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

[Steven Koteff]

Racial politics of Ford's work are very complicated, I think. And racial politics of Ford the dude, from stories I have heard, no less complicated. 



> On Jan 25, 2016, at 7:51 AM, Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> 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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