Category Archives: Twentieth century literature
Samuel Delany, Marilyn Hacker?
March 20, 2013 He met her on the first day, Bronx High School of Science, September 1956. They got married five years later (in Detroit — Michigan was one of the two states where interracial marriage was not illegal). … Continue reading
Philip K. Dick, Octavia Butler: Kindred
March 6, 2013 His middle name is Kindred. Philip Kindred Dick. I find that hard to believe. How could anyone’s middle name be a capsule summary of a large body of work still to be written? Do Androids … Continue reading
Octavia Butler, Margaret Atwood: Martians and Others
February 27, 2013 ‘Moby-Dick’ is about the oil industry, and the Ship of American State… The mates are the middle management. The harpooners, who are from races colonized by America one way or another, are supplying the expert tech labor. … Continue reading
Ishmael Reed’s Canada: black, Jewish, indigenous
February 20, 2013 Ishmael Reed isn’t into tragedy, so Flight to Canada is funny about the African-American presence up North. Raven Quickskill is there of course, having flown in “non-stop/ Jumbo jet this A.M. Had Champagne/ Compliments of the Cap’n/ … Continue reading
Toni Morrison, Maxine Hong Kingston, Leslie Silko: The Chinese Connection
February 6, 2012 In 1985 Toni Morrison, Maxine Hong Kingston, and Leslie Silko traveled together to China, going up the Li River in a boat. Kingston and Silko have now come out with new books — Kingston, I Love a … Continue reading
Jane Austen’s Philadelphia, Toni Morrison’s Denver
January 30, 2013 2013 is the bicentennial of Pride and Prejudice, so I’ve been learning new things about Jane Austen — for instance, the fact that her aunt was named Philadelphia, Phila for short. Phila never saw Philadelphia; no, at … Continue reading
Ralph Ellison, Marianne Moore: Yams and Nectarines
January 16, 2013 The yams are as real as anything in Invisible Man. The mere smell of them sends a “stab of swift nostalgia” coursing through the protagonist. The years of his life seem so many yams eaten: candied, … Continue reading
Frederick Douglass, H.D.: Egypt Again
Janurary 2, 2013 She never mentioned him and probably never read him. Still, he anticipated her. Visiting Egypt in 1887, Douglass wrote: “I do not know of what color and features the ancient Egyptians were, but the great mass of … Continue reading
Muriel Rukeyser, Wallace Stevens: Books of the Dead
December 26, 1012 There’s a picture of the two of them – Stevens standing at the back, and Rukeyser seated in front with Marianne Moore. To the left of him from where they were, and to the left of … Continue reading
Guns in Connecticut: Wallace Stevens
December 19, 2012 No, he only worked for insurance companies, but Hartford does have an exceptionally high concentration of gun manufacturers. Colt, founded in 1845, has its headquarters here. The U.S. Firearms Manufacturing Co., the Connecticut Shotgun Manufacturing Co., Savage … Continue reading