Gerald Early lecture - some notes

Dr. Early gave a terrific talk to a packed house last Wednesday night.  There was much for us to think about and to fuel our upcoming discussions.  My notes:

Conflict for Ellison - loved and knew Negro folk music, jazz and spirituals but black schools and Tuskegee taught only classical - the 'canon' was important

Idea of Invisible Man is all about figuring out what you think rather than what people think you should think

Ellison struggled as a student at Tuskegee

Studied music under William Dawson, who pushed very hard- not a good relationship

Influenced by Morteza Sprague, chair of the English department- very canonical program - the classics

2nd book Shadow and Act dedicated to Sprague

Typical undergrad - got interested in sculpture, after studying music

New York - hangs out with Richard Wright

Hangs out in black and communist intellectual circles

Wright was the dude- he was super disciplined- he didn't just want to be a writer, he wanted to be great

Ellison was impressed by the amount of literature Wright had read

When nothing else works in the arts there's always writing!

Communists are giving black writers the chance to be published

Ellison starts IM in 1945

Portions published in 1947

IM published on April 14, 1952

National Book Award January 27,1953

a person can be paralyzed by early success

Ralph Ellisons creed:

• To think that a writer must think about his negroness is to fall into a trap
• Why can't writers be as concerned with quality as jazz musicians
• I wasn't, and am not, concerned with injustice but with art

Some people do NOT like him -his biographer Rampersad, for example

What he did with Invisible Man is what he WOULD have done had he been a composer, that is, create something new, as African Americans created the new, highly technical and demanding art of jazz

Ellison felt that his role was not to be a spokesperson for the black experience

He felt that jazz musicians were the highest expression of black art

America is red,white,blue, and black - referring to the 'sloe gin and ice cream' scene in the prologue, while listening to Louis Armstrong singing 'What Did I Do to Be So Black and Blue'

Themes of the novel: African Americans and their sense of alienation

Why alienation was an important theme in the 1950s

How jazz and blues were art forms that expressed alienation while combating it -The importance of the INDIVIDUAL African American experience and the fight against sociological categories and definitions

Sociology is "dogmatic and arrogant...Quick to flaunt its vaunted empiricism as Truth."

Is Invisible Man a jazz novel?

Ellison felt that black people were prisoners of sociology- Ellison hated the discipline

Is it a jazz novel - in a way, yes- in the sense that he wants to go to art to explain black people- inspired by jazz music - if I could write something as good as count Basie, for example, then I will have achieved something

No getting around that Ellison was an elitist

Please comment below to amplify these notes - there was much I missed!

Ellison, Jazz, and WashU's Gerald Early

In the run-up to the acclaimed Gerald Early's lecture on Ellison and jazz on Wednesday, June 20 at 7pm, I highly recommend this New Yorker article.  Entitled "Why Did Ralph Ellison Despise Modern Jazz?" by Richard Brody, it's a nice brief entree into the topic. 

And while you're at it, take a look at the page from the National Jazz Museum in Harlem's exhibit Ralph Ellison: a Man and His Records.  View the catalog of Ellison's record collection and more.

Black & Blue

In the prologue, the narrator references Louis Armstrong's "Black and Blue." The melancholy song's lyrics offer a bit of a preview of what's coming in the following chapters. If you've never heard the song, or would just like to take another listen, here's a video of Armstrong and his band performing it live in Berlin in 1965.

Kicking off Invisible Man!

Sloan and Reneise helping one of our awesome readers!

We had a great crowd for our Big Book Challenge Kickoff event on Wednesday!  If you weren't able to make it, don't worry - all books that were on hold before the event are now on the hold shelf waiting for you.  And if you're still waiting for a copy, we've got more on order and they'll be in very soon.  Still interested in signing up?  Just fill out our RSVP survey.





If you missed our kickoff lecture by WashU's Dr. William Maxwell, please take a look at it by clicking the links below.  It was an incredibly informative and motivating discussion, with lots of audience participation.

Dr. William Maxwell Lecture, 1

• The novel is full of dialogue, full of interruption, music interfering with high-falutin' conversation.
• The novel deals with the very bottom of American racism, but it wants to envision a way out.
• This is a book that wants its length, its density.  It's a book of the world.
• It was a representative text of the black world (mid-century).
• It has a habit of winning prizes...the National Book Award, 1953, the first African-American author to win the prize.
• Ellison is one of the most willfully American authors.

 Dr. William Maxwell Lecture, 2

• It is not only the representative African-American text of 20th century, it is perhaps the American novel of the long 20th century, at the period of America's greatest cultural, economic, and political influence.
• For a long time, this was the earliest introduction to many Americans of the complexities of the African-American experience.
• Ellison did not have a dramatic life, no paparazzi.
• The Great Migration - a huge, voluntary movement - 7 million Americans, eventually
• Ellison is from Oklahoma City, not part of the Great Migration - ironic, because Invisible Man is a great novel of the Migration
• Oklahoma City has an important African-American community, but it's more southwestern, not part of the south-to-north story
• Ellison almost sees himself as a cowboy
• Attracted to ideas of individual character and strength
• Ellison didn't believe he should talk about his own experience of suffering
• He wanted to talk about racism with a sense of the highest artistic potential
• Importance of Ellison's essay "The World and the Jug"
• Proponent of the necessary mixing of groups
• Ellison was looking for plurality

Dr. William Maxwell Lecture, 3

• Ellison grew up in difficult circumstances
• His mother, widowed, was a Socialist
• Wins a music scholarship to Tuskegee
• Arrives at Tuskegee and is beaten at the rail station by two white policeman
• Still, Ellison's work emphasizes transcendence, culturally you can build something better
• Ellison's second novel, Juneteenth, was never finished - it haunted him
• Ellison was very technologically adept - assembled his own stereo, an early adopter of word processing for his writing

Dr. William Maxwell Lecture, 4

• First paragraph of the prologue: what kind of person speaks this way?  he's educated (choice of vocabulary), he's a fan of American popular culture, elite reference to Edgar Allan Poe, someone who can move between levels of culture and discourse
• Ellison desires to create a highly intellectualized hero, a thinker

Apologies - the last part of the lecture didn't record properly...

Dr. William Maxwell Lecture, 5

• Importance of Louis Armstrong, reference to the song "What Did I Do to Be so Black and Blue?"
• Why is Invisible Man's favorite dessert vanilla ice cream with sloe gin?

FAQs: Summer Reading and Invisible Man

•  How soon may I pick up my book so I can get started?

We are hard at work getting the books and supporting materials ready to go for you.  Everything will be available at the kickoff May 23; if you have signed up through our online survey and are unable to attend the kickoff, your materials will be waiting for you on the hold shelf Thursday, May 24.

•   Do I need to have a University City card to participate?

Absolutely not!  You can check out Invisible Man with a card from any of the libraries in the Municipal Library Consortium. If you don’t have one yet, or you’re not sure, we can sign you up for a UCPL card at the kickoff.

•   Is there any cost to participate?

Never!  All programs are free for everyone, and there is no charge to check out materials.

•   Must I commit to a particular discussion meeting time?

No, you may come to any discussions you wish, or even attend more than one per month if you are available.  If you can’t attend every month, that is perfectly fine.

•  What do I win if I participate and finish the readings?

•  Bragging rights: You’ll receive a specially designed Invisible Man button for your tote bag showing the number of pages completed, as well as a one-of-a-kind homemade bookmark.

•  That all-important sense of accomplishment: We’re all working together to tackle a challenge and stretch our horizons!

•  New friends: You’ll meet new people from your neighborhood and beyond.

•  The best things in life aren’t things, right?

Say YES to the Challenge!

Are you ready to join the best readers in town for a new reading adventure?

RSVP yes today!

Take a look at us on Twitter!

Another Great Summer of Reading at U City Library!

Just a few of the many points made in our discussions last week:

On David...

more discussion of the parallel between Uriah and David

not much narrative arc; just the rise of David, plus incidents

David is a surprisingly passive figure

the self-made is a new kind of victorian person

self-made man? - David didn't make it on his own - C Nicole Mason says explicitly that she had some luck and help

How old was David when he marries Agnes?

young David Copperfield is sort of like Harry Potter

a reader identified with Pip from Great Expectations and Oliver Twist when he read those as a young man - didn't have the same reaction to David - the character was a cipher

On Dora...

most troubling line for Miriam - it's better as it is (Dora, about her own death) - this allows David to be off the hook
 
Dora's loss of a child is described in one line and it's very obscure: I had hoped that lighter hands than mine...p 704 ch 48

No real explanation for Dora's decline - she needs to die

Pregnancy was the one taboo in victorian fiction

Dora is inadequate to what a professional man needs - what kind of partnership is required of women for this 'new victorian man'

reader: Dora is at least real, Agnes is not real

So many characters die - even Jip - so sentimental - it's almost comical, but people at the time wept over that

was anyone else surprised that he married Dora?

what would have happened if Dora had survived?

Other Characters...

Betsey points out - you know I never realized how much work goes into being an author

Betsey didn't stay with her husband, but she didn't divorce him

Character Littimer: character has no reason for being as despicable as he is - he exists in relation to steerforth = what does steerforth need to carry out his designs - very one-dimensional

Subplots:  Annie and Dr Strong,

Rosa Dartle - she turns on Mrs Steerforth and Emily - what is the source of her rage

Rosa is more tragic than evil

The Murdstones are never punished

Traddles' Sophy - another miracle woman

Why can Martha remarry but not Emily?  Dickens wants to save Emily as someone we can admire and look up to - she is divided from 'real' prostitutes

Traddles character - shows virtue of restraint, hard steady work

Micawber - a stretch that he turned out so successful

Uriah lost his Cockney accent during the period when he was confronted by David et al., picked up again in prison

Was Ham's body recovered after drowning? confusing to figure out this scene - why does David devote himself to Steerforth's body rather than Ham's?

Ham is the son of Noah.  Dickens loves boats that are shipshape

Mr. Dick - purely virtuous - precursor of Forrest Gump

Mr Dick - is the implication that in order to be truly good, having an intellect is a hindrance - he is so good, and supposed to be of limited intellect

Mr Dick - (Dixon per Micawber) - connection to Dickens' name

Steerforth had ambiguity, he did some good

General Points...

Women:  Fallen women, fallen angels, women are the motive force here.  David is saved by Betsey and her money; Agnes of course, always pointing upwards, many consequential women

emigration to Australia is a common piece of Victorian fiction

every episode has its own dramatic peak and then fades away

only people of color in DC - Julia Mills comes back from Australia with a servant who was a woman of color

Notion of respectability - the word is repeated many times in connection with Littimer

the prison scene is startling - who are these perfect inmates?  Uriah and Littimer - Dickens was interested in prison reform - is Dickens questioning the possibility of reform?   He felt that the system was soul crushing, esp. solitary confinement.  Who was successful in the system?  Those two know what to do, how to grease the wheels

drowning is a central metaphor - the caul is supposed to save a sailor from drowning - it's significant that steerforth

Dickens always talks about cleanliness, not just in DC

Uranus house - a charity Dickens started with philanthropist Angela Burdett Coutts - it was a home for homeless women (prostitutes)

significance of place in the novel - yarmouth vs canterbury - canterbury is a cathedral town - Agnes is in the cathedral town - Uriah is the worm who destroys the sanctified place

Yarmouth is where the working poor live -DC goes to yarmouth when he needs a break.  But he is the worm who ruins Yarmouth - he introduces Steerforth.

vulnerability of asking for help - David and C. Nicole Mason - (also appears in Hillbilly Elegy)

Was Dickens just getting sick of writing the book when he wrote the prison chapter?

Was fun reading and listening to audio in combo - the reader used great accents, and I heard them when I went back to the text

Is the jail system scene a comment on Jeremy Bentham / utilitarianism /  the Panopticon prison?

The book is an interesting commentary on the status of women, and class distinctions without hitting you over the head with it

• 
  

It's our last Wednesday night for the Summer 2017 Big Book discussions. We have around 42 people here for the discussion of David Copperfield. Join us on Thursday at 3pm or on Friday at noon as we wrap up this summer's big read.

More Favorite Quotes!

 From reader Judi:

He had naturally a short throat and I do seriously believe he over starched himself. Page 553

I could not help feeling, though she mingled her tears with mine, that she had a dreadful luxury in our afflictions. She petted them, as I may say, and made the most of them.... we parted, overwhelmed with grief;  and I think Miss Mills enjoyed herself completely. Page 562

What else stands out for you?  Something sad?  Funny?  Significant?