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yukio
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Tuesday, December 31, 2002 - 01:35 pm: | 
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I've just completed Erasure and reread Invisible Man, and i saw an obvious comparison, particulary the "Humanity" motif and the question of what is "literary." I wondered what you guys think about the comparison and whether Everett's provides a more intimate characterization of Ellison and his protagonist? Everett's protagonist delves into his relationship with his mother, father, and brother, which allows us to get a closer look in to his character and what Ellison may have experienced as a writer and a man or what he would call a human in all its diversity, which he doesn't deal with until the last hundred or so pages. I think Ellison's life, his dialogue with Richard Wright, and his writings on literature and African American culture foreshadow Everett's protagonist. Please comment! |
Steve
Rating: 
Votes: 1 (Vote!) | | Posted on Tuesday, December 31, 2002 - 06:53 pm: |
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Greetings, Yukio,
I've been wondering some of the same things, so thanks for bringing it up. First off, there's also an intertextual relationship (if that's the right term) between Invisible Man and John Henry Days by Colson Whitehead -- JHD has a character named "Reinhart" (a variation on Rinehart) who functions in much the same way as Ellison's character, whom Ellison described as "a call to chaos" among various other descriptions (Shadow and Act). There's a Harlem eviction in both books, etc. After a second reading of John Henry Days, I view it as a coded work -- in other words, by the end of the novel, I think I know who Alphonse Miggs is. I've never heard anyone discuss that layer of meaning though, maybe I'm just over-analyzing it. Anyway, I was hoping someone would raise these issues because this forum is the place to learn. I don't have any special background in literature, I'm a jazz saxophonist who reads a lot of literature by black authors, and these books, like Zadie Smith's White Teeth, which are multi-layered, deeply plotted, and resist easy categorization, are right up my alley -- they're like analyzing a Coltrane or Cannonball solo. However, my feeling is that Erasure, unlike JHD and Invisible Man, is a cynical work -- a scathing satire which I have a hard time comparing to Invisible Man, which it obviously borrows from. I'll start with what I noticed which perhaps you can organize, because I returned it to the library months ago.
Erasure is brilliant, but I'm not sure it's a work that can be completely understood after one reading. Simply stated, I think the author is telling us what literature he likes -- Invisible Man, and indirectly, Their Eyes Were Watching God, and Box Seat from Cane (Thumper used an image from Box Seat -- people rushing to listen through walls -- in his review of Shackling Water, which I thought was unworthy of such a great review); and he's telling us what he doesn't like -- My Pafology and We's Lives. I recognize My Pafology as Native Son although I haven't read it in many years, and someone suggested that We's Lives is Sapphire's Push, which seems plausible based on the Random House purchase and after reading a little of it (AZTeena in addition to Tylenola, Aspireena, and Dexatrina?). Then he makes a connection in two places between My Pafology and Birth of a Nation (first through the dialogue between Wright and Griffith and later at the award ceremony). I realize that he's skewering Native Son, or perhaps protest literature in general, but what else? Their Eyes, like We's Lives (and Push), uses a kind of dialect, and you can draw some distinctions between the characters Dan Moore in Box Seat and Van Go Jenkins in My Pafology. I haven't read Barthes's S/Z (I read a summary), so the dichotomy between writerly and readerly texts is somewhat beyond me at this point, except that Balzac's Sarrasine is a work of social realism, so it may have something in common with Native Son. In S/Z, Barthes rescues Balzac's Sarrasine from a readerly to a writerly text. Wyndham Lewis, who's mentioned, was a vitriolic satirist. Many other references, like the nouveau roman, are not completely clear except that Alain Robbe-Grillet was a favorite of both Barthes and the nouveau romans. Tom Clancy as Dr. Bledsoe from Invisible Man I get ("To please a white man is to tell him a lie"). The numbers 1369 (lightbulbs in IM's prologue, hotel room number and Soc. Security no. in Erasure) and 451 (Bradbury), the names Tom Wahzetepe (Ellison's Oklahoma vs. Wright's Mississippi) and Virute et Armis (Mississippi state motto) I get. The name Thelonious "Monk" Ellison, I think, is a contradiction in terms, like Pablo "Picasso" Beethoven, or better yet, Salvador "Dali" Beethoven, although I'm not sure if that's intended (Ellison called bebop "decadent intellectualism," "birdsh__," etc, and Thelonious Monk was an iconoclast even among beboppers, who were revolutionaries). Three novels I read this year had references to either semiotics or Barthes: Emperor of OP, Erasure, and John Henry Days ("Roland Barthes got hit by a truck, that's a signifier you can't duck," and "awe-struck, post-struct superstars"). I'm really not up on that stuff, but I see the similarity between the postage stamp of John Henry and the young black soldier (who looks more like a Boy Scout) on the Paris Match cover in Barthes's Mythologies and how both can be deconstructed, if that's intended. That's about it, but it's interesting that life imitated art when Erasure won the award named after Richard Wright sponsored by Borders. Erasure is ostensibly a book about artistic integrity, although I think he's overstating it by having Monk's physician father favor his writer son over his two pre-med siblings because of his mind-blowing analysis of wordplay in Finnegan's Wake.
Steve |
yukio
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Tuesday, December 31, 2002 - 11:15 pm: |
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Steve,
You've given me alot to think about. I haven't completed John Henry Days, nor have i read some of the other literature that you've mentioned. I definitely agree that i need a few readings before i can get in to the subtext as you have. I do think Everett is lambasting literature that uses Ebonics clothed as black dialect, which is why he can accept black dialect in Cain and Their Eyes Were Watching God, but not ebonics in We Lives in the Ghetto.
Now i don't see the Native Son critique. I think it's more of a critique of other authors and black and white readership that limit black authors to producing literature that either essentializes black people or narrates the socalled "authentic" black condition. I do see Everett slighting some of black women's literature, which alludes to their story telling as an extension of their experience with their mothers and the oral tradition. Like Ellison, he is affirming diversity and he is, especially, affirming his right to produce art--his way.
Explain the Tom Clancy as Bledsoe and Tom Wahzetepe.
Thank You! |
Anonymous
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, January 01, 2003 - 04:23 pm: |
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Steve, if you play the saxohone as well as you write, you must be quite a virtuoso. Yukio, not only is your name interesting, but so are your ideas. |
yukio
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Monday, January 06, 2003 - 09:51 am: |
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Steve,
I've reread parts of My Pafology and its definitely a satire/critique of Richard Wright's social realism. The plot is quite similar, from the chauffeuring the young white woman to the pool room fight. I'm not sure what he is doing exactly, yet one never is. |
Brian Egeston
Rating: 
Votes: 1 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, January 15, 2003 - 12:28 am: |
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Wow. Mind blowing comments here. Very interesting. If I may, I’d like to add a question and few thoughts to ponder. I read Erasure, sort of. It was difficult to remain enthralled in the recycled subplot of yet another adult taking care of his parent or dealing with the issues of parents wilting away late in their lives. I found myself skipping past those sections because I couldn’t tell if I was reading Erasure or The Corrections. I was however completely caught up by PHUCK and the road to choosing a book award winner. One could argue that after Erasure we’re supposed to...? Write differently? Read differently?
As for JHD, honestly after grinding through The Intuitionist and I mean painfully grinding through it, I promised myself unless Colson was doing something different in JHD and doing it quickly, I was going to move onto something else, which I have to confess I did.
My reason for posting is this:
Colson is a masterfully talented writer as well as an imaginative genius—theoretical elevators. That was insanely brilliant! But what is the practical application we take away from those stories?
One can easily pick apart the satirical slam on the state of Black books in Erasure, but what of the deeply complexed, works, which are all masterpieces on some level. And who is using the practical applications of these works if there are any.
During church, I often find myself waiting, holding on for the practical application of the sermon. Amidst the yelling, and organ banging, I want to know what is it I’m supposed to do after having heard the message. And I wonder the same thing about people reading books.
An analogy: Steve, my cousin is a Jazz percussionist living and playing in New York. He travels the globe and occasionally comes here. My wife and I consider ourselves a Jazz fans, but when we hear him perform, we are simply listening to good music as opposed to picking out clever riffs, solos, improvisations, and what have you. We, like the hundreds of others behind us, enjoy the good sound. I dare say it is that sound which has drawn people to hear him play across the country. We, the listeners, have met a common goal at the hands of musicians-- to simply hear good music.
But in terms of books, and this intrigues me to no end, what do we take away from White Teeth and what do we do with it, but furthermore who’s taking the practical applications away from JHD and the like?
If these are intellectual choices and intellects are reading them, what are intellects taking from the book they don’t already know. And again, what are intellects doing with the information, the enlightenment.
What lessons do we learn from the regurgitated plots, subplots, whatnots, and please stop writings on race other than Race 101: It will always exist.
Steve, what are we getting from books besides Love, War, Race, and Politics and once again (sorry for the drum beating) but what are we doing with it?
These are mere questions, just to get a feel for the way others are thinking. By no means are they attempts to influence one’s thinking. I’d be interested to read your thoughts, and yukio’s as well.
I hope you play regularly somewhere on the East Coast and I get a chance to check you out. Your post was the best improvised solo I think that I shall ever read. You do realize you write like you’re playing notes, don’t you.
Written With Warmth,
Brian Egeston
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Kola Boof
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, January 15, 2003 - 02:47 am: |
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Brian Egeston (I think we both live in Los Angeles area),
I really appreciate your post--because I'm on a deadline writing a novel right now...and I am constantly, as I write it, plauged by that very question..."What are the readers supposed to do with this and will they hold it against me if they don't know what to do with it--or worse--if they can't use it?"
It doesn't help that I'm an extremely emotional person, because I'm always having to really check my work over--to make sure that my emotions have not created some inappropriate rainbow in the paragraphs. YOU WANT THAT, yes, but not unless it has a good rythm and a truth rooted in soil. A lot of people have told me that when they finished my short story collection--they felt exhausted. Derrick Bell told me that he really loved it (he passed it to 3 other Professors), but he and his wife both said that it left them "exhausted and haunted". Haunted with "worry".
I don't want people to feel exhausted reading my work. So I really relate to what you were saying.
There is so much pressure. I've never worked under a deadline before (it goes to the editor in March) and I feel this incredible panic, although I am writing (I think) very well.
But still, I have such a convaluted personal life and I am such an adventurous, confrontational spirit...that I really worry about "being myself" too much. It sounds silly. But I feel that I have to "prove" that I belong in the lexicon of new writers--and that I'm "intellectual enough" and have enough "histrionics" to tally a place on the list. It's the first time in my life that I'm not simply enjoying the process.
I hate books that don't raise really important issues and then take a point of a view--so my books are always controversial, very unpredictable and decidely "lively" (because I get bored writing, I have to entertain myself, so my work is loud).
What I'm saying is...I am, as I get older, more and more fearful to just write HONESTLY. I feel as if I have to shade things a little here and there--to win critics, to win over some of my detractors and quiet my MANY enemies. I feel that I won't get any "good blessings" from the people in this industry if I piss them off.
I'm writing well. But mainly from skill and imagination--and not from the blood in the hole.
I'm not sure that I'll be able to find an audience for my work, and as this is my first book written for America, I feel very alienated and intimidated.
I want to so desperately to "connect" and to have the reader feel that I gave them something of value. I truly worry about this.
BTW--I loved John Henry Days. That was good. But If I had to write it--I would have gotten bored and never finished it.
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Cynique
Rating:
Votes: 1 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, January 15, 2003 - 10:28 am: |
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Hi Brian and Kola,
Sometimes I find myself shifting into a Zen mode when I read a book, not so much mulling over what the author wrote, but rather what the author didn't write. Therein lies the true message of a book because it requires the reader to become immersed in the steam tha rises from the bubbling water, - to formulate a personal impression and to draw his own conclusions. Other times I choose to live in the moment, and simply enjoy a book for its intrinsic ability to entertain or titillate. My instincts also serve me well in other areas. If a book doesn't grab me after about the first 25 pages, I feel free to toss it aside. When I write fiction, I try not to let myself get in the way. I like for my reader to not even be aware that he is reading, but to be subconsciously transforming my words into pictures via his imagination. Needles to say, I don't always succeed in this endeavor. |
Anonymous
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, January 15, 2003 - 02:20 pm: |
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Brian wrote:
>> One could argue that after Erasure we’re supposed to...? Write differently? Read differently? <<
Hello Brian,
Doing both would do us all good.
Brian wrote:
>> If these are intellectual choices and intellects are reading them, what are intellects taking from the book they don’t already know. And again, what are intellects doing with the information, the enlightenment. <<
Speaking as an intellect *smile*, you take from your reading, the enlightenment you (may) get, and use it appropriately. Remember, life is a process and it's like constructing a structure, very slowly. If we all had the answers by age 30, your life for all practical purposes has ended and you can be placed six feet under. So I think you receive information, enlightenment, etc., over time and in the process you use what you have to do better.
As you suggest, we (may) already know but then there comes a day, sometimes when we least expect, that we will need to *know* and that knowledge helps us get over whatever we're going through at the moment.
I am convinced, as well, that most times, we know the answers but we're human, so we forgot or we know the answers but don't know the questions or we get the questions and answers mixed up, or emotions are thrown into the mix which can throw us all off balance, and we need the hear (or read) over and over and over to get it. Just like those who attend church, sometimes for decades . . . they already know their religious text, they have probably heard the same sermons more than a few times, they know all the words to the hymns, but they keep getting up every Sunday morning and coming back to sit in the pews. Obviously, it's more than just a routine. What they hear not only stimulates their minds but it feeds their soul. What they get helps them get through the week until they show back up again. Plainly, it keeps them sane in an insane world. And, reading a great novel can do just that too. |
yukio
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, January 16, 2003 - 03:32 am: |
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Hi Brian,
Interesting questions. I'm not sure what to say. I know that Toni Cade Bambara and other writers, especially the during the 70s as well as "protest fiction"(Wright, Petri, and others), definitely had a particular agenda behind their art. In general, i think you've categorized life ratherly accurately. Yet, writers are able to use the subjects and flip it, dialogue with other writers in other cultures, etc.., and i think it still remains fresh, because although we all eat, sleep, die, and shit, our experiences and how we deal with them are necessarily different and in all of those differences lie stories which have some type of utility for its readers.
In other words, i think YOU have to find what it is that you are suppose to get from a piece of art, whether it's pleasure from the music, the lyric of the poem, or passion in the prose. Your life experiences and your interpretations are going to enable you to get something similar but different from what others get.
In your analogy, i would assume that though all of the people enjoyed the music, they necessarily did not enjoy the same thing nor in the same way as you and your wife.
In Erasure, for example, the protagonist's writing is about creativity, not "social realism" or an anthro-sociological treatise of the black american population. Now, I believe that Everett addressed the question of artistic integrity and the fact that black experience is varied. Of course, he addressed a bevy of issues, but i think that the plot's movement was determined by Thelonious Ellison's internal conflict:failure to receive public accolades, while his work was at the forefront of the academy.
Now, how do i use this? I'm not sure, but i know that i need to listen to my conservative brothers and sisters (though i often disagree with them), that i shouldn't place racial groups, other professions, people of different classes and educational backgrounds, and people in general into boxes, that though we have similar experiences we can only and continue to walk in our owe shoes and that i need to respect folk when they say their shoes are wore and ol' even when i think their shoes are new, that i can't afford to have any and that my shit is the dirtiest and funkiest..lol! |
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