Cane
Jean Toomer
1923
Around 140 pages
I recently wrote in a blog post about my intentions to read more poetry. Cane is about as poetic as this List gets. By the way, let me know your favorite poets in the comments and I can check them out. My preferred style is Dorothy Parker meets William Shakespeare. If you don't leave a comment, my perennial illiteracy is on your head.
Cane is structured as a series of vignettes about the experiences of African Americans in the South. He intersperses his short stories with poems, and one section is written as a short play. So I suppose it's debatable whether this is even a novel or not. Ah, modernism is upon us. We best be ready for that storm.
I'm glad the List isn't skipping over the Harlem Renaissance in favor of everything going on in Europe at the time. My favorite poem was "Harvest Song" which has a fantastic opening line "I am a reaper whose muscles set at sundown." I tend to think of the Harlem Renaissance as a distinctly American style, but you can see the influence of, lord help us, James Joyce in his writing.
Writing that left a bad taste in my mouth.
RATING: ****-
Interesting Facts:
Interesting Facts:
Toomer said he was not a "Negro" and would not feature himself as such.
Langston Hughes said of the work: "(Excepting the works of Du Bois) Cane contains the finest prose written by a Negro in America." Which probably pissed off Toomer.
Alice Walker said she couldn't exist without this book.
UP NEXT: The Devil in the Flesh by Raymond Radiguet.
4 comments:
I recently discovered Mary Oliver and I love her poems. I've also been doing a African countries reading challenge and some of my readings have been poetry. Hawad is interesting - he writes in a nearly extinct language.
I enjoy the work of William Carlos Williams and am now going to check out Jean Toomer :) Thanks as always for your witty takes!
Thank you for the suggestion! That sounds awesome, so you're reading a book from every country in Africa? I should totally do that, the List has such a Western bias.
I like him too, great pick! And thank you:)
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