spleen

recent reading

Gail Bederman, Manliness and Civilization.

Bederman explores the invention of "masculinity" (as opposed to "manhood") at the beginning of the twentieth century, and its relationship to race. Fascinating book.

WEB DuBois, The Souls of Black Folk.

If you haven't read it, read it.

Hamilton Holt and Werner Sollors, The Life Stories of Undistinguished Americans as Told by Themselves.

This is a collection of "lifelets," or short personal narratives, by immigrants, blacks, southerners, and other Americans from the early part of the twentieth century. The narratives were published in 1906. Pretty amazing stuff, especially those narratives that were written by their narrators and still contain grammatical errors and turn-of-the-century vernacular.

Matthew Frye Jacobson, Whiteness of a Different Color: European Immigrants and the Alchemy of Race.

Interesting analysis of immigration at the beginning of the twentieth century.

Hemingway, A Farewell to Arms.

Yes yes, you've read it. I know. We've all read it at least one too many times.

Nella Larsen, Quicksand and Passing.

Nella Larsen was a mixed-race writer during the Harlem Renaissance. Quicksand is, for me, a foreshadowing of post-war fiction - her style, by turns elegant, terse and absurd, is incredible. There are places where she sounds like Sylvia Plath, thirty years before Plath did.

Both Quicksand and Passing are about the "color line." They deal with the difficulties of mixed-race people (the "tragic mulatto") in the twentieth century. Passing is particularly striking, though Quicksand is probably the better of the two.

Josephine Johnson, Now in November.

Now in November is a Depression-era rural novel. It's a short, dense work, full of poetry and a love of nature. It's pretty good, though I wouldn't rave about it.

Ralph Ellison, The Invisible Man

In my small opinion, one of the best American novels ever written.

J. D. Salinger, Franny and Zooey.

Yeah, I know everyone loves Salinger, but he irritates my poetic sensibility. I would read a paragraph and shout, "You could have said that in one sentence, you long-winded asshole!" And then there's the question of privilege. After reading Larsen and Johnson, I had little sympathy for the problems of the elite.

Lorraine Hansberry, A Raisin in the Sun.

James Baldwin, Giovanni's Room and The Fire Next Time.

Giovanni's Room is incredibly well-written. Baldwin is a master.

Maxine Hong Kingston, The Woman Warrior.

Parts of this book are astonishingly courageous. And then, parts of it are overwritten.

Thomas Pynchon, The Crying of Lot 49.

Speaking of overwritten and overwrought … I actually really loved this novel, though Pynchon's insistence on proving his cleverness to me grew increasingly more irritating. The ending, however, is gorgeous and operatic.

Sandra Cisneros, The House on Mango Street.

This is another beautifully written book. I preferred it over The Woman Warrior. Small vignettes, lots of terrifying white space, a clarity and simplicity of voice that packs such a density of meaning.

And then there's all the Larry Levis (The Dollmaker's Ghost, The Widening Spell of Leaves, etc), Lu Chi, random papers and essays, on and on and on.

I need a nap.