For some reason I’m normally tempted to skip the foreword of novels. Perhaps I just want to get right into the story. Perhaps I think Roman numeral pages don’t really count. But I did read the one in Jazz and I’m glad I did because as I’ve been reading I’ve had Morrison’s introductory words in the back of my head, shaping how I read it. I don’t know everything about jazz music but Morrison explains how she’s used it in her novel. She says jazz music is primarily about “invention. Improvisation, originality, change,” and that “rather than be about those characteristic, the novel would seek to become them,” (xx). I made a blog post about Morrison’s use of structure in a Mercy, and her brilliant use of it in Jazz, though a somewhat different, is catching my attention yet again. She said herself in the foreword, “I had written novels in which structure was designed to enhance meaning; here the structure would equal meaning” (xix). So I knew even before starting the book that Morrison would be doing some cool jazz-like things with her structure, and I am not disappointed. Continue reading “The Novel Embodiment of Jazz Music”
To Thwart Close Reading
*As a disclaimer, this is not a fully analytical post. In a 400 level college class and the intelligent discourse that comes along with that, I wasn’t sure where to put these thoughts, so I decided to use the blog space, but perhaps even here isn’t the right place.*
When we were discussing the epigraph for Jazz, Dr. McCoy said that she believes the lines can’t be reconciled and that maybe as readers we need to think about beauty. That resonated with me, because as an English major obviously I love analyzing texts: their meanings, reader interpretations vs. authorial intentions, and literary elements. As an future teacher, I love helping others come to their own conclusions about texts as well.
However…
I believe that often in college classes, students fall into two categories. Either they are so stressed by other classes that they skim through reading just trying to finish the assigned pages even if it means losing sleep, sanity, or both. The opposite of that is the students who become obsessed finding the underlying meaning of every sentence, word, and sound. And that’s not a bad thing- we have to go deeper into texts than we have ever attempted before because that’s why people take literature classes in college. I believe that there is a quality of beauty in literature that sometimes get ignored, or rather overlooked.
On Beauty
On Wednesday, Dr. Beth prompted us to think on beauty this week. The sentence was scarce complete when I thought of Zadie Smith’s On Beauty. Both Smith’s novel and Toni Morrison’s Jazz actually have quite a bit in common. Love and marriage, race, and social class are all present in both novels. However, as this is my first time reading Jazz and I’m not quite sure what awaits deeper in the novel, I will not presume to know if their takeaways are similar. For now, though, I can point out the surface similarities (while trying not to spoil any of Smith’s novel for those of you who have not read it) and recommend On Beauty to anyone looking for their next read. Continue reading “On Beauty”
Some More Historical Significance
While searching through the beginning chapters of Jazz for historically significant references , I came across a couple that were not mentioned in class. The first is the “armistice” that is referred to while the narrator is describing the veterans on Seventh Avenue. This is a reference to the Armistice of 11 November 1918 which took place between the Allies and the Germans during the first World War. This agreement stopped the fighting on the Western Front, which was the battleground of WWI. I find this significant because it pushes me to do research on the roles that African-Americans played in the war and how their lives were impacted both during and after it was over.
Another reference that stands out to me is found when Violet is talking (or thinking) about Dorcas. She mentions a school named Wadleigh. I looked it up and it turns out that Wadleigh, an institution still standing today, was the first public school for girls established in NYC.
These significant references make me feel like nothing in Morrison’s texts should be looked over. Her texts are very informative.
How to Feel About Prisons
I wanted to start a conversation about prisons in the United States. But first, I’d like to start with a little anecdote. A couple years ago my older brother used to hang around the wrong group of people. We live in the hood in Brooklyn and so part of this meant dealing with the culture of the hood. One day, my brother was hanging out with these kids on the train, skipping train cars, which is illegal, and got targeted by the cops. Under the impression that the friends my brother was with were carrying weed, he started running away from the cops. After tripping, a cop finally caught hold of him. Quietly, he said that my brother was lucky he hadn’t put “three rounds in his back.” Continue reading “How to Feel About Prisons”
The Single Story of the “Flawless” Feminist Icon
I must say that this timing is rather uncanny, given our class’s recent discussion of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s “The Danger of a Single Story,” but just yesterday, Dutch paper De Volkskrant published an interview with the feminist icon. In this interview, Adichie responds to the media coverage she has experienced since the release of Beyoncé’s “Flawless,” and her desire to separate her own work from that of Beyoncé. She makes it clear that she respects Beyoncé as both an artist, and a fellow feminist icon, but would prefer that the public appreciated her work as its own entity–a pretty reasonable request, coming from a novelist already famous prior to being featured by another high-profile artist. Continue reading “The Single Story of the “Flawless” Feminist Icon”
The Danger of the Single Story in Today’s Society
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s TED talk about the danger of the single story never fails to leave me moved. So much of what she says is relevant in today’s society.
Adichie explained how her experiences as a child showed how vulnerable and impressionable children are in the face of the “single story.” It made me wonder how many parents, specifically in the U.S., are unaware of the impact they have on their children– not only impacting them with their own words, but the kinds of media they expose them to. Continue reading “The Danger of the Single Story in Today’s Society”
Single Story of the Black Man
Throughout our powerful conversation on Monday that concluded on the topic of single stories, I could not stop thinking about the single story that I myself and the rest of the Black male population in America are characters of. The single story of Black males that is composed of characteristics such as violent tendencies, aggression, rudeness, and others that make people afraid, or unwilling to communicate with them (us) are strong. So strong Continue reading “Single Story of the Black Man”
Morrison and the Other
“I am the speech that cannot be grasped.
I am the name of the sound
and the sound of the name.
I am the sign of the letter
and the designation of the division.”
Toni Morrison utilizes this excerpt from “The Thunder, Perfect Mind” from the Gnostic manuscripts in the Nag Hammadi Library as the epigraph of her novel Jazz. The entire poem is made up of paradoxical statements by a first person identifier, such as “[…] I am the first and the last” and “I am war and peace.” The poem is believed to be the voice of the divine, which would explains its all-encompassing assertions. Continue reading “Morrison and the Other”
“The Songs are Free”: Black Oral Tradition and the Classroom
I was especially moved by Bernice Johnson Reagon’s articulations about the oral tradition within Black churches and Civil Rights movements and later our unique dynamic in the classroom. Bill Moyers jokingly comments that his experience with the Southern Christian (white) churches is vastly different from Bernice’s. He jokes that “This Little Light of Mine” was taught to him via the church as a song about humility and submissiveness to god. Conversely, Bernice Johnson Reagon emphasizes that the song in the black oral tradition emphasizes the exact opposite and that the usage of the song, in Civil Rights movements and elsewhere, is actively undoing the oppressive expectation for black people to be silent and unseen. Continue reading ““The Songs are Free”: Black Oral Tradition and the Classroom”