Best American Fiction of the Last 25 Years?

In the earliest years of English settlement on this continent, there was considerable intermarriage between Irish female indentured servants and African male slaves, who, initially, were treated more like indentured servants. As the idea of miscegenation developed, allowing even indentured Irish girls to marry Black men became repulsive. Of course, while masters were allowed to have sex with their female slaves in order to create more slaves. However, Black men were quickly seen as a threat should they wish to marry/have sex with white women.

Although unstated, the element of sexual abuse of even young slave girls by masters hovered beneath the surface of Sethe's murder of her daughter.

Her grief is so enormous that she reanimates her dead daughter, says the "cow"

So what??? The grief of millions of workers who were worst off than slaves ACCORDING TO DUBOIS would serve to reanimate thousands of dead daughters who died under material conditions that were far worst than the conditions that the crazy woman, who, as the "cow" said was suffering from temporary insanity.

The novel's influence on the unaware and the IGNORANT is that ONLY among African-Americans, who, of course, were ground under the heels of the brutal plantation owner( a charge that is false) suffered because of the hard heartedness of non-blacks in America.

Nowhere in the novel can one find plaudits for the best president the USA ever had--Abraham Lincoln.

Nowhere in the novel can one find assertions that thousands in the North worked hard and became know as ABOLITIONISTS.

Nowhere in the novel can one find that many of the owners of the Plantations( both large ones and small ones) treated their slaves a lot better than the Northern Factory Owners treated their "employees"

Again, Beloved is a lying twisted piece of race carder propaganda!! Only in the United States, in the century of Political Correctness and enormous "guilt" for what has been done to African-Americans( Yes, even Vietnamese who have recently come to the USA are guilty because if you are not part of the solution, you are part of the problem) by the others in the country.

Beloved should have a cover including Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton and Minister Farrakhan!!!

Based on Possum's dislike I may very well go and buy Beloved.

Please do so, Dyslexia. And, if you are really in the mood for reading, you might enjoy the Immortal Joseph Conrad's novel- "The Nigger of the Narcissus"

Bloom
BernardR,

You mentioned you'd like to see some criticism of Harold Bloom. Perhaps you'd be interested in this:

http://www.hudsonreview.com/epsteinSu02.html

This is an essay, Bloomin' Genius by Joseph Epstein, published in the summer 2002 number of The Hudson Review.

Epstein appears to see Bloom as somewhat less than estimable.

I look forward to reading your analysis.

I saw the book by Harold Bloom at the GoodWill the other day and didn't buy it. I might have except I'm sick of his name. Bought Paul Theroux and a Cormac McCarthy instead.

I don't mind intellectuals writing and defending lists. I'd just rather not be battered with the news of it over and over and over and over.

Knowing Dys and the breadth of his reading and understanding, I'll listen to him anytime.

Oh, wait, I'm going to see Theroux and McCarthy dumped on...


We all don't read for the same reasons. We all don't go to law school for the same reasons. Why this has to be a matter of slamming, using words like "cow" perjoratively, even if it is a poster's avatar, I don't understand,
except people like slamming instead of civil discussion.

The "cow" wrote:

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In the earliest years of English settlement on this continent, there was considerable intermarriage between Irish female indentured servants and African male slaves, who, initially, were treated more like indentured servants. As the idea of miscegenation developed, allowing even indentured Irish girls to marry Black men became repulsive. Of course, while masters were allowed to have sex with their female slaves in order to create more slaves. However, Black men were quickly seen as a threat should they wish to marry/have sex with white women.

Although unstated, the element of sexual abuse of even young slave girls by masters hovered beneath the surface of Sethe's murder of her daughter.
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Questions--What is the reference for all of this mish-mosh?

The earliest years of the English settlement? What would those be?

Considerable intermarriage? What is the meaning of considerable? 50%, 25%, 2% 1%?

The element of sexual abuse of even young slave girls by masters hovered beneath the surface of Sethe's murder of her daughter, BUT IT IS UNSTATED? How does the "cow" know?


It is clear that the "cow"knows very little about the "World the Slaves Made" by Dr, Eugene D. Geneovese( a book accepted as a classic and a landmark in the historiography of American Slavery.

quote-P. 422

"The frequent charge that the slaveowners and overseers seduced or forced most of the young, sexually attractive slave girls appears to be a great exaggeration and an injustice to blacks as well as whites. THE BIG PLANTATIONS OF THE SOUTH CAROLINA AND GEORGIA LOW COUNTRIES, FOR EXAMPLE, HAD FEW MULATTO CHILDREN, MUCH TO THE SURPRISE OF THE NORTHENERS WHO ACCOMPANIED THE UNION OCCUPATION"

Ossobuco wrote:

Knowing Dys and the breadth of his reading and understanding, I'll listen to him anytime.

Oh, wait, I'm going to see Theroux and McCarthy dumped on...


We all don't read for the same reasons. We all don't go to law school for the same reasons. Why this has to be a matter of slamming, using words like "cow" perjoratively, even if it is a poster's avatar, I don't understand,
except people like slamming instead of civil discussion.

*************
Questions- I do not doubt that you are correct about Dys' "breadth of ..readng and understanding" but I am amazed that lately all he can talk about in his two or three line posts( never with references listed) is urination.

Why should I dump on Theroux and McCarthy?

They are both good writers and, although I have not read extensively in their works, I have not found that they are propagandists like Morrison.

And, Ms. Ossobuco, I treat everyone with respect, until they disrespect me. If you really wish to understand that, you should go to my original interactions with the "cow". Then you may understand why I use a pejorative.

Thank You for your interest!!

thank you for the reference to the "World the Slaves Made" by Dr, Eugene D. Geneovese. I read it carefully and found that he indeed made some good points. However,you must realize, as I am certain that you do, that this is ONE historian writing about a complex subject and therefore, because I am an idiot, I must call him some name like ignorant or bovine, thereby, I am very much afraid, lending nothing to the conversation here.

You can probably download it from an online site.

That's why I read the book. I had to look for several weeks to find it at a used book store, which may indicate that people hang on to it. I found a copy at the Harvard Book Store, not the Harvard Coop, located across the street from the Yard.

I can't help but think that perhaps the possum has a yen for a little "bubblin' brown sugar," which may account for his ranting against Black women.

I've explained several times why I chose the avatar I did and feel no need to do so again. I am not particularly fond of it. I think cows should be treated with dignity, not photoshopped to appear to wear sunglasses and not having representations of their hide used as car seat cover fabric.

I think the writer under discussion here demeans himself when he used cow perforatively. They're useful animals that have travelled much of human history with us and given us far more than we ever gave them.

corkey -- I skimmed a little of the article about Bloom because I don't have much time now, but, Epstein sums up how academics feel about the man. No one really likes or admires him much, with the exception of our insistent poster. I feel that our poster and Bloom and the Britcom character Hyacinth Bucket would make an appropriate threesome.

Bellow
I read the list of authors and the accompanying essay when they came out. Given that it is hard to make these choices, I was disappointed that Saul Bellow didn't survive the cut. He's a favorite of mine.

I like Bellow as well. Always did. At the end of last year, I prepared some short stories for my ELL kids to read. I have to admit that while I loved the Bellow selection, I loved the Updike story more.

I think Toni Morison is one of the best writers of the Twentieth Century and those who don't like her are just racists and anti-feminists who don't want to see a black woman get a Pulitzer Prize.

I think you just described one of the most prolific posters on this thread!

And proves, once again, that volume and mass do not always measure substance.

Joe(sneering seldom, if ever, accompanies wisdom)Nation

Marion, D'Art and Joe -- I agree with all of you.