"Among the Wild Mulattos" Review: The Collagist

Happy Friday, y'all.

I have a new review up: the great folks at The Collagist published my review of Among the Wild Mulattos, a sometimes hilarious, sometimes fantastically philosophical collection of stories about race, identity, and various searches.

You can read my review here. And check out the rest of the issue here. I've never read a bad piece in this journal. Thanks to Gabriel Blackwell and Matthew Olzmann for their hard work in putting out such a great collection of fiction, essays, and reviews every single month, like clockwork.

And if you're so inclined, you can pick up Tom's book here, too. (Not to be all soapbox about this, but avoid Amazon when you can. Shop local, both online and in reality.)

The Game Of the Name: Colson Whitehead's "Apex Hides the Hurt"

With occasional exceptions, it's a given that any author with a great track record and multiple novels will have at least one dud or misstep along the way. If this isn't the case, then the author will have a work or two that yields bitter hatred, even among his or her most devoted readers (for example, this seems to happen a lot with Philip Roth). With Colson Whitehead, I assumed Apex Hides the Hurt fell into the latter category. With the exception of Zone One, I've now read his entire fiction bibliography, and if possible, I hope to have all of his works read by the end of the year. Apex Hides the Hurt, published in 2006, never seems to get any attention, even among Whitehead's biggest fans and patrons. I never assumed it was bad, but rather I assumed it wasn't as good as the previous and subsequent novels. Last week, I went to check out my local library, something I had not done since moving to a new neighborhood at the end of April. The selection is small, but I found a copy of Apex and decided to see what it was all about. I'm now perplexed as to why this book isn't as lauded as The Intuitionist or Sag Harbor. Whitehead's works deal with racial and sociological issues blended with specific ideas: elevator repair, the folk tales of John Henry, and the autobiographical imagining of black residents of Sag Harbor in the 1980s. Apex uses marketing, small-town politics, and distinct personalities to explore the ideas of integrity, motives, and varying levels of identity. I loved the book, and I'm hoping that this essay will be a small addition in giving an unappreciated work some overdue attention.

The narrator is an unnamed nomenclature consultant with a legendary track record for giving new products imaginative, attention-grabbing names. This isn't just a knack, but rather an almost sixth sense, combined with hard work and an innate understanding of how a name can make or break a product. As it's described in the opening paragraph:

"He came up with the names. They were good times. He came up with the names and like any good parent he knocked them around to teach them life lessons. He bent the to see if they'd break, he dragged them behind cars by heavy metal chains, he exposed them to high temperatures for extended periods of time. Sometimes consonants broke off and left angry vowels on the laboratory tables. How else was he to know if they were ready for what the world had in store for them (Whitehead 3)?"

He walks with a pronounced limp and has recently left his company (these points are mentioned right away, but the full details are revealed as the novel progresses). He's asked to visit a small town called Winthrop to mediate their proposal to rename the area, and interacts with three people with three different ideas. Lucky Aberdeen, a wealthy software CEO who has returned to the area (along with the hope of reviving it as a tech community), wants the town branded as New Prospera, a revitalized, almost Utopian designation. Regina Goode, the black mayor, has her heart set on Freedom, which the consultant finds unimaginative until he learns more about the black founds of the town. And Albie Winthrop, the namesake of the barbed wire producers who came before him, thinks his family name should remain. With this set-up, one would expect a tale of intense battles and double-crosses. While Whitehead does pepper the text with the occasional revelation, the consultant engages in relatively tame conversations with these three key citizens. While staying at the Winthrop Hotel, he quickly acquires a couple of nemeses--a very insistent housekeeper and a gruff bartender. These interactions are played very humorously, rendering the actual conversations about the town name more meaningful and thoughtful. There are no small town stereotypes at play, but rather some careful observations about how coming from a long line of family members in such a place can have an effect on one's identity. The bartender is one of the best examples of this:

"The bartender ran his cloth across nonexistent stains on glasses, lipstick that had not remained and specks that had not lingered. A streak of gray started at his forehead and fanned out into his Afro in a curly wedge, an ancient and hardwired pattern, in his genes. He watched the man wipe glass, hold up glass to the light to consider his handiwork. The day the bartender discovered that white spray in the mirror, as he was about to perform the daily trimming of his muttonchops, he knew he had become his grandfather, that he was truly his father's son beyond what the surname said. It was hard not to notice that the bartender had some old-school muttonchops, real daguerreotype shit, something to aspire to (Whitehead 21)."

The titular Apex is a fictional bandage that comes in many different color tones to serve a diverse population, and remains the best name created by the consultant. His history of working with the brand manages to tie together all of the plot themes while remaining its own, original story. As he does in his other works, Whitehead includes some factual history (namely Johnson & Johnson's Band-Aid) that goes along with the fictional story. By creating a perfect name for a revolutionary medical aid, complex sociology and personal history come into play. The actual bandage serves as a key plot point, and the Apex brand makes an unassumed link to Winthrop's history, being founded by black settlers and quickly being overtaken by whites.

"The whiz kid said, You manufacture this thing and call it flesh. It belongs to another race. I have different ideas about what color flesh is, he told them. We come in colors. We come in many colors. And we want to see ourselves when we look down at ourselves, our arms and legs. Around the table the men listened, and soon afterward they got to work. Somebody give this guy a raise.
At Ogilvy and Myrtle they knew the neighborhoods, some block by block, and they knew the hues of the people who lived there. They knew the cities and the colors of their mayors. They knew the colors of clientele and zip codes and could ship boxes accordingly.
They devised thirty hues originally, later knocked them down to twenty after research determined a zone of comfort. It didn't have to be perfect, just not too insulting (Whitehead 88-89)."

Whitehead's writing is full of keen observations, and sometimes he doesn't need to carefully weave them into the text; they need to be out in the open. The consultant visits with Albie Winthrop, a divorced, troubled man seeking to maintain the town's original name. He's lost almost everything, and he wants to hold on to a remaining strip of dignity. The two men went to the same college, an elite institution that forms the basis of a perceived bond on Albie's part. The consultant observes as an aside:

"He had found, in his life, that it was always a good policy to flee when white people felt compelled to inform you about their black friend, or black acquaintance, or black person they saw on the street that morning. There were many reasons to flee, but in this case the pertinent one was that the reference was intended to signal growing camaraderie (Whitehead 80-81)."

When he finds out the original name of the town was supposed to be Freedom, he deplores the blandness and ties it into overused names in products. He later learns the true meaning of the name, but offers a quick, witty analysis.

"Freedom. He whistled. If he'd offered up Freedom in a meeting, he'd have been run out of town, his colleagues in full jibber behind him, waving torches. It was like something from the B-GON days, an artifact of the most pained and witless nomenclature. Roach B-GON, Rat B-GON. Hope B-GON. Freedom was so defiantly unimaginative as to approach a kind of moral weakness (Whitehead 83)."

Even using a fictional town as the basis of the story, Whitehead manages to explore issues and normally disregarded facets of the areas around us. As the town history is revealed, the consultant begins to appreciate it. This isn't any sappy, sentimental warming of an otherwise calculating businessman, but a touching look at roots. In its fictional setting, it almost forces the reader to imagine his or her neighborhood and the complex histories behind it.

"[The Mayor] didn't speak for the rest of the ride to the hotel, leaving his eyes to jump from sign to sign. Winthrop's Virginias and Oaks were well within character for someone hungering after the connotations of the eastern establishment, he decided. Want to import the coast to the prairie? You have to learn how to be just as dull, name by name. Whereas the black settlers had different marketing priorities. Hope crossed Liberty, past the intersection of Salvation. Better than naming the streets after what they knew before they came here. Take Kidnap to the end, make a left on Torture, keep on 'til you get to Lynch. Follow the lights 'til you get to Genocide and stop at the dead end (Whitehead 128)."

I did a quick skim of the Apex Hides the Hurt Wikipedia page, and some of the criticisms levied against it could be valid. Whitehead has some obvious metaphors (a narrator renowned for clever names has no name of his own), and the revelation about the actual Apex bandage can be seen coming roughly halfway through the novel. There are a couple potential romances presented to the consultant, but nothing materializes. However, as I'm wont to point out in other cases, nothing Whitehead does is gimmicky. He's not fishing for any "gotcha" or "ah ha" moments, but lets them progress naturally. And the biggest revelation never comes (this might be a bit of a spoiler, but it has to do with the final vote on the naming rights of the town). The book was published right before the explosion of social media, and even then, marketing was dominating every aspect of our lives, so much that the battle over a town's name seems almost quaint, especially today. At my bookstore, I recently saw a book about how neuroscience and brain studies can be used for effective marketing, and it scared me to no end. Whitehead is truly deserving of the title "cultural commentator," and he does this in his fiction in fantastic ways. He's not exploiting any trends, but rather uses contemporary climates that end up having timeless things to say about daily life and interactions. Maybe in due time this book will get more attention, but for now, if this truly is Whitehead's "lesser work," that only speaks volumes of his artistry. This would probably be hailed as a masterpiece by other novelists, even though I'd call it just a very, very good book. His other novels border on masterpieces. This is a work that's entertaining, provoking, and one of the most enjoyable reading experiences I've had lately.

Work Cited:
Whitehead, Colson. Apex Hides the Hurt. Copyright 2006 by Colson Whitehead.

Fabulous Ruins: Mark Binelli's "Detroit City Is the Place To Be"

For the past several months, I've wanted to read a book about Detroit, and I wasn't sure if I wanted a complete history or a more contemporary look at a consistently analyzed, poked, and prodded city. I've read handfuls of (now) forgettable articles about the area, but I have no immediate memory of these pieces, save for the general consensus of: "Detroit has fallen apart, let's see how this mirrors/represents the recession, etc. etc." In the last year, several new book releases have popped up. I kept meaning to check out last year's Detroit: A Biography by Scott Martelle, since at first glance it seemed like a more academic, complete exploration. I never got around to it, and the recent publication Detroit: An American Autopsy by Charlie LeDuff has been getting a lot of press lately. Judging the titles alone, the two books are stark polar ends of what I wanted to read. One is an overall history, one is another layer in the vast documentation of Detroit analysis/head-shaking reporting. On a whim, I instead opted for Mark Binelli's Detroit City Is the Place To Be. The jaunty title is juxtaposed by a grim, postcard-like illustration of industrialization. In hindsight, I think I decided to read this book because it struck me, at least visually, as a Detroit version of Neil Steinberg's You Were Never In Chicago. Having grown up outside the city, Binelli returned multiple times to research how Detroit has grown and regressed since bottoming out. In retrospect, I feel I know more about the city than I did going in, but there were times when I wasn't sure what kind of book Binelli wanted this to be.

In his very good introduction, Binelli gets the obvious thoughts out of the way, the ones I've referenced above. Detroit has become a "new obsession," to borrow his words. Internationally, journalists, photographers, and writers have journeyed to the city to explore and highlight its desecration, but in the end, are readers really learning anything about the city? Andm most importantly, are there any real answers on how to bring Detroit back to sustainability, both economically and socially? Months ago, I was putting away photography books at work, and ended up paging through a glossy coffee table collection of abandoned, crumbling infrastructures. Artistically, Detroit is irresistible. Ruins (or, as Binelli references later, "ruin porn") are great fodder for visceral reactions. But there are serious problems that need to be addressed. Detroit and its outside perception is very complicated.

"The new obsession with Detroit did not end with journalists, at least not according to the journalists themselves, who reported on how artists were also colonizing the city. Could this be a first wave of bohemian gentrification? Was Detroit the next Williamsburg? One young couple from Chicago had bought a home in Detroit for a hundred bucks. Brooklyn artists came and froze another house in a block of ice. Thanks to a nearly 50 percent tax incentive being offered by the state, Hollywood film crews also arrived, along with actors like George Clooney and Richard Gere. A glossy French fashion magazine even produced a special 'Detroit issue' featuring shots of models in ruined industrial backdrops. The magazine cost twenty dollars in the United States--or, in local terms, one-fifth of the price of a home in Detroit (Binelli 15)."

Binelli offers some excellent historical research into Detroit's founding and some of the very early issues plaguing the city. He pokes fun at the sometimes strained attempts by writers and historians to bridge the gaps between the past and the present, but his research did teach me about some of the historical events in the very early days of Michigan. He offers some big examples, but I found the smaller, less known depictions to be much more enthralling. Since I was hoping the book would be a balance between the old and the new, there's just enough information to satisfy before moving on the bigger, more current pictures.

"Aside from Pontiac's Rebellion, the most well-trod historical marker of Detroit's frontier century is the Great Fire of 1805. Just as the Michigan Territory of the United States was officially established with Detroit as its capital, the fort was almost entirely destroyed by a freak conflagration. The temptation to ascribe Detroit's misfortunes to conspiracy is apparently an old one, and a theory quickly developed--arson!--supposedly committed by lumber barons up in Black River, now Port Huron, who wanted to sell the city more wood. In fact, the fire was started by an employee of John Harvey, a baker, who knocked some ashes from his clay pipe, igniting a pile of hay. Detroit was made up of old wood buildings built very close together on narrow streets, and by the middle of the afternoon, the entire village was ablaze. There was only one fire truck. Citizens tried to put out the fire with river water and 'swabs at the ends of long poles.' Eventually they evacuated the fort in canoes and watched the settlement burn (Binelli 44-45)."

After this and more historic details, Binelli gets into the heart of his book. He travels through the city and takes part in a variety of activities--he sits in on a gun class, interviews urban farmers, attends a murder trial, and sits in with a group of firefighters, to name a few. He doesn't attempt to leave himself out of the proceedings, not that this is distracting. He's a consistent first-person narrator, offering his opinions and reactions to conversations and happenings in real time. This is acceptable, since he never stops to offer any "this is what I would do" type analyses. Instead, he focuses on the big picture, and isn't afraid to tackle sensitive racial issues head-on. The city's population is predominantly African-American, and some critiques border precariously on racial lines. While tailgating at a Detroit Lions game, Binelli struck up a conversation with another tailgater, expressing optimism over Detroit's health and outlook. The unnamed person

"...shook his head and said he'd been hearing that for the past thirty years. The main problem, he claimed, was leadership, that the city really screwed up by electing the worst people ever, that nothing would change unless you changed things at the top--a not uncommon assessment from white suburbanites, 'leadership' often signifying 'thieving blacks who demanded the keys to the shop, and now look what the fuck happened.' If there was national schadenfreude about the failure of Detroit, regional schadenfreude was even stronger, and it hinged in large part on race.
In that moment, I thought of certain aspects of United States foreign policy--the practice of isolating enemy states financially and then watching the leader whom we've labeled a tyrant act more and more like one when his regime begins to crumble under the pressure of the embargo. The leader and his state must fail in order to confirm the triumph of our own ideology. And if his people do not rise up against him, their suffering is, at least in part, their own fault. Here, Detroit was a rogue state, defying the bullying hegemony of a superpower that (in the eyes of many Detroiters) wanted to install its own hand-picked leader, making the transfer of any remaining natural resources that much smoother (Binelli 113-114)."



Passages like these represent Binelli at his finest. He's able to make complicated analogies and civic policy understandable, but at times, he'll stop and quickly move into another area of discussion. His ability to get himself into hard-to-reach places with hard-to-reach individuals is admirable, but there were far too many times in my reading when I simply didn't know what his ultimate goal was supposed to be. Binelli might have been better off with a strictly oral history of the city--he manages to get fascinating memories and insight out of anyone he interviews. Late in the book, he mentions research for what was supposed to be a novel about Detroit. He has a definite flair for the dramatic, even in seemingly offhand paragraphs.

"[Firefighter Eric] Hollowell sat nearby, chain-smoking and drinking coffee from a thermos. A trim black man with a cleanly shaved head and a wispy mustache, he wore a blue Highland Park Fire Department polo shirt tucked into dark slacks. Hollowell was thirty-seven. He'd grown up in Highland Park, just a few blocks from the warehouse; so few houses remained on Hollowell's old street, one of his coworkers told me, 'I call that block We Lost It.' Hollowell's mother had been a teacher at Highland Park High. His father died when Hollowell was only ten years old. An electrician, he'd been doing work in a friend's basement as a favor and stepped into a puddle of water, not realizing someone had cut the power back on (Binelli 189)."

Detroit City Is the Place To Be is much better when Binelli profiles Detroit's two most recent mayors, Kwame Kilpatrick and Dave Bing. The two men are contrasts in physical and political styles: Kilpatrick was younger, bigger, and affectionately (and not so affectionately) dubbed the "hip-hop mayor" before political scandals brought him down. Bing is older, more reserved, and in most opinions, sometimes too timid or laid back for a city dealing with such upheaval and needs. Binelli also travels with a group of artists to a warehouse exhibition, and in the process shows how even the most forward-thinking artists can be terribly out of touch with reality. The artists seem bemused with the surroundings, even making offhand jokes about buying up cheap properties for creative purposes. Binelli doesn't judge them outright, but lets their actions and words show how good intentions came come across and cringe-inducing and insulting to struggling citizens. He later expands his thoughts on "ruin porn," the seemingly exploitative nature of people seeking enlightenment and meaning in crumbling infrastructures.

"Ruin porn was generally assessed the same way as the other kind, with you-know-it-when-you-see-it subjectivity. Everyone seemed to agree that Camilo Vergara's work was not ruin pornography, though he'd arguably been the Hefner of the genre. Likewise, the local artist Lowell Boileau, who, around the same time Vergara proposed his American Acropolis, began posting his own photographs on a website called the Fabulous Ruins of Detroit, also received a pass, perhaps because he approached his subject from a native's perspective, and with unabashed nostalgia. Photojournalists, on the other hand, were almost universally considered creeps pandering to a sticky-fingered Internet slide-show demographic. To some extent the critique had been just: as with stories about misbehaving teenage starlets, editorial love of Detroit came with obvious exploitative commercial reward: a link to a titillating shot of Detroit's architectural dishabille could always be counted to rise to the top of your website's 'most emailed' lists, which, of course, was the bottom line (Binelli 272-273)."

In the end, I wanted more of this kind of analysis. There are so many stories to tell, and Binelli tells all of them admirably. Perhaps he's still so attached to the city as a native citizen that he doesn't want to go on his own nostalgia trip. This is a very well-researched book, but after, I still don't know exactly what his intention was as a whole. Entire books could be written about contemporary Detroit politics and the subject of ruin porn, and perhaps I was so drawn to those subjects that I wanted more. I feel I know more about the city than I did going in, so as a sort of introduction, Detroit City Is the Place To Be works well. It would be silly to expect a single volume to encompass everything, but Binelli tries. In this, he succeeds and stumbles. It's an admirable project, but it left me wanting more concrete analysis rather than just some sketches. Devoting equal footing to all of his subjects would have led this to be a multi-book project, but in the end, we're left with some vivid people and the hope that a once bustling city has the pieces to rebuild.

Work Cited:
Binelli, Mark. Detroit City Is the Place To Be. Copyright 2012 by Mark Binelli.

Race Matters: Quentin Tarantino and "Django Unchained"

Two nights ago, I finally saw Quentin Tarantino's Django Unchained, and I'm still trying to wrap my head around the various issues surrounding the film. I've seen links for dozens of essays and reviews, and except for a quick skim of Roger Ebert's writings, I haven't read any outside analyses or critiques, although I did read this quote from filmmaker Spike Lee, taken from his Twitter account: “American Slavery Was Not A Sergio Leone Spaghetti Western. It Was A Holocaust. My Ancestors Are Slaves. Stolen From Africa. I Will Honor Them.” Before I get into my own thoughts on Tarantino's intentionally outlandish take on slavery in America, I will offer this statement: I don't believe Tarantino is racist; far from it. He and Lee have a colorful history of verbal sparring, and Tarantino has been defended for his n-word laden scripts and interpretations of racial history by the likes of black actors Jamie Foxx (who stars as Django) and Samuel L. Jackson (a frequent contributor in Tarantino's filmography, who portrays Stephen the house slave). While I believe the occasional claims of racism are unfounded, I do believe that he was slightly misguided in the making of Django Unchained. Slavery in any fictional interpretation has to be tread upon carefully--for all of Tarantino's bombast and Pollockian mixes of fictional history and film homages, he very well may have overstepped some boundaries. While this may seem like I'm trying to balance too evenly between defense and criticism, I'm doing so because, as someone fascinated by both the film and America's racial history, I'm genuinely conflicted by my emotional reaction to the film.

Django Unchained takes place in 1858. During a slave transfer, a former dentist and current bounty hunter named King Schultz (Christoph Waltz) kills one of the white men, wounds another, and unchains Django. Before leaving, he throws the shackle keys to the rest of the slaves, who then finish off the wounded driver. Schultz is seeking Django's help in identifying a trio of wanted killers. They end up at the plantation of Big Daddy (Don Johnson, seemingly playing a strange combination of Dennis Hopper and Colonel Sanders), where the brothers work. Right before a slave is about to be whipped, Django shoots one of the brothers and whips the other one to death. Later that night, Big Daddy and a group of men are ambushed and killed in their own attempted killing of Django and Schultz (the men wear white bags with eye holes cut out, a hint to the KKK and the basis of a comical discussion about not being able to see and questioning the worth of having their faces covered). Django turns out to be a skilled marksman, and Schultz takes him on as a fellow bounty hunter. As these plot points unfold, we learn that Django's wife (Broomhilda, played by a very understated Kerry Washington) speaks German, having been raised by a German nanny on a plantation. After being separated from her husband, she's enslaved on Candyland, the Mississippi plantation of the psychopathic Calvin Candie (Leonardo DiCaprio). A plan is set in motion: Django and Schultz will visit the Candie plantation under the guise of purchasing a fighting slave (more on this later) and make an offer for Broomhilda; after, Schultz will set them off as freed slaves. This is a fairly concise overview. I'm attempting to avoid spoilers, but they might come up unexpectedly. This isn't meant to be a standard review, but rather a look at how Tarantino handles a delicate imagining of revenge and justice.

In 2008, I wrote an analysis of D.W. Griffith's The Birth Of a Nation, a technically beautiful film with a deplorable message and depiction of black people. In an odd twist, Django Unchained is a technically enjoyable (it has impressive wide panning shots, beautiful landscape photography, sharp editing, and various combinations of classic western motifs and Spaghetti Western influences) with what should be a great message: a freed black slave dishing out revenge on white slave owners on behalf of thousands of other slaves. In one of his monologues, Calvin Candie expresses genuine wonder as to why a slave didn't rise up and kill his own father (which then leads to a ridiculous hypothesis based on phrenology and submission). But as a white artist, did Tarantino go too far? This isn't his first foray into violent revisionist history. When Inglourious Basterds premiered, there were quieter voices wondering how the film affected Jewish audiences. But the biggest difference lies in the settings. Basterds didn't have any graphic scenes from the concentration camps--the events unfolded in movie theaters, countrysides, and banquet halls. It would have been subject to the same critiques as Django had it featured prisoners in the camps rising up against the Nazis. In Django, we see slaves being whipped, abused, and mistreated on a consistent level. Had the film shown a free slave searching down a single slave owner in a neutral setting, I believe the controversies wouldn't have been as extreme.

Even in fictional settings, the audience has to adjust to Tarantino's cartoonish, comic book-style violence with the realization that some of the actions actually took place. In one of the most wrenching scenes, one of Candie's fighting slaves is ripped apart by attack dogs. In his parlor, he watches two black men fighting to the death (creative license on Tarantino's part, but no less unsettling), and offers a hammer to the winner to finish off the loser. Dozens are shot and killed, with geysers of blood shooting out like video game pixels, but that's nothing new on Tarantino's part. Again, it's unsettling because even in the most exaggerated forms, these actions happened in some capacities. And having them played for the occasional laugh is jarring. The "mandigo fighters" are meant to illustrate Candie's blood lust and moral shortcomings. But when one blinks and takes into account the very real history of slavery, it gets to the point where one has to ask: is this supposed to represent a universal fantasy of revenge, or are we simply watching Tarantino's vision of what should have happened?

Again, I'm not hinting at racism, and there are various, unexpected moments of perverse philosophy throughout the film. Stephen, the elderly Candyland house slave, is viewed by Django as an Uncle Tom, sacrificing his heritage and turning a blind eye to the mistreatment of slaves in the name of his own relative comfort. Candie berates him in public, but in private, the two men talk on equal footing (Stephen's observations set off a chain reaction of events that lead to the film's climaxes). But apart from these hierarchies, Stephen could also be seen as a minstrel character. He's loud, boisterous, and goofy in front of the white company, but sullen, serious, and no-nonsense when surrounded by the other slaves. This is a carefully rendered character on the part of Tarantino and Samuel L. Jackson. Is he truly devoted to Candie, or does he know what games to play to be treated better than the other slaves? I believe it's a clouded combination. Vital questions and observations, yes, but it all comes back to Quentin Tarantino. He has a right to make any film he pleases, but should a take on slavery have been left alone? Since the invention of film narratives, the West and the 19th century have provided a background for hundreds, if not thousands, of morality plays, existential studies, and plain old good vs. evil fights. But one has to acknowledge how sensitive slavery is to anyone with a conscience, let alone the living descendants.

In 2007, I visited the capitol building in Columbia, South Carolina, and I'll never forget how sick to my stomach I felt upon making two observations. Seeing the Confederate flag flying from a state building up close causes much more tension than seeing it on television or in a photograph. And tucked to the side of the building was a small, touching memorial to the slaves who lived there, with a stunningly detailed image of the layout of a slave boat. Again, anyone should be appalled by this, but I simply cannot imagine knowing my ancestors lived through something that atrocious. And that's where Spike Lee makes a valid point (although his refusal to see the movie and condemning it on reputation is less than I would expect from a filmmaker, especially one I admire as much as Lee). In his own way, Tarantino offers unbelievable depictions of the comeuppance that slave owners should have received. DiCaprio's portrayal of Candie is courageous, since he takes on the role of a heightened version of the most deplorable, racist mentalities (and in an odd twist, Candie's death is the most subdued one suffered in the entire film). But Django is a fictional character, and the focus of the film is on him and his payback. However, there's no way to depict that time period without casting a light on history. This film is entertainment and escapism, but it's it's so real in its period details that reality keeps rearing its head. I don't believe Tarantino has done anything wrong or offensive. But these realities have to be acknowledged. I can imagine some people rolling their eyes and assuming I'm writing from a foundation of extreme political correctness. But Django Unchained, for as much as I enjoyed it, toes several lines very precariously. Tarantino has nothing to apologize for, but if I were him, I'd readily acknowledge and accept feedback for such the audacious, blunt period setting. From a character and technical standpoint, Django is very well-made. But there's no way to see it or write about it without a serious acknowledgement of the events that made even the most fictionalized plot possible.

Shiny Unhappy People: Zadie Smith's "NW"

White Teeth, Zadie Smith's 2000 debut novel, is a source of embarrassment and pride for me. The embarrassment stems from my reading of it (roughly ten years ago), and my continual plans to give it another slot in my ever-growing list. I remember enjoying it, but, since it was so early in my reading life, I have almost no memory of its content or plot, but more than once, I've placed it on a "best-of" list or mentioned it as a recommendation. However, there's a definite pride there, since it marked a stark change in my usual book habits, since my late teens and early twenties were marked by a devotion to transgressive fiction. While my college classes helped steer my tastes and outlook, my random perusal of White Teeth began a shift of my reading better books independent of school requirements. Frankly, I'm at at loss to explain why, outside of the occasional short story, I haven't read Smith's follow-up works, On Beauty and The Autograph Man. I adore her essays and critical pieces, with Changing My Mind being one of the better collections I've read in the last couple of years. However, this doesn't explain my lapse in reading her novels, and I hope I've made some amends by recently devouring her latest work, NW. I've read some blurbs and short reviews of NW, some glowing, and some that have reservations. Even with the occasional stumble or pause, I found it to be one of the more challenging, beautiful works of 2012.

The summary and characters could fit into a variety of descriptions pertaining to most novels: NW explores the lives of a group of friends from Northwest London who have returned to the neighborhood as adults. The book opens with Leah Hanwell, a white office worker who, despite her general faith in other people, finds herself as a slight outsider in a neighborhood beset by crime, despondence, and shady inhabitants. The novel opens with a memorable scene in which a neighbor, one who knew Leah growing up, knocks on her door asking for help. It's a careful balance between personalities, with the implied understanding that the neighbor is fleecing Leah with a bogus story, but showcasing Leah's instinct for care and trust, and how it shows her nobility and naivety.

"Together they look like old friends on a winter's night, holding their mugs with both hands. The door is open, every window is open. No air moves. Leah takes her shirt in hand and shakes it free of her skin. A vent opens, air scoots through. The sweat pooled beneath each breast leaves its shameful trace on the cotton.

--I used to know...I mean...

Leah presses on with this phony hesitation and looks deep into her mug, but Shar isn't interested, she's knocking on the glass of the door, speaking over her.

--Yeah you looked different in school, definitely. You're better now innit. You was all ginger and bony. All long.

Leah is still all of these things. The change must be in other people, or in the times themselves.

--Done well, though. How come you aint at work? What d'you do again?

Shar is already nodding as Leah begins to speak.

--Phoned in sick. I wasn't feeling good. It's sort of general admin, basically. For a good cause. We hand out money. From the lottery, to charities, nonprofits--small local organizations in the community that need...

They are not listening to their own conversation. The girl from the estate is still out on her balcony, screaming. Shar shakes her head and whistles. She gives Leah a look of neighborly sympathy (Smith 13-14)."

Smith's passages and styles are wildly yet creatively rendered in the early stages. There are pages of dialogue like the above sample, sometimes unattributed, sometimes in smaller font sizes than other pieces of dialogue, and giving readers unexpected hints to the novel's progression. Some chapters are only a page long, with maps and collected items giving the layout and atmosphere of the Northwest side of London. Smith goes all out early, which sometimes makes the more standard narrative chapters jarring in their simplicity. And as much as I dislike referring to fiction prose as "poetic," there's an undeniable feeling of that sometimes, with rhythmic, almost free-verse sentences. But what feels like improvisation is carefully written. The reader doesn't get the feeling that Smith is showing off, but the myriad of voices and styles are evocative of contemporary city life.

"From A to B redux:
Sweet stink of the hookah, couscous, kebab, exhaust fumes of a bus deadlock. 98, 16, 32, standing room only--quicker to walk! Escapees from St. Mary's, Paddington: expectant father smoking, old lady wheeling herself in a wheelchair smoking, die-hard holding urine sack, blood sack, smoking. Everybody loves fags. Everybody. Polish paper, Turkish paper, Arabic, Irish, French, Russian, Spanish, News of the World. Unlock your (stolen) phone, buy a battery pack, a lighter pack, a perfume pack, sunglasses, three for a fiver, a life-size porcelain tiger, gold taps. Casino! Everybody believes in destiny. Everybody. It was meant to be. It was just not meant to be. Dead or no deal (Smith 42)."

Leah's childhood friend is Natalie Blake, who used to go by the name Keisha. Her life and complications form the majority of the novel. Originally another struggling child in a struggling NW family, she has worked her way up as a lawyer with children, a good husband, and security, but feels torn about her life, which she deals with in secretive, eventually damaging ways. She and Natalie bond early, find themselves separated by different interests and lives, and reconnect as neighbors. While Smith begins the novel with Leah's activities and devotes smaller yet equally detailed chapters to some of the minor characters, her obvious fascination lies in Natalie and her subsequent torments. Natalie's life and experiences are broken up into 185 chapters, sometimes three or four to a page, sometimes longer. Some of the chapters are random vignettes, but combined, they give a complete portrait of Natalie. A lot of Natalie's problems stem from her self-identity, but Smith is not blatantly obvious about this. Natalie doesn't feel guilty about being a successful black woman in a less-successful area, but there are hints to racial identity and its conformity throughout NW. For example, a quick chapter about her (then future) husband Frank uses careful wording to explore race, image, and status:

"86: Style

The dreadlocks were gone. His dinner jacket was simple, elegant. A starched pink handkerchief peeked out of the top pocket and his socks were brightly clocked with diamonds. His Nikes were slightly outrageous and box fresh. He no longer seemed strange. (Any number of rappers now dressed like this. Money was the fashion.) (Smith 255)"

But race is merely one issue of many for the characters, since their problems are much more complex and universal. Generational and societal conflicts abound as well. All of the characters, even the minor ones, have standoffs with youthful antagonists, some verbal, some physically violent. Even though the older characters are still in their twenties and thirties, there's a definite vibe of uneasy battles with "young punks." Taking this further, some of these scenes are about respect, both personal and societal--most of the conflicts arise due to casual, disrespectful behavior, and harsh lessons are taught to and by both sides. These chance encounters sometimes pale in comparison to the tensions between parents and their grown children. Again, family conflicts might seem like obvious traits in any novel, but Smith rarely crafts them as major blowouts. These are smaller moments, full of conversation, but they contain a multitude of layers. In one of the better sections, a character named Felix is visiting his father, and the dispensed advice is humorous, but showcases a difference of opinion and outlooks. It also showcases Smith's use of slang and dialects.

"It was that particular tone, inquiring and high--and suddenly Jamaican--coiling up to Felix like a snake rising from its basket. He tried to laugh it off--'Come on now, don't start that, man'--but Lloyd knew to place his poison with precision: 'I'm trying to train you up, right? It's not that you don't hear me, Felix, it's that you don't want to hear me. You're the big man these days. But let me arks you some ting: why you still chasing after females like they can save your life? Seriously. Why? Look at Jasmine. You nah learn. The man cyan't satisfy the woman, right? Don't matter how much he gives. The woman is a black hole. I've gone deep into the literature, Felix. Biological, social, historical, every kind of oracle. The woman is a black hole. Your mudder was a black hole. Jasmine was a black hole. This one you got now is the same, and she's nice looking, too, so she's gonna suck you all the way before you realize she's sucked you dry. The finer they are, the worse it is.' Lloyd took a large, satisfying slurp from his tea. 'You give me jokes,' said Felix, weakly, and just about managed to make it out of the room (Smith 125-126)."

While the chapters with secondary and minor characters are well written and imporant to the overall arc, the true basis of the book is reflected in the differences and friendship between Leah and Natalie. I read an online comment by someone who said he couldn't finish the novel because the characters were too self-involved and not sympathetic. However, I found the opposite to be true in a way. Yes, Leah (and especially Natalie) are extremely focused on themselves, but not in a way that makes them unsympathetic (again, Natalie comes into a clearer focus, since her mistakes have the bigger outcome and repercussions). I'm also at a stage in my reading life where I don't need characters to be completely lovable or in need of tidy redemption. In my review of Jennifer Egan's A Visit From the Goon Squad, I didn't care about the characters, some of whom were even more selfish and problematic than the citizens in NW. However, there are too many amazing secondary details and sketches that make the novel go above the lives of the two women. While the focus is on London, the actions and strife could easily be transplanted into any major urban area. Smith isn't concerned with moralizing or whether or not the characters are redeemed. The novel is a careful collection of random and specific moments, and while some of the issues are left unresolved, it's a satisfying work. At times, we're repulsed by the actions, but there's an overall emphasis on honesty and reality. By combining these layers and interactions, along with a dizzying mix of craft styles, Smith has created one of the better novels of 2012. It's a careful blend of storytelling and experimentation in form, and while there's an occasional detour into the lives of the secondary characters that are left completely unresolved, the bigger picture is more important. I'm going to re-read White Teeth in 2013, and I'm going to catch up on On Beauty and The Autograph Man. Even if I find these works lacking in comparison to NW, I'm going to make sure I don't overlook Zadie Smith's fiction any longer. I can see how readers can have divided opinions on this new work, but I feel it's one of the more better executed works, in both themes and style.

Work Cited:
Smith, Zadie. NW. Copyright 2012 by Zadie Smith.

Summer Times: Colson Whitehead's "Sag Harbor"

NOTE: Some of the cited passages are NSFW.

I'm participating in a new book club, organized by one of my co-workers. I volunteered to host the July session, with the selection being Colson Whitehead's 2009 novel Sag Harbor. Before I get into the book itself, the book club meeting gently reinforced the fact that literary critics, whether of the armchair or professional variety, can stumble on intentions and do the occasional misreading. The most recent example is Janet Maslin's misreading of Patrick Somerville's This Bright River, which led the author to pen his own response, the much-shared "Thank You For Killing My Novel." When I was in college, I wrote several pages' worth of criticism on a short story (I've forgotten which one), only to be called to my professor's office to be told I had missed a key element of the plot, one so big that it rendered my paper completely wrong. As my stomach clenched, the professor smiled and offered me a chance to rewrite it. He told me a story about his first year of teaching: he was explaining a text to a full lecture hall, and a student raised his hand and said "I hate to interrupt, but that's not what happened in the book." The professor told me how embarrassed he was when he realized his student was right, that he had truly gaffed on the plot. So where am I going with this? I'll explain in more detail as I get into Sag Harbor's intricacies, but my opening statement to the book club was eventually proven to be the opposite of Whitehead's most likely intentions.

The novel tells the story of Benji, a black teenager who spends his summers at his family's home in Sag Harbor. His parents normally come on the weekends, giving him and his brother free reign during the week. It's 1985, Benji is fifteen years old, and he's determined to reinvent his image and personality. During the school year, he's one of the few black students at his prep school, but during the summer, he's part of a larger group of well-to-do black vacationers in the area. His friends are a cast of characters with unique personalities, but with traits that anyone can remember from their high school days: Marcus tends to get left behind on group outings; Randy calls shots based on the fact that he has a car; NP (with a hilarious nickname origin that would be too much to spoil here) grandly exaggerates his exploits; and so on. Benji observes the (mis)adventures and monotony of a long summer, but what seems like the foundation for a typical coming of age novel is rather a platform for careful details of personalities and teenage yearnings without any true dramatic climaxes or "payoffs." However, Whitehead's writing turns the mundane into fascinating studies of interactions. Through Benji's narration, the stories behind the actions and personalities of him and his friends become compelling. A good example is the youthful obsession with complex ritual handshakes:

"Yes, the handshakes were out, shaming me with their permutations and slippery routines. Slam, grip, flutter, snap. Or was it slam, flutter, grip, snap? I was all thumbs when it came to shakes. Devised in the underground soul laboratories of Harlem, pounded out in the blacker-than-thou sweatshops of the South Bronx, the new handshakes always had me faltering in embarrassment. Like this? No, you didn't stick to the landing: the judges give it 4.6 (Whitehead 43)."

Experimentation with language is also carefully, hilariously rendered:

"I said 'Shut up, bitch.' I'd been experimenting with 'bitch,' trying it out every couple of days. Going well so far, from the response (Whitehead 93)."

"You could also preface things with a throat-clearing 'You fuckin',' as in 'You fuckin' Cha-Ka from Land Of the Lost-lookin' motherfucker,' directed at Bobby, for example, who had light brown skin, light brown hair, and indeed shared these characteristics with the hominid sidekick on the Saturday morning adventure show Land Of the Lost. 'You fuckin'' acted as a rhetorical pause, allowing the speaker a few extra seconds to pluck some splendid modifier out of the invective ether, and giving the listener a chance to gird himself for the top-notch put-down/splendid imagery to follow (Whitehead 41-42)."

Benji and his brother Reggie survive during the week by working at an ice cream parlor and Burger King, respectively (Whitehead is spot-on in his descriptions of the drudgery and nastiness of summertime food counter work). The rest of the time is spent awaiting the parental visits on the weekends and trying to cram as much activity into the end of the week as possible. Some of these are specific (Benji accidentally gets shot in the eye during a BB gun war), and sometimes these are general. Throughout, Whitehead never wanes in at least a succinct sociological overview of the happenings, and even with mentions of The Cosby Show and New Coke, the events aren't exclusive to Benji's 1985. The teenage male dynamics can apply to almost any era or demographic.

"Summers we brawled. We were hungry for slight, for provocations big and small, and when one didn't appear, we trumped up charges. Turf. The more whole you were, the more turf you had. You could tolerate the occasional trespass. But if you had so little turf that you felt like you barely had any air? You told someone they had crossed a line they didn't know existed. Then you punched them in the face.
The first equations of manhood. Generally you punched someone younger and smaller. Common sense. A more even match was sometimes unavoidable. The standard fight was brief and awkward. A quick blow to the face sent you into your favorite stance, one that cannot be found in any boxing primer in the land, or sent you searching after a cherished martial-arts movie pose, Praying Mantis, Turtle Position (Whitehead 136)."

So where did my book club steer me in the right direction? Based on the other Whitehead novels I've read (The Intuitionist and John Henry Days), I was expecting, either metaphorically or explicitly, more explorations on racial issues, and Whitehead does touch upon these, but not in a way that makes them the driving forces of the novel. My original complaint was that Whitehead would present a racial or sociological issue, and then move on to another plot point. However, as I've come to realize: Benji is fifteen years old. Almost no fifteen year old has the capacity to ruminate on issues except on a surface level. Therefore, Whitehead has made Benji one of the most realistic teen characters in recent fiction. As a black citizen, he's obviously aware and sensitive to cultural issues, but his main fascinations are with sex, avoiding boredom, and how he's perceived to others. That's not to say that Benji's narration isn't touching or without complexities. His relationship with his father is fraught with tension. His father is tough, teaching Benji how to stand up for himself in the face of racism, but also excessively intense, getting into fierce arguments with his wife about, of all things, the purchase of the wrong kind of paper plates. Benji has a chance encounter with his older sister, a beautifully rendered scene that, while fleeting, is Benji's biggest "coming of age" moment, when he realizes his sister has no plans to visit the house while she's in town. Even followed up later by Benji's first experience being alone with a girl, the meeting with Elena holds the most emotional weight.

"'What are you doing here? When did you get out?'
'I just popped in for the weekend,' she said. 'I'm visiting Derek.'
Bobby checked out her friend, raising a skeptical eyebrow.
I said, 'Oh, I didn't know.'
'It was a last-minute thing.'
'When are you coming over? 'Cause I work--' I began to say. Because I didn't want to miss her.
'I'm probably not going to have time to make it over there,' she said. 'Probably. It's just a quick visit.'
'Oh. (Whitehead 237)'"

Being a series of small and less-small moments, Sag Harbor is a challenge to discuss and write about without resorting to the basic recaps of the various scenes. However, its simplicity is very deceptive, since every action has a direct link to either Benji's emotions and makeup or Sag Harbor's citizens and demographics. Its creation doesn't have the complicated setups of Whitehead's first two novels, but that doesn't mean its lacking; the novel asks some of the same questions in a different format. I tend to be wary of books or films that have a "coming of age" angle, since this is normally a fancy way of saying a given character loses his or her innocence/virginity/combination of the two. However, Benji remains relatively untouched by the end of the summer, despite some new understandings and experiences. Whitehead is smart enough to show that a single summer, despite its literary potential, isn't enough to truly change someone. Benji still has a lot of teen years left, as well as adulthood, and his keen observations are more for the reader's sake than his own. Sag Harbor also continues with what Whitehead occasionally did in John Henry Days, blending a literary work with genuine hilarity. That's a very rare balance, since comical writing is not an easy task. However, this work manages to combine hilarity, genuinely moving discoveries, and breezy summertime happenings into a work with fascinating cultural depictions. Whitehead is one of the most fantastically diverse writers working today, not out of a need to reinvent himself, but out of his ability to explore a myriad of topics in wildly different formats.

Work Cited:
Whitehead, Colson. Sag Harbor. Copyright 2009 by Colson Whitehead.

Ninth Inning Town: Nelson Algren's "Chicago: City On the Make"

For the last several weeks, I was mentally plotting an essay about Chicago's collective psychology in relation to the views on the professional sports teams and athletes. While this could very well be a piece I return to, a random reading and thoughts on other strains of civic psychology turned me in a different direction. Back in May, when Chicago hosted the NATO Summit, Mayor Rahm Emanuel made a telling remark that was supported and repeated by local media outlets. Despite the protesters and general apathy about the magnitude of the meeting, Emanuel stated that he wanted to show off Chicago as a "world-class city." This isn't the first time that this idea has circulated, and it always strikes me as odd and pointless, since Chicago is the third-largest city in the country, yet local politicians and boosters maintain a mentality of Chicago being a small town looking to make good.

More recently, Chicago was beset by a nasty heatwave and a rash of gang shootings (which seem to be always ongoing, sadly). A local news channel conducted interviews with tourists vacationing downtown, with some of them stating they would have had reservations about visiting had they been aware of the rise in violent activity. While violence can happen anywhere at any time, part of me was incredulous, since a lot of upper-class visitors remain in the confines of the downtown shopping districts and would never come close to venturing to the areas with concentrations of violence. Media outlets often conduct interviews with the people living in the dangerous neighborhoods, yet I found it strange to watch interviews with people who have only heard of the less-savory parts of Chicago. These thoughts were in my head as I recently read Nelson Algren's poetic 1951 exploration, Chicago: City On the Make. The slim volume contains a wealth of sociological views and assessments, and while not all of them still apply today, it's still an excellent example of how Chicago's image, from both the outside and the inside, maintains a distinctly unique veneer unlike other major metropolitan areas.

Algren shares stories of his own childhood and tells Chicago's tale from the points of view of the drunks, the working class, and the hustlers, the nameless folks who oftentimes share the same personal qualities as the powerful in the city's hierarchy. The working class people represent the majority in numbers, yet are more likely to be disciplined and reviled for doing on a small scale what the elite minority do on a bigger scale. This is Algren's take on Chicago's beginnings:

"They hustled the land, they hustled the Indian, they hustled by night and they hustled by day. They hustled guns and furs and peltries, grog and the blood-red whiskey-dye; they hustled with dice or a deck or a derringer. And decided the Indians were wasting every good hustler's time.
Slept till noon and scolded the Indians for being lazy.
Paid the Pottawattomies off in cash in the cool of the Indian evening: and had the cash back to the dime by the break of the Indian dawn.
They'd do anything under the sun except work for a living, and we remember them reverently, with Balaban and Katz, under such subtitles as 'Founding Fathers,' 'Dauntless Pioneers,' 'or 'Far-Visioned Conquerors (Algren 11-12).'"

Some of Algren's passages are deftly comic and still timely, providing an early, hip assessment of how to handle Chicago's citizens and outlook. A paragraph about the suburbs might appear to be an insult, and in today's Chicago, residents of the city will likely smile, at least inside, at this take:

"So if you're entirely square yourself, bypass the forest of furnished rooms behind The Loop and stay on the Outer Drive till you swing through Lincoln Park. Then move, with the lake still on your square right hand, into those suburbs where the lawns are always wide, the sky is always smokeless, the trees are forever leafy, the churches are always tidy, gardens are always landscaped, streets are freshly swept, homes are pictures out of Town and Country (Algren 26)."

To reference my opening paragraph, Algren writes about his youthful attachment to the Chicago White Sox, especially in the aftermath of the 1919 Black Sox scandal. What led me to ponder Chicago's attitude toward athletes came about after Kerry Wood's retirement from the Chicago Cubs. After years of brilliant flashes and too many injuries, I couldn't help but wonder if Cubs fans still clung too tightly to Wood's 1998 game against the Houston Astros. In that game, Wood's fifth as a major-leaguer, he tied a baseball record with twenty strikeouts in a 1-hit shutout. His arm was constantly injured by the sheer force of his pitches, and for years, Cubs fans kept hoping for a resurgence, with that single game defining Wood for the duration of his on and off tenure with the team. Algren makes a reference to White Sox pitcher Charlie Robertson, who, coincidentally, threw a perfect game in his fifth major league game and never made any true progress afterward.

"(And what became of No-Hit Charley Robertson, who stepped off a sandlot one afternoon to pitch that perfect game for the White Sox? What ever became of No-Hit Charley, who put twenty-seven men down on strikeouts and infield popups--and then stepped back to his sandlot and left nothing behind but that perfect afternoon when nobody in the world could get a hit?) (Algren 54-55)."

Dozens of other writers have made names for themselves by exploring the lives of the downtrodden and blue-collar. The difference with Algren, at least through the lens of Chicago: City On the Make, is that, in addition to seeming like one of the people, is his deft understanding of how Chicago reflects its citizens. While the same claim can be made for Bukowski's Los Angeles, Algren was a much stronger writer. His prose is poetic without being forced or obvious, and while the work is a creative rambling, there are no obvious embellishments or romanticizing. Algren's Chicago was a tough place, and much like today, while solutions for the problems are needed, it's much easier to put a positive spin on the good qualities, even with serious problems in the background. One can only imagine how Algren would have responded to Emanuel, who welcomed the NATO summit with only passing nods to the protesters and the need to call attention to the myriad of problems in the world. Much like today's world, some of the issues in Algren's time were best represented in creative acts. As he states in his 1961 Afterword:

"When the city clerk of Terre Haute refused to issue warrents [sic] for arrest of streetwalkers in spite of his sworn legal duty to issue warrants for arrest of streetwalkers, and instead demanded of the Terre Haute police, 'Why don't you make war on people in high life instead of upon these penniless girls?' the little sport performed an act of literature (Algren 81)."

In the Afterword, he also acknowledges the negative reception the book initially received, since people were more comfortable reading positive spins rather than grim realities. This is still represented in today's political world, when attempts to shed light on problems can be met with resistance or a desire to maintain the status quo. In the 1950s and today, higher ups would much rather put emphasis on Chicago as a tourist destination than thoughts like:

"The slums take their revenge. And you can take your pick of the avengers among the fast international set at any district-station lockup on any Saturday night. The lockups are always open and there are always new faces. Always someone you never met before, and where they all come from nobody knows and where they'll go from here nobody cares (Algren 67)."

Despite these sketches of the seamy sides of city life, there's never a question of Algren not living Chicago. Chicago: City On the Make isn't a tour guide, but in the midst of the stark honesty, there's a bustle and liveliness that Algren continually evokes, even in the saddest pages. It continually evokes the often-used phrase of "history being written by the winners," when in reality, there's much to be gained from accounts of the losers. Before mainstream activism, before Howard Zinn, and before the start of the Occupy movements, writers like Algren were doing their best to shed light on the masses, even if nobody (at the time) wanted to read or think about such things. This is where Algren's beautiful prose becomes most important. Look at the carefully plotted and detailed paragraph below. Again, it doesn't romanticize, but it genuinely sympathizes.

"The nameless, useless nobodies who sleep behind the taverns, who sleep beneath the El. Who sleep in burnt-out busses with the windows freshly curtained; in winterized chicken coops or patched-up truck bodies. The useless, helpless nobodies nobody knows: that go as the snow goes, where the wind blows, there and there and there, down any old cat-and-ashcan alley at all. There, unloved and lost forever, lost and unloved for keeps and a day, there far below the ceaseless flow of TV waves and FM waves, way way down there where no one has yet heard of phonevision nor considered the wonders of technicolor video--there, there below the miles and miles of high-tension wires servicing the miles and miles of low-pressure cookers, there, there where they sleep on someone else's pool table, in someone else's hall or someone else's jail, there where they chop kindling for heat, cook over coal stoves, still burn kerosene for light, there where they sleep the all-night movies through and wait for rain or peace or snow; there, there beats Chicago's heart (Algren 67-68)."

And finally, I'd like to offer cited remarks as a representation of the state of Chicago journalism. In a recent "revamp," The Chicago Sun-Times has started a terrible trend. Chicago "celebrities" are given a one page editorial to sound off on their pet projects and view of the city. While the money often goes to good charities, the paper lets it be known that they paid the writers an excellent sum for terrible writing. The first editorial was an awful, embarrassing op-ed by Jim Belushi, who commanded a $1,000 writing fee (again, donated to charity, which is noble, but I'm still shocked that he can command that kind of money from a supposedly struggling newspaper). Chicago is full of great, hungry writers who would do anything for that kind of platform. Instead of actively seeking out the thousands of voices in the city, the Sun-Times plays it safe with pointless celebrity ramblings. These Algren pieces are my way of protesting this.

"Therefore its poets pull the town one way while its tycoons' wives pull it another...(Algren 57)."

"It used to be a writer's town and it's always been a fighter's town (Algren 62)."

Work Cited:
Algren, Nelson. Chicago: City On the Make. Copyright 1951, renewed 1979 by Nelson Algren.

Moving Forward: "From the Back Of the Bus" by Dick Gregory

With the exception of some autographed titles and a few first editions, my book collection has little in the way of collector's items or fierce sentimental value. I'm big on margin notes, underlined passages, and freely lending books to friends with the full knowledge that it could be months until I have them returned. However, at last month's Printer's Row Lit Fest, I discovered a couple of vintage paperbacks published in the 1960s. They were encased in plastic and in pristine condition, and I spent a few weeks leaving them untouched. However, curiosity got the best of me, and my overriding belief in books being enjoyed rather than functioning as centerpieces won out. One of these titles was From the Back Of the Bus by comedian/social activist Dick Gregory.

I've been superficially familiar with his life and writings, and I was eager to read this particular work after I found it at the Lit Festival. My initial research shows that Gregory is still going strong as an activist, even with the occasional foray into conspiracy theories and sometimes outlandish ideas. The contents of From the Back Of the Bus weren't what I originally expected--the bulk of Gregory's writings are brief asides, jokes, and monologue samples, all grouped together by various subject headers (Ku Klux Klan, Miami, Hypocrisy, to give an idea of the mix). When discussing black writers, artists, and activists of the early twentieth century, the easy thing to mention is how revolutionary they were, and this is absolutely essential in regard to Gregory's work. He uses his humor to break barriers, but the overall atmosphere is one of an upfront challenge to the white audiences of the time. He mixes social commentary and says what a lot of people were likely thinking at the time, from both sides of the racial divide. The idea of comedic revolutions, especially in such a social context, is literally awesome, and considering the books publication in 1962, one can only imagine how shocking and ahead of the curve it really was. This is a fascinating artifact from the beginning of the Civil Rights decade.

The longest passage in the book is the introduction by Playboy founder Hugh Hefner, who gave Gregory his first break as a regular comedian at Chicago's Playboy Club. For all of Hefner's own criticisms and facets (spearheading the sexual revolution vs. Playboy continually objectifying women), he deserves credit for his early promotion of Gregory's material. Years ago, I remember a moving tribute from Gregory during the Comedy Central Roast of Hugh Hefner. In the midst of constant, tiring jokes about Hefner's age and sexual proclivity, Gregory moved him to tears by thanking him for giving him the chance and, most importantly, not censoring or asking him to tone down his material. As Hefner boldly states in his introduction:

"But more than this, Gregory has added a new dimension to the world of comedy. He is a black funnyman who does not get his laughs by fearing ghosts in B movies, rattling 'dem bones' or other such demeaning antics. He is another much-needed spokesman for his people, one who can reach the ear of the world in a way that makes it listen (18)."

This idea is important, especially in context. From a 1960s standpoint, one of the most vivid examples of breaking racial barriers in comedy was the banter between Sammy Davis, Jr. and the rest of the Rat Pack. According to writer Bill Zehme, the comedy, which was composed of seemingly racist jabs, was a way of calling attention to stupidity with stupidity. I find the Rat Pack comedy to be vastly overrated, and while Zehme has his points, I feel that Gregory's work was a much more authentic, real way of dealing with the views of that given era. From the Back Of the Bus isn't a work that lends itself to a capital-R "Review," but some of Gregory's passages are still very fresh and vivid fifty years later.

"Just for laughs, I've been thinking about buying one of those army rocket belts. You saw it in the papers--where you can jump fifteen feet up and land 120 feet away. Gonna take it down to Birmingham and tease Hell outta lynch mobs (Gregory 29)."

"All the record stores are playing that subversive song again...I'm Dreaming Of a White Christmas...It's kinda sad, but my little girl doesn't believe in Santa Claus. She sees that white cat with the whiskers--and even at two years old, she knows damn well ain't no white man coming into our neighborhood at midnight...be honest now. How many of you have ever seen a black Santa Claus? He ain't even black after he comes down the chimney--and he should be!...(Gregory 38)."

"You gotta realize, my people have never known what job security is. For instance, comes another recession and the economy has to tighten its belt--who do you think's gonna be the first notch (Gregory 59)?"

"I'm really kidding. Florida happens to be one of the most liberal states in the South. Why I can go to any place I like--restaurants, nightclubs, theaters--and I only have to do one thing. Change my name to Ricardo (Gregory 89)."

While I'm sure From the Back Of the Bus has its own following and has received its own attention despite the fact that I'm new to its existence, I was also fascinated by its combination of text and photography. The photos are the work of Jerry Yulsman, and the images tie very carefully into Dick Gregory's texts. These are not random images, but rather carefully constructed placements that give the work a layered, multimedia atmosphere. The images I've included, combined with the texts and captions, are a combination of mild humor and intense juxtapositions. The above image of Gregory in a fancy tuxedo and top hat, accompanied with the remark "Whaddya mean--I depreciate your property..." is still striking and yet again takes on increased significance with its era. It's impossible to tell whether these images are more from the imagination of Gregory or Yulsman, but I can imagine the two men sharing ideas of how to place the man in context with his surroundings, and, in effect, place his ideas within a then-contemporary context. My favorite image is the last one included, featuring a suited Gregory standing in a building that is either under construction or hollowed out from neglect. The connotations take on so many meanings, reflecting success in the face of failure, as well as Gregory's own journey of personal success and early substandard living. Yulsman's photos are not just random accompaniments; his closeups and long shots of Gregory are stunning, unheralded examples of striking photographic art, challenging stereotypes as well as engaging in hip, self-aware conversations about black consciousness and the still-ongoing struggles of race in America.

In some cases, these assessments would be a stretch, but in today's world, there is still a struggle with bigotry and reflections on race relations. While Gregory's words and Yulsman's photographs are still meaningful today, I feel the importance comes from placing them in their original context. While America still has a long way to go with its race dialogues, it's stunning to see these groundbreaking works of art and realize how they shook up and subverted the mindset of the 1960s world. In short, and without any hyperbole, From the Back Of the Bus still maintains its groundbreaking emotions, and I'm hoping it eventually finds its way back in print, not only because of its sociological weight, but also because of its terrific comedy and willingness to start dialogues that are still needed.

"On the other hand, if you've liked the book--don't tell you friends. Just take me to lunch when it's not Brotherhood Week (Gregory 125)."

Work Cited:
Gregory, Dick. From the Back Of the Bus. Copyright 1962 by Dick Gregory Enterprises, Inc. Photography by Jerry Yulsman.

(Breaking) The Rules Of the Game: Spike Lee's "He Got Game"

As a teenager, I religiously watched the NBA Draft every June, even though it tended to hold the same interest level as the MLB All-Star Game: there's a lot of hype, pageantry, and breathless conversations by the hosts and announcers, and I'd enjoy the first hour and a half before being sidetracked by other activities. I haven't had cable for a few years now, so the time I devoted to this year's draft was limited to web previews and recaps. By sheer coincidence, I ended up watching Spike Lee's 1998 film He Got Game the same evening as this year's draft. In favorable hindsight, I feel that I got much more out of the film than I would have gotten out of the back-patting idolatry of the NBA showcase. Lee's film is presented with setups of conventional cinema, but almost gleefully tears down these conventions in one of the most unexpectedly artful films of the 1990s. Admittedly, there are large chunks of Lee's filmography that I still need to catch up on, but I've noticed that even his lesser acclaimed films have at least a touch of creativity not seen with a lot of filmmakers. He Got Game has a devoted following among basketball fans, and as always, Lee is unafraid of tackling even the most sensitive subjects head-on.

The film opens with a beautiful jazz soundtrack and footage of various youths--male, female, black, white, urban, rural--shooting baskets in a variety of ways, slowed down to showcase the art and physics of a ball arcing into a hoop. It then turns into a drama, with an established scenario that is both standard and slightly implausible, but done in a straightforward manner so the viewer doesn't get terribly caught up in the logistics. Jake Shuttlesworth (Denzel Washington) is summoned to meet with the prison warden, who offers him a deal. He's prepared to let Jake out of prison for a week to connect with his estranged son Jesus (now-NBA veteran Ray Allen). Jake is given a letter of intent to fictional Big State University: if he can convince Jesus, the nation's best prep basketball player, to accept a scholarship to the school (an idea proposed by the unseen governor, one of the school's biggest boosters), Jake will receive an early parole. Carefully monitored by an ankle bracelet and two police supervisors (including a terrific performance by Jim Brown), Jake is set up in a Coney Island motel and is generally free to come and go, with the seemingly insurmountable goal of a.) getting in his son's good graces, and b.) getting him to sign the letter of intent.

Jesus is rightfully angry at his father for the murder of his mother (this isn't a spoiler in a sense; when the scene plays out in a flashback, it makes the situation more complex, but not absolving Jake of wrongdoing) when he was a child. He rebuffs Jake's attempts at a connection, and is dealing with a serious amount of pressure. Everyone, from his high school coach to national commentators, are anxious to know which school Jesus plans to attend, assuming he doesn't jump straight to the NBA. He's the primary caretaker of his younger sister (a beautiful acting job by Zelda Harris), along with his ineffectual aunt and uncle. His girlfriend Lala (Rosario Dawson) is pressuring him to meet with an influential sports agent, whom she claims is a family friend. Jesus is continually claiming that he doesn't know where he wants to take his basketball career, and even in the face of corruption and pressure, he's steadfast in his resolve to (no pun intended) do the right thing.

His natural assumption is that his father wants money, not believing that he's out of prison on a "work-release program" (as Jake claims). As the film progresses, the idea of money becomes even more intense. In one of the film's best sequences, one of Jesus's associates asks him if he's ready for the people claiming to love him because of his wealth. A series of faces are projected on the screen, imploring Jesus for a handout in between claims of love and respect, until one of the faces goes even further: a young woman claims "my baby needs diapers, I need Dolce & Gabbana and Chanel." This idea, while relatively unexplored in 1998 (I could be wrong; I was fifteen years old when the film was released), has taken on more sociological meanings today. In 2005, the NBA established a rule that all eligible draftees had to complete at least one year of college ball, forbidding players from entering the NBA straight out of high school. There was rightful controversy over this, as expressed in the film in two different ways. Talented high school players, wanting to get their families out of the projects and poverty, now have to complete a year of college beforehand. The allure of money, as documented countless times since, leads a lot of young black players to be overcome by an influx of "friends" and estranged family members looking for security. Later in the film, Jesus pays a visit to another school, and is treated to lavish inducements to play for them, including sexual enticements and a ludicrous pitch from the school's religious coach (a hilarious cameo by John Turturro). Even before the 2005 rule, the idea of a student-athlete was fragile at best, and now, with players choosing colleges with an eye on getting to the pros after a year, it's even more laughable. Lee manages to make these two financial aspects both singular ideas as well as intertwined realities. Another wrinkle presents itself during a meeting between Jesus and a white sports agent. The agent does everything he can, from flattery to illegal bribes, to make Jesus sign a contract and turn professional. The agent knows nothing about Jesus's true personality, and the scene is shot to show how the man is doing his best to exploit the young man for his own financial gain. In a still prevalent world in which poor black men face limited options, the idea of exploitation is intense. If Jesus had no basketball skills whatsoever, he wouldn't be getting the kind of attention he does. This idea is meant to be obvious, but the claims of personal affection and respect are done not out of any true meaning, but because of dollar signs.

When not trying to coax a conversation with his son, Jake is primarily alone. However, he forms a bond with Dakota, an abused prostitute living in the motel room next to his (an early role by Milla Jovovich). Lee sets up the interactions between Jake and Dakota carefully, lulling the viewer into an expectation of a confrontation between Jake and the pimp. Instead, Jake manages to borrow money to get Dakota off the street for one night. They have sex, and while there's a definite connection between the two, Lee doesn't opt for the obvious solutions. There's no fight between Jake and the pimp, and there's no illusion that he and Dakota have magically found true love. Rather, it's the portrait of a bond between two very troubled people, and it's rendered as touchingly as can be. Jake, in agony over his son's hate, needs an interaction, and it shows his genuine goodness in the face of his previous actions. This notion of Jake's bad qualities being born out of his inner goodness (and the other way around) is also shown in the flashback to his wife's death. After riding young Jesus too hard during a practice session at a nearby court, their fight dominoes into an intense confrontation at home, leading to his wife's death. Jake is at fault, but his crime spiraled out of hand. In He Got Game's most wrenching scene, Jake tries to revive his wife and doesn't try to cover up or absolve himself from wrongdoing. Watch the scene, and look at Denzel Washington's eyes as Jake tells his son to call 911.

Jake and Jesus do end up having their conversations, culminating in their final interaction (more like a showdown). Jake gives his son an ultimatum, to be decided in a brief game of one-on-one. While the outcome is important, the scene is tied together by Jake's final instruction to his son, telling him to get rid of his hate, which will make him no different than anyone else on the street, talent be damned. Jesus makes his choice, and the film ends with alternating shots of Jake and Jesus shooting baskets alone, with a final shot that mirrors the film's opening (at least thematically) and hints to the act that spearheaded their biggest fight years ago and also leaves the window open for both men coming to terms with each other and themselves. Does this sound sappy and not unlike any other film ending? It sounds that way, but Lee pulls it off very carefully. It also shows the therapeutic benefits of shooting baskets by oneself. When I lived in Seattle, I dealt with my writing frustrations on my apartment's basketball court, and almost always came away from it refreshed and with renewed focus. Lee takes the tired cliche of "sports as more than just a game" and elevates it to a metaphysical level.

He Got Game has been on my "to-watch" list for years, and it's arguably one of the best sports films ever made. There are no cliches or easy answers provided, and Lee knows the game of basketball so well as to share its importance to the people who love it most, with the shady outside aspects leaving the game itself untarnished on a simple, pure level. Even with the standard cinematic conventions, it's an art film on many levels. The decision to cast NBA star Ray Allen as Jesus was a move of genius, since there are so few scenes showing him actually playing the game. He has the look and demeanor of a young man being exposed to too much at an early age, and Allen's stumbles with acting (in a few scenes, his voice barely rises above a monotone, flat delivery) make his role that much more believable, and everyone, from the main characters to the smaller supporting ones, are cast perfectly. Most importantly, Lee takes the ideas of race and opportunity in America and gives them a new sort of complexity. The business world of collegiate and professional basketball have always had a divide between predominantly black and poor players and white ownership and management, and fourteen years later, He Got Game can still be viewed as a contemporary sociological commentary.

A People's History: "42nd Parallel" by John Dos Passos

Even in 2012, one of the more striking traits about John Dos Passos was his tendency to write about the American immigrant experience in a complete circle, unafraid to explore the negative sides of poverty, racism, and hardships. These notions are all too familiar today, but in the early 20th century, one can only imagine the emotional impact of his words, especially when they so freely go against blind and unquestioning patriotism. These notions first came to me in college, when, for a course on American Literature, I was assigned his 1925 novel Manhattan Transfer. In addition to its gritty, almost musical prose, I was also enamored with his dialogue, which was realistic and contained a stunning ear for accents and dialects. It's been years since I last read it, and while I've planned to reread it, I only recently got around to reading another one of his works. The 42nd Parallel is the first novel in his U.S.A. trilogy, and I'm not sure if the same themes listed above are even more prevalent, or if this is merely a case of having them refreshed in my memory. The beauty of The 42nd Parallel, in addition to being an invaluable fiction of American life, is its structural layout, working as a straightforward novel complete with interludes, asides, and recreations of newsreel items from the time period. In Dos Passos' era, this type of writing would have likely been viewed as wildly experimental. That holds true today, but in my mind, it's an early form of hypertext. I generally shy away from assumptions about how a given piece of art would have been experienced in its debut, but given how this text is still fresh and open to format interpretations, it's impossible not to make those comparisons and hypotheses. With today's political and economic turmoil, this text is a reminder that some problems have never gone away.

The narrative of The 42nd Parallel follows the singular and intersecting lives of five characters: Mac, a printer with revolutionary ideals; Janey, a stenographer; Eleanor, a department store worker and designer; Ward, a hopeful songwriter turned public relations executive; and Charley, a small-town auto mechanic. Their lives and travels take them, in various times and situations, from the United States to Mexico to Europe. Their personal lives are blended with a bigger picture, effectively showing how individual lives can serve as examples of how the world works, for better and for worse. In his foreword to the latest publication, E.L. Doctorow offers a phrase about Jazz Age writers that can serve as an imaginary subtitle to this work: the characters "entangle themselves in the crises of civilization."

The early works of Dos Passos are full of political explorations that were radical at the time. The book opens with Mac, who quickly becomes a champion of workers' rights, leading to passages of dialogue that are still lively and stunning today:

"'...I read Bellamy's Looking Backward, though: that's what made me a Socialist.' 'Tell me about it; I'd just start readin' it when I left home.' 'It's about a galoot that goes to sleep an' wakes up in the year two thousand and the social revolution's all happened and everything's socialistic an' there's no way anybody can get to be a rich bondholder or capitalist and life's pretty slick for the working class.' 'That's what I always thought...It's the workers who create wealth and they ought to have it instead of a lot of drones.' 'If you could do away with the capitalist system and the big trusts and Wall Street things 'ud be like that.'
'Gee.'
'All you'd need would be a general strike and have the workers refuse to work for a boss any longer...God damn it, if people only realized how friggin' easy it would be. The interests own all the press and keep knowledge and education from the workin'men (Dos Passos 49)."

Dos Passos was also ahead of the time socially as well as politically:

"In Salem, Ike found that he had a dose and Mac couldn't sleep nights worrying for fear he might have it too. They tried to go to a doctor in Salem. He was a big roundfaced man with a hearty laugh. When they said they didn't have any money he guessed it was all right and that they could do some chores to pay for the consultation, but when he heard it was a venereal disease he threw them out with a hot lecture on the wages of sin (Dos Passos 61)."

"...and the fact that Maurice didn't like Eveline the way Eveline liked him make Eveline very unhappy, but Maurice and Eric seemed to be thoroughly happy. They slept in the same bed and were always together. Eleanor used to wonder about them sometimes but it was so nice to know boys who weren't horrid about women (Dos Passos 174)."

Occasionally, the passages are still worthwhile, but show their age. In this passage from Janey's childhood, Dos Passos attempts racial tolerance in the form of Janey's mother, but there's still a hint of racism. I'm not projecting these views onto Dos Passos, but while I'm only partially familiar with his biography, I'm not sure if the follow passage was meant merely for the character or if it projected his own views. The passage loses none of its fictional intensity, but the reader has to take it from two potential points of view: 1.) Dos Passos critiquing literal white supremacy (i.e. respecting black people but holding them in a lesser light) or 2.) Dos Passos projecting his own views in the passage, which would case today's reader to pause:

"Janey stood in front of her mother shaking her head about so that the two stiff sandy pigtails lashed from side to side. 'Stand still, child, for gracious sake...Jane, I want to talk to you about something. That little colored girl you brought in this afternoon...' Janey's heart was dropping. She had a sick feeling and felt herself blushing, she hardly knew why. 'Now, don't misunderstand me; I like and respect the colored people; some of them are find self-respecting people in their place...But you mustn't bring that little colored girl in the house again. Treating colored people kindly with respect is one of the signs of good breeding...(Dos Passos 107).'"

Worldviews aside, it's easy to lose track of Dos Passos' gift as a writer of everyday passages. For all of his audacious examples of social and political ideas, he presents the smaller moments with equal vividness. In a similar fashion to Manhattan Transfer, The 42nd Parallel even the most normal scenes are rendered with an almost musical energy, therefore (to use a tired phrase) making them come alive. The prose is constantly moving and descriptive, almost making the reading cinematic. With any novel, a reader visualizes the actions; with a Dos Passos novel, the internal visualization tends to be more more expansive, since there are so many accompanying details:

"The roadhouse was kept by a French couple, and Ward talked French to them and ordered a chicken dinner and red wine and hot whisky toddies to warm them up while they were waiting. There was no one else in the roadhouse and he had a table placed right in front of the gaslogs at the end of a pink and yellow diningroom, dimly lit, a long ghostly series of empty tables and long windows blocked with snow. Through dinner he told Gertrude about his plans to form an agency of his own and said he was only waiting to find a suitable partner and he was sure that he could make it the biggest in the country, especially with this new unexploited angle of the relation between capital and labor (Dos Passos 202)."

As I mentioned before, I couldn't help but mentally classify The 42nd Parallel as a form of literary hypertext. This definition might not be literally accurate, but there are "links" to the aforementioned social and political messages, and interspersed with the character narratives are recurring sections: "The Camera Eye" and "Newsreel." After doing some outside research, I learned that "The Camera Eye" pieces are collections of semi-autobiographic sketches, and the "Newsreel" pieces were taken from actual newspaper headlines. Together, they form part of the overall collage of The 42nd Parallel. The news items present a dizzying account of the era's happenings, and are both timely and sometimes hilarious:

"the mannequin who is such a feature of the Paris racecourse surpasses herself in the launching of novelties. She will put on the most amazing costume and carry it with perfect sangfroid. Inconsistency is her watchword
Three German staff officers who passed nearby were nearly mobbed by enthusiastic people who insisted on shaking their hands

Girl Steps On Match; Dress Ignited; Dies (Dos Passos 206)."

"The Camera Eye" sections read like free verse and are among my favorite sections in the novel. They tie into the plot occasionally, and sometimes not at all, but Dos Passos writes with an almost experiment edge. These are poetic, moving, and stylistically years ahead of other literary experimenters. Even in their randomness, there's no doubt that, even on their own, they're essential to the overall arc:

"in the mouth of the Schuykill Mr. Pierce came on board ninety-six years old and sound as a dollar He'd been officeboy in Mr. Pierce's office about the time He'd enlisted and missed the battle of Antietam on account of having dysentery so bad and Mr. Pierce's daughter Mrs. Black called Him Jack and smoked little brown cigarettes and we played Fra Diavolo on the phonograph and everybody was very jolly when Mr. Pierce tugged at his dundrearies and took a toddy and Mrs. Black lit cigarettes one after another and they talked about old days and how His father had wanted Him to be a priest and His poor mother had had such trouble getting together enough to eat for that family of greedy boys and His father was a silent man and spoke mostly Portugee and when he didn't like the way a dish was cooked that came on the table he'd pick it up and sling it out the window...(Dos Passos 131-132)."

According to Doctorow's introduction, Dos Passos grew much more conservative as he got older, but as readers today, we're lucky that he put his early social passions into literary form (this would be the basis for another article, but much has been made about why conservative art is nearly nonexistent). While I've given only a passing summary of the plot, the samples I've cited are perfect examples of the myriad of forms Dos Passos worked with in the confines of a single text. He's still not as immediately famous as Ernest Hemingway or F. Scott Fitzgerald, but I personally find his prose to be much more timely. In today's climate, even the mere suggestion of fixing social problems can be branded by some as "un-American," so in a time of such intense patriotic fervor, Dos Passos was more daring than any political writer of today. He took a lot of risks to even explore some of his subjects, let alone explore them with sympathy and understanding. Discussions about the immediacy of the social novel abound today, and The 42nd Parallel works as both historical fiction as well as a model for our current world. There is so much packed into this text, with so much diversity in its forms. One can agree or disagree with its messages, but it succeeds as an art form, being entertaining, almost literally timeless, and a voicing so many ideas.

Work Cited:
Dos Passos, John. The 42nd Parallel. Copyright 1930, 1958 by John Dos Passos.