The Black and White In Johnson's Novel

          Reading James Johnson’s novel The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man for the first time really struck as me as being so laid back and informal that I didn’t really expect anything dramatic to happen like the gunshot in the “Club”; not to mention the protagonist’s ostracism when being asked to sit and “rise with the others”—it hadn’t even occurred to me then that the main character was black! Needless to say I had to reconstruct everything I’d read up to that point…

          For me one of the most intriguing facets of Johnson’s novel is that never once is any character given a proper name, and while at first it can be less engaging to read, the idea behind only giving nicknames allows for the reader to focus on something more salient: the idea that the white man’s perspective and way of life can be just as convoluted and pressuring as the black man’s own. Growing up as a child the main character acts as if he is white—even though it becomes clear this is false via the school staff separating him from the other white children— and yet he struggles with issues of trying to pass through life as a respectable boy: “I shall never forget the bewilderment, the pain, the heart-sickness, of that first day at school. I seemed to be the only stranger in the place” (Chp1, Johnson). Regardless of whether you’re white black, or blue, you’re still going to have to face the same problems that every person encounters growing up; and I think that theme, that everyone goes through life trying to overcome the same or similar situations, is what Johnson is trying to impress upon his readers: he doesn’t want them to fixate on a specific character or their behavior, so he simply cuts out their names and pastes in a quirky pet name.

Having done that, the reader’s mind floats past the people in the novel and instead focuses on the more detailed objects: such as the main character having a smart and loving African American mother while also having a wealthy and caring (so it seems up to this point) white American father. I think Johnson is trying to blend, perhaps even blur, the ideas of what it means to live life as a black or white American during the early twentieth century. Once that’s completed, the idea that someone’s skin color being different affects how they think/act will be seen as mute, and instead the ideology that every human being faces the same trials will become the salient virtue whenever someone brings up the race question. 

Miss Bart in the Past and the Present

          After watching the recent adaptation of Edith Wharton’s The House of Mirth I’m interested in the comparison between the two. For the most part the only difference is with the verbally intense scenes, i.e. Selden and Gus, where Lily is kissed by the men; I think this was simply added to make the movie more enjoyable for a twenty-first century audience, but if that’s so it also means a sad truth: nowadays people have no desire for the intellectual, meaningful, and much slower part of the human experience. This happens to be a major part the psychological realm as well because as technology increases people seem to become more and more attuned to the fastest route to understanding and getting what they want; although, it’s said that many TV watchers are better at multi-tasking, and even more so, that internet users are typically better at sifting out useful information in a heap of random details. So the question is: are we better off interacting and constructing our view of the world in such quickly created conjectures? It’s hard to say…

          

          On the one hand a person can’t deny the kind of intimacy reading the thoughts a joyful, hurt, discouraged, or excited protagonist offers; you don’t get the same kind of personal interaction with a film because the information coming at you is already processed in clearly defined images (one would hope). In doing so the viewer is deprived of the action of having to interact with the text, whereas a reader can compute the emotion on a much more detailed and specific level. However, films may be an advantage to some who are more akin to visual details: someone who has a high need for affect (an emotional person) may react much stronger to a sad scene in movie because all of the energy typically used for processing words and the negative emotion are ignored, and the viewer instead is forced to take in the sad feeling with every ounce of attention. In light of that, the question may seem farcical—that really neither is better than the other, just different—but I should propose that that isn’t case: I believe a textual copy is a much more valuable piece of information to obtain and process simply because by reading a person is forced to think about what is being presented. And this requirement of thoughtfully processing a book makes it, I think, a much more enriching experience; not to say a film can’t be as rewarding (there are plenty of notable aspects to a movie like beautiful music that you don’t get in reading a book). In that case I would almost prefer a novel with such intrinsic value like The House of Mirth not to be transcribed into a film: or at the very least, if it must be made into film that the movie do its source enough justice to cause the audience to go out and read the book for themselves. 

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Great Writing Equals Popularity... Right...?

          Well we talked about novels that are either popular, classical, not popular, or a combination of these types. Personally I am surprised that so many people considered Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes to be classical and popular because in the past I haven’t met many readers of the genre. Same goes for stuff like LOTR or Chronicles of Narnia: I always thought people had heard of the books—or at least seen one of the movies—but never actually taken the time to read the text; which I’ll admit I haven’t exactly read LOTR because the Hobbit is dense and it’s only a children’s book. Nevertheless, perhaps when I’ve got several hours open for a month or two I’ll commit to reading the first novel. As for work like Narnia or Sherlock Holmes, I am always surprised to learn that people are avid readers of both books, but have never heard of an author like oh, I don’t know, Robert Louis Stevenson (the Scottish author of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, or perhaps the better known Treasure Island). It is interesting because while the average person, in my experience, has little to no knowledge of such works, they happen to know Doyle’s craftsmanship; who believe it or not, conveniently is influenced by Stevenson. Now why is that? Why are two perfectly good authors not represented equally throughout literature and other media like the film industry?

Perhaps it has something to do with race.

Just as a quick disclaimer: I honestly haven’t done any serious researcher into the subject, but I do have a vague idea of why Doyle became famous and Stevenson didn’t. First off, Doyle lucked out and happened to have an agent that enabled him to make money off stories like Sherlock Holmes. In contrast, Stevenson had no such support, and in addition to that, he was of a minority group in the United Kingdom: he was Scottish. The real irony though is that while Doyle copies a lot of Stevenson’s suspenseful writing style, Stevenson’s stories like Arabian Nights fails to garner the same kind of widespread popularity even though recently critics suggest that Stevenson is the better writer of the two! The reason I point this out is simple: work that becomes popular—unfortunately—seems to rely more on the social appetite and appreciation of the author whose stories are being praised. And for me this poses a significant issue because popular writing shouldn’t be a reflection of an audience with bad taste, but should instead reflect a critical portrait of the values that the society holds dearest. That’s what I believe makes a book stand the test of time: if it can evoke emotions like anger, disgust, fear, sadness, surprise, or happiness, then it will forever be labeled a classic because it elicits the emotions we experience every day. I can only pray this seemingly decadent and stagnant stage of writing is quickly washed away by inspiring work…

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Lily's Desire of Discovery

          A common, and perhaps well-hidden, theme throughout The House of Mirth is that while Lily is so apt to analyze everyone around her, deep down, as revealed by characters like Lawrence Selden, Miss Bart wishes to be inspected and understood with the same precision and accuracy she bestows upon the individuals under her observation: “She had never heard him speak with such affirmation. His habitual touch was that of the eclectic who lightly turns over and compares; and she was moved by this sudden glimpse into the laboratory where his faiths were formed” (Wharton, 62). At this point Lily begins to chip away at the perhaps reserved intelligence and perceptiveness of Selden, who, in his typically lackadaisical manner, goes on to describe an interesting philosophy of free-will and optimistic self-determinism the lawyer calls the “republic of the spirit”, aka the bachelor’s definition of success; as opposed to Lily’s predictable and perhaps unusually naïve explanation that success is: “to get as much as one can out of life” (Wharton, 60). Such a narrow-minded response seems to justify Selden’s cynicism toward Lily’s behavior and need for affluence. At the same time though, the answer given may be more evident of the social conditioning Miss Bart has received and less reflective of her true nature, which Selden suspects to be wholly artificial and self-serving; however, considering how little we truly know of Lily added with the short allowance of time we’ve had to judge her motives and actions, I think it would be unfair to sell her out as simply “manipulative”.

          Wind the clock backward during the duo’s conversation and a person sees a curious moment of genuine shame felt by Miss Bart about herself that leads one to suspect her desire for wealth is simply an enumerated value: that in fact under the surface of her seemingly selfish visage lies a more innocent and romantic sense of ideals. By setting off her more important priorities (or at least the professed ones), Lily, whether or not she is aware, commits the slip of revealing a more tender side, a side perhaps more like Selden then either parties realize. Take for example her sudden concern at being categorized as shallow or ignoble by her male friend: “You think me horribly sordid, don’t you? But perhaps it’s rather that I never had any choice. There was no one, I mean, to tell me about the republic of the spirit” (Wharton, 60). In quickly saving face for her unwonted show of weakness by giving excuses, Lily inadvertently sentences herself to being guilty of actually caring about what Selden thinks of her; why else bother trying to justify her motive to marry a wealthy man? The question then remains: if Selden is aware but hiding his knowledge of Lily’s soft spot for him, how will he react later throughout the novel? I think it won’t be long before this inquiry is answered; honestly my hunch is that the growing intimacy between the two will become the ultimate conflict of Edith Wharton’s book. 

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