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Title: Cane (A Norton Critical Edition) by Jean Toomer, Darwin T. Turner ISBN: 0-393-95600-8 Publisher: W.W. Norton & Company Pub. Date: December, 1989 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $10.65 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.36 (14 reviews)
Rating: 3
Summary: "To catch thy plaintive soul, soon gone"
Comment: Written back in 1923, CANE is one of the touchstones of African-American writing. Jean Toomer, despite his rather uncertain relationship with the African side of his ancestry, must be recognized as a founder. That said, this is a pale, difficult book, wandering sadly through the tempest-tossed fortunes of African-American life in the first decades of the 20th century. CANE is not for the casual reader, nor for those who want to be fed meaning. You must reflect, add to the text from your own knowledge and experience. The characters appear in pale colors, dressed in weariness and often verging on madness. Blue saxophone tones amidst the fogs of prejudice and blind hatred for all intelligent behavior by a despised minority. What more could a gentle man, human and tender, make of such craziness ? Poetry, broken images that pass slowly, pale by smoke, pale by moonlight, whisper of yellow globes, and decline of that distant hope that someday "they" would learn. Part of this book is poetry, part is prose, and part a strange play about a man named Kabnis ("Sinbad ?) who seems an unlikely traveller on life's roads. It is not a novel in any usual sense of the word, since it is made up of completely disparate parts with no connection other than that they describe the vicissitudes of African-American life in the South and in Washington DC. Plot is absent, as is continuity. This is a volume of ashen portraits, not much flattering. This is a volume worth more for its history than for its literary merit, yet it will touch you if you let it.
Not yet published were the forthright descriptions and defiance of Wright, Ellison, Baldwin, and many others. The bold fulminations of Malcolm, the brilliant oratory of King---not even dreamt of. Toomer asks---but through a mist of poetic images, through the circuitous meanderings of the oppressed---what have we done to deserve this fate? Who am I ? No firebrand he. "Wish that I might fly out past the moon/ And curl forever in some far-off farmyard flower." This is hardly rebellion. But he wrote, he dared that. From our so-privileged vantage point of eight decades into the future shall we challenge him, shall we scorn him ? Let's praise him, for he began the trickle that turned into a mighty flood.
Rating: 5
Summary: A wonderful little book with great insight
Comment: This is perhaps one of my favorite works of literature I've ever read. This piece of literature uses poetry and short stories to portray the vast experiences of Afican-Americans in America. This novel (of sorts) opens your eyes and does so subtly and beautifully through various characters and the experiences they go through or fight against. Although written over fify years ago, Toomer's work relates well to the problems/concerns of race in America today. I feel this should be a required work in studying Modern American Literature and the African-American Experience. If there is a firm "canon" ever established, this should be included.
Rating: 5
Summary: Wind is in the cane
Comment: It was a product of the Harlem Renaissance. It was published in 1923 in a small edition. Toomer believed that in CANE he was writing of a way of life that was dying.
CANE is a collection of poetry and prose. It contains portraits and descriptions. Toomer was something of a detached observer. He questioned the harmonies and values of his society.
In the Norton Critical Edition the material at the back of the volume includes biographical and critical information. In an autobiographical section Toomer states that CANE was a swan song. He consciously sought to embody in the work the folk spirit.
Before Toomer began to write he thought of becoming a composer. Critic Gorham Munson writes that CANE is the projection of a vivid personality.
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Title: Quicksand and Passing (American Women Writers Series) by Nella Larsen, Deborah McDowell ISBN: 0813511704 Publisher: Rutgers University Press Pub. Date: April, 1986 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
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Title: Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston ISBN: 0060931418 Publisher: Perennial Pub. Date: 01 December, 1998 List Price(USD): $13.95 |
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Title: Home to Harlem by Claude McKay, Wayne M. Cooper ISBN: 1555530249 Publisher: Northeastern University Press Pub. Date: December, 1987 List Price(USD): $15.95 |
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Title: Black No More : A Novel by GEORGE SCHUYLER ISBN: 037575380X Publisher: Modern Library Pub. Date: 29 June, 1999 List Price(USD): $13.95 |
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Title: Infants of the Spring (The Northeastern Library of Black Literature) by Wallace Thurman, Amritjit Singh ISBN: 1555531288 Publisher: Northeastern University Press Pub. Date: July, 1992 List Price(USD): $17.95 |
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