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

[Mark Kohut]

I know you meant that....and, offline I might follow-up but he and it bores
me...
Meanwhile, how do you like that change of American consciousness on paper
in 1968?

On Mon, Jan 25, 2016 at 2:12 PM, Jochen Stremmel <jstremmel at gmail.com>
wrote:

> Nobody who shovels snow with the satisfaction yoo-hoo-hoo doo-hoo-hoo it
> can be nihilistic in my eyes, let alone cheaply. I meant what you wrote
> about Ford *seemed* cheap (because you didn't invest much shoveling) and
> I would really like to know chapter and verse of the n(-1) word in Ford's
> novel(s).
>
> 2016-01-25 17:21 GMT+01:00 Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com>:
>
>> Look!
>>
>> from GR:
>> "I'm not angry, No. he's right, It is cheap"....."Roger even at his most
>> cheaply nihilistic...."   p 59 GR
>> I may take cheap shots but I don't think I'm cheaply nihilistic....
>>
>>  "PISCES: You recall that we were talking last time about the Negroes, in
>> Roxbury"..p.63 GR
>>
>> As some still believe about the *Bible*, no sourcing here and as
>> "they"-priests and nuns,cheap shots-- used to tell me about
>> Thomas a Kempis' *The Imitation of Christ, *open it anywhere and read
>> and it will relate to your life.
>>
>> As I am always saying,* Gravity's Rainbow *contains everything. Can
>> hardly wait for The Read.
>>
>> 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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