EbonyAngel wrote:
blkeyesuzi wrote:
x-tempo wrote:
...Everyone seems to be absorbed in Benji's personal experiences, which is fine, however, I haven't heard anyone yet acknowledge any issues of social class in his very atypical childhood.
In "The Souls of Black Folk" (1903), W.E.B. Du Bois described what he called the "Talented Tenth," a well-educated and affluent cultural elite whose achievement would lead the way to acceptance for all African Americans. The Talented Tenth, which in reality was more like one in five thousand, were seen by many African Americans as just a snobbish upper class. And it's also debatable whether a podiatrist and a corporate lawyer for Nestlé's with a summer home (like Benji's parents) were what Du Bois had in mind.
While I certainly understand and respect your point, my feeling is that Colson Whitehead isn't aspiring to what Du Bois had in mind. I don't think Whitehead's novel is meant to be taken as a sociological study of any sort. It's meant to be taken as a stroll down memory lane...one boy's experience over a summer. He's looking back to a special time in his life and looking upon a place that has changed greatly over the years. Remember when...
Sure, Benji's life was atypical and that's what makes it interesting. Without his parents and his grandparents hard work, he probably would not be summering at Sag Harbor. Moreover, there is plenty to be said about the generations before him who blazed the trail to bring Benji to the freedom he enjoys at that moment. There is also much to be said about the changes yet to be realized, but I don't think Whitehead's intent was to use his novel to make a sweeping statement about social injustice or issues of class. He is simply telling us "what I did the summer of 1984" (I think that was the year...I don't have the book in front of me at the moment). It's about summer break... a subject to which most, if not all, of us can relate, regardless of class or color.
I took it as what I call, "not serious reading" also. So I have to agree with blkeyesuzi. It was a nice story of a black teen-ager looking back on his summer vacation in a place where he could be among other black teen-agers like himself. Sure there were racial matters brought up but only as they pertained to the story at hand.
Thanks for the replies, blkeyesuzi and EbonyAngel,
I think there is a kind of "double-consciousness" already inherent in this type of modernist narrative in which, as you say, a narrator looks back and comments on himself as a younger person. If this kind of "two-ness" or "fractured" self is what we're calling double-consciousness, then there's nothing negative about it because this story is all about consciousness and experience. Being able to see something from more than one point of view is a positive attribute, not a negative one. But that's not how Du Bois meant it. Anyway, I don't mean to belabor that point because we're not reading Du Bois, but when Queequeg, the harpooner in Moby-Dick and resident of the fictional South Sea island of Rokovoko, is described on p. 83 as feeling a touch of religious d-c, it's the generalized type because Du Bois was not concerned with South Sea islanders or non-Christians.
In "Sag Harbor," the first sentence of the "Message from the Author" contains two capitalized phrases: "I've always been a bit of a plodder, which is why I now present my Autobiographical Fourth Novel, as opposed to the standard Autobiographical First Novel." In my opinion, anyone who is reading this novel as an autobiography might be able to use some double-consciousness because I don't the author and Benji are one.
I've all read five of the author's books and none have been sociological studies, nor would I want them to be, however, even comic novels, good ones, at least, should be taken seriously. I particularly like John Henry Days with its complex structure--two alternating threads, one in the present and one in the 19th century, plus really interesting set pieces, a one-act play, and discontinuous time (it begins at the end). That kind of complexity appeals to me.
About the prep schools. Carly Simon had an almost dream artistic childhood because writers and musicians of all kinds were in and out of her house when she was growing up. Her siblings include an opera singer, a concert pianist, and a famous photographer. I wish the same kind of educational experience for everyone and I certainly don't any young person to feel bad about attending a prep school. On the other hand I have a hard time pitying anyone because of it.
If you're interested, here's a 1963 video of Dr. Kenneth Clark interviewing James Baldwin. The meeting(s) with Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy may have taken place in May, a few months before the March on Washington in August.
When Kenneth Clark asks him (at 3:23 in the video) where he attended school, he merely says "P.S. 24...and P.S. 139," he doesn't mention DeWitt Clinton High School.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rt-WgwFEUNQ&feature=related
Message Edited by x-tempo on 03-08-2009 06:18 PM
