Last Thoughts on God Help the Child by Toni Morrison

“Spare and unsparing, God Help the Child–the first novel by Toni Morrison to be set in our current moment–weaves a tale about the way the sufferings of childhood can shape, and misshape, the life of the adult.

At the center: a young woman who calls herself Bride, whose stunning blue-black skin is only one element of her beauty, her boldness and confidence, her success in life, but which caused her light-skinned mother to deny her even the simplest forms of love.  There is Booker, the man Bride loves, and loses to anger.  Rain, the mysterious white child with whom she crosses paths.  And finally, Bride’s mother herself, Sweetness, who takes a lifetime to come to understand that “what you do to children matters.  And they might never forget.”

A fierce and proactive novel that adds a new dimension to the matchless oeuvre of Toni Morrison.”

It has taken me a minute or two to write about Toni Morrison’s God Help the Child, but I’m essentially here. I say "essentially” because I still haven't wrapped all my thoughts around the book; it’s a Morrison novel so I have to dig deeper than my initial reading to get the dept of its context (which often leads to over-thinking, analyzing, and a necessary re-reading). So I have to write this as I go, and keep it brief before I write myself right off the damn page. Low pressure.

I enjoyed God Help the Child–for a variety of reasons. One was Morrison’s conciseness. While I’m always there for soaking up her way with language, I’m sometimes left confused and bewildered as it concerns how she paints a scene. Thankfully, God Help the Child gave me little trouble in managing Morrison’s writing, style, and narrative flow. In essence: I gathered clarity of her scenes and overall story.  The prose in God Help the Child didn't feel like mental power tumbling to shape a clear picture/comprehension of what was taking place throughout the characters' narratives.  Nor did her usual poetics (did I just make that up?) override scene and direction.  This allowed me to stick with the book without getting lost or wandering toward outside distractions, similar to what happened during my reading of A Mercy.

Nonetheless, the most prominent reason I enjoyed the book came from its identifiable theme on how we carry what’s done to us as children (mainly by her parents) into our adult lives. The book’s exploration into uncovering that theme was many times rough, haunting, and maybe even barbarous. However, I found those tougher avenues to be honest and consistent with my take of the book's objective, albeit unsettling. God Help the Child is an emotional peek into the psychological development behind children, and it doesn't hold back from darker paths. From self-acceptance, fighting conditional love, and finding self-respect, God Help the Child touches it all.  And I really like that Morrison took on this because, as black people, we almost swerve away from psychological concerns in place of stepping into churches for spiritual solutions.  At least that thought came to mind once I finished the book.

Nonetheless, there were moments where I wanted a little bit more story and closure from some characters, one being Bride’s friend, Brooklyn. And there were also times where I felt a lot more telling took over showing. However, the dept that Morrison takes us through Bride and her beau, Booker (whose story I found the most compelling of them all), makes up for it all.  With these two, I felt like Morrison really takes you places you'd never even been before with a character.  (Just read about their journey and you'll see.)

I've always rung my hands over this personal topic, but God Help the Child is another book where I reflected back to those feelings I had growing up. While it wasn't anywhere near as severe as Bride’s case, the lack of praise I felt growing up definitely resurfaced while reading God Help the Child.  Which, in turn, only propelled my connection with the book, characters and themes.

Spotlight: Food for Thought

There are debates as to whether Willie Lynch was an actual person, and to be perfectly honest I lean toward myth by his name alone. Nonetheless, since I read the book anyway, I have to say that The Willie Lynch Letter and The Making of a Slave is a 30-page book consisting of a speech given by a white slave owner from the West Indies. 

Delivered on the bank of the James River in 1712, the purpose of his speech was to coach American slave owners on how to restrain, tame and destroy the minds of African slaves.  Chiefly those newly arriving into slavery. His argument was “[If] You are not only losing valuable stock by hangings, you are having uprisings, slaves are running away, your crops are sometimes left in the fields too long for maximum profit, you suffer occasional fires, your animals are killed," then he has the “foolproof method for controlling your Black slaves.” His speech became a sort of outline for slave owners to generate profit and remove economic blocks.  And this consisted primarily of creating divisions among the slaves themselves, with one via their differences in skin-tone.  Furthermore, Lynch suggested the removal and dehumanizing of the black male as the leading family member.  This, in turn, will "create" lasting acceptance and conformity to life as a slave for men as well as women and children generations and beyond.  

The majority of these "ideas" spun another inner ding concerning Lynch's myth, considering his "methods" were a common practice as is. Nevertheless, “FEAR, DISTRUST, and ENVY” are strategies used to control. And all three were proclaimed by Lynch to keep the Black slave under control for over 300 years.

With the addition of horse breeding analogies to illustrate “Cardinal Principles for Making a Negro," the book also contains small pieces of annotations given by Frederick Douglass and Charles Johnson. However, I believe the truly provocative area comes toward the end of the book, through a contemporary essay titled “Dear Black Americans."

Which I’ll share here:

#ReadSoulLit ~ Sisters in Crime

#ReadSoulLit is a Black History Month project organized by booktuber, Frenchiedee.  When Frenchie reached out and asked did I want to contribute to the project, I didn't hesitate.  I most certainly did.  And when she asked what I would do my video on, with so much ease I said black women writing black women in crime fiction.  And what a project this turned out to be.  I stressed for about three weeks, then one day got tired and decided to just jump up and do me.  Now, I have to share the videos here with you all.  I've drained myself a little putting this one together.  So I hope you all enjoy...

#ReadSoulLit ~ Sisters in Crime 1: Where I'm Coming From...

#ReadSoulLit ~ Sisters in Crime 2: Their Stories...

(2) Octavia Butler Shorts

The remaining two stories in Octavia Butler’s short-story collection, Bloodchild, are “Amnesty” and “The Book of Martha." These two stories were published as recently as 2003, and are just near novella size. Wait, what’s the word count used to define a novella?

In any regard, “Amnesty” is a story that reflects closely to its title’s definition. Amnesty is a means of official pardon, usually surrounding some kind of political affront of some sort; and that’s what takes place in the story as an alien species invades Earth before peacefully asking humans to co-exist with them as a source of "food." Not “food” in the carnivorous sense, but something much more abstruse and cerebral. You see, these aliens are called Communities, and they are made up of thousands of small aliens clustered together in a shape that resembles a large floating bush. Eerie, much! I think I was sick most of the time thinking about these aliens, considering I have a slight case of trypophobia. Nonetheless, that’s just another layer to Butler’s tale. The thing is that the Community came to Earth on a one-way trip, and while they have the means of taking over the planet, they try to co-exist peacefully. As a human woman who has survived both an abduction and harsh military interrogation, Noah Cannon’s job in “Amnesty” is to orient a handful of men and women looking to work alongside The Community for payment. Once more, distress sat in throughout reading this story. The good kind of distress I should say. To me “Amnesty” boils down to the snatching of human discretion. Put man over a barrel and let it be–so to speak. The aliens land, they offer mankind a choice. Should mankind decide not to respond nicely, it wouldn't matter one bit because the aliens will have their way regardless. Nonetheless, like most governing systems across the globe, citizens have no choice but to work with what is given to them.

“The Book of Martha” appeared to be one of those contemplative-grabbing, philosophical stories written by Butler outside of sci-fi. Really, it’s about a woman who finds herself standing before God. Summoned, actually. It seems God needs a human to construct a Utopia for mankind. What would work best? How would it work? And how would God’s chosen, Martha, conceive such a place? When you find out Martha’s idea, I wonder if you’ll agree with her. Or is a Utopia for mankind even possible? I enjoyed this story, but it wasn't one of my favorites.  That's mainly because I couldn't wrap my head around the importance of Martha and God's conversation.  Not that I didn't get it, I just wasn't sure there was an answer.  And the answer given wasn't all that convincing to me.  I should also add the slippery-slope fallacy encouraged by Martha's ideas and God's rebuttal of them. Really, I think it deserves a second read.  Or I should just stick to Neale Donald Walsh's take on a conversation with God.

The recently released collection of short stories by Butler are featured in the book Unexpected Stories. There are only two here, both noted as her early works according to Walter Mosley’s foreword and Butler’s once agent, Merrilee Heifetz (noted in the afterword). And early they seem; one story I completely abandoned and another I managed to sweep through nicely, seeing that it was like a prototype story to Butler’s grandness Patternist series. So yeah, let’s start with the story I abandoned first...

“A Necessary Being” is exclusively alien in its totality. Yep. That’s the way I’ll put it. An alien world. An alien cast. An alien story. Humanoid, if you will, in both their language and behavior. One of the main exceptions is that their skin changes color in accordance with their emotions. Nonetheless, from what I gathered (before I jumped the ship) Tahneh is an alien woman with a status similar to a Native American princess or priestess of some flavor (work with me here as I peel this story apart from my own imagery). She’s given this role because she comes from a race of aliens called Hao. Hao are kidnapped and held by another, similar alien species that uses Hao to govern over their race. Since her father’s passing, Tahneh has been alone, ruling and governing over her community of kidnappers. The story opens up with another Hao crossing through her territory. And she must decide whether to kidnap him and put him in a position such as hers, which subsequently provides her companionship. Or her other choice: let the young Hao pass freely and on into freedom. And that’s pretty much where I kind of bailed on the story. The truth is that I kept envisioning the creatures in the Avatar movie. Couple that with a general lack of interest, and I just decided to move on. I plan to come back to the story at a later date, seeing that Butler kind of started cutting her teeth on this story.

Nevertheless, I did finish and enjoyed the second story, "Childfinder."  Butler wrote and sold this one to her mentor, Harlan Ellison, back in the 70s. In “Childfinder” a telepathic (interchangeable with the term “psionic”) woman uses her gifts to locate, mentor, and mold telepathic and gifted children. These children are the future, and must be groomed in preparation for the possibilities it has in store for them. (You could say an alien invasion is one.) Nonetheless, this lone woman isn't the only one involved, as another, larger organization reaches out to do the same.  The different is the larger organization has a couple of “tougher” methods to get special children to cooperate. The story reminded me of the old 70s and early 90s version of The Tomorrow People (we won't speak on the 2013 remake). The Tomorrow People were about kids with special abilities, who were often dubbed as "the next stage in human evolution." They could teleport. They were telepathic. Some could even see the future. Meanwhile, the government and other smaller organizations were dead centered on capturing these kids for a host of not-so-comfortable levels of research.  In the meantime, the Tomorrow People thwarted alien wars and even an evil, resurrected Egyptian pharaoh. I also found “Childfinder” to be a preview of the eventual novels Butler would write in her Patternist series–particularly the second book in that series, Mind of my Mind. Though it was short and not totally expansive in its telling, I would say that I enjoyed “Childfinder” much more than the previous story. Butler makes it perfectly clear and evident that the future would be grim and mankind must arm its children's psionic evolution for the things to come if they want to stand a chance.

And that’s all there is. If you haven't read Bloodchild or Unexpected Stories, I urge you to do so now. Butler fan or not, these two books are the perfect introduction to her as well as the perfect expansions on her catalog of stories.  In either case, you shouldn't miss them!

PART 1 OF OCTAVIA BUTLER SHORTS

(1) Octavia Butler Shorts

So scratch everything I said about re-trying Mercedes Lackey’s high fantasy novel, By the Sword, for the sake of getting out of this dilly-dally summer reading slump. That didn't work out. I got about 20 pages into that book and was still impossibly disinterested seventeen years later. Part of that disinterest comes–in fact–from my recent mention of balancing exposition in fantasy novels. Nonetheless, sure, I’ll try By the Sword again some time in the future. Until then, I decided to try the short story method of getting myself back into the groove of reading regularly and with a pace. And seeing that I can only seem to read short stories via the Kindle, I dug through the available books and found my digital copy of Octavia Butler’s short-story collection, Bloodchild. I suppose saving it for a rainy day worked; I quickly hammered through this award-winning collection of stories with easy and deep, familiar curiosity.

It’s been a minute since I visited one of Octavia Butler’s worlds. The last book I read by her was the final book in her Patternist series (which I highly, highly recommend). Nevertheless, I never forgot how many of her conceptualizations made me feel claustrophobic, terror and uncertainty.  She writes sci-fi–or speculative fiction–after all.  So all of those feelings her writing gives me probably isn't that much of a surprise, considering her genre of choice.  Still, altogether she is different. And maybe her advantage is that she’s a woman of color who features the same leads in her stories.  Leads that look, in part, like myself.  I also love how Butler often rearranges or reconstructs the sort of energy and presence of mankind in her post-apocalyptic stories.  Usually her stories are of mankind damn near pushed to extinction.  Subsequently, mankind has to evolve and rely on taxing alien beings to keep themselves extant.  And there is always, always a price. To me her writing is a blend of terrorizing and complicated choices that reflects American society (or the future thereof) to some degree.

While the majority of Bloodchild consists of short stories, each of those stories comes with an insightful afterword by Butler herself. In the afterwords she explains what she meant to achieve in each respective story as well as the thought behind their conception. A little over halfway through the book, we also get two essays written by Butler.  Following that are two novella length stories published within the last decade and before her death in 2006. Combined, all of this material was previously published in various magazines and literary publications throughout her 30+ year career. And if that wasn't enough, as recently as June of 2014, two of her early short stories were published in another collection titled, Unexpected Stories.

So what are the stories featured in Bloodchild? I'd better tell you a little about them and hope that you'll pick the collection up also.

The title story, “Bloodchild” is about how mankind is taken from Earth and onto another planet where an alien species–that resemble large centipedes as far as I can tell–develop relationships with human men before using them to nurture their offspring (eggs in this case). While that may sound not so disturbing, the truth is that this nurturing process comes in the form of impregnating human men. And with that said... I thought this was the perfect story to glide back into Butler’s work with *cue chuckle*. After over a year and half of having not read her, I immediately got that familiar claustrophobic feel back! “Bloodchild” brought me back to the entanglements present in Butler’s first book in her Xenogenesis series, Dawn. The only difference (besides length) is that "Bloodchild" seems slightly more distressing.  Not because this is Butler's sort of “pregnant man” speculative fiction story, but because of the imagery used to tell it.  Maybe it's because I have a problem with bugs and parasites.  I think that may be the better explanation.  Either way it was an outstanding read.

“The Evening, The Morning and The Night” tells the story of a nameless young woman who reminds me a lot of Lauren Olamina from Butler’s Parable of the Sower. I say this because they both seem to be philosophical in their thinking; filled with thought-provoking questions, and deeply interested in mankind's available resources.  Well, maybe Lauren had all those things going much more than said nameless young woman.  So maybe their similarities are within their narrative tone. In any regard, the nameless woman is born with a fictional disease called Duryea-Gode. The symptoms of this disease cause sufferers to go insane, enough so that they attempt to claw their way out of their own flesh. Those afflicted are treated through a number of humane and inhumane experimental treatments.  These treatments has taken place throughout decades as scientists research for a cure. And while that research is being conducted, those afflicted are seen as threats to society because of the late, and threatening, symptoms of the disease.  Therefore, society turns their backs on them in fear. However, there’s an institution (or facility) where the unnamed narrator visits with her boyfriend.  His mother is afflicted with Duryea-Gode, and she's in the "insane" stages of the disease. The facility the two visits kind of made me think of Waverly Hills Sanitarium, a place where tuberculosis sufferers were isolated during the early 20th century. Nevertheless, it turns out that the director of the facility manages the maniacal behavior of her patients through a pheromone she was born with. This pheromone calms or pacifies the patients. During the visit, our unnamed narrator discovers she also secretes this pheromone. Now what will she choose to do with that knowledge of herself?

The next short story, “Near of Kin” isn't speculative or sci-fi. However, it is thought-provoking as a modern story that follows a conversation between a young woman and her uncle. The two come together to sort through the young woman’s mother’s estate. The young woman's relationship with her mother was not good, as her mother was mostly withdrawn from her daughter. As the two sort through the dead woman’s estate, they also sort through to the bottom of her estrangement from the family. You may or may not see the truth before it’s announced. Me, I managed to catch what took place a good few pages before it was proclaimed between the two. I'll leave it at that. I ended this story feeling just as uncertain as the characters within it. “Near of Kin” left with that “where do we go from here?” kind of atmosphere.


“Speech Sounds” is probably one of my favorites. Once more, Butler uses disease to paint the complexity behind her story. This disease isn’t named, but what it does is take away speech and language as the basic means of communication.  The protagonist of “Speech Sounds” is a woman named Valerie Rye.  While a large percentage of the world is afflicted with the speech-less disease, Rye hides how she still retains her ability to speak. To share this truth puts her in danger with the world. During a routine bus ride, Rye witnesses a mute argument taking place between two men. Before it gets explosive, she jumps off the bus. This is where she meets a man who was once an LAPD police officer. Through a tumbling ASL exchange, Rye discovers his name is Obsidian. In this near dystopian world, Obsidian hasn't given up on law and order.  He uses tear gas to halt the bus fight. Afterwards, Rye and Obsidian slowly attach themselves to one another. Unable to speak, they ride around the city in Obsidian’s truck until they find themselves in another deadly conflict involving children. Silently, the two proceed to put a stop to this crime. One doesn’t make it out alive. It took me a moment to realize that “Speech Sounds” is absent of dialogue. It wasn't until much later when the speech-killing disease was revealed that I noticed. And like that one episode of Buffy called Hush, Butler pulled the lack of dialogue out cleverly. And like always, while the story is always wonderful, it once again shows the sort of lack of trust Butler has in the relationships between people.  Meaning how there always has to be something incomplete, threatening, or just on the cusp of misanthropic.

The last story before we move into Butler’s essay portion is a story called "Crossover." And you know what? This was my favorite of all the stories. It isn't sci-fi, but it hit home with me like none of the others.  “Crossover” is about a woman working a factory job. There’s no future here. No way out. Just a lump sum of absolutely nothing to look forward to. And not only is she crippled physically, but also mentally. She has a complex, formed by low self-esteem and other mental propaganda.  She even suffers from hallucinations. Her trips to the liquor store doesn't help her headaches.  But she keeps going.  This all clicked with me. I understood her story. However, I can see why some may see "Crossover" as their least favorite in this collection; I have to repeat that it’s my favorite.  I got how this unnamed woman, who works this horrible job, walks around with a headache, drinks liquor, and hallucinates about ghost, is not the woman Butler wanted to become in the early stages of her writing career. And latterly, how writing saved her. I got it. I understood it. I’ve lived some of it. And in my heart, I, too, am still living a life where I am afraid of becoming such a character. When I tell people that keeping a blog and having the ability to write and share my thoughts are saving me, they usually chuckle. Not a lot of people get it. But I was glad to see that one of my favorite writers did.

This is what Butler had to say in the afterword regarding "Crossover." I highlighted it and read it repeatedly:

“I didn't wind up hallucinating or turning to alcohol as the character in “Crossover” does, but I keep noticing the company oddities [coworkers] everywhere I worked, and they went right on scaring me back to the typewriter whenever I strayed.”

The last two stores in Bloodchild will continue into the next post where I also talk a little about the two stories in the Unexpected Stories collection.

PART 2 OF OCTAVIA BUTLER SHORTS

What Happened to Billy?

How in the world can I put the experience of reading this book into words? Maybe I should step back and do what I always do in the process of finding the right words, which is talk about how I've come across a particular book. For starters, I'm never one to turn away from contemporary African-American literature that pre-dates the Civil Rights era (though I always go beyond).  And although I spotted the book online, that didn't deter that near cosmic whiff I've gathered for sometimes nailing a darn good book via the Internet—as opposed to settling with the first couple of chapters within the bookstore.

I've never heard of the author of Billy, Albert French.  Post-Billy, I did a little research and realized that his catalog of available titles are sadly sparse.  This may attribute to me not knowing who he was, and why I haven't heard of him.  Or heard of his debut, Billy.  That’s discouraging, really.  I found French is an amazing writer, and one who really took me there with the rawness of Billy.  So with that being said, to read more of his biography, click the link HERE .  You'll find that French's personal story is inspiring, and that’s besides him penning Billy in six weeks.  

Those six weeks read more like six months of work.

Except for a slight adjustment in the omniscient narrative taking place in the beginning of the book (French‘s use of old, rural Mississippi parlance to illustrate the setting and characters eventually dials down), Billy was truly an outstanding (as well as a literarily upsetting) journey into the extreme justices that took place over blacks pre-Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s (I should actually mention that the NAACP begin the anti-lynching campaign in the 1930s, which has a slight correlation to the choice of events that took place in Billy). It’s an example the likes I've never really seen in literature, considering it involves a ten-year-old boy with anything but murder as his intent when he accidentally stabs a fifteen-year-old white girl named Lori. With that said, I kind of want to get away from French’s coherent forms and language/word choice and focus more on the social discussion surrounding Billy.

The tragedy of the story happens during an unsettling altercation between Lori and Billy. Billy and his best friend, Gumpy, crossed a bridge of railroad tracks out of segregation and into the white community of their town. Hopping along, they come across a pond (enthused to collect redbacks from within it) on a patch of private property farmland.  Instead of catching redbacks (a type of salamander) they find themselves in an inhospitable and violent confrontation with two girls, Lori, and her cousin, Jenny. The two girls attack; Jenny jumps Gumpy while Lori takes on Billy as he emerges from the pond.  The prideful Billy, having his face snubbed, beaten, and spat upon in the mud by Lori, eventually ends up escaping his assailant. Nonetheless, the event becomes increasingly deadly when Billy chooses to follow a fleeing Gumpy with Lori's aggressive taunts following his backside.  And because he doesn't react any further, it’s then that Lori (just as prideful and fiery as Billy) decides she hasn't had enough of him.  With Lori closing in for another attack, Billy stands prepared in his misguided self-defense and ends up puncturing Lori’s heart with a switchblade.

While she is a by-product of segregated views and societal entitlement, Lori was older than Billy, bigger than him, stronger than him, and very much in control than Billy.  Whereas Billy is from a community who couldn't fight back without the onslaught of further terror and deepened segregation, something that took place to the harm of Billy's community after the events.  In many ways, Billy and Lori seemed a touch alike, both seemed injudicious in their own way as children during that time.  However, the obvious difference lie in the fact that if the events have been reversed, Lori would hardly find herself tried as an adult facing first-degree murder. She would not find herself before a jury, slapping her with a death sentence in a guilty verdict that took less than twenty-four hours to "sinuate"—so to speak.  And most assuredly, it wouldn’t have been Lori strapped to an electric chair screaming for Jesus and her mother as those chilling last pages illustrated Billy’s death without a single syntactic wince. Well, frankly, nothing in this book was winced. It was all there. Front and center. Vivid and clear. Nothing fading to black. Only prevailing details that shaped the characters and setting, as well as the social focus, racism, and the ugliness of capital punishment for juveniles during a time (maybe some questionable cases in today’s age) where there were no civil rights for blacks to challenge those in authority.

Before I even read Billy, I remember telling myself that I hope this book didn't make me mad—didn't upset me. It did, but it didn't, until the final chapters when you watch Billy suffer up toward his death. That part was the painful part. And while I did feel for Lori, it can be said that Billy's story drew out a range of emotions unexplored from a book addressing this period.  As I mentioned, probably because it involved children.

So with so much of that said, should you ever find yourself looking for an author outside of Morrison, Wright, Ellison, or Gaines, please pick up Billy.

The following passage is taken from the book.  It's a reflection of one of the older members of Billy's community, Patch.  Here, she monologues how her age has caused her to see many tragedies within the community, and how Billy's approaching troubles are partly one on a long list.

"Old Patch folks just kept sitting.  Reverend Sims told them everything would be all right.  Them real old ones that done seen some time, knew them days Mister Pete talked about, had sad eyes.  Netty Lou Moore remembered things Mister Pete forgot.  She could remember before them Yankee soldiers come; she could remember belonging to them Hatchers too.  She told Reverend Sims, 'Ah done seens some bad times.  Wasn't nothin be back here.  Ya has ta wades in the Catfish ta gits back in here.  Ah remembers.  Its was right ups there.  Ya sees where the roads be now.  Its was right theres they comes.  Never forgits.  Theys come and gits that boy.  Ah remembers.  They comes and gits him.  His name was Elijah, that's what his name was.  Theys come down on thems horses and gits that boy.  Says he was stealin and doin too much lookin at thats white man's woman he was doin for.  Theys comes down here on thems horses and drags thats boy.  He sayin he ain'ts dids it, but theys drags him away and theys hang him rights down theres where the roads goes over the Catfish.  Thems were bad times.  Ya all can'ts remember.  Wern'ts born yets.  Thems were bad times.  They's comin agins.'"

~ Billy by Albert French

7 Favorite Reads of 2013

HAPPY NEW YEAR!  2014 IS HERE!

With each year comes one concrete, consistent thing that forever entertains, comforts, and enlightens me... that would be books.  According to Goodreads I read more in 2013 than 2012.  I felt a little surprised, certain that it was the other way around for some reason.  Still, I had a few decent books on that list that I cropped through to find my 7 Favorite Reads of 2013 that I wanted to share on the blog.  Some of the books I've never written about; this is the perfect time to do so.  I also have another list comprising of a few of the books I rather leave in 2013.  Neither list is necessarily numbered in order of greatness, flavor, or level of entertainment.  It’s just a list of the books I walked away from feeling mostly inspired (or uninspired) by.
Here goes…

1. The Goddess Chronicle by Natsuo Kirino

Natsuo Kirino is a Japanese crime writer best known outside of Japan for the English adaptation of her grizzly novel, Out.  I was introduced to her by that particular book, after a bored bookstore stroll for new titles to read.  Quickly put, Out is about four hard-up Japanese women working in a bento factory while disposing bodies for extra cash.  Their method of disposal?  Divide the bodies into pieces before each takes a part to an undisclosed location for dumping.  It doesn't take long before their trust with one another, concerning money and their nasty dealings, begin to unravel from within.  And true to its nature, some of these women don't make it till the end of the novel.  While Out may sound like some sort of ABC crime novel under the streets of Tokyo, the psychology Kirino goes through with each of the women places this book a whole step above.  That exploration into a character's dark psychology (and impulse) is familiar in Japanese crime novels.  You see it in authors Keigo Higashino and Miyuki Miyabe as well.  Nonetheless, I was sold by Out's synopsis and have been a fan of Kirino since.  

The next novel adapted into English was her book, Grotesque.  Just as dark as Out, Grotesque follows the story of two Japanese sisters weighted by the inferior treatment of women in Japan.  One sister has turned to prostitution underneath the weight.  When I say this story will take you down some dark and scary places--I mean it.  It is one ride that will keep you hanging on just to find some kind of resolution with these sisters.  If you can stomach it, of course.  In 2008 the English adaptation of Kirino’s Real World was released.  Here we had another dark story featuring a group of Japanese teens assisting a murderer-on-the-run within their group.  Naturally, Kirino’s dark stories reflect societal concerns, particularly bullying and the heavy amount of pressure placed on Japanese students and academics, so addressed in Real World.  

So what is Kirino’s fourth English adapted book about?  

Almost the same theme concerning the overthrow of women in Japanese society; however, it’s told underneath a retelling of an old Japanese kwaidan-like myth.  The Goddess Chronicle takes place on a Japanese island shaped like a teardrop (let’s go ahead and push the symbolism).  On this island we’re introduced to two sisters born and designed to fulfill a local prophesy.  One sister, Kamikuu, must be a representative of purity and light, whereas the other sister, Namima, resides in the shade.  Natural to Kirino’s characters and storytelling, Namima wishes to escape her position underneath her sister’s shadow.  This wish becomes increasing dire when Namima is ordered by tradition to serve the goddess of darkness.  To serve the goddess is to live in isolation without the island’s graveyard, attending to the dead.  However, Namima carries a secret that breaks her tabooed position as a servant of the darkness.  Namima devises a plan to escape the island.  Should the tradition-baring locals find out about her secret, the consequences could equal up to her life.  Where Namima's eventual escape leads her is to the Realm of the Dead, where she meets the goddess of darkness herself.  It's here that Namima realizes that she has a lot to relate to with the goddess herself.  They both share the pain of the betrayal.  Now to find absolve (or maybe revenge) within those betrayals are the women’s common goal.

2.  Night by Elie Wiesel

3.  Tar Baby by Toni Morrison

My post on Tar Baby.

4.  Linden Hills by Gloria Naylor

My post on Linden Hills.  

5.  The Shining by Stephen King

6.  Empress Dowager Cixi: The Concubine Who Launched Modern China by Jung Chang

My post on Empress Dowager Cixi. 

7.  Crazy Rich Asians by Kevin Kwan

My post on Crazy Rich Asians. 

Now the 3 books I'd probably leave in 2013 follows...

1.  Jazz by Toni Morrison

Seems a little off I'm sure.  It's not that I disliked the book, it just wasn't what I'd hoped for.  I've learned that much of Morrison's material post-80's has what I see as a distracting dip in vivid prose and language.  The problem for me is that that "distracting" sometimes lures me away from gathering some sense of the plot of the book, or even the order of the plot.  Add in the multiple themes and narratives in Jazz; I just didn't leave fully connected with overall story.  However, some of the individual narratives in the book stood so strongly that it was like reading an individual short story inside the book.  Glimpses of pieces of the past that made the two main characters was where I enjoyed the book the most.  In any regard, it's definitely a book that needs a second, focused read.

2.  The Shadow Reader by Sandy Williams

The Urban Fantasy genre has failed me over the years.  After Laurell K Hamilton's Anita Blake series set the tone for what to avoid while writing/reading in the genre, I've been sketchy on picking up anything that even distantly suggests a girl must sleep with vampires and werewolves for a plot.  Save for the authors who introduced me to the genre (sadly, Hamilton is one), I try to look carefully for new authors in the genre.  I'm afraid they'll try to pull me in with a ridiculous plot about sex and a she devil who thrives on it to survive.  Williams, luckily, isn't any of those things.  However, what did annoy me about this particular book was that the heroine spent a little too much time than I cared for ruminating on her affection between two guys.  One guys is labeled bad.  One guy is labeled good.  We got a love triangle and the whole time I just wished the main character, McKenzie, would give up the need for romantic stability and just start slaying heads.  Something tells me that's a personal taste of mine.  Nevertheless, I'm actually on the fence about continuing the series.  I'll let it get a few books in then see.

3.  Deadline by Sandra Brown

She has some good ones.  She has some boring ones.  This was a boring one.  I hate to say it, but many times Brown's characters are all the same.  Their careers are different, but their desires are not.  Predictable in many senses.  I saw a lot of that in Deadline.  Same as in 2012's Low Pressure.  Same as in 2011's Lethal (which I actually liked).  As I said before, Brown's books sometimes read like Lifetime movies--and that's not a bad thing.  But here's what I see too often that annoys me.  There's a guy.  He's often a suspect involved in the murder contained within the book.  He likes the girl.  She's often related to the victim in some way.  They're either on the run from cops or bad guys.  Between that running, she is a wall to his desperate sexual advances.  She cracks.  He makes way.  Together they become a force to smoke out the true killer.  That's been her last 3-4 books.

That's the end of my list folks!  Wish I could've written about them all, but trust and believe me when I say that the ones that I didn't write about would've required an entire post.  Any suggestions or comments?  Do you have a list 2013 book list of favorites?  Share and let's compare notes!

Thoughts on African American Literature

The category of ethnic literature that focuses on African American literature is many times defined as literature that tackles subjects of black identity, oppression, segregation, and civil challenges.  Historical events such as slavery, Jim Crow Laws, and Supreme Court cases that favored African American individuals helped influence the growth of this literature.  Many African Americans participated in announcing their voice to the public because of these events.  Mothers, fathers, students, scientists, business owners, and artist forced their expression on the subject during the decades that built into the establishment of African American literature.  As African American literature grew to challenge discrimination and social enforcing laws, so did the popularity of its writers.  From the beginnings of Harriet A. Jacobs and Frederic Douglass, to contemporary authors Terry McMillian and Alice Walker, each has contributed to defining the scope of African American literature and what it means in America.  Some may consider this form of literature limited in its subject matter, themes, and conventions as it portrays one condition of the American experience; however, through careful literary conventions and material that echo historical and socio-political events, African American literature presents boundless voices similar to those of “traditional” literature.  

There is much to consider when one embarks on understanding African American fiction.  Like “traditional” American fiction, literary conventions, and themes must be taken into consideration as well as the tone and voice of the material.  Themes spreading from any amount of literature, informs readers what the material is about.  Layers of the writer’s construction through dialogue, setting, and narrative form the theme.  Many times readers decide, through his or her interpretation, what the theme of a novel is.  Nevertheless, theme drives the material just as well as literary conventions.  Therefore, themes ground literary material regarding its reason, and conventions guide readers through the “rules” concerning each event that takes part in the story to make up the theme.

Three examples of African American literary fiction that display an array of literary themes and conventions are "Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl" by Harriet A. Jacobs, "Sweat" by Zora Neale Hurston, and "We Wear the Mask" by Paul Laurence Dunbar.

Before African Americans experienced freedom, they largely experience slavery.  Harriet A. Jacobs’s “Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl” provides a clear illustration concerning the struggles and mistreatment during a period when human rights were of no consideration.  As a memoir detailing the accounts of a slave girl who hid away from her master for seven years, the conventions Jacobs provided to motivate her theme were consistent with the troubles slaves faced.  Her memoir is also driven by concepts of family and separation as well as the confinement one must endure (as well as escape) in his or her pursuit of freedom.  Because the material is a biography, Jacobs chronologically manages to move her material through each preceding event that affects her resolution and purpose in telling her story.

Examples of Jacobs’s chronology of events are the swap between her experience with new masters, her incidents in Philadelphia, and her eventual escape.  These are successfully employed the biography’s convention to uncover the purpose of her biography as well as the theme.  Through expressing the theme of the desire for freedom during the horrors of slavery, Jacobs captured the attention of a period filled with historical and socio-political discord.  Her autobiography persisted with the country’s urging for change during the Civil War era as well as becoming a staple for the nation to consider the horrors of past events when making changes for its future.

Zora Neale Hurston’s “Sweat” features Delia, a washerwoman, and her abusive husband.  It takes the desperation for family from “Incidents” and illustrates a painful view of it.  The washerwoman’s husband is abusive to his wife, angered by her desire to keep the clothing of white people together and in order.  He also cheats on her repeatedly.  As the story progress, so does the time.  The readers see Delia continues to wash, and she remains secondary to her husband as he continues to fulfill the needs of his mistress.  It is when her husband brings home a rattlesnake that Delia’s side of the situation changes.  Through a turn of events, her husband is bitten by the snake, and instead of sending for help, Delia simply watches him die.  She escapes another form of confinement: marriage.

As a fiction story, “Sweat” offer readers a subtle set of themes to explore.  One will start with Delia’s husband’s dependency on his wife as the breadwinner and how this often made him angry.  In large part he is inept in their family situation; therefore, he sought the attention of another woman.  Even the men outside the marriage, who were aware of Delia’s husband’s affection with another woman, choose not to impose on the marriage to save Delia.  However, during the period in which the story was written there were no convenience divorces, especially at the request of women.  This concept was more extreme in the case of African American women.  Therefore, Delia found her way out through the snake that bit her husband, reiterating both the desperate attempts she would take for freedom.

"We Wear the Mask" by Paul Laurence Dunbar follows “Incident” and “Sweat” as a poem that furthers the African American experience by best describing the emotions within the two.  “We Wear the Mask” illustrates the African American experience of hiding oneself to appeal to the public, particularly during slavery, and the Jim Crow era.  Dunbar wanted to express how a person will look one way in his or her outer appearance but what goes on inside is of a different accord.  Much like Jacobs’s narrative, and Hurston’s character of Delia, the women have to resource to containing her inner struggles because of the consequences expressing them will have.  However, when desperate, their true feelings emerged at the thought of freedom from suppression.  Nevertheless, Dunbar’s poem encompasses the struggles of many African Americans throughout history.  These individuals relied on inner strength to battle persecution, and Dunbar asks that individuals of the present learn from the past to no longer hide themselves or suffer through the ideal that an individual cannot be free from another.

African American fiction employees a variety of literary conventions, themes, and subjects to make up the entirety of American literature.  Whether the material is a biography, piece of fiction, or poem, its purpose is to provide a voice to a group of individuals who remained disregarded in “traditional” literature as well as reality.  Providing elements of myths and traditions, this category of literature is filled with messages related to family and self-acceptance.  It is literature that stretches the problems faced during slavery to the conditions faced in return during today’s era.

A Glimpse into Daniel Black’s "Perfect Peace"

"Gracie left, convinced that Mae Helen would die before Emma Jean saw her again.  Still, she was glad she had tried.  A child's hurt obviously evolves into an adult's resentment, she told herself, so after years of abuse, the possibility that Emma Jean might forgive and forget was a virtual impossibility.  Maybe she should have fought more directly for Emma Jean when they were children, Gracie considered, but what could she do about that now?  Even if she apologized, which she felt she'd done, Emma Jean's pain wouldn't decrease.  All Gracie knew to do was promise to love any child she birthed--even if, like Emma Jean, it was ugly."

Before I forget, this has to be pulled out of my “draft“ list and shared, especially after watching an amazing interview with the author on YouTube.  So I wanted to dust this work-in-progress off, share it with everyone, then let the video do the talking because what he says will blow the right mind away.  But first, in a way this passage is an extension of my Alice Walker post where I ask the questions revolving around parental guilt and our frustrating experiences finding purpose in our adult lives.  Maybe answers are here.  Please, enjoy.

Daniel Black a Perfect Peace

1996 and Intruding Thoughts

“The Boys sit transfixed before the small computer screen. A green line, indicating the brain wave activity of the Naylor woman, scrolls across the screen. On the other side of the wall, she’s in bed, tossing and turning, trying to get comfortable. They catch their breath in excitement as the words appear at the bottom of the screen; This pillow is too soft. Paulo can’t help himself; every time he sees that a tingling occurs at the bottom of this stomach. To be inside of someone’s mind has to be the sexist thing in the world. There was nowhere left on earth to go, no new frontiers. This was it; they were touching someone’s soul. Each time that it’s his turn, he trembles just a little as he “answers” her. The pillow isn’t too soft. Your head is too hard. After typing those words, he presses the “send” key and there is a slight hum from the satellite dish. Leave me alone. Jesus, would you look at that. She heard them. They’ve done it a dozen times by now, but every time it’s like a little miracle. So this is what it feels like to be God, Paulo thinks."   

This frightening excerpt comes from Gloria Naylor’s fictionalized memoir, 1996.  It’s considered a fictionalized memoir because of the interlocking narrative, sectioned between Naylor’s first person perspective of events (considered reality) and a third person view.  The third person narrative (proposed as fiction) provides readers a glimpse into the villainous acts of the government “squad” used to torment Naylor because of a small series of misunderstandings that inaccurately labeled her an anti-Semitic (those who are discriminating towards Jews).  As a book submerged in Naylor’s familiarity with government surveillance and conspiracies, her accounts left me wondering how probable her experiences were as well as what were the odds of finding myself in something similar.  Should you find time to read the book, you will see how disturbingly easy Naylor arrived to her situation.  And I say that without arguing whether her accounts are fact or fiction.   

Nonetheless, I also left the book wondering whether some of the fleetingly negative criticisms I have for myself are produced from within.  Or are they manufactured thoughts by some other source, as seen in parts of Naylor’s situation?  I suppose the safest choice is to settle with those negative thoughts being constructions of my own.  This may keep me from falling into that whole state of believing that the world is out to get me.  Nevertheless, I’ve always taken into account that nothing--and I mean nothing--in this world can be contained within our knowledgeable grasp.  Meaning, anything can absolutely be.  Nothing is impossible.   

So if those negative voices in our head are not manufactured, as they were in 1996, where do they pop up from?  As the depraved Paulo referred in the passage above, are they from God?  The better question is how true are those voices and should they always be acknowledged when we are faced with decisions or realizations about ourselves?  What percentage of them are thoughts influenced by the beliefs of others?  And how much of those thoughts are residual from our childhood experiences?  That’s what I really wanted to get to.   

So when our mind is wrestling with something, how easy is it to stay impartial and allow the debate to pass?  Is it helpful to stuff down the negative thoughts with positive ones?  Or should the negatives be just as accepted.  Because the mind won’t shut off, will it?  Every bad thought it shares does not pertain to you, though.  That's to be realized.   

Imagine the feeling of relief when we make peace that we are not that stupid voice in our head.  Instead, we’re just there to “listen” to it play out if we choose to.  We don’t have to participate with its corrugated reasoning.  It’s easier that way, but why is it so damn hard to reach such a state?  I find myself wondering this when in my head I am debating the behavior of others based off a decision I’ve made, of course translated through the lens of negativity.  See, a schedule was posted at work, and me being a first shift associate, suddenly found myself relegated to working two second shifts as the MOD, or manager on duty.  At the beginning of the summer I explicitly asked to move and stay exclusive to first shift.  Here, I could continue to have the personal space I felt required to better myself.  As far as the MOD status, I could have sworn that I turned down being a lead back in March.  Trusting my instincts, I should add.  So I was thoroughly perplexed looking at the schedule.  I was not going to get paid to watch over the second shift team members’ work, and should something happen within the store, I wasn’t willing to take the heat and stress crashing on my shoulders.  Nonetheless, I didn’t put up a fuss looking at the schedule, besides the managers had all dipped out!  I simply wrote a post-it note that read something like this:   

“I am not interested in managing second shift or working its hours again.  Thanks.”   

Well, that became the talk of the store.  People began to believe that the real second shift team lead was quitting (management put me on those two days to work her days off).  People thought I was quitting.  People became concerned for the store’s coverage.  Some were even proud of me.  But as for me... I (in my head) just kept thinking that I should have handled the situation differently.  Why?  Because I--once again in my head--believed I had upset some people by causing them to rearrange matters that inconvenienced others.  I am the type of person who tries not to make a fuss wherever I go.  I try to keep things mellow and fun.  For me to outright say “I won’t accept this” is almost unusual.  Granted, I speak my mind and take a no-bullshit approach to certain areas of my life.  However, I was also taught to take on my responsibilities however they come.  Nevertheless, it really did bother me that management felt they could just throw me into such a position after discussing months ago that I didn’t want such.  Still, this negative tape in my head kept insisting that my insubordinate “violation” of other employee’s time and space might’ve been doing too much.  What gave me the right to protest management’s decisions (besides the fact that I wasn’t going to get paid for it)?    

So when a certain employee may have forgotten to speak to me one day, I think it’s because of my demands.  Or when a manager eyes me across the room, I wonder is he ready to give me the boot (which I probably would gladly take) or cut my hours for making such a bold demand.  Is everyone mad at me?   

But it’s all an illusion, you see.  Those things only exist if I make them so and making them so starts with hooking myself into the negative thoughts that encourage them.  Things like my personal intentions and motivations play a role in my decision to spend my good times chasing a better life.  So if those choices ask me to stand up for myself, I must oblige.  It is much more rewarding to congratulate myself than berate myself over the falseness of guilt and negative illusions, which would once again turn into an inner battle begging me to quit the job all together.   

Nevertheless, I suppose the point of this post, in relation to Gloria Naylor’s novel, is to not allow anything, including your very own battling thoughts, to control and wear your purpose.  On all accounts, stand up for yourself throughout inner and outer circumstances.

Source:

Naylor, Gloria. 1996. Chicago: Third World, 2007. Print.