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The average rating for Talking Drums: Reading and Writing with African American Stories, Spirituals, and Multimedia Resources based on 2 reviews is 4 stars.
| Review # 1 was written on 2015-03-08 00:00:00 Amy Bredemeyer This is a very interesting book to read now. We're in the middle of the James Baldwin renaissance and I decide to read a book about Ralph Ellison. This book is a collection of reviews and essays about Ellison starting from reviews of Invisible Man from people like Alain Locke, Saul Bellow, and intellectual rival Irving Howe and general essays about Ellison's other works (short fictions and non-fiction). This book reminded me why I liked Ellison, but also shows his human side. I like my intellectuals imperfect to a degree. One thing this book does is collect views of people who admired and dis-liked Ellison. It keeps things interesting. The essays really look deep into Ellison's relationship with Richard Wright, who was mentor to him and Baldwin. My favorite article was "Ellison's Racial Variations on American Themes" by Kun Jong Lee. Kun did an excellent job in summarizing Ellison's overall ideology and provides as impartial a look at him as you can. As this was a library book I picked-up on the fly, I was pressed for time reading it, but got it done. I can't say if Ellison will ever have the sort of postmous popularity boom like Baldwin, but I don't think so. Ellison was a radical individualist and he was forever stressing that individualism and hated the idea of being any sort of a representative of "black struggle." He alienated a lot of people because of that and some are still mad. Baldwin didn't mind and still considered Ellison one of the greatest writers of the 20th century, Toni Morrison did mind and still takes pot-shots at Ellison when she can. Baldwin lends himself to being a symbol in a way that Ellison does not. |
| Review # 2 was written on 2011-06-23 00:00:00 Michael Foley (Skimmed.) |
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