Extreme Dinosaurs - John Updike
I know that John Updike was a master of American letters. Got it. Heck, I even read Rabbit, Run once upon a time. But what we have here is almost a total waste of time. Luckily, a very short time.
We have a prestigious writer penning an essay for a prestigious magazine and what we get is the equivalent of a precocious 8th grader wondering what evolutionary forces brought about the fascinating variety in dinosaurs.
Which would be an excellent topic if it were given more than a cursory superficial glance. Mr. Updike, however, was more than satisfied to raise basic questions, ones that I would expect to hear from an inquisitive child who pores over his or her first Dorling-Kindersley volume on the subject.
The essay is short, too short, because Mr. Updike never attempts to answer the questions he raises beyond saying that the mysteries are impenetrable. He covers the bases of role reversal, imagining how dinosaurs would view us, and then finishes off the whole rough-hewn mess with a shot at how we are destroying the environment.
There isn't much here, except some passing anecdotes on how dinosaurs are named. Read it if you want. It won't take up more than ten minutes of your time.
You know, I could be wrong. This could have been nothing more than a tone setting introduction to a whole issue devoted to paleontology. I guess putting the Updike name on the cover would generate some interest beyond normal readers. If that was its purpose, then ok, I'll call it good. It just doesn't stand alone well at all.
Sunday, February 28, 2010
Saturday, February 27, 2010
BOOK: The Liar's Club - Mary Karr (1995)
The Liar's Club - Mary Karr
I remember clearly when this book came out and it was flying off the shelves. This is exactly why I didn't read it until a couple of weeks ago. For most of my life I have had this stupid and immediate disapproval of anything popular that I didn't discover early. I always suspect mass manipulation and I do not want to be a part of the herd. The irony is that it didn't matter to me if I happened to be the lead cow, but, by god, I would not be following along with no independent judgement, no ability to opt out of what was all the rage.
This spared me such works as The Bridges of Madison County and The Celestine Prophecy, for example, neither of which I will link to at Amazon. But it also cost me for missing such works as this one or the Joan Didion book that currently sits on my nightstand. You probably know Emerson's foolish consistency line from his essays. Well, my small mind has plenty of hobgoblins and I am trying to get rid of them.
After I complete a book like this, I always read the reviews that feel the opposite of my own. So, for this, I read all the negative reviews at Amazon. I do this to see how my mind and taste compares with others. Many reviews, for or against a work, are poorly reasoned, poorly explained takes that wouldn't pass muster in a third grade book report. But there are others that are well written and considered, respectful views of the book. These reviews are valuable learning tools.
Because this book is so well-known and so reviewed (I might be one of the last people to have read it who is older than 40) I will comment on what people have generally viewed as weaknesses.
The most common complaints are how Mary Karr has such vivid memories and the incredible insight of her primary grade self. I link these two together because they are linked...tautologies are a specialty of mine. Seriously, Ms. Karr wrote this as an adult. Her mnemonic powers are good. She is a writer, a poet. We do not know how she makes her way back into her past, but I know how I do it. I know that I can work myself into a reverie and remember very specific details. I can hear the creak of a swing, feel temperature changes and breezes, smell the "granny gravy" simmering in a cast iron skillet in the kitchen, taste the smoke in the air from my grandfather's cigarettes, feel the heat and solidity of my grandmother's legs in what I know now to be caused by elephantiasis.
And that last point is the link to her insight. As an eight year old, I only knew that my grandmothers legs from the knee down to her toes were abnormally huge, her right leg being about a third again the size of her left, both being at least three times the size of a normal leg. I knew that sometimes the skin on the larger leg would crack and bleed, that both legs could swell and burn as if she had a fever centered there. My grandmother only complained about them when that "acted up" yet they kept her from walking normally or ever wearing pants. Now, as an adult with life experience, I can determine that she had elephantiasis, a word I would be unlikely to pronounce if encountered in print and would likely giggle about if told my grandmother had it.
But, if I am writing a memoir, I am going to call it what it is as I know it today. Readers who would attach that intelligence to the eight year old me are missing the point. I think it speaks well of Mary Karr's writing ability that people confuse her adult insight into her childhood memories. She has convinced the reader of time and place so accurately, so deftly, that they are jarred by her adult self's intellectual intrusion.
Mary Karr has said that she made up the discussions of the Liar's Club, the actual group of her father's friends. This is an admission that she was too young to remember the adult conversation. So, she uses her adult powers to re-imagine the words so that she doesn't break the scenes. These are important scenes about her father, about his milieu and her place in it. The details of the story are not relevant and to call attention to them by focusing on her lack of memory of them would ruin our viewing of these men and their hierarchy.
Then there are the complaints related to structure. Readers get frustrated that they can't lay out a narrative timeline of Ms. Karr's childhood except in the broadest sense: some time in Texas, some time in Colorado, and then some time back in Texas. (I think Ms. Karr gets her hurricanes mixed up, too, but so what?) But this is memoir, not autobiography. Mary Karr is giving us episodes and feelings and character. She doesn't have to lay out the months and years and tell the story chronologically. She puts the structure in where necessary to explain motivations and behaviors. (And if you want to complain that she couldn't possibly know the motivations of the adults in her life when she was a ten year old, go back and reread my earlier point.)
Perhaps the worst sorts of complaints about the book are those dealing with the two sexual episodes. Many people feel that these were glossed over. Then there were others that found them prurient and titillating, as if they were included only to sell more books. I found them to be complete, dispassionate retellings, taking up less than three pages of the entire work. Clearly the first violation angered her deeply. The second, while described in more detail, felt as if she believed that she had to explain how something like that could happen, as if she was concerned that we would think she was somehow culpable. I found the actions described obviously reprehensible, but the descriptions themselves striking the perfect note of storytelling and impact, which is what memoir should be. Complaints about these reflect far more on the complainer than the writer, and I do not have the psychological wherewithal to explain those reflections.
Then there are the folks that want to read a memoir of childhood that is full of innocence and sugar and sunlight. Those folks have never driven on any road southeast of Houston is my guess. These folks have never had, or they have been meticulously shielded from, or they have psychically buried, anything negative in their youth. Maybe, but not likely. Look, Mary Karr probably feels like most days her childhood was fun. What we see as incredible difficulty, she and her sister took for granted as part of living. They knew their mother drank. Trying to get food or candy from other households was just something you did. Getting into fights happens. Listening to their parents argue was the way things were. Writing about the routine, the daily grind of childhood, playing and schooling and watching television and such would make for a boring memoir. In fact, the memoir lags when she goes off on these tangents.
We're looking for episodes of interest when we read memoirs. The car on the Orange Bridge, grandma's leg (hers, not mine), the trip to the beach, the two near deaths of Hector (poor guy was really used for two significant turning points in the life of the Karr family and then discarded to history) and a hurricane are examples of what we want to read about. Conflict makes life interesting. Conflict leads to growth, especially when the outcome isn't so great.
That's what makes this a great and entertaining book. It took a couple of decades I guess for the family to finally figure out a few things. Was it worth it? You'd have to ask the Karrs. I thought it was worth reading, though.
I remember clearly when this book came out and it was flying off the shelves. This is exactly why I didn't read it until a couple of weeks ago. For most of my life I have had this stupid and immediate disapproval of anything popular that I didn't discover early. I always suspect mass manipulation and I do not want to be a part of the herd. The irony is that it didn't matter to me if I happened to be the lead cow, but, by god, I would not be following along with no independent judgement, no ability to opt out of what was all the rage.
This spared me such works as The Bridges of Madison County and The Celestine Prophecy, for example, neither of which I will link to at Amazon. But it also cost me for missing such works as this one or the Joan Didion book that currently sits on my nightstand. You probably know Emerson's foolish consistency line from his essays. Well, my small mind has plenty of hobgoblins and I am trying to get rid of them.
After I complete a book like this, I always read the reviews that feel the opposite of my own. So, for this, I read all the negative reviews at Amazon. I do this to see how my mind and taste compares with others. Many reviews, for or against a work, are poorly reasoned, poorly explained takes that wouldn't pass muster in a third grade book report. But there are others that are well written and considered, respectful views of the book. These reviews are valuable learning tools.
Because this book is so well-known and so reviewed (I might be one of the last people to have read it who is older than 40) I will comment on what people have generally viewed as weaknesses.
The most common complaints are how Mary Karr has such vivid memories and the incredible insight of her primary grade self. I link these two together because they are linked...tautologies are a specialty of mine. Seriously, Ms. Karr wrote this as an adult. Her mnemonic powers are good. She is a writer, a poet. We do not know how she makes her way back into her past, but I know how I do it. I know that I can work myself into a reverie and remember very specific details. I can hear the creak of a swing, feel temperature changes and breezes, smell the "granny gravy" simmering in a cast iron skillet in the kitchen, taste the smoke in the air from my grandfather's cigarettes, feel the heat and solidity of my grandmother's legs in what I know now to be caused by elephantiasis.
And that last point is the link to her insight. As an eight year old, I only knew that my grandmothers legs from the knee down to her toes were abnormally huge, her right leg being about a third again the size of her left, both being at least three times the size of a normal leg. I knew that sometimes the skin on the larger leg would crack and bleed, that both legs could swell and burn as if she had a fever centered there. My grandmother only complained about them when that "acted up" yet they kept her from walking normally or ever wearing pants. Now, as an adult with life experience, I can determine that she had elephantiasis, a word I would be unlikely to pronounce if encountered in print and would likely giggle about if told my grandmother had it.
But, if I am writing a memoir, I am going to call it what it is as I know it today. Readers who would attach that intelligence to the eight year old me are missing the point. I think it speaks well of Mary Karr's writing ability that people confuse her adult insight into her childhood memories. She has convinced the reader of time and place so accurately, so deftly, that they are jarred by her adult self's intellectual intrusion.
Mary Karr has said that she made up the discussions of the Liar's Club, the actual group of her father's friends. This is an admission that she was too young to remember the adult conversation. So, she uses her adult powers to re-imagine the words so that she doesn't break the scenes. These are important scenes about her father, about his milieu and her place in it. The details of the story are not relevant and to call attention to them by focusing on her lack of memory of them would ruin our viewing of these men and their hierarchy.
Then there are the complaints related to structure. Readers get frustrated that they can't lay out a narrative timeline of Ms. Karr's childhood except in the broadest sense: some time in Texas, some time in Colorado, and then some time back in Texas. (I think Ms. Karr gets her hurricanes mixed up, too, but so what?) But this is memoir, not autobiography. Mary Karr is giving us episodes and feelings and character. She doesn't have to lay out the months and years and tell the story chronologically. She puts the structure in where necessary to explain motivations and behaviors. (And if you want to complain that she couldn't possibly know the motivations of the adults in her life when she was a ten year old, go back and reread my earlier point.)
Perhaps the worst sorts of complaints about the book are those dealing with the two sexual episodes. Many people feel that these were glossed over. Then there were others that found them prurient and titillating, as if they were included only to sell more books. I found them to be complete, dispassionate retellings, taking up less than three pages of the entire work. Clearly the first violation angered her deeply. The second, while described in more detail, felt as if she believed that she had to explain how something like that could happen, as if she was concerned that we would think she was somehow culpable. I found the actions described obviously reprehensible, but the descriptions themselves striking the perfect note of storytelling and impact, which is what memoir should be. Complaints about these reflect far more on the complainer than the writer, and I do not have the psychological wherewithal to explain those reflections.
Then there are the folks that want to read a memoir of childhood that is full of innocence and sugar and sunlight. Those folks have never driven on any road southeast of Houston is my guess. These folks have never had, or they have been meticulously shielded from, or they have psychically buried, anything negative in their youth. Maybe, but not likely. Look, Mary Karr probably feels like most days her childhood was fun. What we see as incredible difficulty, she and her sister took for granted as part of living. They knew their mother drank. Trying to get food or candy from other households was just something you did. Getting into fights happens. Listening to their parents argue was the way things were. Writing about the routine, the daily grind of childhood, playing and schooling and watching television and such would make for a boring memoir. In fact, the memoir lags when she goes off on these tangents.
We're looking for episodes of interest when we read memoirs. The car on the Orange Bridge, grandma's leg (hers, not mine), the trip to the beach, the two near deaths of Hector (poor guy was really used for two significant turning points in the life of the Karr family and then discarded to history) and a hurricane are examples of what we want to read about. Conflict makes life interesting. Conflict leads to growth, especially when the outcome isn't so great.
That's what makes this a great and entertaining book. It took a couple of decades I guess for the family to finally figure out a few things. Was it worth it? You'd have to ask the Karrs. I thought it was worth reading, though.
The Fifth Chair | Image - Fall 1998
The Fifth Chair - Mary Swander
Late in 1985, I was at an air base in South Korea, living in a dormitory for visiting airmen. I woke up one morning and couldn't move. My spine felt like it was made of steel and efforts to move my head or back or legs were met with intense pain. It felt as if had I been successful at moving my body, my spinal column would have ripped out of my body and remained on the bed, heavy and as unbent as a length of railroad track.
My roommate, some guy I didn't know, was trying to sleep for a few extra minutes when I yelped at my first attempts to move. This upset him and after a few minutes he angrily got up, barked at me about disturbing his sleep and went off to shower. I, of course, needed to go to the bathroom. I lay there until he returned. I asked him if he would help me to at least get out of bed or go find one of the Koreans who start housekeeping work in the mornings. He told me that he had to go, saying with exasperation, "I can't do anything about this," and he left. Later, while I was at the primary care unit, he moved to a completely different building.
It took me a couple of hours, when the housekeeping crew finally arrived, to get assistance. The Air Force sent over a couple of guys to help me get to the bathroom, to dress, and to take me to the doctor. I was diagnosed with some sort of virus, I don't recall the name, I was out of it and alone. They gave me pain killers for the symptoms and sent me back to the dormitory. I stayed in bed for two days before the condition started to lighten. I remember the joy of being able to turn my head without excruciating, cause-you-to-cry-out pain.
I have another Korea story about the time I managed to get food poisoned. I was on the road with one other person who left me behind without even checking on me. It's a pretty good story, but we need to get to Mary Swander's essay on pain, loneliness, and spiritual metamorphosis, all told with the metaphor of chairs as stages of being alone. The essay is so much better than I am describing it to be.
My pain lasted less than a week. While I was not surrounded by any friends or family, I was in close proximity to people. Ms. Swander was about as close to alone as you can reasonably be in the United States.
Her story is painful and pitiful, but as she discovers more about herself and natural human behavior, she changes. That transformation makes for edifying and entertaining reading, a fantastic mix when an author is making big life-changing points. I don't want to sound like Pangloss here, and while I would guess that Ms. Swander would not have wished this upon herself in an infinite number of years, she is probably a better person for it. Because she writes so beautifully and searchingly, we can partake of her growth and become a little bit better ourselves.
Sometimes you have to thank the essayist from the deeper part of your heart. I'd like to do that now. Thank you, Mary Swander, for writing this essay. It will remain one that reread whenever I am feeling alone or depressed or I need a spiritual pick-me-up.
Late in 1985, I was at an air base in South Korea, living in a dormitory for visiting airmen. I woke up one morning and couldn't move. My spine felt like it was made of steel and efforts to move my head or back or legs were met with intense pain. It felt as if had I been successful at moving my body, my spinal column would have ripped out of my body and remained on the bed, heavy and as unbent as a length of railroad track.
My roommate, some guy I didn't know, was trying to sleep for a few extra minutes when I yelped at my first attempts to move. This upset him and after a few minutes he angrily got up, barked at me about disturbing his sleep and went off to shower. I, of course, needed to go to the bathroom. I lay there until he returned. I asked him if he would help me to at least get out of bed or go find one of the Koreans who start housekeeping work in the mornings. He told me that he had to go, saying with exasperation, "I can't do anything about this," and he left. Later, while I was at the primary care unit, he moved to a completely different building.
It took me a couple of hours, when the housekeeping crew finally arrived, to get assistance. The Air Force sent over a couple of guys to help me get to the bathroom, to dress, and to take me to the doctor. I was diagnosed with some sort of virus, I don't recall the name, I was out of it and alone. They gave me pain killers for the symptoms and sent me back to the dormitory. I stayed in bed for two days before the condition started to lighten. I remember the joy of being able to turn my head without excruciating, cause-you-to-cry-out pain.
I have another Korea story about the time I managed to get food poisoned. I was on the road with one other person who left me behind without even checking on me. It's a pretty good story, but we need to get to Mary Swander's essay on pain, loneliness, and spiritual metamorphosis, all told with the metaphor of chairs as stages of being alone. The essay is so much better than I am describing it to be.
My pain lasted less than a week. While I was not surrounded by any friends or family, I was in close proximity to people. Ms. Swander was about as close to alone as you can reasonably be in the United States.
Her story is painful and pitiful, but as she discovers more about herself and natural human behavior, she changes. That transformation makes for edifying and entertaining reading, a fantastic mix when an author is making big life-changing points. I don't want to sound like Pangloss here, and while I would guess that Ms. Swander would not have wished this upon herself in an infinite number of years, she is probably a better person for it. Because she writes so beautifully and searchingly, we can partake of her growth and become a little bit better ourselves.
Sometimes you have to thank the essayist from the deeper part of your heart. I'd like to do that now. Thank you, Mary Swander, for writing this essay. It will remain one that reread whenever I am feeling alone or depressed or I need a spiritual pick-me-up.
Wednesday, February 24, 2010
In the Penthouse of the Ivory Tower | The Believer - July 2004
In the Penthouse of the Ivory Tower - Gideon Lewis-Kraus
I've been to plenty of conventions in my days, but I have never been to one for academia. Most of mine are trade-related, sales, user groups, and the occasional nerdy comic book or gaming convention.
It turns out, they're all about the same, only the names of the presentations differ. Every convention is about seeking the interesting talks, finding the open bars, and getting invited to the party suite after hours.
I'm not going to knock the Modern Language Association or the current state of the humanities in the United States. I really could care less whether these people have political affiliations and beliefs or whether they hammer those views into their students. Personally, I would hope that students at the university are at least capable of thinking for themselves and that professors would be incapable of "indoctrinating" them into whatever political beliefs they might have. If there is a crime committed when this situation occurs, it is, as Mr. Lewis-Kraus explains that they aren't teaching students to challenge dogma and to think critically.
This is a long essay, but it is wonderful and worth reading. It helps if you have ever experienced the convention atmosphere. It takes all types and they are well represented here. Who in the heck has a convention the week between Christmas and New Year's Day, anyway? The next MLA convention is the first week of January 2011.
Mr. Lewis-Kraus' host and chauffeur and roommate for the duration was Professor Charles Bertsch, Charlie, lately of Arizona State University, but an assistant professor at Arizona at the time. The author treats him almost like the sole human link between the ivory tower professors of English and a real honest to god person. Refreshingly enough, he is the latter, like, I would guess, most of the attendees.
There is a whole bunch of hullabaloo about writers going to MLA conventions and making fun of how insular and disconnected the attendees are with the world the rest of us occupy. This is so much nonsense. One need only attend another convention on another topic to understand this. All conventions are loaded with ridiculous seminars and round-tables filled with esoteric topics and incomprehensible to the outsider jargon.
I'm attending one in Las Vegas in a couple of months. I'll be listening to presentations on cloud computing and technology governance, project management and environmental performance, all of them filled with people dressed in slightly ill-fitting clothing, discussing ideas that will likely never see the light of day in their respective organizations. Conventions are intended for the like-minded to get together and immerse themselves in their like-mindedness. Thus, they're pretty easy to mock.
At least Gideon Lewis-Kraus treats them with some fairness. Read it and see if you agree with his conclusions. And try to see how many of his discussion topics you can locate in the text.
I've been to plenty of conventions in my days, but I have never been to one for academia. Most of mine are trade-related, sales, user groups, and the occasional nerdy comic book or gaming convention.
It turns out, they're all about the same, only the names of the presentations differ. Every convention is about seeking the interesting talks, finding the open bars, and getting invited to the party suite after hours.
I'm not going to knock the Modern Language Association or the current state of the humanities in the United States. I really could care less whether these people have political affiliations and beliefs or whether they hammer those views into their students. Personally, I would hope that students at the university are at least capable of thinking for themselves and that professors would be incapable of "indoctrinating" them into whatever political beliefs they might have. If there is a crime committed when this situation occurs, it is, as Mr. Lewis-Kraus explains that they aren't teaching students to challenge dogma and to think critically.
This is a long essay, but it is wonderful and worth reading. It helps if you have ever experienced the convention atmosphere. It takes all types and they are well represented here. Who in the heck has a convention the week between Christmas and New Year's Day, anyway? The next MLA convention is the first week of January 2011.
Mr. Lewis-Kraus' host and chauffeur and roommate for the duration was Professor Charles Bertsch, Charlie, lately of Arizona State University, but an assistant professor at Arizona at the time. The author treats him almost like the sole human link between the ivory tower professors of English and a real honest to god person. Refreshingly enough, he is the latter, like, I would guess, most of the attendees.
There is a whole bunch of hullabaloo about writers going to MLA conventions and making fun of how insular and disconnected the attendees are with the world the rest of us occupy. This is so much nonsense. One need only attend another convention on another topic to understand this. All conventions are loaded with ridiculous seminars and round-tables filled with esoteric topics and incomprehensible to the outsider jargon.
I'm attending one in Las Vegas in a couple of months. I'll be listening to presentations on cloud computing and technology governance, project management and environmental performance, all of them filled with people dressed in slightly ill-fitting clothing, discussing ideas that will likely never see the light of day in their respective organizations. Conventions are intended for the like-minded to get together and immerse themselves in their like-mindedness. Thus, they're pretty easy to mock.
At least Gideon Lewis-Kraus treats them with some fairness. Read it and see if you agree with his conclusions. And try to see how many of his discussion topics you can locate in the text.
Monday, February 22, 2010
Patron Saint of Thrown-Away Things | Creative Nonfiction - No. 17 2001
Patron Saint of Thrown-Away Things - Greg Bottoms
This link takes you to the Utne Reader, the champion of thousands of small magazines and the alternative press, where this essay was reprinted. Utne has steered me to many unique and strange literary discoveries. If you haven't read it, visit the website or pick up a copy at your local newsstand.
Many people have written about the janitor, James Hampton, who lived in Washington, D.C. and created an intricate, beautifully fabulous set of folk art pieces in a rented garage. He worked on this for fourteen years and today it sits in the first floor of the west wing of the Smithsonian American Art Museum.
But why did he do this? Who was this man?
Greg Bottoms takes a look at his motivations and his life, including his loss of his older brother, Lee. I won't recap his life here, you can read the essay. Mr. Bottoms makes Mr. Hampton's faith the driving force. And that makes perfect sense, because it would take something to drive such a supernatural passion to create.
You might look at this work of art and think that it isn't that big of a deal, but when you look at the materials used, when you estimate the effort expended, you can't help but feel awed. Would it be more gorgeous in real silver and gold? No. It might shine more brightly, but it would lose its humanity, its underlying humility. Gaudiness would be a complete falsehood in this humble exaltation of the belief of this poor, hard-working, dedicated janitor.
We're going to see it the next time we're in Washington.
This link takes you to the Utne Reader, the champion of thousands of small magazines and the alternative press, where this essay was reprinted. Utne has steered me to many unique and strange literary discoveries. If you haven't read it, visit the website or pick up a copy at your local newsstand.
Many people have written about the janitor, James Hampton, who lived in Washington, D.C. and created an intricate, beautifully fabulous set of folk art pieces in a rented garage. He worked on this for fourteen years and today it sits in the first floor of the west wing of the Smithsonian American Art Museum.
But why did he do this? Who was this man?
Greg Bottoms takes a look at his motivations and his life, including his loss of his older brother, Lee. I won't recap his life here, you can read the essay. Mr. Bottoms makes Mr. Hampton's faith the driving force. And that makes perfect sense, because it would take something to drive such a supernatural passion to create.
You might look at this work of art and think that it isn't that big of a deal, but when you look at the materials used, when you estimate the effort expended, you can't help but feel awed. Would it be more gorgeous in real silver and gold? No. It might shine more brightly, but it would lose its humanity, its underlying humility. Gaudiness would be a complete falsehood in this humble exaltation of the belief of this poor, hard-working, dedicated janitor.
We're going to see it the next time we're in Washington.
Sunday, February 21, 2010
BOOK: Roots - Alex Haley (1976)
Roots - Alex Haley
I have put off this commentary for too long. I finished this 900+ page tome and felt like I had read an unspectacular family history, made powerful by the suffering of the people it describes. I came to the book believing it was a classic, and there are passages of it that are so; I felt the descriptions of the cockfighting, for example, were as brilliant as Dickens describing a storm or Tolstoy's mowing scene in Anna Karenina.
Yet there were extensive passages that bugged me, beginning with the first 30 or so chapters describing the life of the Mandinka. Everyone was good and honorable, life was troubled only when Allah did not send the seasonal rains on time or when animals attacked the goats. News of pale skinned men dressed in odd clothing who stole people was alarming but too distant to be a constant worry.
This focus on Islam felt forced. The notion that whites were coming inland in small parties to capture one or two people at a time seemed like a bad business practice, hardly profitable and highly risky.
And then there is the famous story of Mr. Haley's alleged plagiarism of Harold Courlander's novel, The African, in which Mr. Courlander describes the Atlantic crossing of a slave ship. There was a lawsuit and Mr. Haley settled before trial for over $600,000.
There are plenty more accusations of plagiarism and fiction (particularly, Mr. Haley's discovery of the Kunta Kinte's home village) leveled at this book, to which I am not going to link. It is upsetting, unsettling, and taints one's reading of the work.
I started looking for problems with the text, how nearly all of the primary characters were good (if they were black) and noble and hard-working. Some whites were good, some terrible, nearly all, until George Johnson (a mostly useless toss-in toward the end,) were completely trapped from effective acting by their own beliefs about the races and slavery. This is about the only thing that rang true, except that obviously some whites were interested in the humanity and dignity of black people, though there is no reason to believe that any characters in the book would ever be exposed to such.
The endless use of the news device to relate "great moments in black history" was so contrived as to be laughable. I kept expecting a public service tag to be appended to each of these sections.
But despite all of this, there is power in the book, undeniable power. Mr. Haley revived genealogy for everyone, not just blacks. The advent of the Internet and DNA fingerprinting will prove to re-revive the study. Mr. Haley gave history to people that were defined by their former servitude. He forced people to see these ancestral blacks as real human beings with their own thoughts and feelings. Sure, we could read slave narratives, but most were written a century ago (at the time Roots was published) and the language, from a different time, keeps them from being popular. The temporal distance also keeps them from that connectedness we feel when a contemporary is telling the "true" story of his family.
Roots is worth reading, but do not accept it at face value. Read it as one would a novel. The self-serving final chapters are a bit of drudgery to work through, as is the documentary description of life in the Gambia. But there are plenty of rewards, too, descriptions of weddings, camp meetings, blacksmithing, and the aforementioned cockfighting are very well written. The community of slave row is lively and real, too. It's interesting to note that most of Mr. Haley's direct ancestors weren't field hands (Kizzy being the exception, but we only travel out there with her once or twice, and that's more for a look at baby George than for a description of the drudgery of plantation field work.)
I have put off this commentary for too long. I finished this 900+ page tome and felt like I had read an unspectacular family history, made powerful by the suffering of the people it describes. I came to the book believing it was a classic, and there are passages of it that are so; I felt the descriptions of the cockfighting, for example, were as brilliant as Dickens describing a storm or Tolstoy's mowing scene in Anna Karenina.
Yet there were extensive passages that bugged me, beginning with the first 30 or so chapters describing the life of the Mandinka. Everyone was good and honorable, life was troubled only when Allah did not send the seasonal rains on time or when animals attacked the goats. News of pale skinned men dressed in odd clothing who stole people was alarming but too distant to be a constant worry.
This focus on Islam felt forced. The notion that whites were coming inland in small parties to capture one or two people at a time seemed like a bad business practice, hardly profitable and highly risky.
And then there is the famous story of Mr. Haley's alleged plagiarism of Harold Courlander's novel, The African, in which Mr. Courlander describes the Atlantic crossing of a slave ship. There was a lawsuit and Mr. Haley settled before trial for over $600,000.
There are plenty more accusations of plagiarism and fiction (particularly, Mr. Haley's discovery of the Kunta Kinte's home village) leveled at this book, to which I am not going to link. It is upsetting, unsettling, and taints one's reading of the work.
I started looking for problems with the text, how nearly all of the primary characters were good (if they were black) and noble and hard-working. Some whites were good, some terrible, nearly all, until George Johnson (a mostly useless toss-in toward the end,) were completely trapped from effective acting by their own beliefs about the races and slavery. This is about the only thing that rang true, except that obviously some whites were interested in the humanity and dignity of black people, though there is no reason to believe that any characters in the book would ever be exposed to such.
The endless use of the news device to relate "great moments in black history" was so contrived as to be laughable. I kept expecting a public service tag to be appended to each of these sections.
But despite all of this, there is power in the book, undeniable power. Mr. Haley revived genealogy for everyone, not just blacks. The advent of the Internet and DNA fingerprinting will prove to re-revive the study. Mr. Haley gave history to people that were defined by their former servitude. He forced people to see these ancestral blacks as real human beings with their own thoughts and feelings. Sure, we could read slave narratives, but most were written a century ago (at the time Roots was published) and the language, from a different time, keeps them from being popular. The temporal distance also keeps them from that connectedness we feel when a contemporary is telling the "true" story of his family.
Roots is worth reading, but do not accept it at face value. Read it as one would a novel. The self-serving final chapters are a bit of drudgery to work through, as is the documentary description of life in the Gambia. But there are plenty of rewards, too, descriptions of weddings, camp meetings, blacksmithing, and the aforementioned cockfighting are very well written. The community of slave row is lively and real, too. It's interesting to note that most of Mr. Haley's direct ancestors weren't field hands (Kizzy being the exception, but we only travel out there with her once or twice, and that's more for a look at baby George than for a description of the drudgery of plantation field work.)
Annunciation | Literary Review - Winter 2007
Annunciation - Stephanie Paulsell
Another essay pattern emerges (for me, the newcomer, that is.) Let's call it the pregnancy chronicle, the gestation essay, the reproductive memoir, the journal of fecundity. Similar to the cancer narratives, these essays can cover the full spectrum of emotion, from deep sadness to unbridled joy.
Stephanie Paulsell's story of her and her husband's apprehension at building a family and the trials they go through once they make the decision is told with overt spirituality. (This is my second Catholic essay in a row.) This is religious experience without proselytization. This essay describes faith with its concomitant doubt.
I couldn't help but be moved by this story. You want to hug these people, sometimes smack them. We all have situations like this in our lives, where the worst possibility occurs, or so we believe, yet it opens opportunities for growth, for something new, something unexpected. There are many paths to joy, sometimes we recognize them and sometimes we have to be pushed there. Sometimes we have to be reassured that it is okay to hope.
It is okay to hope. It is the ultimate sin to despair.
Another essay pattern emerges (for me, the newcomer, that is.) Let's call it the pregnancy chronicle, the gestation essay, the reproductive memoir, the journal of fecundity. Similar to the cancer narratives, these essays can cover the full spectrum of emotion, from deep sadness to unbridled joy.
Stephanie Paulsell's story of her and her husband's apprehension at building a family and the trials they go through once they make the decision is told with overt spirituality. (This is my second Catholic essay in a row.) This is religious experience without proselytization. This essay describes faith with its concomitant doubt.
I couldn't help but be moved by this story. You want to hug these people, sometimes smack them. We all have situations like this in our lives, where the worst possibility occurs, or so we believe, yet it opens opportunities for growth, for something new, something unexpected. There are many paths to joy, sometimes we recognize them and sometimes we have to be pushed there. Sometimes we have to be reassured that it is okay to hope.
It is okay to hope. It is the ultimate sin to despair.
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