| Author |
Message |
    
Thumper
Regular Poster
Username: Thumper
Post Number: 473
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, May 25, 2007 - 07:23 pm: | 
|
Hello All,
I've read a few books since the end of the semester, not all of them were good. Anyway, I just finished My Life of Absurdity: The Autobiography of Chester Himes. My Life of Ansurdity is the second book of Chester Himes autobiography, and its one he should have kept to himself. As much as I love his books, I'm afraid I'm going to have to cut the hell out of him for this one.
The book should have been more aptly titled: My Life Is Not As Absurd As You Are For Buying This Book. If Himes was alive today, I would cuss him out for this book. All Himes told me, he could have done in two pages (front and back) and been done with it:
1.) I don't like black people, including myself.
2.) I don't like America, nevermind the fact that I should be famous and worshipped in America. I don't like America because of its racism, for not hailing me as a literary hero (even though I live in Europe).
3.) I don't like myself, and am pissed at all of you who don't find me fascinating.
4.) I write books for the money, yet I don't tend to the business of selling books because its beneath me, but I want you to buy my books because I'm broke.
Himes could have said all of this on the back cover of his book, I would have read it and put it back on the shelf, but damn, I would have had more respect for him. Himes spent 3/4 of the book telling me where he went, who he saw, and what he ate! Nothing to justify an autobiography. I kept reading for the hopes that I would at least get one or two chapters on the making of the movie, Cotton Comes To Harlem, or even some insight into where the movie Come Back Charleston Blue (Am I showing my age or what? BTW, if anyone got a copy of that soundtrack PLEASE let me know I want a copy!) came from, foolish thoughts on my part I assure you.
Forget the famous people he met. There is no insight on them. I guess I was wanting SOMETHING of substance. It's not there. I read more about the trouble he had with a 1957 (?) Volkswagon and his wife's cat Groit (who loved riding in cars) than I did about Wright, Baldwin, or even what he thought of the Civil Rights Movement, which by the way he did not mention AT ALL! I'm still stunned over that one! He's the black man who hates racism so bad that he goes to live in France to escape it, and when the social movement starts and happens in the US, not only is he AWOL, he did not give it a single solitary THOUGHT!? Wright has an excuse, he was dead. Himes...well not so much.
So My Life of Absurdity...all I can say is: Himes, no truer words have you spoken.
|
Schakspir
Veteran Poster
Username: Schakspir
Post Number: 1024
Registered: 12-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, May 25, 2007 - 09:02 pm: |
|
Come on, give him more credit than that. Himes finished the book in 1975 or 76, when he was quite ill(he had had several strokes), and one side of his brain was virtually malfunctioning. The first half I felt was fascinating, especially the first fifty pages. The energy flags, especially towards the end, as this was when Himes was so sick that his wife Lesley had to step in and finish it for him, mimicking his style. |
Thumper
Regular Poster
Username: Thumper
Post Number: 474
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, May 26, 2007 - 10:32 am: |
|
Hello All,
Schakspir: Why do I have to give Himes credit? There was no disclaimer on the book that mentioned Himes health, and then I didn't see where the publisher offered any discounts or lowered the price of the book because of it either. While, believe it or not, I am sympathetic, his health does not counter the points I made, which most of it I got from the first half of the book.
You said: "The energy flags, especially towards the end, as this was when Himes was so sick that his wife Lesley had to step in and finish it for him, mimicking his style."
This certainly explains why so much ink was dedicated to that damn cat! |
Chrishayden
AALBC .com Platinum Poster
Username: Chrishayden
Post Number: 4512
Registered: 03-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, May 26, 2007 - 10:34 am: |
|
Schakspir is right:
Though most of the things that happened to him he brought on himself (which he will freely admit) the man went through hell. He suffered from the delusion that people really wanted to hear the truth about what he thought and felt (it was the great time of Realism, remember) and was constantly stunned when he got reactions such as yours--or at least he said so--leading me to believe that he was self destructive and tortured and conflicted.
He had no respect for the stuff that made him money--the Harlem Detective series--and agonized that the books he had poured his heart and soul into--If He Hollers Let Him Go and Lonely Crusade, were flops.
He was as crazed and conflicted as James Baldwin and never got the healing that Baldwin found in acceptance as a serious writer and a voice for his people--by the time the Civil Rights movement came around he was through.
Have you ever read his semi autobiographical book Yesterday Will Make You Cry, or the short story One Red Hell? |
Cynique
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Cynique
Post Number: 8699
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, May 26, 2007 - 11:19 am: |
|
I agree with Thumper. The reader deserves a coherent accounting when it comes to an autobiography. Autobiographies are self indulgent enough without the person writing it being half "out of it". |
Chrishayden
AALBC .com Platinum Poster
Username: Chrishayden
Post Number: 4524
Registered: 03-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, May 26, 2007 - 11:38 am: |
|
The reader deserves a coherent accounting when it comes to an autobiography. Autobiographies are self indulgent enough without the person writing it being half "out of it
(I'm going to give you a chance to take that back) |
Cynique
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Cynique
Post Number: 8704
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, May 26, 2007 - 11:47 am: |
|
I meant what I said. Save the stream-of-consciousness style for memoirs. |
Chrishayden
AALBC .com Platinum Poster
Username: Chrishayden
Post Number: 4527
Registered: 03-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, May 26, 2007 - 11:52 am: |
|
I suppose Beethoven would have rather been able to hear when he was composing his last symphony too, but he wasn't.
We take people as they come--and I would rather have somebody make a damn fool of himself writing what he really felt than another ghost written Princess Diana type whitewash.
Peace and love to you, sister. |
Cynique
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Cynique
Post Number: 8706
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, May 26, 2007 - 12:02 pm: |
|
There's a difference between being deaf and between being disoriented, you silly sap. Or do I care what YOU would rather read. And save your silly platitudes. Who says we have to take people as they come? Does this apply to serial killers or errant Presidents? |
Yukio
AALBC .com Platinum Poster
Username: Yukio
Post Number: 2371
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, May 26, 2007 - 03:13 pm: |
|
i'm waiting for harry belafonte to write his autobiography! |
Thumper
Regular Poster
Username: Thumper
Post Number: 475
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, May 26, 2007 - 04:05 pm: |
|
Hello All,
Chris: I have read Yesterday Will Make You Cry. I absolutely, wholeheartedly LOVE that book! Notice, I did not dis Himes literary works. He's one of my favorite. With the exception of a few of his novels, I have read almost his entire output. There is an obvious difference between Yesterday Will Make You Cry and his Harlem detective series. But, the reasons behind the detective books he made quite clear, MONEY. And from reading the first half of his second autobiography, he did not give the appearance that he slighted or thought less of those books. Matter of fact, I would have loved for him to have talked about those books whether than how his wife's cat travelled. What he wrote in his bio does not line up with what you wrote about how he felt about his books.
Chris you wrote, "He was as crazed and conflicted as James Baldwin and never got the healing that Baldwin found in acceptance as a serious writer and a voice for his people--by the time the Civil Rights movement came around he was through."
Of course he was through, Himes was still in Europe, chasing francs and women. That's why I said, "2.) I don't like America, nevermind the fact that I should be famous and worshipped in America. I don't like America because of its racism, for not hailing me as a literary hero (even though I live in Europe)." It's how Himes felt and you basically repeated the same thing I did. Yet and still, if you and/or Himes want a garden to grow in Indiana, why in the hell would you try to water it living in Georgia? It can't be done, but somehow Himes felt that it should be done. Why? Hell, I ain't even going try to pretend to know.
My Life of Absurdity is not on the same par as The Quality of Hurt. In both books, Himes didn't tell everything. Rarely, would any author tell everything, but its not so much the content as it is the writing, the style. Zora Neale Hurston's auto, the Dust in my Track book, has been argued to be a total fabrication, but the book is a damn good read. If Himes, for whatever reason could not deliver the book, then NO book should have been published, because this one is a mess. |
Chrishayden
AALBC .com Platinum Poster
Username: Chrishayden
Post Number: 4534
Registered: 03-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, May 30, 2007 - 11:48 am: |
|
Chris: I have read Yesterday Will Make You Cry.
My point. Himes was the kind of man who thought he could openly conduct a gay affair in prison in the 1920's. Such a man is always leading with his chin.
Of course he was through, Himes was still in Europe, chasing francs and women
(WHITE women, to be exact--his relationship with black women, another sick part of him --though he treated the white women abominably, too!) |
|
Email This Page