984 I made a vow to stop forcing myself to read stuff for
> "entertainment" that didn't entertain me.
Yes, well...I am also now allowed (by me) to read whatever I want, and I
have finally gotten over the guilt of my love for TV ;')
In Black literature I have read a lot of the autobiographical stuff, and
now I am after novels that have a more general basis, like Walter Mosley
(OK, he is definitely in fashion amongst snobbish Whites - lots of his
fans work for NPR. I like his latest one (geez, I canNOT remember titles
today) more than the EZ Rawlins stories. I am on the lookout for the
less-hyped Black authors who are writing good literature or just fun
reads. I've noted the authors you and others have mentioned.
For any science fiction fans out there in netland, Samuel Delany, I
understand, is Black. His stuff is a little dense for my taste, but it
isnt your Dad's sci-fi - it's pretty intense. I dont know if he is still
active.
> alice
Kevin Stevens
Gabrielle Theresa Daniels <gdan...@rigel.oac.uci.edu> wrote:
> To
> these guys, Morrison getting the Nobel instead of say, Ralph Ellison or
> Richard Wright, posthumously, was a declaration of war.
Small note: the Nobel is never awarded posthumously. It's in the rules.
--
Exit, pursued by a bear.
Shakespeare
---Remove '*' after k to reply
Gabrielle Theresa Daniels
> And the only time she truly overdoes this is at the beginning of "Sula,"
> deconstructing "Dick and Jane," the old reading primer. In this case,
> she is trying to set us up for the disharmony of this American family
> and community.
Wrong title, I'm afraid.
The Dick and Jane reference is from "The Bluest Eye."
I had the same sense of horror and sadness when I read the rape scene in
"The Women of Brewster Place."
Gabrielle Theresa Daniels
[..]
> But when I have made vague comments to NOT getting all riled up about
> her writing, some folks have timidly chimed in with a "I thought it was
> me and that I was terminally stoopid" kind of response.
Oh, barrother...
> What blew me away was on the Oprah show - she (oprah) got all carried
> away about reading Sula. She went into this long thingee about what she
> had to do to prepare properly to enjoy the book.
Oprah was B-Sing as usual. I didn't do anything to prepare to read "The
Bluest Eye" or "Sula," except probably take a bath or get comfortable in
bed and read a few pages before I turned off the light. Oprah needs
rituals to get down with her book. Okay. Her book is her altar?
Okay...if she wants to do it that way, fine. But I'm not Oprah, and I
couldn't see getting all *prepared* to read something by a fine author
that I would do in my normal routine. If I was excited about it, perhaps
I would make allowances to make this a special moment, order sushi and
kick back with some white wine. But it ain necessary.
> I decided that if I had to do all that it was an outright chore - not
> an enjoyable interlude.
Excuses, excuses...and you should know by now that the way a talk show
host does it, is not necessarily how regular people do it. You're going
to follow how Oprah does it? I know you're not a lemming, Alice.
> Shucks, that's why I gave up opera and ballet - it was a chore
> trying to enjoy it.
Opera I like, and I prefer modern dance these days to ballet, but why
complain?
It took me several tries to get into "Beloved" because it is so
nonlinear. But it was worth it. It is a great novel that deserves
inclusion in the American Canon.
> Books I really enjoy I usually > read standing up because it cuts down
> on the guilties about the laundry, rabid dust bunnies, dirty dishes
> etc. Now that's enjoyment!
Whatever turns you on. I read Morrison for entertainment, for
knowledge, for studying her style.
I've also read Barbara Neely for entertainment as well. And boy, how
she says it!
Marci Wright
> On Wed, 22 Jul 1998 21:50:10 CST, holman <aho...@carbon.cudenver.edu>
> put forth:
>
> > It is one of those strange situations
> >where if you ask PUBLICALLY what somebody thinks of one of those
> >writers, you will get a glowing report. If you ask privately, a wnole
> >'nother story emerges. Its almost as if its a sacrilige if you "say"
> >you'd rather NOT read Morrison. Like admitting that you didn't think
> >Marin Luther King was all that all the time.
>
> that's what i hear!!!!!
Wright was too depressing for me, especially after the short story
anthology he put together. I liked Ellison, understood Baldwin to a
point, can't stand Alice, but absolutely love Morrison. "Beloved" should
have been in the top ten, for sure.
Marci Wright
ma...@uab.edu
----------------------------------------------
"Why should the universe obey any laws at all?"
-question asked at recent Stephen Hawking's talk
holman
>
> For any science fiction fans out there in netland, Samuel Delany, I
> understand, is Black. His stuff is a little dense for my taste, but it
> isnt your Dad's sci-fi - it's pretty intense. I dont know if he is still
> active.
>
Octavia Butler (black) is good if you like sci-fi.
And I pointed the finger at you re: Morrison, but it was really an
indictment of ALL the folks I have run into who will applaud her in
public and admit privately that she is rough going....for SOME. It just
isn't the done thing to criticize her! And if you'll note, when and if
you do, you are considered, well, sort of , maybe not quite with it.
alice (with a huge grin)
Gabrielle Theresa Daniels
> Would you be surprised (yes, I think) to find that in spite of the
> hype and the Oprah book club that MANY African Americans are not all
> that fond of Morrison or Alice Walker's writing.
...and so it's only white people that are enamored of these women's
works? Or is it that sometimes the truth is harder to take.
I hear the 'not black enough' song in the background. I keep wondering,
why is it that the brothers are deemed more 'real' writers than sisters.
I can name women writers as distant thematically and stylistically as
Carlene Polite, Gayl Jones, Ann Petry, and Toni Cade Bambara and still
in the balance they are considered wanting. But the brothers can do no
wrong. Disgusting.
> Me thinks you got touchy for the incorrect reasons. Of course, I did
> NOT go on to say that that AA professor (and a couple of her buddies -
> male AND female AAs) are not that enamored of Ms. Morrison. It is one
> of those strange situations where if you ask PUBLICALLY what somebody
> thinks of one of those writers, you will get a glowing report. If you
> ask privately, a wnole 'nother story emerges. Its almost as if its a
> sacrilige if you "say" you'd rather NOT read Morrison. Like admitting
> that you didn't think Marin Luther King was all that all the time.
By the way, what is it that they say? And I'm wondering whether this is
personal stuff or stuff about the writing itself. They are not the
same.
> Being an incredibly lazy reader, I prefer authors to say it down front,
> in simple language and spare me obscure dark overtones - as in the
> writings of Richard Wright and Ralph Ellison - no doubt whatsoever what
> those brothers were talking about.
Hate to bring it to you, but they did sometimes hint at obscure dark
overtones. It's called foreshadowing.
And Margaret Walker had to clean up some of Wright's simple language, at
least in 'Native Son,' because Mr. Down Front couldn't spell or work it
out worth beans at first. You would not have liked to have read what
the first few drafts were like.
> Sort of the same with James Baldwin although he sometimes got mired in
> black/white love relationships that got REAL deep for the time he was
> writing.
He was taking it from his own experience being in black-white gay love
relationships.
> I think his best was Go Tell It On The Mountain. Now, Chester
> Himes - great old down-to-earth spinner of hilarious yarns.
Now I get it. Generational difference as well. Although Chester Himes
is one of my people to read later...
[..]
> But writing - and what you like - is a personal choice.....me I LOVE
> Barabara Neeley, Eleanor Taylor Bland, and many more with a fast read,
> some lively entertainment, some fun and a real look at black life in
> America. I re-read Wright and Baldwin just for kicks.
Love Barbara Neely.
> BTW, I've been TRYING to read Morrison for years - I have trouble and
> in l984 I made a vow to stop forcing myself to read stuff for
> "entertainment" that didn't entertain me.
I had the same problem trying to read someone named Richard Brautigan, a
rather strange guy who later commmitted suicide. He wrote about
constructing houses in watermelon sugar. I was trying to figure him
out, get a grip and then I said, ok, I'm going to lay off trying to
rework him the way I'm used to doing it and having it. Let him tell his
story, then. When I stopped trying, then I understood the work and liked
it for what it was.
Rich Thompson
> I wasn't aware that people found Toni Morrison difficult. I guess the years
> of being stuck in a desk as an English major has kept me insulated from those
> opinions. But I have to disagree with your assumption that other readers find
> no revelancy to her work.
I don't know. I found her fairly accessible, and certainly not nearly as
(supposedly) anti-Black male as, say, Alice Walker, as you
noted. She had a number of quite positive male characters, as I recall.
She's certainly not my favorite author, but I'm not sure in what
sense she's difficult.
> Ellison is my second favorite author, James Baldwin my third, so I don't have
> any objections to their inclusion on the list. But "Giovanni's Room"? Please.
I have a theory that Giovanni's Room had something to do with the
demographics of the people who picked the list. Talking about addressing a
particular audience. It's subject was more "current" for many, I suppose.
> What's wrong with "Another Country?" That was my favorite Baldwin novel, but
> again, that is a subjective opinion.
Heck, *my* favorite was "Go Tell it On the Mountain".
Richard Thompson
Department of Psychology
McGill University
1205 Dr. Penfield Ave.
Montreal, Quebec
H3A 1B1
(514) 398-7425
"Freedom is not worth having if it does not connote freedom to err."
-Gandhi
Marci Wright
> In article <35B513...@carbon.cudenver.edu>,
> holman <aho...@carbon.cudenver.edu> wrote:
>
>
> >
> > What amazed me was that James Baldwin, Richard Wright and Ralph Ellison
> > DID make it.
> >
>
> Just curious....were there any other women of color on the list?
> Were women slighted generally? Were there other ethnic groups
> represented? Other than WASP, i mean
> Better yet, can you tell me where to find the list?
Check in your local newspaper a few issues back. Or amazon.com The only
black folk I recognized were Ellison and Wright. No black women, no Latina
women (as far as I can remember), and few white women.
Gabrielle Theresa Daniels
> Just curious....were there any other women of color on the list?
None.
> Were women slighted generally?
Only eight white women out of 100 dudes.
> Were there other ethnic groups represented? Other than WASP, i mean
Only Americans and British. Not many of color.
> Better yet, can you tell me where to find the list?
http://www.latimes.com. Poet Wanda Coleman and a Times correspondent
square off. It's in yesterday's (7/23) paper.
holman
>
> Excuses, excuses...and you should know by now that the way a talk show
> host does it, is not necessarily how regular people do it. You're going
> to follow how Oprah does it? I know you're not a lemming, Alice.
heh heh heh....Now how did I know expressing that thought would annoy
Gabrielle? I don't generally watch Oprah or TV in general...I just
happened to see that carrying on and thought "oh my" and it brought back
my standard routine of guilty reading habits.
snip:
> Whatever turns you on. I read Morrison for entertainment, for
> knowledge, for studying her style.
>
> I've also read Barbara Neely for entertainment as well. And boy, how
> she says it!
>
Like I said, its peronal - whatever blows your skirt up....and I don't
find ALL writers entertaining.
alice
holman
>
snip:
>
> I'm surprised to hear this. I have encountered very few AfAms that disliked
> Morrison. Most of my friends and colleagues (as well as most of my former
> fellow students) loves her work. Those that expressed a dislike either
> limited their books to lite reading or were politically inclined to label any
> book by an AfAm with even a hint of a negative AfAm man as "bruvah bashing"
> and didn't read her on principle.
Like I said, nobody wants to admit that her style might not be THEIR
style. Its sacriligious. And no, all of us who are not particularly fond
of her writing are lite weights. Its a matter of taste - and if you got
nerve enough to say it. And its not all about politics - its about
taste.
>
> People tend to forget that Morrison was widely read before Oprah and will
> continue to be so long after Oprah leaves the airwaves.
No they don't. Most of us have been aware of her for years.
Her work has that
> type of appeal and the simple fact that she is a Nobel recipient
> automatically makes her a must-read.
Not for me.
>
> m. o. mutuembe: I started reading Morrison as a sophomore in high school and
> love almost every thing she's written. Chester Himes?
A reformed bad boy from Cleveland who wrote stuff while in prison and
after he got out. Its the Coffin Ed and Gravedigger (?) Jones mysteries
- that are really about the underlife in the ghetto....you never really
care if they find out who done it. Kinda like Barbara Neeley. The people
are the best part - not the mystery.
alice
NY...@hotmail.com
holman <aho...@carbon.cudenver.edu> wrote:
> NY...@hotmail.com wrote:
> >
>
> >
> > m. o. mutuembe: I haven't seen the list, but I think Jean Toomer's "Cane"
> > should definitely be included.
>
> surge to "recognize" black writers for a period of time (like they do -
> like black folks aren't writing all the time) and I'm glad he got
> published and got famous but WHAT THE HECK WAS HE SAYING? Once again I
> feel it is that nutzo attitude white folks sometimes (periodically) take
> toward black folks - "we need to do something. oh yeah, here's one. must
> be deep. yeah. sure. let's go for it." And nobody wants to say, "I
> didn't understand a word that brother said." Everybody pretends. But
> just my thoughts....frankly I think he had a mentally unbalanced moment
> that got recorded as a book.
>
> alice
He got fame in that extremely odd way - he wrote a fantastic book. The style
was copied and emulated and it survives today.
When people talk about the Harlem Renaissance, they should realize that
"Cane" can be considered the first book from that era (Claude McKay completed
a volume of poetry, "Harlem Shadows," a year earlier).
Toomer, who considered himself non-racial, finally embraced his African
American heritage after working in Georgia for a summer. It was that
awakening that inspired "Cane." It was basically a book of free verse and
sketches that he originally intended to expand into a novel. After returning
to DC (?), he just added a second section inspired by the first section and
finally a third section that is considered autobiographical. Many have
trouble with "Cane" because of its unconventional form. That is one of the
reasons for its greatness. It is not only a book, a work of fiction, it is
also a chronicle of Black life. A segment of American life and history that
Toomer thought may disappear soon (for the most part, it did).
Toomer clearly influenced other writers. Black and white and it is for that
reason and its beauty that it should be included on the list.
m. o. mutuembe
Tiffany Brown
and gender-inclusive than the Modern Language list. I believe 3 of Ms.
Morrison's works were featured in this list, as was "Their Eyes Were
Watching God" by Zora Neale Hurston, and "The Color Purple" by Alice Walker.
tiffany
Artclemons
<aho...@carbon.cudenver.edu> writes:
>Octavia Butler (black) is good if you like sci-fi.
>
>And I pointed the finger at you re: Morrison, but it was really an
>indictment of ALL the folks I have run into who will applaud her in
>public and admit privately that she is rough going....for SOME. It just
>isn't the done thing to criticize her! And if you'll note, when and if
>you do, you are considered, well, sort of , maybe not quite with it.
There are also a few others who have published under pseudonyms.
Since they choose not to reveal themselves, I shall not either.
I might also note that Chip Delany has been around long enough for
two generations of SF readers. Also I personally am insulted by
the term SciFi, but sadly it seems stuck onto the genre when
originally it was a term just for poorly scripted and acted movies.
-art clemons-
Artclemons
k*ste...@cidcorp.com (Kevin Stevens) writes:
>Small note: the Nobel is never awarded posthumously. It's in the rules.
Actually the rules provide that if someone is nominated and then dies,
the Nobel prize (possibly the ignoble prizes too) may be awarded
posthumously. However no one may be nominated posthumously,
which generally makes it difficult for a dead author or other nominee
to win.
-art clemons-
Gabrielle Theresa Daniels
> > m. o. mutuembe: I haven't seen the list, but I think Jean Toomer's "Cane"
> > should definitely be included.
>
>
> I don't. He got "fame" in that odd way some folks do.....there was a
> surge to "recognize" black writers for a period of time (like they do -
> like black folks aren't writing all the time)
Wrong again.
Jean Toomer got fame in the Twenties but refused to be pegged as Negro
or black. His fame was shortlived, but he sure stirred up the pot for
the rest of the black intelligentsia we now know and recognize as the
Harlem Renaissance: Hughes, Bontemps, Locke, Larsen, Hurston, etc., et
al.
> and I'm glad he got published and got famous but WHAT THE HECK WAS HE
> SAYING?
Toomer was enthralled, as some black and most white writers at the time
by Modernism, a cultural movement whose practitioners were Dos Passos,
Hemingway, and Fitzgerald and others.
He was, like everyone else at the time, saying goodbye to the culture
that slavery made for black people, to an agrarian society that was
becoming modern, mechanized and impersonal. He also saw women as mere
emotional vessels for plundering, at the mercy of their own dark,
unfathomable impulses.
> Once again I feel it is that nutzo attitude white folks sometimes
> (periodically) take toward black folks - "we need to do something. oh
> yeah, here's one. must be deep. yeah. sure. let's go for it."
You think white folks only do this?
When Toomer was rediscovered, it was because of members and adherents of
the Black Arts Movement, some of whom also were transplants of other
literary streams. I sure some of these people were colleged, if not up
North, then down South. This was how Hurston was rediscovered.
> And nobody wants to say, "I didn't understand a word that brother
> said." Everybody pretends.
Bulltacos. That's what YOU think and some of these other people who
simply want to be up-to-date and fashionable. Why buy the freaking $20
book, if you don't want to understand or don't put in the slightest
effort to understand?
> But just my thoughts....frankly I think he had a mentally unbalanced
> moment that got recorded as a book.
Too bad, Alice. Because that is not what the book is.
Unfortunately, it even presents an account of a lynching. I'm amazed
that went by you in such a hurry.
Tiffany Brown
Ange...@aol.com
Art Clemons wrote:
<<I think Morrison misses some
of her audience unless the audience is prepped for her. If an
author can't grab you, well that author may write well, but it's not
a great book. I'll give you the alternate test I have for a great book,
that's can I read the book, and 20 years not only remember it fondly,
but find new things that I missed the first time. I don't think Morrison
will pass that one for me, but then again I don't think that people like
David Bradley will either.>>
I first read "The Bluest Eye" in 1972, when I was 14. I was not prepped for
the book at all; I was urged to read because I hated Nancy Drew with a
passion(the only book that the Tacoma Public Library would let young folks
check out were in the juvenile section), and there were very few books that
said anything about MY experiences as a Black girl. "The Bluest Eye" , and a
couple more by June Jordan that I can't remember anything about, were the only
books I could read that said something about ME. I didn't understand a lot
about "The Bluest Eye" back then, but I remember reading it and understanding
the part about the white doll being given to the black girls, and how that
doll was revered as "beautiful". I also related to anger about that coming up
on the short end of the comparison to that doll. It didn't take any prepping
for me to understand that part. When I picked up the book again, twenty years
had passed. And I saw the layers and layers of meaning in the text that I had
missed as a teenager. But the initial impression remained with me, and
prompted me to read the book again. I got the plot the first time. And the
meaning is still being revealed to me. I can see that you wouldn't have the
same experience with "The Bluest Eye", however. You wouldn't be able to relate
to the feeling invoked by the presence of that doll as a symbol of
"unattainable" beauty in our society. Nor more than I can truly relate (but I
was definitely outraged by) the scene in the "Invisible Man" when those young
Black men were placed in the boxing ring to beat on each other, and were then
"treated" to an erotic dance by a nude white girl. But I could at least feel
the anger and helplessness of young Black men being stripped of their dignity.
Angela D. Shortt
NY...@hotmail.com
Gabrielle Theresa Daniels <gdan...@taurus.oac.uci.edu> wrote:
> On Thu, 23 Jul 1998 NY...@hotmail.com wrote:
> > m. o. mutuembe: I haven't seen the list, but I think Jean Toomer's "Cane"
> > should definitely be included.
>
> TELL THE TRUTH...!
>
> ...and if not Hurston, Nella Larsen.
> Gabrielle Theresa Daniels+...@ea.oac.uci.edu++gdan...@uci.edu
Oh yeah! Most definitely Hurston (and probably Larsen.)
Rose Marie Holt
> Rose Marie Holt wrote:
> >
>
> > For any science fiction fans out there...
> Octavia Butler (black) is good if you like sci-fi.
Alright, another entry for my list!
I'll never catch up (good). Two of the books I was thinking of in my
demented post earlier were Song of Solomon (loved it), and Always
Outnumbered, Always Outgunned (ditto)
OK, then, I am just finishing a neat book called "The Undesirables" by
Mary C Smith, whose race I dont know, but it won the Black Heron Award for
Social Fiction (whatever that is) Anyway, if you are looking for a new
book in the speculative fiction field that will not insult your
intelligence and will take you longer than a weekend to read
>
> And I pointed the finger at you re: Morrison, but it was really an
> indictment of ALL the folks I have run into who will applaud her in
> public and admit privately that she is rough going....for SOME. It just
> isn't the done thing to criticize her! And if you'll note, when and if
> you do, you are considered, well, sort of , maybe not quite with it.
, check it out.
> alice (with a huge grin)
Now, you are just *playing havoc* with my mental image of you (also huge grin).
kga...@cs.ucsd.edu
ma...@uab.edu (Marci Wright) wrote:
> In article <35b6a53b...@news.flash.net>, dark...@flash.net wrote:
>
> > On Wed, 22 Jul 1998 21:50:10 CST, holman <aho...@carbon.cudenver.edu>
> > put forth:
> >
> > >where if you ask PUBLICALLY what somebody thinks of one of those
> > >writers, you will get a glowing report. If you ask privately, a wnole
> > >'nother story emerges. Its almost as if its a sacrilige if you "say"
> > >you'd rather NOT read Morrison. Like admitting that you didn't think
> > >Marin Luther King was all that all the time.
> >
>
> Wright was too depressing for me, especially after the short story
> anthology he put together. I liked Ellison, understood Baldwin to a
> point, can't stand Alice, but absolutely love Morrison. "Beloved" should
> have been in the top ten, for sure.
Radcliffe responded with their own list of the top 100 US books of this
century and "Beloved" did make the top 10... #7 in fact.
I list their top 10 below and link to the full 100 is at
http://cnn.com/books/news/9807/22/radcliffe.list/list.html
I was very pleased to see "Cat's Cradle" at #66, but where is "Ender's Game"
and "Foundation"?
The 100 best English-language novels of the 20th century, as compiled
by students of the Radcliffe Publishing Course.
1. "The Great Gatsby," F. Scott Fitzgerald
2. "The Catcher in the Rye," J.D. Salinger
3. "The Grapes of Wrath," John Steinbeck
4. "To Kill a Mockingbird," Harper Lee
5. "The Color Purple," Alice Walker
6. "Ulysses," James Joyce
7. "Beloved," Toni Morrison
8. "The Lord of the Flies," William Golding
9. "1984," George Orwell
10. "The Sound and the Fury," William Faulkner
KSG
NY...@hotmail.com
> Wright was too depressing for me, especially after the short story
> anthology he put together. I liked Ellison, understood Baldwin to a
> point, can't stand Alice, but absolutely love Morrison. "Beloved" should
> have been in the top ten, for sure.
>
> Marci Wright
I can tolerate Wright (if not his socialism). Ellison is a bit of a struggle
and Baldwin is just my writer. I've read only two by Walker, but enjoyed them
both (The Color Purple & Possessing the Secret of Happiness) tremendously.
Morrison is in a class by herself. I love the way she weaves history, culture
and imagination together. "Beloved" had white people going crazy and would
never make this type of list, let alone be in the top ten. Some accused her
of hyperbole with the escaped slave killing her child. Sadly, it was based on
a true case (Morrison was an editor for "The Little Black Book," an eclectic
volume of Black history which included the news item that "Beloved" is based
on. Bill Cosby wrote the introduction for the book.)
m. o. mutuembe
Carol Chandler
<snip>
> It took me several tries to get into "Beloved" because it is so
> nonlinear. But it was worth it. It is a great novel that deserves
> inclusion in the American Canon.
>
I've wondered in the past if the problem some people
have with reading Toni Morrison's work is that her writing
style is very non-linear.
I think of myself as a very non-linear thinker. I like the style
of writing that has multiple threads running throughout the
work at once. I don't find it confusing - I can follow the flow
of the multiple threads very easily.
I heard a program (don't remember where), that talked about
the fact that men get accused by women of not listening
to them, but that the lack of listening may be because they can block
out all other sounds that are not directly related to what they're
trying to concentrate on. That women, in a situation where
there are multiple voices, generally have a problem with
blocking out everything except the one sound they're
supposed to be studying.
For linear thinkers (my term), the example they used was:
A man can look at a football game and not hear your voice,
until half-time. Either men are ignoring women deliberately
(what women think), or they are concentrating on the game to the
exclusion of every other sound or event in the room (what the
researchers believed).
For non-linear thinkers (again, my term), the example they used was:
If a women is in a restaurant, and she is in a converstation
with somone. If a group at the next table begins to speak
loud enough for their conversation to drift over to her, she
may not be able to follow her own conversation. The two
converstations may end up getting interpreted at the same
time by the brain. They begin to merge, wth the possibility
that the woman will either have to try harder to distinguish
her original converstation (thread) from the other table's,
or she will at times start to follow the other table's converstation
more than her own.
In reading a book, maybe those who would do well in
picking out a single sound, and following it, from a room
full of noise, would also be more comfortable with a
single thread running through a book.
At the same time, those people whose brains
merge sounds/converstations automatically
would have no problem having, and following,
multiple threads throughout a book.
If there is a difference between the way people think -
linear vs. non-linear, this could account for why some people
find reading Toni Morrison's work a chore. I don't believe
the notion that all men are linear thinkers and all women are
non-linear thinkers, but if there are people who tend to think
in a certain way, it could be relevant as to why some writers
hit it off with audiences that others fail with.
Is this junk-science, or is there any merit to the notion
of linear vs. non-linear thinkers?
Carol
Gabrielle Theresa Daniels
[..]
> Toomer, who considered himself non-racial, finally embraced his
> African American heritage after working in Georgia for a summer. It
> was that awakening that inspired "Cane." It was basically a book of
> free verse and sketches that he originally intended to expand into a
> novel. After returning to DC (?), he just added a second section
> inspired by the first section and finally a third section that is
> considered autobiographical. Many have trouble with "Cane" because of
> its unconventional form. That is one of the reasons for its greatness.
> It is not only a book, a work of fiction, it is also a chronicle of
> Black life. A segment of American life and history that Toomer thought
> may disappear soon (for the most part, it did).
Brava!
Toomer was also the grandson of P.B.S. Pinchback, the controversial Lt.
Governor of Louisiana during Reconstruction who exchanged and changed
races to keep himself politically viable and at the public trough. And
before anything thinks that Toomer's father was some kind of stepchild
who got run off by Pinchback (a la Ward Connerly's father) for being too
dark and poor, realize that Toomer's father was dark but he certainly
wasn't poor. He had been the widower of a mixed-race heiress whose
white father had given her everything, including his land and property,
in Georgia.
If anything, Pinchback was probably threatened when he found that his
son-in-law had more going on with him than he did. His relationship
with his daughter Nina (Toomer's mother) appears to me to have had a
whiff of incest and policed sexuality.
> Toomer clearly influenced other writers. Black and white and it is for
> that reason and its beauty that it should be included on the list.
Without Toomer, there would not have been a Renaissance or even a
Baldwin.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
"La pauvete napas ene vis, mes li ene bien gros coulou."
(MAURITIUS Creole)
-"Poverty isn't a screw, but it's a very big nail."-
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Gabrielle Theresa Daniels+...@ea.oac.uci.edu++gdan...@uci.edu
Gabrielle Theresa Daniels
> Morrison is in a class by herself. I love the way she weaves history,
> culture and imagination together. "Beloved" had white people going
> crazy and would never make this type of list, let alone be in the top
> ten. Some accused her of hyperbole with the escaped slave killing her
> child.
Some accused her of 'ranking' when she stated "Sixty million and more,"
inscribed at the beginning of "Beloved," meaning how many died during
the African holocaust.
People started doing numbers, stating how many got to the New World as
opposed to that whopper of a figure. They didn't take into the
consideration the upset to the socio-political-economic systems of these
countries and tribes, resulting in warfare, starvation, deaths connected
with the shipment of human beings, and other incidents.
> Sadly, it was based on a true case (Morrison was an editor for
> "The Little Black Book," an eclectic volume of Black history which
> included the news item that "Beloved" is based on. Bill Cosby wrote
> the introduction for the book.)
You mean, "The Black Book"? Yes, I have that one. Morrison was also an
editor at Random House for a long time. She got Toni Cade Bambara and
Gayl Jones published.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
"La pauvete napas ene vis, mes li ene bien gros coulou."
(MAURITIUS Creole)
-"Poverty isn't a screw, but it's a very big nail."-
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Gabrielle Theresa Daniels+...@ea.oac.uci.edu++gdan...@uci.edu
UNDER CONSTRUCTION: GRAND OPENING JULY 10
Apryl
>but I just heard a news story on the Doug Banks show
>that Toni Morrison's work was not included in the list of "Best 100 Books of
>the Century". This is not suprising, but it's still an outrage to me. Nothing
>else in that vast wasteland of white-men-with-self-induced-angst-about-every-
>damn-thing that everyone considers to be "great American literature" comes
>even slightly close to Ms. Morrison's work.
We should consider what they are using for criteria.
(No, I have not seen the list.. so this is as objective as it gets)
How old is the most recent addition to the list? Perhaps they are
doing this list based on longevity on a best seller's list. Or perhaps
they are doing the list based on the number of school district's that
include the title on their required reading list.
What if they are judging the books for the list based on number of
copies sold. (Toni Morrison is an author who probably doesn't have the
vast demographics as some of the other authors)
Actually, Morrison didn't appear on the publishing list until late in
this century. Now, if they were to do one on, say, the second half of
this century, you may have a better chance of her getting on there.
But then, we don't know what made them decide on the books they have,
or do we?
Apryl
Who is getting back into reading again after a long break
Remove the NO SPAM from my return e-dress
And then DON'T SPAM!
B...@my-dejanews.com
>
> [..]
>
> > Toomer, who considered himself non-racial, finally embraced his
> > African American heritage after working in Georgia for a summer. It
> > was that awakening that inspired "Cane." It was basically a book of
> > free verse and sketches that he originally intended to expand into a
> > novel. After returning to DC (?), he just added a second section
> > inspired by the first section and finally a third section that is
> > considered autobiographical. Many have trouble with "Cane" because of
> > its unconventional form. That is one of the reasons for its greatness.
> > It is not only a book, a work of fiction, it is also a chronicle of
> > Black life. A segment of American life and history that Toomer thought
> > may disappear soon (for the most part, it did).
>
> Brava!
>
> Toomer was also the grandson of P.B.S. Pinchback, the controversial Lt.
> Governor of Louisiana during Reconstruction who exchanged and changed
> races to keep himself politically viable and at the public trough. And
> before anything thinks that Toomer's father was some kind of stepchild
> who got run off by Pinchback (a la Ward Connerly's father) for being too
> dark and poor, realize that Toomer's father was dark but he certainly
> wasn't poor. He had been the widower of a mixed-race heiress whose
> white father had given her everything, including his land and property,
> in Georgia.
[snip]
Right. I forgot all about his family history and should have mentioned it.
BTW, not too long after the publication of "Cane," Toomer decided that he was
not Black or white, but instead, the first true American. Later on in life,
he basically passed as white and deflected any questions about his race.
>
> > Toomer clearly influenced other writers. Black and white and it is for
> > that reason and its beauty that it should be included on the list.
>
> Without Toomer, there would not have been a Renaissance or even a
> Baldwin.
Absolutely true. That's why "Cane" deserves to be included on the list. When
you consider all those that were inspired by it, that continue to be inspired
by it, it has to be included.
holman
>
> I have a theory that Giovanni's Room had something to do with the
> demographics of the people who picked the list. Talking about addressing a
> particular audience. It's subject was more "current" for many, I suppose.
Uhhh, Just a little note: I mentioned Giovanni's Room. It was not on the
list.
alice
>
>
holman
>
> alice (with a huge grin)
>
> Now, you are just *playing havoc* with my mental image of you (also huge grin).
But hasn't it been educational - as well as entertaining - watching
folks go ballistic over *taste*? Its especially cool watching folks get
up on high intellectual horses about writers. The first job of a writer
is to entertain (otherwise, they won't get read). Then comes the
*message* if they've got one and you want to hear it.
alice
Gabrielle Theresa Daniels
> But hasn't it been educational - as well as entertaining - watching
> folks go ballistic over *taste*? Its especially cool watching folks
> get up on high intellectual horses about writers.
Excuse me, but your saddle appears to be rather rusty, ancient and
anti-intellectual as well.
> The first job of a writer is to entertain (otherwise, they won't get
> read).
The first job of a writer is to have something to say and to say it
well.
The second is to sustain interest and to impart something
new/old/dimensional about human experience.
I guess if people want minstrels, they know where to go.
> Then comes the *message* if they've got one and you want to hear it.
The best writer is one who can impart style, message and knowledge all
in one. The reader would have to figure out whether s/he is being
messaged.
Don't get me wrong...I like the Angelique novels among others and Lord
Peter Wimsey. I even admit to a little Marco Vassi. I've been reading
since I was four, with no help, so I know the difference between trash
and high art. Yet I get a lot from both the Austens and the Woodiwisses.
Entertainment--no. Illumination.
Kevin Stevens
Gabrielle Theresa Daniels <gdan...@taurus.oac.uci.edu> wrote:
> On Mon, 27 Jul 1998, holman wrote:
(snip brief section about taste)
> > The first job of a writer is to entertain (otherwise, they won't get
> > read).
>
> The first job of a writer is to have something to say and to say it
> well.
>
> The second is to sustain interest and to impart something
> new/old/dimensional about human experience.
>
> I guess if people want minstrels, they know where to go.
Who said that being entertained had to be silly? I find Umberto Eco
entertaining, once I wade through his prose. Even where we get our
knowledge from is usually entertaining, since we generally get to pick
where we get it.
>
> > Then comes the *message* if they've got one and you want to hear it.
>
> The best writer is one who can impart style, message and knowledge all
> in one. The reader would have to figure out whether s/he is being
> messaged.
>
> Don't get me wrong...I like the Angelique novels among others and Lord
> Peter Wimsey. I even admit to a little Marco Vassi. I've been reading
> since I was four, with no help, so I know the difference between trash
> and high art. Yet I get a lot from both the Austens and the Woodiwisses.
> Entertainment--no. Illumination.
>
Heaven help those of us who don't read for the enlightened reasons you do.
God forbid we should read something just because we like it. And heaven
save us from yet another grad student writer out to "illuminate the human
experience." If you don't entertain, you won't get read. Or, as my
directing mentor said, "No one comes to the theatre to think."
Put the message first, and the reader will put the novel down.
--
Exit, pursued by a bear.
Shakespeare
---Remove '*' after k to reply
B...@my-dejanews.com
>
> > Morrison is in a class by herself. I love the way she weaves history,
> > culture and imagination together. "Beloved" had white people going
> > crazy and would never make this type of list, let alone be in the top
> > ten. Some accused her of hyperbole with the escaped slave killing her
> > child.
>
> Some accused her of 'ranking' when she stated "Sixty million and more,"
> inscribed at the beginning of "Beloved," meaning how many died during
> the African holocaust.
>
> People started doing numbers, stating how many got to the New World as
> opposed to that whopper of a figure. They didn't take into the
> consideration the upset to the socio-political-economic systems of these
> countries and tribes, resulting in warfare, starvation, deaths connected
> with the shipment of human beings, and other incidents.
It wouldn't matter how many she cited, the whiners would be sniping at her
heels. If anything, the number is a conservative estimate given your
considerations.
> > Sadly, it was based on a true case (Morrison was an editor for
> > "The Little Black Book," an eclectic volume of Black history which
> > included the news item that "Beloved" is based on. Bill Cosby wrote
> > the introduction for the book.)
>
> You mean, "The Black Book"? Yes, I have that one. Morrison was also an
> editor at Random House for a long time. She got Toni Cade Bambara and
> Gayl Jones published.
Okay. I stumbled onto the book while in the rare books section at Hunter
College. I wound up spending about two hours flipping its pages. I always
promised myself to find and purchase a copy for myself. Do you know the name
of the two editors?
I guess Morrison's work at Random House has inspired her writing. If I'm not
mistaken, "Song of Solomon" was based upon the "Mwindo" epic of West Africa.
Information she gathered while at Random House.
NY...@hotmail.com
holman <aho...@carbon.cudenver.edu> wrote:
> B...@my-dejanews.com wrote:
> >
> snip:
> >
> > I'm surprised to hear this. I have encountered very few AfAms that disliked
> > Morrison. Most of my friends and colleagues (as well as most of my former
> > fellow students) loves her work. Those that expressed a dislike either
> > limited their books to lite reading or were politically inclined to label any
> > book by an AfAm with even a hint of a negative AfAm man as "bruvah bashing"
> > and didn't read her on principle.
>
> Like I said, nobody wants to admit that her style might not be THEIR
> style. Its sacriligious. And no, all of us who are not particularly fond
> of her writing are lite weights. Its a matter of taste - and if you got
> nerve enough to say it. And its not all about politics - its about
> taste.
Must be your circle. Everyone that I know is unafraid to voice their opinion
about her. The only ones that negatively criticize her - that I know - are
those that criticize any AfAm woman with the audacity to criticize any Black
man for whatever reasons on whatever issue. You know, the "Protect the
Bruvahs at All Cost" crowd (this includes plenty "sisters.")
> >
> > People tend to forget that Morrison was widely read before Oprah and will
> > continue to be so long after Oprah leaves the airwaves.
>
> No they don't. Most of us have been aware of her for years.
Well it must be the spotlight on Oprah and the NY Times Bestseller lists that
have so many riled up now. Seems like everyone is dropping out of the woodwork
to shout about how bad the book is, how much it bashes brothers, how difficult
and convoluted it is.
> Her work has that
> > type of appeal and the simple fact that she is a Nobel recipient
> > automatically makes her a must-read.
>
> Not for me.
Personal choice for you. But that label on any of her books will automatically
get a great deal of people to pick up the book and possibly read it simply
because she's a Nobel laurate.
> > m. o. mutuembe: I started reading Morrison as a sophomore in high school and
> > love almost every thing she's written. Chester Himes?
>
> A reformed bad boy from Cleveland who wrote stuff while in prison and
> after he got out. Its the Coffin Ed and Gravedigger (?) Jones mysteries
> - that are really about the underlife in the ghetto....you never really
> care if they find out who done it. Kinda like Barbara Neeley. The people
> are the best part - not the mystery.
>
> alice
Actually I was being sarcastic regarding Himes. I've heard about him before,
just never read any of his books after my brother described him as boring and
dated and cliched. I'll try to give him a chance though.
holman
>
> On Wed, 22 Jul 1998, holman wrote back to Rose Marie Holt:
>
> > Would you be surprised (yes, I think) to find that in spite of the
> > hype and the Oprah book club that MANY African Americans are not all
> > that fond of Morrison or Alice Walker's writing.
>
> ...and so it's only white people that are enamored of these women's
> works? Or is it that sometimes the truth is harder to take.
>
> I hear the 'not black enough' song in the background. I keep wondering,
> why is it that the brothers are deemed more 'real' writers than sisters.
> I can name women writers as distant thematically and stylistically as
> Carlene Polite, Gayl Jones, Ann Petry, and Toni Cade Bambara and still
> in the balance they are considered wanting. But the brothers can do no
> wrong. Disgusting.
>
Truth? How about personal taste. Period. Which is something *I* have
noted Morrison fans can't take.
I feel absolutely NO need to bash male writers in favor of female
writers. Maybe we should all take writers as they come. And if you are
NOT grabbed in the first few pages - PUT IT DOWN. It is NOT an
indictment of your intellectual abilities to prefer one author over
another.
And who said those women were wanting? It is soooo subjective. But
that's what s all about. And waxing eloquent about a writer doesn't make
the non-fans fans.
alice
holman
>
> Without Toomer, there would not have been a Renaissance or even a
> Baldwin.
Really? Ever hear of Zeigeist?
alice
holman
>
>
> Excuse me, but your saddle appears to be rather rusty, ancient and
> anti-intellectual as well.
Oh, ho, ho, ho. Don't take it so seriously. The writers being discussed
probably didn't.
snip:
> The first job of a writer is to have something to say and to say it
> well.
Nope, the first is entertainment. If they can't catch your attention,
you'll ever get the message. A lot of folks have things to say but
nobody knows it......
>
> The second is to sustain interest and to impart something
> new/old/dimensional about human experience.
You have to get the interest first. My best lit profs were the ones with
a sense of humor about all this. The worst was an old bag deep into
Shakespeare - so far she couldn't even see HIS humor. She was literally
terrified that folks were going to be *sacriligeous* about it all. (but
she also didn't think God had a sense of humor, either) The old boy
(Willy, not God) was probably just as worried as any other writer about
getting published.
>
I've been reading
> since I was four, with no help, so I know the difference between trash
> and high art. Yet I get a lot from both the Austens and the Woodiwisses.
> Entertainment--no. Illumination.
If this is one of those you-know-what contests, I've been at it since I
was three....folks got tired of me begging for stories so they taught me
how to do it on my own. I read that much discussed book (GWTW and its
cousin, Raintree County) at about seven or eight while standing behind
the furnance so my mother wouldn't catch me.
Trash and Art are in the eye of the beholder. In any case, it isn't
worth all this. It just isn't that serious. Now if you're talking
non-fiction and the lack of immediate response and understanding to Mein
Kampf and its blueprint for murder....now that's serious.
alice
Rose Marie Holt
In article <Pine.GSO.3.96.980727...@taurus.oac.uci.edu>,
Gabrielle Theresa Daniels <gdan...@taurus.oac.uci.edu> wrote:
> The first job of a writer is to have something to say and to say it
> well.
That's the first job when she sits down to write.
> On Mon, 27 Jul 1998, holman wrote:
> > The first job of a writer is to entertain (otherwise, they won't get
> > read).
That's the first job when she wants to be read.
Both necessary, neither sufficient.
> The second is to sustain interest and to impart something
> new/old/dimensional about human experience.
Writing well, sustaining interest, and imparting something new may not be
a bad definition of "entertainment". Perhaps we should use the qualifiers
"mindless" and "quality" when the distinction needs to be clear.
Gabrielle Theresa Daniels
> > The first job of a writer is to have something to say and to say it
> > well.
> >
> > The second is to sustain interest and to impart something
> > new/old/dimensional about human experience.
> >
> > I guess if people want minstrels, they know where to go.
>
> Who said that being entertained had to be silly?
Entertainment means escapism to me. It means that no one is interested
in dealing in real life.
[..]
> > > Then comes the *message* if they've got one and you want to hear it.
> >
> > The best writer is one who can impart style, message and knowledge all
> > in one. The reader would have to figure out whether s/he is being
> > messaged.
> >
> > Don't get me wrong...I like the Angelique novels among others and Lord
> > Peter Wimsey. I even admit to a little Marco Vassi. I've been reading
> > since I was four, with no help, so I know the difference between trash
> > and high art. Yet I get a lot from both the Austens and the Woodiwisses.
> > Entertainment--no. Illumination.
> >
>
> Heaven help those of us who don't read for the enlightened reasons you do.
Really.
> God forbid we should read something just because we like it.
Hell, I like trash, too. But I know what real writing is.
And I'm not your everyday "grad student writer," if that's less of a
comfort to you.
Tiffany Brown
>of linear vs. non-linear thinkers?
i'm with you on this one. i think it's very real, particularly as it comes
across in writing styles. check kurt vonnegut's "slaughterhouse five"
(which was on both best 100 lists) for another example of
"non-linear" --also known as post-modern-- writing style. it can be
incredibly complicated to follow, depending on the writer and the reader,
but once you get it, it's so worth the read. i can't get into morrison's
work though. i agree with the georgia o'keefe(i think it was her)-ernest
hemmingway-journalist's approach to language: "keep it simple."
tiffany
Marci Wright
SOME STUFF IN HERE MAY BE SPOILERS....
Gabrielle Theresa Daniels wrote:
> Entertainment means escapism to me. It means that no one is interested
> in dealing in real life.
No, not at all, Gabrielle. Real entertainment, the kind that stands out,
catches us b/c #1 it is entertaining on a popular level, and #2 it says
something. "Song of Solomon" is a childrens' story, essentially, that
adults can read and better understand the intricacies of the black
community. It is also an adult story of black bougeouise meeting up with
black power THAT a child could pick up and learn about a man who could fly
back home.
Because SOS was entertaining does not mean it is escapist. "Invisible
Man" was entertaining on a purely plot/story level, but it also said
something.
On a entertainment level, "Bluest Eye" is about a little girl that goes
crazy; it is a good story. "Beloved" is a plain old midwestern ghost
story. Pure entertainment. Morrisons gift is that she can take common
occurences, common lives, and a certain event and weave a completely
plausible outrageous story from them and add social commentary on top of
that.
Any child can read her for a good story; any adult should read her for
enlightenment.
Marci
who would say those Star Trek novels are quite entertaining... Go Kirk!!!
holman
>
>
> Entertainment means escapism to me. It means that no one is interested
> in dealing in real life.
That's *bad*?
alice
holman
>
> In article <35B89A...@carbon.cudenver.edu>,
> holman <aho...@carbon.cudenver.edu> wrote:
> > B...@my-dejanews.com wrote:
> > >
> >
> > Like I said, nobody wants to admit that her style might not be THEIR
> > style. Its sacriligious.
>
> Must be your circle. Everyone that I know is unafraid to voice their opinion
> about her. The only ones that negatively criticize her - that I know - are
> those that criticize any AfAm woman with the audacity to criticize any Black
> man for whatever reasons on whatever issue. You know, the "Protect the
> Bruvahs at All Cost" crowd (this includes plenty "sisters.")
My circle has been pretty wide and has covered folks in lit classes, etc
and folks from New York, Atlanta, LA, and so forth. This discussions -
you-must-have-something-wrong-with-you-if-you-can't-get-into-a-particular
author reminds me of all the shouting that goes on in politics.....black
folks are NOT monolithic and that includes reading tastes. And several
of the folks (me included) cannot get past the first few pages so we are
hardly criticizing (sp) anything she said about da bruvahs cause we
don't know what was said.
>
> > >
snip:
>
> > Her work has that
> > > type of appeal and the simple fact that she is a Nobel recipient
> > > automatically makes her a must-read.
> >
> > Not for me.
>
> Personal choice for you. But that label on any of her books will automatically
> get a great deal of people to pick up the book and possibly read it simply
> because she's a Nobel laurate.
And possibly not like it but be too "correct" to say so. And lets stop
pretending people don't posture and pretend. We ALL do - about different
issues. You know how some folks have to have designer labels, others
have to have the correct wine while some have to eat the latest "fad"
food and style in name-brand sports outfits OR be able to pontificate
about the "in" author or musician. Ain't nothing wrong with it -
different strokes for.......
>
snip:
> Actually I was being sarcastic regarding Himes. I've heard about him before,
> just never read any of his books after my brother described him as boring and
> dated and cliched. I'll try to give him a chance though.
Well, you do have to put him in the context of the time he as writing -
just like you do Baldwin or Ellison. I love a mystery. Period. And I
haven't been reading him like yesterday...I was deep into Raymond
Chandler and Mickey Spillane when I stumbled across a BLACK mystery
writer and said "Hallelujah!" Its all a matter of context. And it still
ain't serious!
alice
Gabrielle Theresa Daniels
The information for this post is taken from Tuesday's (7/28/98) L.A.
Times from the article by Lynell George, IT WAS A RARE VISIT BY A RARE
AUTHOR.
Over 700 people filed into White Hall, a multipurpose room at Holman (!)
Methodist Church in Los Angeles last Friday to see Toni Morrison on one
of her few appearances on the West Coast. The visit was sponsored by
Eso-Won Books, an independent black bookstore in the Los Angeles area.
The audience was seated between 5 and 7, when Morrison arrived on stage.
To kill time, some fans broke up into "First Toni," their "Most
Memorable Toni," and "Life Changing Toni" discussion groups.
This was a diverse gathering of children, filmmakers, teachers,
musicians, bank tellers, students, writers.
Said Janis Moore, who teaches hearing-impaired K-8 students, "She's been
my favorite author since 'The Bluest Eye.'"
Morrison read two selections from "Paradise" and opened the floor for
questions before accepting well wishes, handshakes and even hugs from a
snaking receiving line. She did not sign any books. Asked "how to
read" any of her books, Morrison replied:
"I know what your imagination is like. I know how difficult it can be.
But it is what I write toward. [As a reader] I don't want to be
patronized. So it doesn't matter if you don't get it all the first
time. You might get more the second. The third. I read books at 19
that changed at 28. That changed at 34. It's like music that is
complicated emotionally as well as technically."
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
"La pauvete napas ene vis, mes li ene bien gros coulou."
(MAURITIUS Creole)
-"Poverty isn't a screw, but it's a very big nail."-
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Gabrielle Theresa Daniels+...@ea.oac.uci.edu++gdan...@uci.edu
UNDER CONSTRUCTION: GRAND OPENING JULY 10
http:// www.geocities.com/~merlekinbona or
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Troy/7094
=======================================================================
========================================= MODERATOR COMMENT
MOD: www.latimes.com. Search for Lynell George.
Gabrielle Theresa Daniels
million and more" and other observations:
> It wouldn't matter how many she cited, the whiners would be sniping at her
> heels. If anything, the number is a conservative estimate given your
> considerations.
In talking to folks on the afamlit listserve, it seems that there is a
current trend among the black intelligentsia to dog up and coming or
unPC writers and artists these days. It's mostly a matter of black
males v. black females, or black established dogging up and coming.
It's pathetic and sad. These people are threatened. I mean, I have a
problem sometimes with people on the outside using what we say and do as
something to be marketed and imitated, but I also think that certain
issues ought to be aired if it means coming to grips with some behavior
which needs correcting, like spousal and child abuse within our
community.
But sometimes this stuff has to do with the remaking and reworking of
images, positive and negative, about black people in art and writing.
My feeling is, even if you are talking about things like interracing,
and strongly disagreeing with how it is presented, you have to show some
allowances. You have to know when to back off. Once you start getting
personal about this, the knives start to click out of the switchblade
covers all over. People are trying to shore up their audience by
attacking others. It ain gonna make it long term.
I said:
> > You mean, "The Black Book"? Yes, I have that one. Morrison was also an
> > editor at Random House for a long time. She got Toni Cade Bambara and
> > Gayl Jones published.
>
> Okay. I stumbled onto the book while in the rare books section at Hunter
> College. I wound up spending about two hours flipping its pages. I always
> promised myself to find and purchase a copy for myself. Do you know the name
> of the two editors?
There were four.
Middleton Harris, with the assistance of Morris Levitt, Roger Furman,
and Ernest Smith.
The acknowledgements were made to Mary Singleton, Donna Woods, Ramah
Wofford (Toni's mother or aunt?), George Carl Wofford (Toni's father or
uncle?), Verta Mae Smart-Grosvenor (wonder what happened to Kali, her
daughter), June Rephan, Eleanor Charles and Ishmael Reed (who ought to
know better), Judith Wragg Chase and Shareen Brysac (the latter two
special commendation).
> I guess Morrison's work at Random House has inspired her writing. If
> I'm not mistaken, "Song of Solomon" was based upon the "Mwindo" epic
> of West Africa. Information she gathered while at Random House.
Heavy! Never heard about that. I'll have to look that up.
Morrison got a master's degree in literature, so she's no slouch.
Roger Brown
>Heaven help those of us who don't read for the enlightened reasons you do.
>God forbid we should read something just because we like it. And heaven
>save us from yet another grad student writer out to "illuminate the human
>experience." If you don't entertain, you won't get read. Or, as my
>directing mentor said, "No one comes to the theatre to think."
>Put the message first, and the reader will put the novel down.
Bull feathers.
I think your directing mentor aims very low, quite frankly. As I
pointed out in the GWTW thread, there are different audiences for
different films. There are also different audiences for different
theater productions, and yes, people do go to theater to think, Kevin,
as well as not to think. The same goes for books.
There is no one standard for "entertainment". Usually to me, like to
Gabrielle, the word "entertaining" means, in the popular venacular,
that you are about to see something that is pretty stupid. Personally,
I don't find stupid entertaining.
And guess what? We do read the thing we like to read because we find
the less obvious and cliched more entertaining. Our version of the
word.
- Roger
Gabrielle Theresa Daniels
> > Without Toomer, there would not have been a Renaissance or even a
> > Baldwin.
>
> Really? Ever hear of Zeigeist?
You mean, "zeitgeist." No, I don't believe in random elements or simply
the spirit of the times. Baldwin was born at the midpoint of the
Renaissance, poor and unknown; however, by the time he came up, blacks
writing in the mainstream was no longer some kind of anomaly. The
Renaissance writers made sure of that; even though Wright may have
thought of Hurston as a handkerchief head with the bitter prompting of
Hughes.
Jean Toomer made Hurston and Hughes *work harder.* They spoke of him as
a direct influence. All of these people spoke of Southern rural blacks,
some barely urbanized as were Hughes and Baldwin's subjects. He
provided the means for excellence.
Ange...@aol.com
>
>
> Excuse me, but your saddle appears to be rather rusty, ancient and
> anti-intellectual as well.
Alice Holman wrote:
<<Oh, ho, ho, ho. Don't take it so seriously. The writers being discussed
probably didn't.>>
(sigh...)
Gabrielle wrote:
snip:
> The first job of a writer is to have something to say and to say it
> well.
And Alice wrote:
<<Nope, the first is entertainment. If they can't catch your attention,
you'll ever get the message. A lot of folks have things to say but
nobody knows it....>>
It depends on the genre, IMO. The demands and expectations are different for
fiction writing than poetry, or even playwrighting (as I am discovering) than
short story writing. In journalism, I was taught that when writing a feature
story I had to grab the reader right away, or else they will turn the page.
Same thing applies to writing commericials, even moreso because you only 10,
20 or at the very most, 30 seconds to pull your audience. Some of the most
creative projects I've ever seen have been commercials. For drama, the
audience must be initially drawn into the play, but there is the understanding
that there will be some gradual revelation of the characters' personalities
throughout the work. Conversely, I think after an author has gained a solid
reputation, a reader might forgive a slow start in a novel because she knows
that she will be rewarded with an excellant and inspiring story. So it
depends. I don't think Toni Morrison is too "high brow" to be understood, and
I've always felt that she is accessible to the average reader. I now
understand that people disagree with me, but I honestly don't see what is so
hard to comprehend about her writing. I'm not trying to a literature snob
with this; I just see her writing as richly textured and filled with
characters that are recognizable. Doesn't everyone know a Sula? Or a Pecola?
Or maybe even a "Milkman".
But on the other hand, maybe I am a literature snob. After breezing through
"Waiting to Exhale" in a bookstore a few years ago (I read it while waiting
for my friend to buy a gift for her mother's birthday), I decided that the
only way I would pick up another one of her novels was if someone brought it
along on a camping trip, and we ran out of toilet paper. .
Angela D. Shortt (yes, I know I was Terry
hatin')
Carol Chandler
> Truth? How about personal taste. Period. Which is something *I* have
> noted Morrison fans can't take.
Some people won't discuss religion in public. Others
refuse to discuss politics. Is a discussion of a particular
book, or writer's body of work, one of those things
that has to be hidden so that those discussing the issue
won't be accused of being intolerant of other people's taste?
Or is it the degree of conviction people write with
that causes this belief in intolerance?
Or is it just the length of posts on the subject....if I post
a two line message, will I be considered more tolerant
than someone who posts a 50 line message?
Maybe those who're afraid of commenting on why they
don't like Toni Morrison's work are in the same boat
with those who won't get into a discussion on why they
do - lack of tolerance of _their_ taste by those who
disagree with them.
> <snip>
> If this is one of those you-know-what contests, I've been at it since I
> was three....folks got tired of me begging for stories so they taught me
> how to do it on my own. I read that much discussed book (GWTW and its
> cousin, Raintree County) at about seven or eight while standing behind
> the furnance so my mother wouldn't catch me.
>
> Trash and Art are in the eye of the beholder. In any case, it isn't
> worth all this. It just isn't that serious. Now if you're talking
> non-fiction and the lack of immediate response and understanding to Mein
> Kampf and its blueprint for murder....now that's serious.
>
> alice
Sometimes people have discussions which
appear to be about one thing, but the central point of contention
really involves something else entirely.
The GWTW thread for me centers very little on the actual book,
but much more on the social and psychologic reasons for the choices
people, both individually, and in groups, make, and have made in
the past. The things they will accept, and won't accept, and the
reasons why.
No, whether or not GWTW was a good novel is not important
in the grand scheme of things. Just as whether or not you like
Toni Morrison's writing, or don't, is of very little importance.
I've often wondered what makes groups of people
whisper behind the backs of others in school room
and work situations.
I have questions as to why children do so poorly in learning
history.
I wonder where the dependence on television as a babysitting
method stems from.
Having discussions over seemingly non-important issues
can sometimes illuminate answers to other questions people
have in the back of their minds.
Sometimes, discussing issues that other people find
boring is worth it, and is serious for the people discussing
the issue. Some people won't be able to understand a
discussion surrounding "Mein Kampf" without gaining an
understanding of other, less important, issues first.
I don't think I really learned how to read until I
was 5 or 6. I never read the book, GWTW, and
didn't start reading novels until I was in my early
teens. What some take for granted, others have
to struggle with, or make time for. What you may
see as being on a "high horse" may just be real interest
in a subject, or a fleshing out of a person's own ideas.
What about this process is not worth it?
Carol
Carol Chandler
This is called "post-modern" writing? I hadn't realized that.
Now that I have a word for it, I know what to look for.
As someone mentioned to me yesterday, this thread has been a
great way of building up a list of books to read over the next
few months.
Thanks for the suggestion.
Carol
holman
>
I don't think Toni Morrison is too "high brow" to be understood, and
> I've always felt that she is accessible to the average reader. I now
> understand that people disagree with me, but I honestly don't see what is so
> hard to comprehend about her writing.
Ah, but you see, I am not saying she is too "high brow" or
incomprehensible. I am saying she didn't drag me into her web in the
first few pages. You gave a very good discussion on just that
point....if you don't spark an interest in the first.....etc.
snip:
>
> But on the other hand, maybe I am a literature snob. After breezing through
> "Waiting to Exhale" in a bookstore a few years ago (I read it while waiting
> for my friend to buy a gift for her mother's birthday), I decided that the
> only way I would pick up another one of her novels was if someone brought it
> along on a camping trip, and we ran out of toilet paper. .
>
> Angela D. Shortt (yes, I know I was Terry
> hatin')
Now see? That says it ALL about indiviual taste. And you're STILL a good
person....as good as I am in spite of my funky reading habits.: )
alice
Gabrielle Theresa Daniels
> > Entertainment means escapism to me. It means that no one is interested
> > in dealing in real life.
>
> That's *bad*?
Look, I get the same twaddle from my mother. She goes, "Oh, I don't
want to read that heavy stuff, I just want to be entertained." To me,
that's escapism from either what ails you, what you don't like seeing,
etc. Once you pull yourself away from that book (or that movie or that
song), you're still having to deal with those problems. It may relieve
you temporarily from the burden, like some drug or palliative, but
you're still having to deal with them. The fantasy fades.
Do you take anything with you from reading or experiencing some
"entertainment"? Possibly. A few laughs maybe. But not much that's
going to illuminate your life or help you solve things or learn how to
see things differently.
I see Americans sometimes as wanting bread and circuses. Little else.
And people who think about what they write and create are dogged.
RFergu6772
>So it
>depends. I don't think Toni Morrison is too "high brow" to be understood, and
>I've always felt that she is accessible to the average reader. I now
>understand that people disagree with me, but I honestly don't see what is so
>hard to comprehend about her writing. I'm not trying to a literature snob
>with this; I just see her writing as richly textured and filled with
>characters that are recognizable.
Angela,
I agree with you. I have one group of friends who did not attempt to read
Paradise because they felt it was "too hard." I must agree the first chapter
was hard to keep up with and understand who the characters were. But once I
began the second chapter I was hooked and thought the story was highly
understandable for the most part. I must admit I was disappointed with some
elements and did not totally understand other parts of the ending. But it is
one of the few books that I would enjoy reading again someday.
The only other book I've read by Ms. Morrison is The Bluest Eye, which the pain
in that novel was easy to understand and was haunting.
I know that someone on this thread (I apologize I do not know who) has bantered
the idea that people are afraid to admit that they don't like or get Morrison.
Someone responded to this remark by indicating that perphaps it was just that
particular posters' experience. I would have to agree. I participate in 3 AA
Book groups which meet monthly and two of the groups read Paradise. Certainly
no one was afraid to admit if they didn't enjoy or get her messages. In fact,
with the second group, we left the meeting feeling rather smug because with
each individual contribiting we felt like we had resolved a great deal of the
key issues.
Regarding her other works, several of them each feel strongly about Beloved ---
they either loved it or hated it and they all claim that none of them could
finish Jazz.
Thanks for letting me share my .02.
elaine
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
"My business is not to remake myself,
But make the absolute best of what God made."
Robert Browning
Ange...@aol.com
Ange...@aol.com wrote:
>
I don't think Toni Morrison is too "high brow" to be understood, and
> I've always felt that she is accessible to the average reader. I now
> understand that people disagree with me, but I honestly don't see what is so
> hard to comprehend about her writing.
Alice wrote:
<<Ah, but you see, I am not saying she is too "high brow" or
incomprehensible. I am saying she didn't drag me into her web in the
first few pages. You gave a very good discussion on just that
point....if you don't spark an interest in the first.....etc.>>
Yes, but I was talking about feature story writing and advertising. Those
genres require that the audience is captivated immediately . The same
yardstick doesn't exactly apply to fiction writing, especially with novels.
I've read many books that were slow in the beginning, but built up momentum
and became totally engaging as the story unfolded. In fact, some of the most
satisfying literature experiences I've had came from novels writtten in that
way. I just finished "Winter's Tale" by Mark Helprin. Very slow beginning,
but I'm glad I hung in there. I was mesmorized by his writing as I got into
it, and eventually I couldn't put it down.
snip:
>
> But on the other hand, maybe I am a literature snob. After breezing through
> "Waiting to Exhale" in a bookstore a few years ago (I read it while waiting
> for my friend to buy a gift for her mother's birthday), I decided that the
> only way I would pick up another one of her novels was if someone brought it
> along on a camping trip, and we ran out of toilet paper. .
>
> Angela D. Shortt (yes, I know I was Terry
> hatin')
Now see? That says it ALL about indiviual taste. And you're STILL a good
person....as good as I am in spite of my funky reading habits.: )
alice>>
Well, I don't know about me being a good person. :) But personal taste is a
factor. I personally don't like a lot of the stuff written by what I call
"Old or Dead White Men". F. Scott Fitzgerald didn't do anything for me, and
his buddy Hemmingway was only tolerable when I read his short stories. But I
should probably re-think the toilet paper comment. McMillan might be a little
rough in that regard. ;)
Angela D. Shortt
holman
>
>
> Look, I get the same twaddle from my mother. She goes, "Oh, I don't
> want to read that heavy stuff, I just want to be entertained." To me,
> that's escapism from either what ails you, what you don't like seeing,
> etc. Once you pull yourself away from that book (or that movie or that
> song), you're still having to deal with those problems. It may relieve
> you temporarily from the burden, like some drug or palliative, but
> you're still having to deal with them. The fantasy fades.
I knew this was about more than MY reading habits. But I tell you what,
honey, I have lived long enough on this earth that *I* decide what's
good for me....not popluar opinion or somebody elses decree about what's
good for me. Its one of the perks for growing old. And I ain't giving it
up.
And what's wrong with excapism? The mental institutions (and the
homeless camps under the bridge) are filled with folks who never figured
out how to turn it OFF!
snip:
>
> I see Americans sometimes as wanting bread and circuses. Little else.
> And people who think about what they write and create are dogged.
If I was tore down drunk to escape - somebody would be upset. If I did
drugs to escape, everybody - including the cops - would have something
to say. Now even books of one's choice are on the you-cain't-do-dat
list.
I dare say anybody who sits down and writes something THINKS about what
they wrote. Writing is too big a job to do it without having thought
about what was being created. Now, how its received and who does the
receiving....audience...another story.
alice
Kevin Stevens
> k*ste...@cidcorp.com (Kevin Stevens) wrote:
>
> >Heaven help those of us who don't read for the enlightened reasons you do.
> >God forbid we should read something just because we like it. And heaven
> >save us from yet another grad student writer out to "illuminate the human
> >experience." If you don't entertain, you won't get read. Or, as my
> >directing mentor said, "No one comes to the theatre to think."
>
> >Put the message first, and the reader will put the novel down.
>
> Bull feathers.
>
> I think your directing mentor aims very low, quite frankly.
I think that as you don't know him, you don't have the slightest idea what
you are talking about. As he is called in by Terrence McNally and Lanford
Wilson, among others, to help with their work, I think they do.
> As I
> pointed out in the GWTW thread, there are different audiences for
> different films.
Where did I say anything to contradict that? Nope, I didn't.
> There are also different audiences for different
> theater productions, and yes, people do go to theater to think, Kevin,
> as well as not to think. The same goes for books.
Getting the audience to think is the residual of good, entertaining work,
regardless of genre. Check my posts, but nowhere did I say that work can't
or shouldn't be challenging. It is, and it can be. But if people went to
the theater to think, it would be called a lecture. Yes, people go to
different kinds of plays and read different kinds of books. The point I am
making, and which you have missed, is the message has to come second.
>
> There is no one standard for "entertainment". Usually to me, like to
> Gabrielle, the word "entertaining" means, in the popular venacular,
> that you are about to see something that is pretty stupid. Personally,
> I don't find stupid entertaining.
Where did I say that I did? I also disagree with your definition of
entertaining. I have been entertained by Beckett, as well as put to sleep,
and by the same play. The difference was is the performance, which was
entertaining. I define entertaining work as active, energetic, purposeful,
and informed. That can be applied to any genre or form, IMO.
>
> And guess what? We do read the thing we like to read because we find
> the less obvious and cliched more entertaining. Our version of the
> word.
As do I, I didn't define entertainment a stupid, you did. I direct for a
living and I know better than to pander to the audience. I do hard,
challenging plays. But I know that the work has to come first, not the
message. Yes, I am repeating that point, just in case.
>
> - Roger
holman
>
> On Tue, 28 Jul 1998, holman wrote back to me when I said:
>
> > > Without Toomer, there would not have been a Renaissance or even a
> > > Baldwin.
> >
> > Really? Ever hear of Zeigeist?
>
> You mean, "zeitgeist."
I apologize for the spelling error. (my keyboard is in a conspiracy to
embarrass me and make me look unintelligent but I got her number!)
No, I don't believe in random elements or simply
> the spirit of the times.
Without the "spirit" nothing moves. Black writers have ALWAYS written.
Nothing new there. Whether they get national US attention depends on
whats going on in the country at the time. Just how much play are those
who control the publishing industry willing to give, is sometimes the
biggest issue. I mean you can write but if nobody publishes it.....
I think all of us (who either were around in the late 60s & 70s or just
have an interest) could point out some books that were published that
were HORRIBLE - but "black" writers were the "thing." And we can - and
do - wax on about the books and the writers and what was REALLY
happening......Sometimes we skip the part about the climate in which
these things pop. F'instance, "it was a lousy, poorly written book but
the public was hungry for militant black folks so it got printed,
but...."
alice
Roger Brown
>In article <6pm1f4$1d7$1...@winter.news.erols.com>, bro...@erols.com wrote:
>> >If you don't entertain, you won't get read. Or, as my
>> >directing mentor said, "No one comes to the theatre to think."
>>
>> >Put the message first, and the reader will put the novel down.
I said:
>> I think your directing mentor aims very low, quite frankly.
>I think that as you don't know him, you don't have the slightest idea what
>you are talking about.
I can only go by what you tell me about him, and what you told me is,
as I said, aiming very low.
(snip)
I said:
>> There are also different audiences for different
>> theater productions, and yes, people do go to theater to think, Kevin,
>> as well as not to think. The same goes for books.
>Getting the audience to think is the residual of good, entertaining work,
>regardless of genre. Check my posts, but nowhere did I say that work can't
>or shouldn't be challenging.
But you did say, via your mentor, that nobody comes to the theater to
think. To challenge someone is to make them think, isn't it?
>It is, and it can be. But if people went to
>the theater to think, it would be called a lecture.
It might be called a "play".
>Yes, people go to
>different kinds of plays and read different kinds of books. The point I am
>making, and which you have missed, is the message has to come second.
This is not how you expressed your point, though. You expressed it as
thinking was anethema to theater.
>> There is no one standard for "entertainment". Usually to me, like to
>> Gabrielle, the word "entertaining" means, in the popular venacular,
>> that you are about to see something that is pretty stupid. Personally,
>> I don't find stupid entertaining.
>Where did I say that I did?
Kevin, don't assume that everything that I am saying is addressed to
you. I am commenting about a number of ideas expressed in this thread,
not just yours.
>I define entertaining work as active, energetic, purposeful,
>and informed. That can be applied to any genre or form, IMO.
Fine. That is not the definition of entertainment that I am responding
to.
>> And guess what? We do read the thing we like to read because we find
>> the less obvious and cliched more entertaining. Our version of the
>> word.
>As do I, I didn't define entertainment a stupid, you did. I direct for a
>living and I know better than to pander to the audience. I do hard,
>challenging plays. But I know that the work has to come first, not the
>message. Yes, I am repeating that point, just in case.
Good, now I understand your point, which was not clearly expressed in
your earlier note.
- Roger
Ange...@aol.com
<<I don't think I really learned how to read until I
was 5 or 6. I never read the book, GWTW, and
didn't start reading novels until I was in my early
teens. What some take for granted, others have
to struggle with, or make time for. What you may
see as being on a "high horse" may just be real interest
in a subject, or a fleshing out of a person's own ideas.
What about this process is not worth it?>>
That is a very good point, Carol. And I believe that most people are afraid
of their own cognitive and emotional processes. If you have a revelation,
take in a new idea, or God forbid in this day and age, start thinking for
yourself, what does that mean? Usually it means that you are not going to
satisified with the status quo in your life. And if you aren't satisfied,
you'll probably feel obligated to change it. I've known this to happen. When
I was tuttoring in grad school, one of students came to our session upset. She
was a freshman, and she had just come up from Compton to CSU at Sacramento.
She barely escaped her environment, where she was almost "sexed into" a gang,
but her mother pushed her into to going to college up here. And she read Toni
Morrison's "The Bluest Eye" for the first time as part of one her classes.
Then she attended a banquet sponsored by an organization that honors the
accomplishments of young Black men in college. The two events made her aware
of another side of life that she had never encountered. She hadn't realized
how deeply hurt she had been by blonde haired/blue-eyed standard of beauty,
and she had never been around so many "smart" (her word) Black men who were
"doing positive things". She was in tears telling me about this because until
all that happened, she had decided that she was going to go back home to
Compton. Now, I'm not saying that Toni Morrison and those young men completely
changed that young lady's life. She has a lot of work ahead of her, still.
But a part of her woke up, became more aware of her surroundings. And she
made a change in her life as a result.
I've had the same experience with literature, not just with Toni Morrison's
work. One
of my favorite lines comes from a Robert Browning poem: "A man's reach must
exceed his grasp, or what's a heaven for?" That struck a chord with me. To
me, it said that there is a goal in life, a reason why we are here. Seeing
that in my early twenties was very important to me because I was going through
that questioning stage. And I realized that life is a series of learning
experiences that will bring me closer to the Eternal. I probably would have
missed that little epiphany if I limited my reading to Danielle Steele (ugh)
or some other popular writer who's only purpose is to "grab an audience" by
appealing to the emotions. There's nothing wrong with emotional appeals,
except that they do not inspire any thought and/or action, and for me, they
are unsatisfying to the intellect and spirit.
Angela D. Shortt
holman
>
> Ange...@aol.com wrote:
> >
>
> Alice wrote:
> <<Ah, but you see, I am not saying she is too "high brow" or
> incomprehensible. I am saying she didn't drag me into her web in the
> first few pages. You gave a very good discussion on just that
> point....if you don't spark an interest in the first.....etc.>>
>
> Yes, but I was talking about feature story writing and advertising. Those
> genres require that the audience is captivated immediately . The same
> yardstick doesn't exactly apply to fiction writing, especially with novels.
Oh yes, but it does. If you look at any of the
suggestions/requirments/needs made by publishers, agents, those folks
who buy and sell novels, the VERY first thing they say is you MUST
capture the reader in the first ten pages. Grabbing them with the first
sentence is best. Back in the day when the dead white men were doing the
writing, the buying, the selling, maybe that wasn't so....but you better
believe that anybody (especially a black person) who gets published has
caught somebody's attention quick and in a hurry.
snip:
>
> Well, I don't know about me being a good person. :) But personal taste is a
> factor. I personally don't like a lot of the stuff written by what I call
> "Old or Dead White Men". F. Scott Fitzgerald didn't do anything for me, and
> his buddy Hemmingway was only tolerable when I read his short stories. But I
> should probably re-think the toilet paper comment. McMillan might be a little
> rough in that regard. ;)
>
>
But that sort of explains why for some a novel has a slow start -
personal taste - and to others its rip-roaring right from the start.
In spite of all the criticism (and the popular thing seems to be to call
McMillan "trash" and Morrison "quality") I STILL liked Waiting to Exhale
because the experiences the women had - I have had similar ones. And for
that reason, it touched something within ME. But that doesn't make me
anti-intellectual or a fool or a criminal. All it says is I got a laugh
out of some popular fiction. And for all the nay-sayers, she made a mint
so I wasn't the only one out there reading it.
alice
Roger Brown
>The information for this post is taken from Tuesday's (7/28/98) L.A.
>Times from the article by Lynell George, IT WAS A RARE VISIT BY A RARE
>AUTHOR.
(snip)
>========================================= MODERATOR COMMENT
>MOD: www.latimes.com. Search for Lynell George.
Please do. Lynell George is quite a good writer, too. She did a great
series on the AME Church in Los Angeles, and another series about
growing up Creole in Los Angeles, both for the L.A. Weekly, awhile
before she was picked up by the Los Angeles Times as a reporter. She
probably now gets paid more and published less ....
- Roger
Ange...@aol.com
<<Oh yes, but it does. If you look at any of the
suggestions/requirments/needs made by publishers, agents, those folks
who buy and sell novels, the VERY first thing they say is you MUST
capture the reader in the first ten pages. Grabbing them with the first
sentence is best. Back in the day when the dead white men were doing the
writing, the buying, the selling, maybe that wasn't so....but you better
believe that anybody (especially a black person) who gets published has
caught somebody's attention quick and in a hurry>>
And those comments are reserved for would-be novelists vying for a book
contract, not an established writer. An established writer with a proven
track record of sales has the luxury of bending those rules a bit, i.e. Toni
Morrison. The woman is a Nobel Prize Laureate and most definitely has a proven
track record. There ain't too many publishers who would be dumb enough to say,
"No, Toni, you can't start your novel that way".
It also depends on the market. Popular fiction, yes, the publishers are
trying to make a buck, and the writers want to do that too. Nothing wrong
with people making dollars. Car and mortgage payments are a bitch these days.
Sex sells, romance sells, mindless violence and action sells, soap opera
scenarios sell. And pop writers deliver what sells. Personally, it does
nothing for me. Like I said, I tried reading it, and I had trouble fighting
the nausea. But I will acknowledge that these writers are doing what they set
out to do. They don't write very well (it takes very little skill to appeal to
the lowest common denominator in people, as McMillan does), but who in the
hell cares? It sells.
Gabrielle Theresa Daniels
that hour...
> >The information for this post is taken from Tuesday's (7/28/98) L.A.
> >Times from the article by Lynell George, IT WAS A RARE VISIT BY A RARE
> >AUTHOR.
> (snip)
> >========================================= MODERATOR COMMENT
> >MOD: www.latimes.com. Search for Lynell George.
>
> Please do. Lynell George is quite a good writer, too. She did a great
> series on the AME Church in Los Angeles, and another series about
> growing up Creole in Los Angeles, both for the L.A. Weekly, awhile
> before she was picked up by the Los Angeles Times as a reporter. She
> probably now gets paid more and published less ....
Add to that, she and Kimberle Crenshaw and a bunch of others did an
excellent book on what went wrong regarding the Rodney King riots.
Lucky her for getting paid more and publishing only features, but when
you are THAT good...you get the leverage for more goods.
Kevin Stevens
> k*ste...@cidcorp.com (Kevin Stevens) wrote:
>
> >In article <6pm1f4$1d7$1...@winter.news.erols.com>, bro...@erols.com wrote:
>
> >> >If you don't entertain, you won't get read. Or, as my
> >> >directing mentor said, "No one comes to the theatre to think."
> >>
> >> >Put the message first, and the reader will put the novel down.
>
>
> (snip)
> I said:
> >> There are also different audiences for different
> >> theater productions, and yes, people do go to theater to think, Kevin,
> >> as well as not to think. The same goes for books.
>
> >Getting the audience to think is the residual of good, entertaining work,
> >regardless of genre. Check my posts, but nowhere did I say that work can't
> >or shouldn't be challenging.
>
> But you did say, via your mentor, that nobody comes to the theater to
> think. To challenge someone is to make them think, isn't it?
No. It means to do things in a manner in which they may not be accustomed.
>
> >It is, and it can be. But if people went to
> >the theater to think, it would be called a lecture.
>
> It might be called a "play".
Nope.
> >Yes, people go to
> >different kinds of plays and read different kinds of books. The point I am
> >making, and which you have missed, is the message has to come second.
>
> This is not how you expressed your point, though. You expressed it as
> thinking was anethema to theater.
No, it is precisely how I expressed my point. See where, it says "Put the
message first, and the reader will put the novel down. Which is exactly my
point. The point applies both to fiction and to theater. Whenever I talk
to people about this, they jump to the conclusion that I am saying art
should be dumbed down. Nothing could be further from the truth.
> >I define entertaining work as active, energetic, purposeful,
> >and informed. That can be applied to any genre or form, IMO.
>
> Fine. That is not the definition of entertainment that I am responding
> to.
>
> >> And guess what? We do read the thing we like to read because we find
> >> the less obvious and cliched more entertaining. Our version of the
> >> word.
>
> >As do I, I didn't define entertainment a stupid, you did. I direct for a
> >living and I know better than to pander to the audience. I do hard,
> >challenging plays. But I know that the work has to come first, not the
> >message. Yes, I am repeating that point, just in case.
>
> Good, now I understand your point, which was not clearly expressed in
> your earlier note.
See above.
Roger Brown
>No, it is precisely how I expressed my point. See where, it says "Put the
>message first, and the reader will put the novel down. Which is exactly my
>point. The point applies both to fiction and to theater. Whenever I talk
>to people about this, they jump to the conclusion that I am saying art
>should be dumbed down. Nothing could be further from the truth.
If many people are jumping to the same conclusion from your statement,
perhaps the problem is with your statement. Stands to reason, doesn't
it? They are having the same problem that I had with it.
- Roger
holman
>
>
> And those comments are reserved for would-be novelists vying for a book
> contract, not an established writer. An established writer with a proven
> track record of sales has the luxury of bending those rules a bit, i.e. Toni
> Morrison.
Yep. That's the UP side. The DOWN side is fewer new readers. Since
everybody is not going to start at the first book. And isn't this what
this conversation is all about? Some folks simply were not grabbed by
the book they picked up. Does it ever hurt an author to snatch attention
right away? It would certainly guarentee that the message was received.
alice
Karen Medlock
> In spite of all the criticism (and the popular thing seems to be to call
> McMillan "trash" and Morrison "quality") I STILL liked Waiting to Exhale
> because the experiences the women had - I have had similar ones. And for
> that reason, it touched something within ME. But that doesn't make me
> anti-intellectual or a fool or a criminal. All it says is I got a laugh
> out of some popular fiction. And for all the nay-sayers, she made a mint
> so I wasn't the only one out there reading it.
>
I agree with you. I have a lot of admiration for McMillian not because she is a
great writer--she isn't, but because she is a great marketer, and a decent story
teller. I read WTE and I doubt if I'll ever read another one of her books, but like
E. Lynn Harris, her writing is entertaining, engaging, and accessible...and it
reflects the experiences and world views of Black people, and I think that's
wonderful. Morrison is a great writer, and a brilliant woman; and she is less
accessible because of the complexity of her writing...it takes a lot of work to
read her...and I'm not always in the mood to work. Reading "Beloved" was an
experience I will never forget...it was powerfully tranformative in that it gave me,
for the first time, an intense and comprehensive understanding of what slavery did
to the psyche/soul of black people...that book truly changed the way I see the
world...and one of the best pieces of literature I've ever read. Honestly, I'm not
always in the mood for that sort of experience, sometimes I do just want to escape,
or simply be entertained, so I read other things. I know some very intelligent
people who simply couldn't get through "Beloved" and I'm still trying to finish
"Jazz"...I revisit it once a month or so. I can't read Alice Walker
anymore...wherever she's gone to, I don't even want to go there with her. Her best
work in imho was "In Love and Trouble" and "The Color Purple"...everything after
that is not as accessible to me. And, it really doesn't have to be. When I write
poetry, it's really coming from in a place in me that needs expression...I never
think about if what I write will be acessible to others, if this need I have to
express my experience of the world will touch another person...that's not my aim.
When I write my sceenplay however, I will do so with the intention of engaging a
group of people because I want to sell it and make money from it...and in that
process I will have to balance being true to myself as an artist, and my desire to
have a commericially successful product. Whether of not McMillian writes trash,
Holloywood has taken notice of the fact that her stories make money, and Black
directors and actors are getting work.
holman
I'm not having that problem with Kevin's statement. And sometimes I
wonder why some get so defensive if another person doesn't enjoy the
same things they do? Is it because they aren't really sure that THEY
liked it all that much but they have invested a piece of their soul into
it and don't want to let it go so easy? Or they don't know for sure just
WHAT it was they were supposed to enjoy but *everybody* else does and
so....they would be lacking in some way if they.....? I am curious as to
why we as a nation get so uptight about art....to the point of killing
govt. funding for it....because it didn't fit *our* taste and so
therefore.....
alice
Kevin Stevens
> k*ste...@cidcorp.com (Kevin Stevens) wrote:
>
> >No, it is precisely how I expressed my point. See where, it says "Put the
> >message first, and the reader will put the novel down. Which is exactly my
> >point. The point applies both to fiction and to theater. Whenever I talk
> >to people about this, they jump to the conclusion that I am saying art
> >should be dumbed down. Nothing could be further from the truth.
>
> If many people are jumping to the same conclusion from your statement,
> perhaps the problem is with your statement. Stands to reason, doesn't
> it? They are having the same problem that I had with it.
>
> - Roger
No, it doesn't stand to reason. The problem is people don't think about
the statement. The problem is people who judge works of art by the subject
matter, not by the art and craft of the piece. That is the problem, not
the statement.
Put the work first, and your message will take care of itself. As will
making the audience think.
Ange...@aol.com
>
>
> And those comments are reserved for would-be novelists vying for a book
> contract, not an established writer. An established writer with a proven
> track record of sales has the luxury of bending those rules a bit, i.e. Toni
> Morrison.
Alice wrote:
<<Yep. That's the UP side. The DOWN side is fewer new readers. Since
everybody is not going to start at the first book. And isn't this what
this conversation is all about? Some folks simply were not grabbed by
the book they picked up. Does it ever hurt an author to snatch attention
right away? It would certainly guarentee that the message was received.
alice>>
It doesn't HURT a writer, no. But one thing I discovered while teaching is
that peoples' attention spans are extraordinarily short these days,
particularily young folks. We can get into a discussion about the effect of
television, blah, blah, blah, but I'd rather not on this thread. But I used to
practically BEG my students to be patient and READ. In the end, they were
thankful, but very few people had taken the time to go through a difficult
text with them, and help them to unpack the meaning. True, most people don't
want to work that hard to read; they simply want to escape the pressures of
modern life and have their emotions altered a bit. But as my students found
out, there is something innately gratifying about asking questions about a
complex work. They started questioning themselves, their own thoughts, and
the origins of their ideas. Escapist fiction doesn't provide that that
transformative experience.
As far as getting fewer new readers, well, that won't happen with Toni
Morrison's work. She is included on far too many university reading lists,
and has been for years. In the English department at California State
University at Sacramento, there are never any fewer than four undergraduate
classes and at least two grad classes who use her books. "Beloved", of course,
is the fixture, but I've also seen "Sula", "Song of Soloman" and "Jazz"
stocked in the bookstore as textbooks. If you consider that each class has at
least forty students each semester, there are quite a few new readers being
introduced to her work every four months. And that' s just at CSUS. She is
part literary canon now, so thousands of students read her work. True, these
are college students, not the people who clamor for popular fiction. But on
the other hand, Morrison hasn't done too badly in the popular fiction market,
either.
Please don't think I totally hate escapist entertainment. I'm an avid pro
wrestling fan, and it doesn't get any more escapist than that. :) But I also
watch the stuff with a critical eye--I'm constantly analyzing the meaning of
the things that go on in that absolutely insane world. To me, it's an
interesting commentary on America, and I view it that way. When I'm not
looking at some of guys, that is. ;)
Angela D. Shortt
Ange...@aol.com
<<Put the work first, and your message will take care of itself. As will
making the audience think.>>
I was told to get the characters together (names, personalities, family
history, friends, hobbies, vices, etc.,) and let THEM tell the story. The
message will come out of the characters' experience. I think that is the
difference between a peice of literature that is character driven, and one
that is plot driven. Plot driven stories tend to be a little thin on the
message side.
Angela D. Shortt
holman
>
> Ange...@aol.com wrote:
> >
>
> It doesn't HURT a writer, no. But one thing I discovered while teaching is
> that peoples' attention spans are extraordinarily short these days,
> particularily young folks. We can get into a discussion about the effect of
> television, blah, blah, blah, but I'd rather not on this thread. But I used to
> practically BEG my students to be patient and READ.
Not to belabor this issue - but I was speaking strictly from a
grown-up,paid-her-dues (had to read Hemmingway and Conrad, etc and
analyze them and learn the difference - supposedly - between good
writing vs bad writing) kind of thing. Now I read what I please. That
was my only issue. Honest.
HOWEVER - textbooks get dumped on students all the time and it makes the
author a "best seller" but it doesn't necessarily say much about the
content. Or whether or not EVERYBODY finds value in it.
AND I have no problem with telling students what they SHOULD look at and
seeing to it that they do. After all, isn't that why they went to
school? Besides, until you've had a good sampling of writing, you don't
have a clue what may or may not be wonderful. That's called education.
But now that I've been there and done that and am old as black pepper,
*I* chose what I like to read. A rose by any other name....etc.
alice