| Author |
Message |
    
Madame X
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Monday, December 08, 2003 - 08:30 am: | 
|
Is it me, but have you all noticed that writers of color have to either put out a novel based on slavery (post slavery) or have a laundry list of whose, whose fellowships, have attended the upper crust writers colonies or been awarded such and such from a prestigous foundation behind them - in order to be honored with any one of the prestigous awards.
Or better yet, they burst on to the scene seemingly out of nowhere (ZZ Packer) and is suddenly hailed by the literai as the second coming (not knocking her, just using her as an example)
I'm half way through Interperter of the Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri's - she won a pulitzer for this book of short stories and I don't know why. I suspect its because she had the literary establishment behind her - because the work (in my opinion) is really nothing special.
SO people where does that leave the talented writers who never attended Yale,Harvard or the Iowa workshop. Never stayed a month at the Macdowell colony or recvd a grant from the Lannan, Rockefeller or whats-e-whats foundation - but instead has raw, not taught in any classroom - born with it kind of talent - what are the suppose to do - how will the be honored? |
Chris Hayden
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Monday, December 08, 2003 - 03:08 pm: |
|
Madame X:
These kind of writers will have to do it the hard way--jump over the heads of the editors and gatekeepers and write stories that the reading public likes--the ugly little secret is that the editors and publishers and reviewers do not know what a good story is and they can hide behind the credentials of a writer.
Maybe they will do it? Maybe they will be discovered after they are dead and gone. Maybe they will never be discovered.
It is all in the game. |
Fool on the Hill
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Monday, December 08, 2003 - 08:06 pm: |
|
People do try to pretend that there isn't an inner circle to all these prizes/fellowship and even publication, but as Madame X makes quite clear you only have to scratch the surface to see the truth. Of course what I think is really interesting is that these awards also exist to bring light to books that the general reading public would (probably) never look at, not because they're not good, but because they're not as entertaining as others.
I'm not trying to get into a literary vs. commercial fiction debate so much as I'm trying to point out that those prizes (I think) are kept like a sacred treasure because publishers/authors know that the only way a book like The Corrections or, say, Beloved, is going to catch on with the reading public is if they're bestowed an award that's been classified as "important." Even then, the sales of ZZ, Danzy Senna and whoever else you please doesn't compare to Stephen King, Zane or Terry McMillan. I mean I don't think I've seen more than two people reading ZZ on the street, but I can't count how many times I've seen Coldest Winter Ever or True to the Game.
So I guess my feeling is: how much do the writers from the raw/unschooled arena want? You want respect and money? Hey, I'd like an island in the Carribean as long as we're daydreaming. Stephen King tried to buy respect at the National Book Award and it only made him look silly.
Look at the truly big writers, as far as sales, none of them ever went to a writing program or writing colony. Those awards are like pensions for the literary world, a little nest egg to retire on since these author's sure won't be buying any houses with their royalty checks. |
Madame X
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Monday, December 08, 2003 - 09:15 pm: |
|
Fool on the hill - interesting way of looking at it. Thanks. |
beatfelt
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Monday, December 08, 2003 - 11:51 pm: |
|
I don't know the answer, but I actually didn't know ZZ was nominated for an award, if that's what you're saying. Wasn't she published in the New Yorker when she was a teenager?
I think I know what you mean about Interpreter of Maladies because it took me a minute to get into, mostly because I had just read White Teeth. At first I thought, "Jhumpa's Bengali characters (who pay their rent on time and cook their meals on a hot plate) can only dream of living the way Zadie's do," but then, I don't know, she got to me. The Namesake is the one I don't care for. I really think her early success may have affected her - although it sure hasn't hurt sales.
Where does it leave the other writers? I don't know, but they're the ones I like to read. I've read Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon (flashy with no substance and unbelievably naive) and Empire Falls by Richard Russo (who spent the sixties and seventies in Arizona or somewhere) and I didn't like them. Now Annie Proulx I love, mostly because of her novel about accordion players.
Has anyone read Such Sweet Thunder by Vincent O. Carter? I'm reading it right now. |
Thumper
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Tuesday, December 09, 2003 - 08:06 pm: |
|
Hello All,
Madame X: You have a valid point. And as had been said, there is a definite inner circle who controls the literati. They let in who they want, it's more politics than quality of work. When it comes to black authors having their work accepted or winning these prestiges awards from the white academics, I believe racism is still alive and well. Many of them fervently believe that African-Americans have yet to write one novel of literature yet, especially Toni Morrison. Maybe it's me, but it's pretty much forgotten the hell that was raised, in these circles, when Morrison won The Nobel Prize. Then there's the ones that think that although there is one or two of us that "write" literature, the literature should be on the same one or two subjects that you have already mentioned. If you've read Wrapped In Rainbow: The Unauthorized biography of Zora Neale Hurston; Hurston sponsor, Charlotte Mason, a rich white woman, believed that Hurston and Langston Hughes, who she also supported for a time, should write on certain subjects and that's it. We should always be portrayed as downtrodden, slavery overcoming, dialogue should always be written in broken, grammatically incorrect English, etc. The same attitude is still prevalent today.
Now, these same people who claim that we can't write literature have used, and still do, the argument that when we get the chance to finally publish literature, have a hand on the publishing industry ear, we publish U-go-girl books. It's an ignorant argument, but I assure, I'm not making it up. So, if these same people ran across Seed by Mustafa Mutarbaka (I apologize if I misspell his name), they would automatically dismiss it and move on.
Now, their ignorance and stupidity is bull_hit at it's smelliest and it explain or absences when it time to hand out these awards.
beatfelt: I'm halfway through Such Sweet Thunder. Isn't it MARVELOUS!?! I think it's masterpiece! |
Chris Hayden
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, December 10, 2003 - 11:02 am: |
|
All:
Your comments are on the money. ZZ Packer is a good writer but she is certainly benefitting from the push The Literary Establishment is giving her--and she has the pedigree to get it.
Is she the future Anointed One? |
Cynique
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, December 10, 2003 - 03:29 pm: |
|
Just as a sidelight, most of the big houses do what amounts to "pro bono" publishing, putting out their quota of books that they know won't be best-sellers but are works of such high-calibre, that it adds to the publisher's prestiege to make these potential award-winners available to the public. |
InPrint
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, December 10, 2003 - 04:12 pm: |
|
What disturbs me the most is that the literary establishment is 97% white. Their racial prejudice heavily influences what makes it through, their idea of what a black writer is is fairly rigid: someone who talks directly about the issue/effects of white racism, or someone who presents nonwhites within the context of exotic, as whites do. |
LOL
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, December 10, 2003 - 05:17 pm: |
|
Dang InPrint,
You sounded just like Kola Boof. To the 'tee with that one.
But at least you're not calling them "caucasoids" and "white bitches" to their faces at the editorial meetings. Right?
I agree with you 100%
|
yukio
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, December 11, 2003 - 11:51 am: |
|
InPrint:
I agree. You're point really resignates in general with what it means to be "black" in America, and though I love African American culture, it is unfair to limit blackness to such a culture.
At the same time, i think the literay establishment, or any one for that matter, is problematic for the simple fact that white people are normalized, as the universal human being if you will. You will not find the adjective "white" to modify author or writer when they discuss white authors, though nonwhites can often tell that something is "white" once we read the first few pages. I guess the point i'm making is that there is a tension between, on the one hand, the socalled universal that whites like to locate themselves in, and on the other hand, cultural specificity that they like to put nonwhites in, for the reality is that there is a such thing as white culture....yet since they're in control, they don't have to name it! I think the "universal" is the existentiality of all humanity, though because our group and personal histories we deal with these same fundamental experiences different that contribute to individual personalities and individual cultures. |
InPrint
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, December 11, 2003 - 03:43 pm: |
|
Yukio-
You go it. |
|
Email This Page