Rudolph P. Byrd
Auteur de Cane [Norton Critical Edition]
A propos de l'auteur
Rudolph P. Byrd is Associate Professor in The Graduate Institute of the Liberal Arts at Emory University
Œuvres de Rudolph P. Byrd
I Am Your Sister: Collected and Unpublished Writings of Audre Lorde (2009) — Directeur de publication — 107 exemplaires
The world has changed : conversations with Alice Walker 6 exemplaires
Oeuvres associées
In Search of Hannah Crafts: Critical Essays on the Bondwoman's Narrative (2003) — Contributeur — 57 exemplaires
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Critiques
Sou sua irmã : Escritos reunidos par Audre Lorde
Circuito UBU - Julho de 2020
Four stars, maybe 4 1/2 stars for Cane. Three stars, at most, for the Norton Critical Edition. While the essays, which I skimmed, are helpful in better understanding the author's intent, and it is good to know that others don't necessarily understand some of Cane either, the footnotes to the actual text must have been put together by a blindfolded man who randomly selected the words and phrases to footnote. Some of the simplest things get footnotes, while some of the more obscure references get none at all. This was a terrible job!
Cane, on the other hand, should be read without even referring to the footnotes, which just interrupt the flow. The first part of the book reminds me a bit of Look Homeward Angel in its poetic prose and inclusion of poetry, although certainly the overall narrative style and subject matter couldn't be more different. The second part, set in DC and Chicago, is less poetic and more grounded in real life--except that the characters share some of the same issues as the characters in Georgia from the first part. The last part is a single story, with the dialogue in play format, but with long descriptions that make it basically just a novelette or novella. It is the strangest story of all, with some effective passages, and an ending that sort of defies explanation. I would say the book sort of goes downhill from beginning to end, with some of the great promise of the opening pages dissipating--but it is still an essential read and unlike anything you'll encounter anywhere else. So don't get bogged down in footnotes and critical opinions. Just read the book itself, which is only about 120 pages.… (plus d'informations)
Cane, on the other hand, should be read without even referring to the footnotes, which just interrupt the flow. The first part of the book reminds me a bit of Look Homeward Angel in its poetic prose and inclusion of poetry, although certainly the overall narrative style and subject matter couldn't be more different. The second part, set in DC and Chicago, is less poetic and more grounded in real life--except that the characters share some of the same issues as the characters in Georgia from the first part. The last part is a single story, with the dialogue in play format, but with long descriptions that make it basically just a novelette or novella. It is the strangest story of all, with some effective passages, and an ending that sort of defies explanation. I would say the book sort of goes downhill from beginning to end, with some of the great promise of the opening pages dissipating--but it is still an essential read and unlike anything you'll encounter anywhere else. So don't get bogged down in footnotes and critical opinions. Just read the book itself, which is only about 120 pages.… (plus d'informations)
When I dare to be powerful, to use my strength in the service of my vision, then it becomes less and less important whether I am afraid.
It is not our differences that divide us. It is our inability to recognize, accept, and celebrate those differences.
Your silence will not protect you.
If I didn't define myself for myself, I would be crunched into other people's fantasies for me and eaten alive.
The master's tools will never dismantle the master's house.
When we speak we are afraid our words will not be heard or welcomed. But when we are silent, we are still afraid. So it is better to speak.
Revolution is not a onetime event.
Our visions begin with our desires.
You read lines like these and you get how it is that Audre Lorde rattled off "warrior poet" like it was just her job descriptions. These are talismans, incantations of power. gave us intersectionality and showed us how a feminist revolutionary (meaning, I guess, roughly, someone whose revolution is based on community/equality/love) faces down cancer (this is a rare and precious thing not only because it extends the political envelope over the disease, something we don't do enough--so many bright lights retreat from the limelight when terminally ill or face it with the clichés or find a venue for a kind of death poem or concluding remarks full of requisite gentleness and joy and then exit--but also, for me, because it closes the gap between her remarkable life and mine, which has benefited from the privilege of remaining ordinary. She shows us that one more tyranny we can face down is the one that says each of us dies alone. Fuck that! She does this, BTW, in A Burst of Light, included in its entirety here, and amazing, but reviewed by me elsewhere--not here) and challenged each of us to value ourselves and each other to go on giving a shit and holding ourselves to a higher standard. (Lest this all sound far too attenuated and nonspecific, she also told us, me, "my" people, white people, again and again, to stop killing black people and to fucking do better. I'm just trying to find my way into her work from me.)
Some of those power formulae up above are in speeches and such included here, and that's great. But take the "collected and unpublished" of the title seriously--basically the last third or more of the book is miscellanea or ephemera or famous women she knew talking about how great she was, and skippable and not really powerful.… (plus d'informations)
It is not our differences that divide us. It is our inability to recognize, accept, and celebrate those differences.
Your silence will not protect you.
If I didn't define myself for myself, I would be crunched into other people's fantasies for me and eaten alive.
The master's tools will never dismantle the master's house.
When we speak we are afraid our words will not be heard or welcomed. But when we are silent, we are still afraid. So it is better to speak.
Revolution is not a onetime event.
Our visions begin with our desires.
You read lines like these and you get how it is that Audre Lorde rattled off "warrior poet" like it was just her job descriptions. These are talismans, incantations of power. gave us intersectionality and showed us how a feminist revolutionary (meaning, I guess, roughly, someone whose revolution is based on community/equality/love) faces down cancer (this is a rare and precious thing not only because it extends the political envelope over the disease, something we don't do enough--so many bright lights retreat from the limelight when terminally ill or face it with the clichés or find a venue for a kind of death poem or concluding remarks full of requisite gentleness and joy and then exit--but also, for me, because it closes the gap between her remarkable life and mine, which has benefited from the privilege of remaining ordinary. She shows us that one more tyranny we can face down is the one that says each of us dies alone. Fuck that! She does this, BTW, in A Burst of Light, included in its entirety here, and amazing, but reviewed by me elsewhere--not here) and challenged each of us to value ourselves and each other to go on giving a shit and holding ourselves to a higher standard. (Lest this all sound far too attenuated and nonspecific, she also told us, me, "my" people, white people, again and again, to stop killing black people and to fucking do better. I'm just trying to find my way into her work from me.)
Some of those power formulae up above are in speeches and such included here, and that's great. But take the "collected and unpublished" of the title seriously--basically the last third or more of the book is miscellanea or ephemera or famous women she knew talking about how great she was, and skippable and not really powerful.… (plus d'informations)
2 
MeditationesMartini | 1 autre critique | Apr 17, 2016 |
MeditationesMartini | 1 autre critique | Apr 17, 2016 | This book doesn't deserve more than 2** – not in derogation of Jean Toomer's novel but because of the poor editorial quality of this Norton Critical Edition.
This is the first time I have ever seen an NCE that suffers from such egregiously bad proof-reading. On more than one occasion among articles in the supplementary materials, an exclamation point is erroneously shown as a capital I, a lower-case l, or some other such misreading of a punctuation mark that's very important in Toomer's writing. And one article, "The Unity of Jean Toomer's Cane" by Catherine Innes, is rendered completely unreadable by proof-reading errors that include apparent repetition of some strings of text and omission of others. (NOTE that this is meant as a criticism of the NCE editors, not of the article's author.)
It's as if this book was prepared by scanning material from printed sources, then running it through OCR software but not carefully proof-reading the result.
The numerous typographical errors within the supplementary materials make me concerned that there may also be typographical errors within the text of the novel itself – errors that I have failed to notice because Toomer's combination of poetry and stream-of-consciousness prose is not always conventional English grammar and spelling, so that only an expert on Cane (which I am very definitely not) would catch typographical errors.
Get this NCE if you're in desperate need of supplementary critical articles, but as a text I'd rely more comfortably on the Cane in the Library of America's two-volume Harlem Renaissance Novels set.
It's really quite a shame that a collection of supplementary materials that includes excellent critical articles is marred by such sloppiness, especially when Henry Louis Gates is one of the editors.… (plus d'informations)
This is the first time I have ever seen an NCE that suffers from such egregiously bad proof-reading. On more than one occasion among articles in the supplementary materials, an exclamation point is erroneously shown as a capital I, a lower-case l, or some other such misreading of a punctuation mark that's very important in Toomer's writing. And one article, "The Unity of Jean Toomer's Cane" by Catherine Innes, is rendered completely unreadable by proof-reading errors that include apparent repetition of some strings of text and omission of others. (NOTE that this is meant as a criticism of the NCE editors, not of the article's author.)
It's as if this book was prepared by scanning material from printed sources, then running it through OCR software but not carefully proof-reading the result.
The numerous typographical errors within the supplementary materials make me concerned that there may also be typographical errors within the text of the novel itself – errors that I have failed to notice because Toomer's combination of poetry and stream-of-consciousness prose is not always conventional English grammar and spelling, so that only an expert on Cane (which I am very definitely not) would catch typographical errors.
Get this NCE if you're in desperate need of supplementary critical articles, but as a text I'd rely more comfortably on the Cane in the Library of America's two-volume Harlem Renaissance Novels set.
It's really quite a shame that a collection of supplementary materials that includes excellent critical articles is marred by such sloppiness, especially when Henry Louis Gates is one of the editors.… (plus d'informations)
2 CurrerBell | 4 autres critiques | Apr 22, 2015 |
CurrerBell | 4 autres critiques | Apr 22, 2015 | Listes
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