|
|
Sold Out
Book Categories |
| The "colored question" | 1 | |
| From The black laws of Illinois, and a few reasons why they should be repealed | 3 | |
| From "The other fellow's burden" | 9 | |
| "At the closed gate of justice" and from The black cat club | 14 | |
| From "on anarchy" | 17 | |
| From The reason why the colored American is not in the Columbian world exposition | 20 | |
| March 24, 1917 : "Big dailies worried by recent migration" by R. T. Sims | 29 | |
| January 14, 1939 : "The plight of the Jewish minority" by Kelly Miller | 29 | |
| February 20 and 27, 1943 : "The American Negro Press" by W. E. B. DuBois | 29 | |
| April 27, 1946 : "Simple and the heads" by Langston Hughes | 29 | |
| "Tired," "Prelude," "Questions," and "A fragment" | 38 | |
| From "Organized students are powerful," "Entering Chicago," and "The new Negro" | 42 | |
| "When day is done" | 46 | |
| "Four glimpses of night" and "Frank Marshall Davis : writer" | 48 | |
| From I wouldn't take nothin' for my journey | 52 | |
| From American daughter | 60 | |
| "Old Mis' Cane" | 66 | |
| From "I tried to be a communist" | 74 | |
| "Overnight trip" | 92 | |
| From Blood on the forge | 102 | |
| From Black metropolis | 106 | |
| From Racial equality in America | 110 | |
| "These beasts and the Benin bronze" and "Beautiful? : you are the most" | 116 | |
| From "Premonition of the panther" | 119 | |
| "For Eric Toller" | 127 | |
| "To Don at Salaam," "Walter Bradford," and from Maud Martha | 129 | |
| From I refuse to learn to fail | 133 | |
| From A journey to Africa | 138 | |
| From The negotiation : a novel of tomorrow | 147 | |
| "McDougal" | 155 | |
| From Before the Mayflower : a history of the Negro in America | 158 | |
| From To be young, gifted and black | 163 | |
| From The spook who sat by the door | 168 | |
| From Hog butcher | 175 | |
| "A poem for jazz lovers and people who hate wars" | 181 | |
| From Nigger! | 185 | |
| "Four sheets to the wind and a one-way ticket to France, 1933," "Underground," "A mourning letter from Paris," and "In defense of black poets" | 191 | |
| "Black expressions : circa Chicago state (& othr state institutions)" and "(Untitled)" | 195 | |
| "Discovering Walt Whitman," "Read the signs," "A guy I know on 47th and Cottage," and "The syncopated cakewalk" | 198 | |
| From Blues narratives and from Horn man | 203 | |
| From Black men : obsolete, single, dangerous? | 208 | |
| "Prodigal objects," "Sheep," "In the shadow of turning : Throwing salt," and "Jazz : mood indigo" | 215 | |
| From Showing my color | 220 | |
| "The education of Mingo" | 226 | |
| From "You can murder a liberator, but you can't murder liberation" | 238 | |
| "#5 the courts" | 243 | |
| "Not black enough" and "Something's got to go" | 245 | |
| "Journey to Africa" | 248 | |
| "The middle-class black's burden" and "How Chicago taught me to hate whites" | 250 | |
| From Hot Johnny and the women who loved him and "Ancestors : in praise of the imperishable" | 259 | |
| "Cowboy eating his children" | 262 | |
| "Soulville revisited" and "The ebony mannequin in the Marshall Fields State Street store window" | 264 | |
| "This one" and "Dreams in soy sauce" | 266 | |
| From Dreams from my father : a story of race and inheritance | 269 | |
| "The Josephine Baker Museum" and "Blues" | 277 | |
| "Hyphen," "Seventy-first & King Drive," "Rogers park," and "Fat-free" | 282 | |
| "Magic" and "We live" | 286 | |
| "Prayer" and from "Blooz man" | 289 | |
| "Doris" | 293 | |
| "Gettysburg" | 295 | |
| "Two brothers on 35th street" and "A mixed message" | 305 | |
| "Debate" and "One man parade" | 310 |
| Price | Condition | Delivery | Seller | Action |
| $99.99 | Digital |
| WonderClub |
Karl Brown
reviewed Black Writing from Chicago: In the World, Not of It? on May 14, 2016
Black Writing from Chicago: In the World, Not of It?
Another 1-star review said "451 pages, no laughs. Not one."
Well, there were a few, but so very few, it makes me wonder at the book's title. "Humor?" What humor?
Signed out of our public library after reading "The Sellout," a book I admired a lot, written by the same Paul Beatty, I am unable to see what he was attempting to give us with "Hokum." It certainly wasn't to make us laugh.
He does succeed in making me think American blacks are filled with self-hatred, and obsessed with skin color far more than us whites. Verbal cleverness seems to be highly prized. (The abominable rap comes to mind.) Morals seem not to be, nor much respect for the law. Not my opinion, but what any objective reader would conclude reading this book.
Yes, I know: slavery, then Jim Crow.
Was it the length of time these awful conditions existed that's at the root of the problem? Because other people who came to America also had terrible suffering in their history -- arguably worse than slavery -- without becoming so broken. We look at that peculiar game, the dozens, where one's mothers are obscenely insulted (mothers!), and wonder why this "game" doesn't exist among any other group.
OK, I'm rambling, going nowhere, and it doesn't really matter if you're considering buying the book, so let's talk about that.
A few pages were enjoyable, a few were brilliant (a poem by John Rodriguez especially).
A few pages had the explicit descriptions of sex (Steve Cannon) that I used to hope to find as a teenager over 50 years ago, but that weren't at all funny and were included in this book for reasons that escape me.
A number of pages were included only, it seems, for their historical quality, not their humor. Al Sharpton and H. Rap Brown were political, not funny, and both individuals reprehensible in my eyes. Why give us the crudity, the stupidity of Brown but not the brilliance of Eldridge Cleaver, both in the same period of American history?
Kyle Baker's cartoons were mostly about white characters. Was Baker included just because he is part black? Which is a ridiculous reason, of course, but then, why? Beatty is clearly no fool; what is he trying to tell us by including Baker?
I think of the brilliant monologues Richard Pryor did on network TV in the 1970s. They made us feel the pain of thrown-away members of society, and yet they were also funny. In this book we get the pain, not the laughter. Pryor showed us how to have both.
This book is subtitled "An Anthology of African-American Humor." If this is humor, pass me the poison. Almost none of this book is funny. Could that be Beatty's point? That the black experience in America is so tragic that very little humor can be found in it?
But that can't be. Not when we have Redd Foxx, Richard Pryor, Eddie Murphy, Bill Cosby, Chris Rock and countless others.
Again, I'm respectful of the editor's writing skills. I simply have no idea why he thought so much of this book was humorous.
Login|Complaints|Blog|Games|Digital Media|Souls|Obituary|Contact Us|FAQ
CAN'T FIND WHAT YOU'RE LOOKING FOR? CLICK HERE!!! X
You must be logged in to add to WishlistX
This item is in your Wish List
X
This item is in your Collection
Black Writing from Chicago: In the World, Not of It?
X
This Item is in Your Inventory
Black Writing from Chicago: In the World, Not of It?
X
You must be logged in to review the productsX
X
X
Add Black Writing from Chicago: In the World, Not of It?, , Black Writing from Chicago: In the World, Not of It? to the inventory that you are selling on WonderClubX
X
Add Black Writing from Chicago: In the World, Not of It?, , Black Writing from Chicago: In the World, Not of It? to your collection on WonderClub |
