Slightest, but important, social tidbit re The Crying of Lot 49

[Mark Kohut]

To :All

Despite my previous posts and annoyance, Jochen, among others, does uphold
higher standards
for the Plist. I'll reduce my possible mistakes, i hope.

On Mon, Jan 25, 2016 at 8:22 AM, Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com> wrote:

> To All:
>
> My impressionistic memory can often be wrong and if Jochen knows Ford's
> work much better than I do, and he doesn't know
> of my example, then it may be a created memory.
> I cannot remember nor find for sure on Amazon the book I think I remember
> reading. Bad sign.
>
> Sorry.
> Mark
>
>
> On Mon, Jan 25, 2016 at 8:14 AM, Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Better: "next time I'll try to remember to signal when I am ruining
>> someone's reputation especially my own".
>>
>> On Mon, Jan 25, 2016 at 8:12 AM, Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> C'mon, Jochen.
>>> This is my memory and judgment on the Plist.
>>>  All can stop reading me if they don't like my "accusations"--what a
>>> word.
>>>
>>> next time I'll signal when I'm ruining someone's reputation.
>>>
>>> On Mon, Jan 25, 2016 at 7:44 AM, Jochen Stremmel <jstremmel at gmail.com>
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>>> That seems a bit cheap, Mark. If you make accusations like that you
>>>> have to have book, page and line, and then you can decide if the character
>>>> in question is racist or not or just flippant.
>>>>
>>>> By the way, I'm no fan either. And I most certainly don't know the book
>>>> you are talking about.
>>>>
>>>> (That would be a great PH.D. subject: The Racial Slur in American
>>>> Novels of the Sixties and Seventies) (Hi & Lo!)
>>>>
>>>> 2016-01-25 12:17 GMT+01:00 Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com>:
>>>>
>>>>> p. 98 [Oedipa].."riding among an exhausted busful of Negroes"...
>>>>>
>>>>> When did the word 'Negro' stop being used by writers, novelists
>>>>> in America at least, as THE overall descriptive word?
>>>>>
>>>>> Remember *Crying* was published in 1966, some part copyrighted
>>>>> in 65, before the Black Power movement, before all that came
>>>>> right before and then right after the period *Inherent Vice* is set.
>>>>>
>>>>> Don't know? I do. Starting and quickly happening from 1968 on,
>>>>> African-American
>>>>> and black began to be the descriptive word choice. Different conceptual
>>>>> uses but 'black' preferred usually since that was the self-identity
>>>>> preferred,
>>>>> ---see Black Power--- as argued for by those so demeaned.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> Jump cut:
>>>>> Richard Ford. Anyone a fan? I'm not. There are multiple reasons but
>>>>> here is one.
>>>>> I was reading a later work, in the 2000's probably, certainly the
>>>>> 90s...and
>>>>> it is set long after 1968, in the recent past of the time if I
>>>>> remember aright and
>>>>> his character, a white guy of course, says Negro! "Negro!'. And there
>>>>> is no reason
>>>>> to believe that such backward 'values' are part of his character. It
>>>>> may even
>>>>> have been an elided authorial narrator, dunno, has melted in details
>>>>> cause
>>>>> I haven't retold it.
>>>>>
>>>>> This novel, which i could look up, was, I think, the first after the
>>>>> industry news-making
>>>>> split with the legendary editor who helped make him a success. No one
>>>>> talks.
>>>>> Full of myself, I often wonder whether it was over such as that
>>>>> anachronistic
>>>>> use of the word.
>>>>>
>>>>> Richard Ford was born in Mississippi.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>
>
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