Oh, interesting reading-- and I think you're not wrong.
You are certainly right that AAVE can express and has often expressed all the wisdom there is. An historic James with the thinking chops of this fictional one could stand up to Voltaire and Locke, let alone a passle of middling Crackers, using AAVE.
But Everett is writing a novel he generously makes accessible to a passel of middling suburban 21st century whites, but taking a short cut in writing. The short cut is that he gives James the language of the philosophers he reads so well.
It would be beautiful to read this with James speaking AAVE-- and the same contrast between his true AAVE speech and his comparatively eviscerated speech to white people could still exist. I would love to read that. But I don't think that Everett would have got the same readership, and I think that he deserves the readership, and that his making it accessible to a bunch of cocksure people is a considerable grace.
I haven't finished the novel yet-- commonplace-booking and multiple books as well as what life is like generally make me slow. Maybe I'll agree with you by the end. I hope I'll remember to let you know, if so.
This--the character of Jim, and whether he is reduced by Twain to less humanity--is a really thorny issue. I get Everett's rage about being reduced to an ethnic category by publishers, but I agree with both the music and the linguistic distance of not just Black but southern dialect. For me, Jim's inner voice, in Everett's novel, was pretty jarring and seemed over-compensating (my judgment as a pretty educated white man whose inner voice I don't think is like that at all), but it will be useful to listen to other interpretations.
I heard a guy Billy talking to a group on a stoop in Wicker Park back in the early 80s, and it was like being in London talking to two guys from Leeds and one from Wales. I understood 2/3rds of what the Leeds guys said, and about 1/3 of what the guy from Wales said. Difference is with Billy, who was Black and from the south, was the music I heard even when I didn't understand half of what he was saying. I'd say that part of the pleasure, even for the guys on the stoop who understood more of what he was saying, was the music of his performance. Maybe he had an Oxbridge voice inside, but I doubt it. I think the fact that I had listened to so much jazz, rhythm & blues, and soul primed me to hear it.
I thought that the language was used as cover, as camouflage, a means of concealing stuff -- humanity, intelligence. learning -- which if revealed would be misunderstood and dangerous.
Was eating an early morning breakfast in a lower east side tenement in 1961 when he suddenly appeared on TV, on Dave Garroway's show from 7-9 am. Couldn't turn away. No one like him then or now.
He was preparing a new Broadway show, "Kicks & Co." about a modern day Mephistopheles who comes to a college campus to seduce the students — a perfect metaphor for what was happening all around us.
Years later, 1972, saw his opening show at Howard University in D.C. Hardly anyone came. The room was mostly empty. Howard had sworn off advertising in the Post owing to its racial bias, the kind of paper that would attract people to his show. Oscar performed with the same enthusiasm he would have displayed to an audience of 5,000. Like Monk, he just did his thing:
"Permit me to introduce myself, the name is Mr. Kicks
I dwell in a dark dominion, way down by the River Styx."
I am a big fan (obviously) but he ruined my jazz career when I was 20 (30yrs ago) when he had already played w Art Blakey and probably Sting. Aside from the fact I play drums and live in Australia and 5’2” and white… People still send me posters and mum gets calls I’m playing at the Opera House. Maybe I’m loading a truck at the opera house …
I liked the novel but that piece struck me as perhaps overreaching to make a point. As for making Jame familiar with the philosophical canon, Black folks have been intimately familiar with the text and implications of the King James Bible, but didn’t acquire the King’s archaic spoken English, thank God.
Maybe Everett is more comfortable showing Jim talking to Huck when he has to partly conceal or dissemble. There, he's (Everett) safe from suspicions of mimicry. But he's historically about as far from the actual language of Jim's inner life as most of us are.
I can’t comment on the novel, but I agree that our culture is much richer because of the contributions of not only Africans brought here as against their will, but of all the other cultural contributions made by settlers to this bland white world. We are indebted to them for their influence on our music, food, arts and culture in general. How boring it would be without that.
Rick, have you read Michael Harriot's Black AF History? He shows the actual historical language of the era, and yes, it would have been a much more profound book if that was the style Everett adopted.
Oh, interesting reading-- and I think you're not wrong.
You are certainly right that AAVE can express and has often expressed all the wisdom there is. An historic James with the thinking chops of this fictional one could stand up to Voltaire and Locke, let alone a passle of middling Crackers, using AAVE.
But Everett is writing a novel he generously makes accessible to a passel of middling suburban 21st century whites, but taking a short cut in writing. The short cut is that he gives James the language of the philosophers he reads so well.
It would be beautiful to read this with James speaking AAVE-- and the same contrast between his true AAVE speech and his comparatively eviscerated speech to white people could still exist. I would love to read that. But I don't think that Everett would have got the same readership, and I think that he deserves the readership, and that his making it accessible to a bunch of cocksure people is a considerable grace.
I haven't finished the novel yet-- commonplace-booking and multiple books as well as what life is like generally make me slow. Maybe I'll agree with you by the end. I hope I'll remember to let you know, if so.
Right. But you don't give books laying it out on a platter for middling suburban whites awards and praise it received!
Middling suburban whites certainly do! :D
This--the character of Jim, and whether he is reduced by Twain to less humanity--is a really thorny issue. I get Everett's rage about being reduced to an ethnic category by publishers, but I agree with both the music and the linguistic distance of not just Black but southern dialect. For me, Jim's inner voice, in Everett's novel, was pretty jarring and seemed over-compensating (my judgment as a pretty educated white man whose inner voice I don't think is like that at all), but it will be useful to listen to other interpretations.
I heard a guy Billy talking to a group on a stoop in Wicker Park back in the early 80s, and it was like being in London talking to two guys from Leeds and one from Wales. I understood 2/3rds of what the Leeds guys said, and about 1/3 of what the guy from Wales said. Difference is with Billy, who was Black and from the south, was the music I heard even when I didn't understand half of what he was saying. I'd say that part of the pleasure, even for the guys on the stoop who understood more of what he was saying, was the music of his performance. Maybe he had an Oxbridge voice inside, but I doubt it. I think the fact that I had listened to so much jazz, rhythm & blues, and soul primed me to hear it.
I thought that the language was used as cover, as camouflage, a means of concealing stuff -- humanity, intelligence. learning -- which if revealed would be misunderstood and dangerous.
Mr. Kicks
Permit me to introduce myself, the name is Mr. Kicks
I dwell in a dark dominion, way down by the River Styx
The Devil has sent me here because I'm full of wicked tricks
And I'm such a popular fellow among all you lunatics
I teach a course in ruination from the Devil's text
To fools who can't withstand temptation, step right up, you're next
I hail from a hot old hellhole down along the River Styx
Allow me to introduce myself, the name is Mr. Kicks
When an old wolf starts a-prowlin'
Out among the young lambs howlin'
Don't you know he's looking for kicks?
When a young cat full of sly tricks
Spends his evenings chasin' fly chicks
Ten to one he's lookin' for kicks
Kicks is always in demand
Because kicks is full of fun and laughter
Lots of folks get out of hand
Because it's only kicks they're after
Shady lady and her lover operating undercover
She knows sin and virtue don't mix
Her mama raised her prim and proper
But now wild horses couldn't stop her
When she's on a manhunt for kicks
For kicks, lookin' for kicks
Yeah, just kicks, nothin' but kicks
I'm Satan's sinful servant sent to get you in a fix
So look me up just any time
The name is Mister, name is Mister
The name is Mr. Kicks
Oscar Brown Jr., words and music:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HlYlkzL0Y3o
Oscar Brown, Jr — one of the greats!
Was eating an early morning breakfast in a lower east side tenement in 1961 when he suddenly appeared on TV, on Dave Garroway's show from 7-9 am. Couldn't turn away. No one like him then or now.
He was preparing a new Broadway show, "Kicks & Co." about a modern day Mephistopheles who comes to a college campus to seduce the students — a perfect metaphor for what was happening all around us.
Years later, 1972, saw his opening show at Howard University in D.C. Hardly anyone came. The room was mostly empty. Howard had sworn off advertising in the Post owing to its racial bias, the kind of paper that would attract people to his show. Oscar performed with the same enthusiasm he would have displayed to an audience of 5,000. Like Monk, he just did his thing:
"Permit me to introduce myself, the name is Mr. Kicks
I dwell in a dark dominion, way down by the River Styx."
His daughters Maggie and Africa, who perform in Chicago all the time, are like him!
I will read this but seeing the title thought it was about James Brown, and the answer then would of course be no.
Oh man my heart raced, I thought you were MAESTRO Christian McBride!
I am a big fan (obviously) but he ruined my jazz career when I was 20 (30yrs ago) when he had already played w Art Blakey and probably Sting. Aside from the fact I play drums and live in Australia and 5’2” and white… People still send me posters and mum gets calls I’m playing at the Opera House. Maybe I’m loading a truck at the opera house …
I liked the novel but that piece struck me as perhaps overreaching to make a point. As for making Jame familiar with the philosophical canon, Black folks have been intimately familiar with the text and implications of the King James Bible, but didn’t acquire the King’s archaic spoken English, thank God.
Maybe Everett is more comfortable showing Jim talking to Huck when he has to partly conceal or dissemble. There, he's (Everett) safe from suspicions of mimicry. But he's historically about as far from the actual language of Jim's inner life as most of us are.
I can’t comment on the novel, but I agree that our culture is much richer because of the contributions of not only Africans brought here as against their will, but of all the other cultural contributions made by settlers to this bland white world. We are indebted to them for their influence on our music, food, arts and culture in general. How boring it would be without that.
Rick, have you read Michael Harriot's Black AF History? He shows the actual historical language of the era, and yes, it would have been a much more profound book if that was the style Everett adopted.
I had the same reaction and couldn’t get past it to engage fully with the book
==What do you think? James Joyce? Or—Oscar Brown, who named his daughter “Africa"?==
We can't have both? Joyce integrated many vocal traditions into his written work. And I love the lyrics to "Dat Dere."
But Everett doesn't give us a "both."