Nella Larsen's Passing

I’ll just say it: Nella Larsen’s Passing is the best book we’ve read all semester. I was not prepared to admit this when starting the book, in fact, I wasn’t expecting to enjoy the novel at all. What makes Passing so great is the mere fact that it is so ahead of its time. According to the back of the book, Passing was published in 1929, and yet it shares its pacing and tight narrative with much later contemporary novels. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

First, the concept is great. It’s so much deeper and more complex than anything within the Harlem Renaissance Reader. The very concept of “passing” is absolutely fascinating from every perspective imaginable. Clare, for instance, is a black woman who has married a racist and betrayed her entire ancestry. Conversely, there’s John, who has been raised to hate black people and yet has married one without his knowledge (oh, sweet irony!). Irene is equally compelling, bound to some unexplained duty to Clare without truly understanding herself. I could go on and on, but I’ve made my point. The characters are great. George Babbit is nothing but a caricature next to these people. Anthony Patch’s struggle with Gloria and money seems trivial and, frankly, just plain boring.

What’s even better than the characters is the pacing of the novel itself. There is no fluff here. Babbit and The Beautiful and Damned were plagued with so much unnecessary narrative that reading them felt like running track in an ankle-deep marsh. There was so much back and forth in terms of characterization that it was impossible to believe by the end that any of the changes within the characters would actually stick. Don’t get me wrong, the length of both novels did contribute to their “epic” feel, but was everything within them absolutely necessary? Not at all. With Passing, everything is necessary and there is no redundancy in the narrative. I know this doesn’t seem like that big of a deal, but it makes the prose so much tighter and provocative.

Not only does the pacing cut out the fat, Passing also manages to provide the reader with all of the information and imagery necessary to easily follow the plot. One of my biggest complaints of Cane stemmed from one of the characteristic of the whole “modernist” style, namely the omission of certain parts of the text. Jean Toomer seemed to think that this would force the reader to pay closer attention and engage more with the text. While reading through these omitted sections, I did not engage any more than I normally would have, but I was more frustrated than I’d been in a long time. I won’t use this blog to rail against such strange and illogical methods (that could be a whole blog of its own), but needless to say there is none of that in Passing. While Larsen avoids using superfluous information, she provides the reader with all the details necessary to know what’s happening within the story without bashing them over the head with it. Case in point, the whole concept of “passing.” I’m sure many in the time the book was published knew what “passing” was, but I sure didn’t. Larsen makes sure to let the reader know (even uninformed ones like myself) exactly what they need to know to understand through character dialogue rather than a simple paragraph saying “This is what ‘passing’ is…” It's this sort of hand-holding that pulls a reader out of a novel and can insult their intelligence. Larsen, thankfully, avoids this.

Another aspect of the novel's pacing that was brought up in class on Tuesday is the structure of the narrative itself. Both Fitzgerald and Lewis tell their stories in a strictly chronological sense, exacerbating the plodding pace issue discussed above. Larsen does not restrict herself in the same way, rather using a flashback in the beginning to hook the reader before diving into the present narrative. Granted, the "hook" is very short and the story probably could have been told chronologically without hurting too much, but the mere fact that the flashback is there opens the story up in ways that confining it to a chronological retelling never could. Breaking up the flow of time in this way is just something you don't see enough from early 20th century texts, and it again forces Larsen's Passing into the limelight.

I fear I’m getting off track here, but my point remains the same: what make Passing so great are the complex characters and especially the near perfect pacing. It’s a testament to the book that I finished in two days what I’d originally planned to split into four. I just could not put the book down, and that’s saying something considering that this is required reading.

I think what impresses me the most about Passing is how those two points I’ve just discussed in length are so modern feeling, like a book I’d pick up in the new releases at Barnes and Noble. F. Scott Fitzgerald is a literary legend, but that does not at all mean his work reads as well as it did when it was first released. Literature has inevitably evolved since the 1920s, and yet Larsen’s Passing seems to pass off as one of the new generation. That in itself is worth commendation, and I for one am more than excited to finish the final part of the book for Thursday’s class.

Jean Toomer's Eye Fetish

Seeing as I’ve been almost completely unmoved by Toomer’s writing in general, I thought it might be worthwhile to take a closer look at his apparent fascination with human eyes. I have noticed, in “Fern,” “Blood-Burning Moon” and especially “Box Seat,” that Toomer often characterizing the characters within his stories by their eyes. I don’t want to speculate too much on why this is, as I don’t feel I have the proper qualifications to do so, but rather hoped (if anyone aside from Dr. Campbell reads these blogs) I could start some sort of dialogue regarding this topic. So, without further ado, I’ll jump into it.

The first case I noticed of this particular inclination toward eye description was the very opening of “Fern.” Right from the first line, Fern is basically boiled down to one key feature: her eyes. In fact, her entire head seemed nothing more than a vehicle to display them to the world, evidenced in the first couple of sentences, “Face flowed into her eyes. Flowed in soft cream foam and plaintive ripples, in such a way that wherever your glance may momentarily have rested, it immediately thereafter wavered in the direction of her eyes” (Toomer 16). Toomer goes on, for a whole half a page, focused solely on Fern’s eyes and the power they held over the men around her. It’s an interesting way to characterize her, sure, but not necessarily enough for a new reader to realize how preoccupied with eyes Toomer really is. Continuing on, however, the pattern becomes more clear.

In “Blood-Burning Moon,” Toomer uses eyes as his chosen image to portray the power and barbaric nature of Tom Burwell’s death. On page 36, Toomer writes, “Tom’s eyes popped” (Toomer 36). It’s a simple sentence, but the power of the line is derived primarily from that simplicity, and along with the scent of burning flesh from the sentence before, the reader is left without any doubt as to Toomer’s intended emotion within this closing scene. It’s interesting that Toomer would choose the eyes to portray the aural and visual aspects of this scene. This is not the first time a human has been burned at the stake in a piece of literature, but it’s likely one of the only ones to use the eye as that one pivotal image.

Finally, and most noticeably, Toomer’s “Box Seat” is absolutely full of examples for his eye fascination. Mrs. Pribby is characterized by her eyes when she is first introduced, “Her eyes are weak. They are bluish and watery from reading the newspapers” (Toomer 60). Of the “portly Negress” described on page 65, Toomer writes that the “eyes of the woman don’t belong to her” (Toomer 65). The man with whom Dan nearly brawls with at the end of the story is characterized likewise merely by his eyes, as if nothing else even matters, “The man’s face is a blur about two swollen liquid things that are his eyes. The eyes dissolve in the surrounding vagueness” (Toomer 66). The eyes, it seems, are the only vivid characteristics the man has, though even they are threatened by the “surrounding vagueness” that nearly dissolves them (Toomer 66). During Dan’s seeming bout of hallucinations, he even admits to this obvious preoccupation with people’s eyes when he says, “I did see his eyes. Never miss eyes” (Toomer 68). Obviously, Toomer is aware of the descriptive pattern of his, and even seems to comment on it here.

Again, I don’t mean to suggest any meaning behind this eye fascination of Toomer’s, partly because this blog has already gone on far longer than I’d originally conceived but mostly because I’d like to hear other thoughts on this subject. Let’s get some intellectual discourse under way, here. This is certainly a subject that requires a little bit of knowledge about Jean Toomer himself, so hopefully someone has a bit more knowledge about him than I do.

Also, in case anyone is wondering, I do, in fact, see the irony in calling out Toomer for his obsession with eyes while the very ability to notice it requires a similar, if not even more neurotic, obsession. So thank you for noticing.

Fred Waring's Collegiate Review

The song I chose to discuss is “Collegiate” by Fred Waring and his Pennsylvanians, partly because it was one I’d latched onto since we listened to it in class and also because it provides some interesting points of discussion. First of all, it seems to be a song celebrating the college life, or at least one aspect of the college life (that is, the party side of the collegiate career). One look at the lyrics and one can tell that the issues dealt with are very surface level and care-free, especially farther on in the song when the singers proclaim “Sigma Kappa / Tap-a half-a keg / That’s the Greek for all the lodges we belong to.” In fact, there is no mention of any real education at all, merely an ode to rowdy behavior like poker, “neckin’, muggin’… [and] huggin’.” Even better is that good ol’ Fred Waring never seems to apologize for this behavior, as if this really is what college is about, rather than the typical notion that the focus should be on academics.
Obviously, though, it is apparent both in the lyrics and music (light and boisterous) that the humor presented is very tongue-in-cheek. From lines like “Lend me, give me / Want-a half-a dollar” to “Very, very seldom in a hurry / Never ever worry / Real collegiates are we,” it is clear that, while Waring may not be admonishing college students, he clearly doesn’t respect or admire them. If college students really were as Waring characterizes them, they probably wouldn’t even care even if he was being critical, as they “Never ever worry” anyway. If anything, it’s a friendly form of mockery, poking fun at these students who go to college during this era of “Arrow collar” men to get an education, only to end up partying and chasing girls throughout the semester instead. It is not too out of line to consider this song Fred Waring’s review on the culture of college in general, and he manages to embody it well, while still getting in a few punches along the way.