Not P, but P-List turned me on to The Sellout, so here's my review!

[Mark Thibodeau]

Thanks, Keith.

I know Beatty makes a joke about white critics describing everything
of value in Black culture being "like jazz", but with this novel of
his, I feel it's a cliche that holds true. I mean, it's certainly more
than just riffing, improv, and the occasional reversion to the
fundamental theme. But The Sellout's musicality is definitely in play.
Which I imagine holds a special appeal for you, in particular.

Yours,
Jerky

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On Sat, Jun 29, 2019 at 11:18 PM Keith Davis <kbob42 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Mark,
>
> Thank you. Great review. I loved this book, too, and because of the things you’ve had to say about, I’m going to read it again, after I finish War and Peace, which I’m reading for the first time, and which is completely amazing.
>
> All the best,
> Keith
>
> Www.keithdavismusic.com
>
> > On Jun 29, 2019, at 11:02 PM, Mark Thibodeau <jerkyleboeuf at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > Thanks to Mark K and all the talk about this book on the P-List, which
> > convinced me to buy this book a couple years ago. I finally read it
> > last week, and WOW.
> >
> > Anyway, here it is...
> >
> > My review of THE SELLOUT
> > A Novel by Paul Beatty
> >
> > I finally finished Paul Beatty’s Man Booker Prize-winning novel, The
> > Sellout, about which I’ve previously stated my belief that it’s even
> > better than the hype campaign behind it has declared. Fortunately,
> > that pretty much holds through all the way to the beautifully (and
> > necessarily) understated denouement and conclusion.
> >
> > So, what’s it all about, then? Well, it’s about a lot of things.
> > Story-wise, it’s about a fellow named “Bonbon” Me, the novel’s
> > protagonist, and his attempts to a) get his home town, a Los Angeles
> > “agrarian ghetto” named Dickens, put back on the map, and b)
> > reintroduce segregation and slavery in said neighborhood (with
> > shockingly counter-intuitive results).
> >
> > But it’s also about so much more. It’s about the sense of community
> > and group consciousness and its loss in the swirl of Late Capitalist
> > atomization, which argues, Thatcher-like, that there’s no such thing,
> > and furthermore there never was. It’s about the rapidly fading memory
> > of the Black California experience of the last half of the 20th
> > century. It asks an incredibly difficult and dangerous question: is it
> > possible that being saddled with a somewhat negative identity is at
> > least better than being denied any sense of identity at all?
> >
> > It’s also about the failures of traditional liberalism and the wanton,
> > contrary stupidity of Black conservatism. It’s about all the ways in
> > which fathers fail sons, men fail women, leaders fail their followers,
> > teachers fail their students… and vice versa. It’s about the
> > simultaneous, paradoxical impossibility-slash-need to forgive the
> > unforgivable sins of America’s unforgettable past. It’s about the
> > problem with history, about which Beatty writes: “we like to think
> > it’s a book – that we can turn the page and move the fuck on. But
> > history isn’t the paper it’s printed on. It’s memory, and memory is
> > time, emotions, and song. History is the things that stay with you.”
> > (P.115)
> >
> > And yet, it’s also one of the funniest goddamn books I’ve ever had the
> > pleasure of reading, ranking somewhere alongside John Kennedy Tool’s
> > Confederacy of Dunces and Howard Stern’s Miss America as being among
> > the tiny handful of books that I had to stop reading because I was
> > laughing so hard, tears blurred my vision. This is thanks in large
> > part to the character of Bonbon’s elderly ward, Hominy Jenkins, former
> > child star and last surviving Little Rascal, whose lifetime of
> > starring in racist Our Gang cartoon shorts have warped his mind to the
> > point where he thinks he’s Bonbon’s slave. Together, the two form a
> > sort of urban Don Quixote and Sancho Panza (Bonbon even eschews
> > motorized vehicles for the most part, choosing to get around town on
> > his trusty horse).
> >
> > Another great source of comedy is the “Dum Dum Donut Intellectuals”
> > club, led by Black conservative thinker, writer, and TV talk show host
> > Foy Cheshire, who took over the club after the death of his nemesis,
> > Bonbon’s father, who—prior to being gunned down by police a few years
> > previous—was both an experimental psychiatrist and the neighborhood
> > (forgive me) “nigger whisperer”, who was often called in by
> > authorities to talk suicidal Black people down from the ledge, or
> > handle hostage negotiations involving people of color, as some of the
> > more “woke” high-ranking officers realized they didn’t have the proper
> > life experience to commiserate with most of these particular cases.
> >
> > And really, I’ve only begun to scratch the surface in terms of the
> > treasures this novel offers the reader. Every page of The Sellout
> > contains a dozen or more wry observations in the vein of mid-career
> > Richard Pryor; stuff like: “If you really think about it, the only
> > thing you absolutely never see in car commercials isn’t Jewish people,
> > homosexuals, or urban Negroes, its traffic.” (P.139) And then there’s
> > the extended sequence in which Bonbon applies to a service that finds
> > sister cities the way dating sites do for those looking to be matched
> > up with a significant other. Upon getting a call back, he finds out
> > that Dickens’ “three sister cities in order of compatibility… are
> > Juarez, Chernobyl, and Kinshasa.” (P.146)
> >
> > The genius of Beatty’s novel feels cumulative, and I’m keenly aware
> > that tiny excerpts aren’t doing the work any justice at all. You’re
> > just going to have to take my word for it that The Sellout is destined
> > to go down as one of the great novels of the 21st century. Or don’t
> > take my word for it. Buy a copy and read it for yourself. Or hell,
> > even go to a library and borrow a copy, if you’re a cheapskate.
> > However you choose to take it in, I promise you won’t regret it.
> > --
> > Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l