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InPrint
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Monday, January 12, 2004 - 11:02 pm: | 
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I think Percival Everett's Erasure is the first great manifesto for literature by African Americans in the 21st century.
I think, if the black literary/academic community was strong enough to annoint their own chosen star moving forward into the new era, it would not be Colson Whitehead, who's white-centered race books hark back to work being done by Ellison and Himes half a century ago, but it would be forward to Everett's post-black self-contained humanism.
In many ways, I believe Erasure is as, or will be as, important as that one issue of Fire! the darlings of the Renaissance put out so long ago. It identifies what's wrong with the state of modern African American literature, challenges the relation of artist to community in general, and passes through this kind of aggressive nihilism to erupt at point that gives whatever comes next an open door. It's kind of a scorched earth policy towards bringing a better literary tomorrow.
It's also a hilarious pageturner. I've read the thing four times. Each time I find a completely different, satisfying layer. He's not really a prose stylist, like Morrison or Wideman, more of an innovator, an ideas man. I'm a prose junkie but it works for me.
The man himself is fascinating as well. Unassuming, reclusive, completely unconcerned with the commercial aspects of publication- he intentionally signs with academic presses for puny advances because of his aversion to corporate influence over art. A real writer's writer.
His other work, for any who want to go back, is exceptionally diverse in style and subject matter. So far I've also read: Suder, Walk Me to the Distance, Big Picture, Frenzy, Glyph, Grand Canyon Inc., and I'm chomping at the bit to get The History of the African American People by Strom Thurmond. Anyone has any questions on any of those, hit me.
I did not read For Her Brown Skin yet, largely because he regrets writing it now. But I plan on getting to it. It was his only early commercial success, largely because of the fact it had more traditional AF-Am subject matter. After its publication he was noticed, then ignored as he spread his wings further.
While there are some who confuse his use of white characters and non-racialized storylines as a sign of "selling out," Percival has also been quietly contributing time and energy to Callalou, and other black focused writing causes.
For anyone who can swing it, he'll be down in Jamaica for Calabash, the absolutely amazing international predominantly black lit fest organized by Colin Channer and Kwame Dawes, and Percival will be headlining with Zadie Smith. He always looks mean in his pictures, but in person he's a very nice, approachable guy.
Gush Gush Gush Gush Gush. |
Katrina M.
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Tuesday, January 13, 2004 - 03:56 pm: |
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I love Percival Everett's work, too. I didn't post yet, because I wanted to go back and look over some of the stuff I read in his books.
First of all, I love his book "For Her Dark Skin" so much that I'm sad to hear that he doesn't like the book!!!
That book was a beautiful reworking of MEDEA and it totally presented a good case about how racist Historians reinvision things to make it fit their guidelines. In this case to serve white supremacy.
I kept thinking about India's Goddess Kali, who is portrayed as jet black and fat and EVIL in modern times, but who was jet black, sexy and desirable in ancient times. "FOR HER DARK SKIN" really did an excellent job of highlighting the historical racism against black people via their mother's image.
I don't see Percival as a "sell out", although I could definitely see how a lot of people would regard him that way.
Basically, it's becoming a separation of black people along lines of Class nowadays, but 30 years ago, all blacks were in the same class, for the most part. So Everett is now making a strong case for the fact that we are not one big blob of a group. We come in a million different flavors, attitudes and outlooks. We always did.
His outlook to me is genius.
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Thumper
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Tuesday, January 13, 2004 - 08:51 pm: |
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Hello All,
InPrint: I'm with you all the way. Everett does not get the recognition he deserves. And if you haven't read God's Country *eyebrow raised at Carey*, please add it to your "to read" list. |
Mike E
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Tuesday, January 13, 2004 - 11:09 pm: |
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You should also note that Everett's book Watershed {I believe that's the title} has been reissued by the same folks who reissued God's Country; & it contains a good introductary essay by Sherman Alexie a very good American Indian writer whose work you should also check out. |
yukio
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, January 14, 2004 - 02:08 am: |
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Hmmmmm...i liked both Erasure and Frenzy. His prose is precise and fluid, bright and humorous--amazing. I also agree that he doesn't get his due...but he's too old...Wideman doesn't get his either...i think, however unfortunate and unfair, black writers have to engage race and racism to get nortoriety....as Erasure emphasizes!
InPrint: he is a prose stylist...in my sophomoric, untrained opinion...i can't remember the name of the book, but it began with a doctor attending to a woman whose husband extracted a baby from the woman....or something like that....it was so angelic..delicate even...
Posters:
If i had to critique Everett, I would reexamine his "post-black self-contained humanism." Btw, this assessment will be brief and simplisitc, for i'm tired....lmao!
I dig him, when he argues, as other have, that the black community is diverse, that it is not a homegenenous "blob," which behave, thinks, and desires the same things.....i appreciate and agree with this position.
On the other hand, there is a such thing as a tradition and culture, rather than an identity, which many of us were reared and continue to participate in(southern cuisine, blues, r&b, hip hop, jazz, gospel music, language, particular existential beliefs, etc..). In other words, you can be different and unique, but you don't have to discard your culture to do it (i wanted to use the baby bath water thing but i forgot how it went..lmao!). This is of course difficult, for as InPrint has said about hip hop i will say about black people: WE OVERCOMPENSATE WITH OUR SOCALLED BLACKNESS! So that everyone has to go through this authenticity crap..."blacker than thou" mess. As Erasure limned, oftentimes it's white people defining what is and what is not black.... I would say finally, if you write from the African American literary tradition then great, if not then thats fine too...though i don't think Everett necessarily knocks the AAL tradition, I do understand that he doesn't want to be contained by it. Yet, it does have value.
Finally, this humanism thing is really an omimoron, for white folks can do anything, but at the end of the day, they're eurocentric, for most of these terms are embedded in a particular eurocentrism, which is almost always self-referential in its heterogeneity. In other words, if Everett is seeking to be a writer, he's really seeking to be a euro-american(white writer) for the only whites are really able to use the noun "writer" unmodifed/without an adjective. And culturally speaking, although white writers rarely engage race or whiteness(ie identity), their writing is, and has always been, cultivated and operationalized in an euro-american literary tradition.
Damn, longer than i thought.... |
Chris Hayden
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, January 14, 2004 - 11:22 am: |
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Yukio:
Now could you say what you said to us in say, 25 words or less? |
Chris Hayden
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, January 14, 2004 - 02:16 pm: |
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Yukio:
I take it you have been struck by the paradox of the black community often conferring worth on an artist, writer, musician, etc only after the white community has done it. |
ABM
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, January 14, 2004 - 03:33 pm: |
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Take it easy, Chris. I enjoyed Yogi Yukio's riveting description of the dilemmas of 'authenticity' that we AA's often face. Let our Sistah Gurl work her literary mojo.
Preach on, Yukio. Preach!
You may notice that often when I post here, I will adopt differing vocabularies, dialects, languages, style, etc. The reasons for my doing that are several:
1) I am trying to broaden the often restrictive, limiting functional vocabulary of AA's. Frankly, we AA's often use TOO FEW words. And I think the consequence of that results in staid, unimaginative dialog, thought, art, decision making. For instance, though I am a supporter of Hip Hop music, I think the genre would improve 10 fold if, for instance, Snoop Dogg had (or reveals) a breadth of knowledge of and interest in something OTHER than pimpin' (though it still "...tain't easy.") and getting high.
2) It is interesting to witness how people react to something that is atypically said/written. Sometimes, saying something 'dif'rent' can provoke another's truer/deeper feelings about you...and about themselves. For an example, witness my recent 'travails' in the Poetree topic section of this site.
3) I get so damn bored and 'attention deficit' that I can hardly complete one sentence without beginning to write the next 5 - 10 to follow.
4) Ok, and I guess I am often doing the literary equivalent of 'flashing' after receiving an 'implant'.
And to me the whole notion of qualifying and segregating vernacular is laughable. Why do we become mired in debates about dialectical fidelity when English was, is and, until proven otherwise, will always be a European language? No matter how self-righteous we AA might pretend to be with our style & dialect, we ALL in effect continue to speak in the chosen tongue of the ‘massah's’. |
Chris Hayden
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, January 14, 2004 - 05:10 pm: |
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ABM:
I would dig it too, I'm sure if I could just figure out what she means. |
Yukio
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, January 14, 2004 - 08:04 pm: |
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So Chris Hayden:
All this time you've been chastising me about my socalled academic language, but the real issue had been a question of comprehension....is this what you're telling me? or telling ABM?
Let me try this again, then:
InPrint charaterized PE's writing as "post-black self-contained-humanism."
I basically made three points, though long-winded( i am working on this for the 04').
1.There is no homogeneous black identity. In other words, i criticized this "blacker than thou" mantra many black folk like to preach! I say this because writers or anyone for that matter shouldn't be limited to socalled "race" nor should anyone be prevented from going beyond socalled limited and rigid notions of blackness.
2. Although there is this thing called "diversity," and "heterogeneity," we don't have to discard our culture, assuming if we participate in the larger african american culture, in order to appreciate and participate in other cultures.
3.I question where PE is going? IS he going to just be a writer? Well, i suggest, being a writer is also limited, for it really means being Euro-americancentric. Historically speaking, only whites and europeans have been characterized as "writers" w/o an adjective, ie. country, nationalities, or race in front of it, to modifiy or describe the noun "writer," though we all know that their writing is a rigid and limited as socalled notions of blackness. Faulkner, Poe, etc...were "writers," while Toni Morrison and Wideman are black writers. Now, what is missing? The socalled "writers" as normalized or universalized, but are they really normal or universal? Doesn't faulkner and poe and others come from a particular euro-american cultural expression? |
yukio
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, January 14, 2004 - 08:06 pm: |
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Percival Everett, i love your writing, ideas,etc...these are just thoughts that make me say hmmmmmmm?
you are indeed a writer's writer! |
Chris Hayden
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, January 15, 2004 - 12:59 pm: |
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Yukio:
No, I understood all your other posts, though I disagreed with them.
Not only did you clear this one up totally, but I also agree with you totally. First Troy. Now you.
Does this mean I'ze gwine ta die? |
yukio
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, January 15, 2004 - 01:16 pm: |
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gotcha..... |
Chris Hayden
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Tuesday, January 20, 2004 - 11:00 am: |
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In Print:
Why do you think Erasure is the first great manifesto for literature by African Americans in the 21st century, particularly since all the points covered in the book were covered by Ishmael Reed in Mumbo Jumbo and The Last Days of Louisiana Red back in the 70's? |
yukio
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, January 21, 2004 - 12:15 pm: |
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InPrint is doing his work, Chris Hayden. I've not read much of Reed, at least not as an adult. Any suggestions? |
Chris Hayden
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, January 22, 2004 - 12:46 pm: |
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Mumbo Jumbo to me is his best, and the Last Days of Lousiana Red next best--though the second book is the one that begins his unseemly tirade against feminism |
yukio
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, January 22, 2004 - 06:44 pm: |
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ok....i have teh Ismeel Reed Reader...oh, i don't care if its anti-feminism....i'm a practical feminist, who doesn't confuse organizational politics, as in how i think Reed talks about how white feminists control the publishing industry(ie Color Purple), with the belief that women should have equal rights, etc.... |
Chris Hayden
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, January 23, 2004 - 12:38 pm: |
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Yukio:
I think Reed comes off a little curmugeonly with some of his criticsm--I think some of it is valid. I think he likes to tweak folks, too.
What about this Percival Everett, though. I mean, I got this book, thinking he was all that. And after I finished I thought, "It was cool. But it had no groove."
Then I remembered a quote from the book (a charge that is routinely levelled against his hero--one of them self pitying black academics bleeding all over because his works on Euripides and St. Thomas Aquinas are not greeted on all sides as marvels of the ages)--"Not black enough. Definitely not black enough." |
yukio
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Sunday, January 25, 2004 - 01:24 am: |
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Right...this is why his book, and McKnights' book, He Sleeps, are good because they question blackness. BTW, i'm not asking you to answer this question, but what is "black enough"? These are these are issues that Everett interrogates...this is also something that is of upmost importance....consider the person who said that it was good that white folk enslaved us Africans because we're not in Africa, and I assume this is a postive thing because we're not "poor" heathens, etc......now, i'm sure this person probably has a healthy belief that they are "black enough." Anyways.... |
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