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Ferociouskitty
Veteran Poster
Username: Ferociouskitty
Post Number: 467
Registered: 02-2008
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Monday, September 15, 2008 - 10:39 am: | 
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Just finished "Such a Pretty Fat" by Jen Lancaster.
Almost done with "Notes on a Scandal" by Zoe Heller.
I was reading "Black Skin, White Masks" by Frantz Fanon concurrently with the others, but then for my birthday, a friend gave me "Graceland" by Chris Abani, so I'm giving that some attention now.
I had the pleasure of hearing Chris read and having dinner with him and some folks last year at Hurston Wright Foundation's Summer Writers Week (which I highly recommend to everyone, except I heard they canceled this summer). I took Mat Johnson's class instead of Chris's, though. Check him out!
http://www.chrisabani.com/Abani_Fiction/Chris_Abani_Fiction.htm
In other writers-I-like news, Walter Mosley's coming to town! Off to get tix... |
Nom_de_plume
Veteran Poster
Username: Nom_de_plume
Post Number: 153
Registered: 07-2006
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Monday, September 15, 2008 - 02:00 pm: |
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Oh man, how was Mat's class? I just love him!!!
I love Jenn's blog, she is a mess.
I am reading Trading Dreams at Midnight by Diane McKinney Whetstone. I've been a big fan of hers since Tumbling! |
Thumper
Veteran Poster
Username: Thumper
Post Number: 652
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Monday, September 15, 2008 - 02:29 pm: |
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Hello All,
FK: I read Chris Abani's novella Becoming Abigail last year. It's poignant, powerful novella. So, I am totally jealous of you right now. I'm glad to see that Abani has a nice size output. I'm looking forward to reading his other books. |
Ferociouskitty
Veteran Poster
Username: Ferociouskitty
Post Number: 468
Registered: 02-2008
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Monday, September 15, 2008 - 03:28 pm: |
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Nom...Mat was great. He's very down-to-earth, funny, straight-talking, no pretense. And he knows his stuff. He runs a great, supportive class, and one-on-one he's very insightful and helpful. Our class formed a Yahoogroup afterwards to keep in touch and cheer each other on.
And Jen Lancaster is indeed a mess! A friend of mine started reading one of her books I had lying around and he was like, "I thought she was black!" She really inspires me as I work on my novel.
Hey, Thump...after hearing Chris read from his work about the horror of child soldiers, I wanted to read everyhing he ever wrote. I haven't read "Becoming Abigail" yet. I believe he teaches at VONA writers conference every year, so I may get a chance to take his class yet. I got in this past summer, but it was for my 3rd choice class, so I passed. |
Cynique
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Cynique
Post Number: 12869
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Monday, September 15, 2008 - 10:46 pm: |
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I was looking for something to turn me into a born-again reader since, as of late, my interest in books has started to wane. So while browsing in the library, I reached out for this slim little book just recently released by Walter Moseley. It is entitled "Diablerie", and is one of Moseley's lesser-known works, exemplyfying the off-beat genre he strays into from time-to-time.
Anyway, this novel is what I would describe as a psychological character study, a portrait of a dysfunctional middle-aged man suffering from, among other things, repressed memory syndrom. Complicating this affliction is a debilitating side-effect having to do with its victim's arrested development when it come to experiencing love, possibly because of the abusive way his father had chosen to express his paternal concern. Making matters worse, his stoic mother proves to be a typical enabler while, as he hovers on the brink of insanity, she clings to the idea that when his father was viciously wielding a strap, it was hurting him more than it was his young son.
The book's conflict is played out in an arena of mystery, unfolding in a way which managed to hold my interest, thanks to a flowing narrative and a plot that was not the least bit encumbered by its frequent lapses into kinky sex scenes.
What mainly made "Diablerie" work for me, however, was how the protagonist struck me as a sympathetic character in spite of being unabashedly self-absorbed and a tad malicious. This book wasn't exactly gripping with suspense but it did pique a curiosity that kept me turning its pages, and did remind me of the redemptive power of love.
Now that my reading habits have been resurrected, I'm deep into Stephen Carter's "Palace Council", finding this volume to be more palatable than its 2 ponderous predecessors, "The Emperor of Ocean Park" and "New England White". I will explain why later in another post. |
Thumper
Veteran Poster
Username: Thumper
Post Number: 653
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Tuesday, September 16, 2008 - 12:54 am: |
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Hello All,
Tonight I finished Sweetsmoke by David Fuller. The book was all that and then some. As I stated before this book is a murder mystery wrapped inside the Civil War with a slave, Cassius, as the detective. I did not think that it could be done, a slave being, moving, and getting information needed to solve a murder mystery; but, Fuller pulled it off in spades. The slave, Cassius, is such a black man. He don't take crap. Even when he is submitting like a slave ought to, the white folks know that Cassius thinks that they are full of sh_t. Cassius is probably the most exciting, kiss my as_, black male character since (Carey get ready) King Tremain! I'm not saying that reading the book will not piss you off at moments, but Fuller did an excellent job with it.
Now, I'm a bit shocked that Cynique and I are reading the same book, Palace Council, at the same time. Man, I ought to play the numbers. |
Carey
AALBC .com Platinum Poster
Username: Carey
Post Number: 1180
Registered: 05-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Tuesday, September 16, 2008 - 09:59 am: |
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Hello
Thump, I loved your little post on bookmarks and such ...let me stop right there before others think I am some kind of groupie ...anyway, we've talked about Guy Johson's Standing At The Scratch Line ...and to some it may appear like one of those old school Chester Himes books but that would be a mistake. His Echoes Of A Distant Summer and "Scratch Line" were very well written ...wouldn't you say? You know in my begging days I was able to beg up on an autograph ...so I miss your contacts ...by the way ...what is Mannie and Johnson doing these days? |
Soul_sister
Regular Poster
Username: Soul_sister
Post Number: 82
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Tuesday, September 16, 2008 - 10:48 am: |
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Hey Y'all,
Im digging this kind of thread -- I am most definately going to check out Fuller's Sweetsmoke - from what Thumper said and the man's page - its like that.
In the meantime - I have been disappointed by most of the black stuff out and my favorite Laura Rowland isn't dropping a new title until November - so I have turned to white writers -- I know can you imagine. I am working through The Last Templar by Raymond Khoury - murder, theft and Catholic artifacts -- Yummy.
I'll let you know what I think when I finish - peace out - '80s style |
Ferociouskitty
Veteran Poster
Username: Ferociouskitty
Post Number: 473
Registered: 02-2008
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Tuesday, September 16, 2008 - 12:43 pm: |
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Soul_sister:
Some random black writers you might enjoy...ZZ Packer, Junot Diaz, Mat Johnson, Chris Abani, and Kim McLarin. |
Soul_sister
Regular Poster
Username: Soul_sister
Post Number: 83
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, September 17, 2008 - 09:12 am: |
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thanks -- Ferociouskitty
I have read Abani and love him -- I will check out the others
peace |
Vanders
Regular Poster
Username: Vanders
Post Number: 15
Registered: 06-2008
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, September 18, 2008 - 01:51 pm: |
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Hey All;
I just started reading Harlem Redux by Persia Walker,and I am already intrigued. Earlier I read Stand the Storm by Breena Clarke about an enslaved family who buys their freedom thanks to their skill in sewing and tailoring and then help with the freedom of others. It has alot of history and some adventure from a time period just before the Civil War. It's an okay read, but I am loving Harlem Redux now. I hope it doesn't disappoint me. Vanders |
Emanuel
Veteran Poster
Username: Emanuel
Post Number: 656
Registered: 03-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, September 18, 2008 - 03:12 pm: |
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I'm reading "575+ Italian Verbs" by Laura Soave (I'm working on becoming fluent.) and "The Confessions of Nat Turner" by the late William Styron (always had a fascination with Turner's uprising). Both are good so far. |
Crystal
Veteran Poster
Username: Crystal
Post Number: 442
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, September 18, 2008 - 03:23 pm: |
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The Story of the Cannibal Woman by Maryse Conde – set in currentish South Africa the story of a black woman born in Guadeloupe and her white English/French long-time lover and their travels to various countries and tribulations as an interracial couple. I’m about half way through and the only thing that has really happened happened before we got to the story but I’m gonna keep reading until something happens – I can feel it coming. The 2 main characters are kinda getting on my nerves but they pretty much resemble real life – some folks can’t seem to climb out of their life-long depressions and some folks need to stop being know-it-all’s and really listen to the people around them. What I do like though is the historical/social descriptions of the rest of the characters and their surroundings.
Cynique – I enjoyed Diablerie too. A friend of mine couldn’t stand Ben though referring to him as a “crazy punk azz”. I think you need to try Killing Johnny Fry next.
Thumper/Carey – did someone say King Tremaine??? Y’all know he’s one of my favorite characters. I may have to give Sweetsmoke a shot. |
Thumper
Veteran Poster
Username: Thumper
Post Number: 655
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, September 18, 2008 - 07:46 pm: |
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Hello All,
Carey: I haven't seen Mannie in a couple of years. It's been longer since I heard from Guy Johnson. I don't know how the sales of Scratch Line and Echo went. I sho hope that Johnson kept writing because you know I love King Tremain! I hope for those of you who haven't read Standing at the Scratch Line or Echoes of a Distant Summer, PLEASE check them out! It is not often that we have a strong, will stomp your ass in the dirt, black male characters, who isn't a thug!
Soul Sister: Hey, What's up with you. *smile* By all means check out Sweetsmoke.
Vanders: I loved Harlem Redux. Its one of the only books whose story revolves around upper class black folks back in the day that reeks of a 1930-40 old timey Hollywood movie. Exciting ending though!
Crystal: OMG, how I love Maryse Conde!! I haven't read any of her new stuff since I've been back. I'm going to have to get my copy Friday. By all means give Sweetsmoke a shot and let me know what you think. |
Nom_de_plume
Veteran Poster
Username: Nom_de_plume
Post Number: 154
Registered: 07-2006
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, September 18, 2008 - 08:24 pm: |
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Y'all, I hit the JACKPOT this week!!!! Today especially; The Strand downtown on Fulton Street is closing and each and EVERY book is only ONE dollar. Even new hardcovers, etc. Today I bought twenty five! Books I'd always wanted, etc. If you are in the area you best get down there, the last day is Sunday!
Also, the reading at The New School was awesome, Jeffery Renard Allen read from his new story collection Holding Pattern and then discussed his work. That was Monday. So I'm reading a story here and there from that and still working my way through Rails Under My Back. It's quite challenging but I'm enjoying it thoroughly. I love the way he plays with language and it's a perfect companion to the book that I'm reading on writing, Alone with All that Could Happen - a collection of brilliant essays on fiction by David Jauss. It's not the typical cutesy-pie writing guide, it's some REAL TALK! Right up there with John Gardner's The Art of Fiction.
I have bought so many books in the last week because of that sale (64 - REALLY - just marked down to a dollar today, but before that 70% off Strand's already super low prices) that I don't even know what to do with myself. LOL |
Thumper
Veteran Poster
Username: Thumper
Post Number: 656
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, September 19, 2008 - 12:53 am: |
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Hello,
Nom_de_plume: Books for a dollar...even hardbacks!! I HATE YOU!! I REALLY REALLY HATE YOU!! No, no, don't even talk to me. I gotta go and find my happy place! *LOL* |
Carey
AALBC .com Platinum Poster
Username: Carey
Post Number: 1192
Registered: 05-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, September 19, 2008 - 02:16 am: |
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Isn't that something ...everyone that's read Standing At The Scratchline loved it! But really yawl ...that story will never make it to the screen ...Obama will be president before that happens ...opps ...let me shut my mouth.
Vanders: I don't know where you are at in Harlem Redux, so I'll save any comments ...but it's killing me ...I can assume you've read the setup ...Kind of a sad complex family ...huh?
Thump, that reminds me ...Did you ever read "Blanche"? I loved her books. Nothing deep, just nice crime novels with little twists. Help me out ...what was the one in which Blanche went to the Hamptons or some place like it? Ol'boy killed himself and left a note by the beach? |
Carey
AALBC .com Platinum Poster
Username: Carey
Post Number: 1193
Registered: 05-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, September 19, 2008 - 02:25 am: |
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Yeah ...Nom come up in here with that mess *lol* ...And he just had to say "Hard Covers Too"
Check it out ...he even had the nerve to tell us to come on down ...hell, sounds like he got all the good ones ...And ...and, it ain't like we can jump on our bikes and ride cross country ...you know, gas and all ...Yeah, let's see, here I am 10 miles from LAX ...I think I'll run on down to the Strand ...Thump, we should just kick him  . |
Emanuel
Veteran Poster
Username: Emanuel
Post Number: 657
Registered: 03-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, September 19, 2008 - 09:50 am: |
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And here I was going to Half Price Books (http://www.halfpricebooks.com/) thinking I'm doing well. |
Thumper
Veteran Poster
Username: Thumper
Post Number: 657
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, September 19, 2008 - 10:13 am: |
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Hello All,
Carey: What do you mean do I know about Blanche? I told YOU about Blanche! *eyebrow raised* I haven't checked up on barbaraneely lately to see if she is still writing Blanche. The book you mentioned is Blanche Among the Talented Tenth. That was an awesome little book. |
Carey
AALBC .com Platinum Poster
Username: Carey
Post Number: 1195
Registered: 05-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, September 19, 2008 - 06:17 pm: |
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See Thump, there you go with that mess ...so YOU pulled MY coat on Blanche. Boooy, you've been around them X-ray machines a little to long. Didn't I tell you about me and Barbara *lol*...look Thump, I know you are in the medical field and all that ...and you should know better ...Don't you think you ought to get that eyebrow look at ...I mean, everytime you start tellin' one of those "I told YOU" thangs ...lies ...stories, that eye is going to remind you ...remind you that God don't like ugly. |
Thumper
Veteran Poster
Username: Thumper
Post Number: 658
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, September 19, 2008 - 09:33 pm: |
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Hello All,
Ol' Grayhead: Did you bump your head again? Puh-leeze. How did you tell me about Blanche, when I had already discovered Blanche years before there was an AALBC! Dont even try it. |
Nom_de_plume
Veteran Poster
Username: Nom_de_plume
Post Number: 155
Registered: 07-2006
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, September 19, 2008 - 10:40 pm: |
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Y'all gon be mad but I went back and got 26 more today. I got there around 4, thought it was 5 when I left, clock said 6:43. LOL
Among them was a real find, A War of Eyes and other Stories by Wanda Coleman. Thumper, I think you mentioned her in the short story thread?
That brings the week's total up to 90 books. Thank God I bought bookshelves from them too - for a song, five bucks each! LOL
My bad, for some reason I thought there were a lot more New Yorkers that posted on here...but halfpricebooks, overstock, and Amazon marketplace are great for quality buys as well. I ain't doin THAT much. hahahah |
Carey
AALBC .com Platinum Poster
Username: Carey
Post Number: 1196
Registered: 05-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, September 20, 2008 - 01:39 am: |
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Thump: Do you want me to go first or what. This boy is about to get on my last nerve. I hope that five dollar bookshelve falls on that knot head *lol* ...with all them hardcover books.
But look Thump, my hair may be gray but yours must be growing inward and clogging up your brain. but you know what ...Am going to give you this one ...I could be a little confused . See, if Ann and Steve were around we'd get this thang straight ...but ...don't we wish. |
Mitchellb999
First Time Poster
Username: Mitchellb999
Post Number: 1
Registered: 09-2008
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Monday, September 22, 2008 - 01:25 pm: |
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I am new to the board but I thought I'd mention an excellent novel I recently finished.
"Fuhrer's Heart: An American Story" by James D. Ward has received mostly positive reviews. It is about a neo-nazi infiltration on an American university. The New Orleans Gambit Weekly called it "a quick and engaging read that presents an insight into how racism has endured through the ages." Another reviewer said the author presents a balanced reminder of "how evil still lurks in the most unexpected places and in the most unexpected ways."
I highly recommend it to those who like a suspense thriller steeped in real life scenarios. |
Troy
AALBC .com Platinum Poster
Username: Troy
Post Number: 1540
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Monday, September 22, 2008 - 08:45 pm: |
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I'm all over the place....
I'm half way through Junot Diaz's latest and I must be the only person I know that is not raving over it. Sure homeboys has a way with words and but it has not grabbed me yet. In fact I may not complete the Novel at least not anytime soon. The bad thing is I brught the book TWICE. I lost my hard cover in LA so I brought an eBook version.
The last book I finished was Faith Evans' memoir Keep The Faith.
I just started reading Wynton Marsalis' Moving to Hgher Ground: How Jazz can change your life. Despite the grandious claim of the subtitle it is a light read and is interesting so far.
I've been reading the short stories of Tony Lindsay in Pieces of the Hole.
Also on my nightstand is Jewell Park Rhodes Yellow Moon she is a compeling writers. If you ever have a chance to take one of her classes please do so -- she is fantastic.
Next to Yellow Moon is Kimberla Lawson Roby's Once in a Million. I've yet to read a Roby novel, I figure I'd start with this one.
I also have Stephen Carter's <b>Palace Council<b> on my night stand too. I'm traveling this weekend and will bring that tome along for the ride -- and only 'cause Cynique said she liked this one.
There are a few more book laying around that I plan to read, Gladwell's Blink and some other non-fiction titles. |
Yvettep
AALBC .com Platinum Poster
Username: Yvettep
Post Number: 3203
Registered: 01-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Tuesday, September 23, 2008 - 07:44 am: |
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Troy, I finished "Yellow Moon" a little while back. I was incredibly disappointed. Maybe because at the same time I had started Due's "Blood Colony"--a book with a similar theme, but she is head and shoulders beyond Rhodes in terms of storytelling skills and her ability to weave her research through a plot instead of it glaring through.
Almost finished with "Palace Council." Depending on how much work I get done this morning, I may be finished by evening. (Then I can't wait to read Cynique's review!)
I think you will enjoy "Blink." Gladwell writes in a very accessible way for an academic. Another one of these scholarly books for lay folks people might like is Nassim Nicholas Taleb's "The Black Swan."
Oh, and I read one of THumper's picks, "Sweetsmoke" by David Fuller. I love the mystery genre, but had gotten burned out on all the attempts to spin the detective theme--lawyers and medical examiners and psychologists and all manner of animals as detectives...It just got so authors were trying a little too hard. But this book with its enslaved carpenter--Someone finally got it right! I do have a few issues with the book that are a testament, I think, to where the author was coming from. But all in all it was wonderful. |
Crystal
Veteran Poster
Username: Crystal
Post Number: 444
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, September 24, 2008 - 05:19 pm: |
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I finished Story of the Cannibal Woman and I am not happy! I didn’t like where she took it at all – same old tired story. I won’t even explain what I mean by that cause it’ll be a dead giveaway for those who may read it later. I didn’t like the white man for the way he dismissed the black woman’s concerns and I didn’t like the black woman for putting up with the white man’s shyt. I wanted to shake her and slap him. Pissed me off!
However, while I didn’t like the story line I did like the writing. She has some good secondary characters and I enjoyed the glimpses into other cultures and various surroundings. |
Steve_s
Veteran Poster
Username: Steve_s
Post Number: 392
Registered: 04-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Monday, September 29, 2008 - 02:27 am: |
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Nom-de-plume, How far have you read in "Rails Under My Back"? I would be interested in joining you if you wouldn't mind and you haven't read too far. Or else join you and Thumper in reading "Holding Pattern."
I completed two Faulkner novels, "Light in August," followed by "Absalom, Absalom!", the latter notable for a long chapter near the end, the ostensible purpose of which is to fill in the history of the character Charles Bon (Thomas Sutpen's son by his first wife), but is based almost entirely on the speculation of two characters: Quentin Compson and his Harvard roommate, Shreve McCannon. The blackmailing New Orleans lawyer, for example, is a complete figment of their imagination.
Charles Bon is of a much higher social standing than Joe Christmas in Light in August, however, like Christmas, Bon's ancestry, which figures in his killing, is based on supposition. The following is taken from a study guide:
"...some critics are not altogether convinced that the problem with Bon's mother [or why she ultimately did not fit Thomas Sutpen's "design"] was mixed blood.
Cleanth Brooks, for example, has pointed out that Charles Bon's negro blood is not proven in the story, but is mere supposition. And Noel Polk argues that 'the reason Thomas Sutpen puts away his Haitian family has nothing to do with Negro blood, but with his belated discovery, after the birth of the baby, of his wife's previous marriage and/or sexual experience.' Remember that the only evidence we have that Bon's mother was of mixed blood comes from Sutpen via Shreve and Quentin's imagined story. Earlier on, when Sutpen was relating his own story, he did not specify what his first wife's defect [sic] was. This further implicates everyone--including the reader, who will have naturally gone along with Sutpen's 'trump card'--in the problem of racism."
It's an excellent novel though, very intricate with multiple points of view.
I have so many books that I don't know what to read next. Besides "Rails Under My Back" by Jeffrey Renard Allen, I've been intending to read "The Leopard" by Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa:
http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2008/07/06/travel/0706-SICILY_index.html
Or I might continue with Faulkner's "Go Down Moses" and "Intruder in the Dust," and then I will have read six, which should be enough to make sense out of this interesting looking book that I picked up about five years ago, originally written in French by a professor at the City University of New York who contends that "Faulkner's oeuvre will be complete when it is revisited and made 'effective' by African-Americans" (which in my opinion is the Ellisonian idea behind academic "jazz studies").
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/product-description/0226299945/ref=dp_proddesc_ 0?ie=UTF8&n=283155&s=books
I feel much the same way as Troy about the Diaz book. |
Nom_de_plume
Veteran Poster
Username: Nom_de_plume
Post Number: 161
Registered: 07-2006
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Monday, September 29, 2008 - 02:31 pm: |
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I'd love to read "Rails" with you because it is a very demanding book. I'm not that far into it because I put it aside to read some more story collections. I picked up the Best American Short Stories 2008 edited by Salman Rushdie the other day and have also been LOVING Best New American Voices edited by Mary Gaitskill.
Let me know when you start because there is so much about it that I want to discuss. We'll start a new thread and have at it! |
Crystal
Veteran Poster
Username: Crystal
Post Number: 447
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Monday, September 29, 2008 - 02:51 pm: |
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Hey Nom - I'm reading a short story collection called Los Angeles Noir. Susan Straight won an Edgar award for her story in it. Man, some of these murders are COLD! There's about a dozen Noir books set in other cities [Brooklyn, London, San Francisco, etc.] but I'd never heard of them before. |
Crystal
Veteran Poster
Username: Crystal
Post Number: 448
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Monday, September 29, 2008 - 02:53 pm: |
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Oh Yeah, Steve - I got Absalom, Absalom from the library but after reading the other two Faulkner books I just didn't feel up to it. Maybe later. |
Thumper
Veteran Poster
Username: Thumper
Post Number: 663
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Monday, September 29, 2008 - 04:36 pm: |
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Hello All,
Steve: I'm glad to hear that you read Absalom, Absalom! I plan on re-reading it soon. I have so many books to read and review now that it might be a while before I can fall back into my Faulkner mode. I don't know if I believe the argument by Noel Polk that you mentioned. I have to agree with those who states that Sutpen left his first wife because of her drop of Negro blood. I am beginning to be puzzled by those who counter the popular notion or want to lessen the importance that Faulkner place on race. I don't know if its people's desire to look deeper than need be or what. But, to not examine Faulkner's take on race, especially how white folks dealt with it, folks are not appreciating the complexity of racism and how it plays in American society. While Faulkner looked in the past or his present, I can not help but to wonder how he would examine and interpret Obama's run for the white house, and more importantly, how Oprah, based on her say so, can make a bestseller.
I got Jeffrey Renard Allen's Holding Pattern. I can't wait to get to it. Let me know when you start Rails.
Crystal: I have a couple of those Noir's books. I haven't read them, but I plan on it. You've peeked my interest in them again. |
Nom_de_plume
Veteran Poster
Username: Nom_de_plume
Post Number: 162
Registered: 07-2006
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Monday, September 29, 2008 - 09:30 pm: |
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I have Manhattan Noir and Trinidad Noir, which was one of my finds the other week! I thought the Trini one would be especially interesting and I'm looking forward to starting that.
I'm ready to discuss Rails whenever y'all are.
One of these days I'll try some Faulkner, you guys have had some great posts about him! |
Steve_s
Veteran Poster
Username: Steve_s
Post Number: 393
Registered: 04-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, October 01, 2008 - 05:09 pm: |
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Nom,
I just finished "Girls Like Us" by Sheila Weller and I'm starting "Rails Under My Back" tonight.
Crystal, Nom, and Thumper,
Albert Murray's "South To a Very Old Place" (a book I've had for a few years but have never read) contains some thoughts on a few white Southern writers like Carson McCullers, Walker Percy, Robert Penn Warren, and others, but especially William Faulkner, who I know he admires. According to Stanley Crouch (who calls the Murray book "a mostly autobiographical set of variations that use a structure similar to the dialogues in Faulkner's "The Bear," where what is supposed to be a romantic and even apologetic rendition of Southern history is constantly undercut by montages of blood-and-thunder complexity held together by wit both grotesque and ironic..."), Murray "points out that Absalom, Absalom! is as much a variation on Moby-Dick as it is an examination of Southern bloodlines and motives through the tragedian chords of Greek drama and myth." I think he's talking about Sutpen's quest for what Ahab would probably call the "whiteness of whiteness." Just thumbing through the book I notice that Murray compares the "inventions" of Quentin Compson and Shreve McCannon that I mentioned, to something else out of Southern folklore, like Br'er Rabbit or something.
Sheila Weller's book contains some interesting background on "second-wave" feminism, a movement she traces to a 1963 document written by two women - one an SDSer and the other a SNCC volunteer - who wondered why, if women were so active in the civil rights and anti-war movements, they were being treated as second-class within those movements. (She says nothing, however, about the exclusion or expulsion of whites from CORE and SNCC the following year, if I remember correctly however, that's a whole 'nother can of worms .
So in that sense, there's a similarity to the first wave (if you want to call it that) feminists, abolitionists who broke with the male-dominated organizations for similar reasons (I read Mark Perry's biography of the Grimké sisters). Weller then traces the origins or etymologies of some of the feminist vocabulary of the 1960s and 1970s, for example, "NOW member Jo Ann Evans-Gardner pushed for the resuscitation of the fourteenth-century English term "Ms."....Anne Forer named the process of women's experience-sharing 'consciousness raising'....Either..Carol Manisch or..Robin Morgan..came up with "The personal is political"; New Yorker rock critic Ellen Willis injected 'sexist' and 'sexism' into the national conversation;...Kathie Amatniek bestowed 'male chauvinism' on a public that had never even heard of the French-originated noun" and so on.
So I wonder about the historical context of calling Faulkner a "sexist," because in addition, Weller says that "the almost-50 percent Seven Sisters almna-staffed Ms. Magazine" included Gloria Steinem (Smith) and Alice Walker (Sarah Lawrence). Other Seven Sisters alumnae of that era include Ali McGraw (Wellesley), Jane Fonda (Vassar), and Erica Jong (Barnard). Aren't Suzan-Lori Parks and Martha Southgate Seven Sisters alumni? I mean, I've always know that Gil Scott-Heron "prepped" at the Fieldston School (class of '66), the same elite prep school in Riverdale that Carly Simon attended!
Part of some of the feminist activities of that era included painting the male literary lions as troglodytes -- kind of a double-whammy for Faulkner when you consider how the so-called dead white males of the literary canon were targeted by black nationalists. Just something to consider
Thumper, See if you agree with any of the following. Characters like Joe Christmas and to a lesser degree Charles Bon (because we know less about him) are atypical in that they have no apparent history of any race other than that of the majority. This is different than Barack Obama or Walter White or Jean Toomer, or even the protagonist of The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man, who, although atypical in being able to pass freely between black and white cultures, has a minority identity that was not revealed to him as an accusation as it was to Joe Christmas, and was not, like Charles Bon, raised in culture like New Orleans before the Civil War (or even Haiti, I supposed) in which racial identity was slightly more fluid (probably not the right term) than the binary opposition that came in afterwards. Sidney Bechet was a middle-class French-speaking *Downtown New Orleans* Creole, who, although he played in the black style, couldn't read music, and he couldn't believe that Kid Ory, who spoke French and came from a plantation upriver, was even a Creole. So they were from two different Creole cultures.
I used to wonder what Stanley Crouch meant by calling Moby-Dick a "series of improvisations on the significance of limitations" (well, I mean the obvious example is the beached whale who gets to close to shore) but I think the Murray quote may she some light on it. By coincidence, Weller quotes Crouch on the same subject, in discussing Joni Mitchell's apparent delusion that, because she was playing certain kinds of jazz-derived harmonies and rhythms in her music that she was somehow "black." (I love the term "crossover hubris"!)
"...But such crossover hubris wasn't only quintessentially '60s-generation...; it was also timelessly American, in the opinion of cultural critic Stanley Crouch. The heroine of Crouch's novel Don't the Moon Look Lonesome is a young blond woman from (Saskatoon-longitude) South Dakota, whose jazz singing and long relationship with a black jazz musician represents both an attempt to embrace racial Otherness and a confrontation with the limits of doing so..."
It's like playing music in a club in a place where, outside the club your movement is circumscribed, even though you may be staying in the neighborhood for days. It's a drag, that's what he's saying.
CORRECTIONS: I misstated by saying that all the narrators in Absalom, Absalom! are male. Obviously, Rosa Coldfield is not only female, I believe she's the only narrator who has first-person knowledge of Thomas Sutpen.
I also checked Uncle Tom's Cabin, and Cassy is the only mother who commits infanticide (she uses laudanum to kill her child). The woman on the boat commits suicide after her child is taken while she's asleep. |
Nom_de_plume
Veteran Poster
Username: Nom_de_plume
Post Number: 164
Registered: 07-2006
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, October 11, 2008 - 07:00 pm: |
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Carey,
How far along are you in Rails? Let me know and we'll start a separate thread for it! Of course I've set it aside to devour a few stories and essays, etc but I'm very interested in discussing this with you cause it is a treat! |
Carey
AALBC .com Platinum Poster
Username: Carey
Post Number: 1277
Registered: 05-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, October 11, 2008 - 07:30 pm: |
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Nom, thank you for mentioning my name in this tight and informative thread but I believe it was Steve or Thumper that mentioned their desire to read "Rails".
You must have been reading some of my nonsense and couldn't shake me *lol*. It would be great to sit around some of the "respected" of the board and I wouldn't harbor any pains of being put on blast by such. My inclusion would be minute at best yet I might grab a copy and sit quitely on the sidelines. I might learn a little something. |
Nom_de_plume
Veteran Poster
Username: Nom_de_plume
Post Number: 165
Registered: 07-2006
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, October 11, 2008 - 07:40 pm: |
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LMAO! That's right it was Steve, you were the one that wanted my shelves to fall on me and brain me! Hahahaha
If you do grab a copy, don't sit on the sidelines, join it! The book is so BIG and challenging that I would love for everyone to participate. The discussions that will stem from, especially on craft, will be awesome! |
Staples87
Newbie Poster
Username: Staples87
Post Number: 2
Registered: 09-2008
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Sunday, October 12, 2008 - 03:37 pm: |
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Hello all, I just finshed up Hill Harper's Letters to a young sister. This book was a very inspirational book about issues that alot of young women are going through today. It was nice to see questions answered about females issues in the perspective of a male. Right now I am reading Leslie by Omar Tyree which is so far a very good mystery. I am looking for more mysteries and horror stories by african american authors. So if any one knows of any I would love for you to share them with me. Thank you |
Schakspir
AALBC .com Platinum Poster
Username: Schakspir
Post Number: 1236
Registered: 12-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Monday, October 13, 2008 - 04:54 pm: |
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South Street, by Richard Bradley
War and Peace, by Leo Tolstoy
just finished !Click Song, by John A. Williams |
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