Read 210 of 2021. The Love Songs of W.E.B Du Bois by Honorée Fanonne Jeffers

Title: The Love Songs of W.E.B Du Bois Author: Honorée Fanonne Jeffers Publisher: Harper ISBN: 978-0062942937 Genre: Literary Fiction, African American Literary Fiction, African American Women’s Fiction
Pages: 816
Source: Publisher
Rating: 5/5

I will always be grateful to Oprah’s Book Club for introducing me to the debut novel of Honorée Fanonne Jeffers. The minute I saw it being picked by Oprah for her book club, I knew I had to read it. A multigenerational saga, with African American history at its core is something I wouldn’t want to miss reading. What I didn’t realize was how attached I would become to the characters, how I would root for some and become their cheerleader, how I would hate some with a vengeance, how I would fall in love with the language, and more than anything else, how I would find parts of myself in this novel.

The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois is more than just a story told through the lens of an African American family. It is so much more than that. It is not just about African history intertwined with contemporary living, but so much more. Jeffers lays it all out, bares her soul, to make us – the readers see what it was and what it still is. This is most marvellously done through the songs and writing of W.E.B Du Bois who is at the center of this magnificent epic.

Ailey Garfield is a headstrong, vulnerable, emotional, and highly intelligent women coming from a long line of women of the Garfield family. This is her story. This is the story of the women of the Garfield family – her mother, her maternal grandmother, great-grandmothers, her sisters, and her ancestors tracing way back to how they became slaves and what happened. It is the story of so many generations and somehow the story sadly is still the same, the one of fight – the one of voicing what is right, the one of standing up against wrong, and yet at the heart of it all there is love. A whole lot of love, that shines through the writing.

Ms. Jeffers’ voice shifts beautifully between times, between the past, the present, and beyond. The narration shifts swiftly to communicate the timbre of the times, the tone, of how it was, and in all of this never losing sight of the family and its struggle.

What I loved the most about the book is how emotional it gets you, and yet all you want to do is turn the pages. And yet there were times I wanted to just keep it down, which I did, and make sense of all the writing and the emotion. The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois is personal, it is political, it is devoid of the constrict of time (though it may not seem that way), and above all it is kind. It is a kind novel. It still preaches that over and over again, no matter what. Ms. Jeffers’ takes on topics that are so difficult and yet have to be talked about – the demonic nature of child abuse, the way relationships can get so messy, about slavery and colorism, about what it feels like to be the only black student and a teacher on campus, about black women who lead the novel and life, of how Ailey confronts tough situations as she goes along life, with help from her family and friends and about history that must not be whitewashed or forgotten. History that runs through the veins of every marginalised folk, in this case the African American people. The Love Songs of W.E.B Du Bois is compelling, gorgeous, stunning, and a read that has to be mandatory for all. Please read it.

Just Us: An American Conversation by Claudia Rankine

Title: Just Us: An American Conversation
Author: Claudia Rankine
Publisher: Allen Lane, Penguin UK
ISBN: 978-0241467107
Genre: Nonfiction, Essays, Black Literature
Pages: 360
Source: Publisher
Rating: 5/5

Just Us is not an instruction manual. It doesn’t tell you how to be, or behave, or cannot even teach you how not to discriminate. What it does is take the discussion of race up by a couple of notches. This book is a book that impacted me deeply with Rankine’s conversations with people about race, her stream of consciousness and thoughts as she encounters people and situations.

Rankine packs so much in one book – poetry, dialogue, illustrations, and lots of footnotes that give not only clarity to the topic but also evokes empathy in the reader. While reading this book I was reminded a lot about Caste by Isabel Wilkerson, though it doesn’t chronicle the history of caste as Wilkerson does, but it does have its roots there.

She also speaks of her white husband and how he views the world she inhabits and is a part of, which is very different and how there are still some differences in his understanding of what she goes through. Rankine’s writing is easy, and candid. Though the book is primarily about colour, it is also most certainly about gender, orientation, appearances, and what it takes to be a writer at large.

Just Us is a book that is not only relevant in the sense of what we should do, but also to reflect on what we have been doing. Rankine writes a book that is for all – irrespective of the country you live in – casual racism is prevalent and is something we cannot deny. Like I said, this book will make you introspect and understand the world better – and hopefully make us change our ways, day by day, evolving as we go along.

Black Buck by Mateo Askaripour

Title: Black Buck
Author: Mateo Askaripour
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
ISBN: 978-0358380887
Genre: Literary Fiction, Satire
Pages: 400
Source: Publisher
Rating: 4 stars

This book is unlike anything I have read in a while, after reading The Sellout. It is farcical, it is biting, and makes you question so much about privilege and class. 

At the same time, it isn’t a laugh-out-loud satire. It takes its time to grow on you. I persisted, and I am glad I did. Black Buck is about what happens when a young unambitious twenty-two year old black tries to emulate a white man.

Darren is happy working at Starbucks, waiting for his opportunity to arrive. That comes in the form of working as a salesman at a start-up company. He is the only Black person in the company, nicknamed, “Buck” because of where he worked earlier (some things just don’t change). And then of course things change, situations develop, and Buck takes charge to change the sales force of America by getting more black people into it.

The racism that exists in corporates these days is so vague, so blended in with the idea of being woke and liberal that sometimes we just cannot see it. Or we think we have but we pacify ourselves with the thought that it doesn’t exist, till we know better and experience otherwise.

Askaripour’s writing is hard-hitting, sometimes sugar-coated with humour bur mostly intending to do what it wants to – hit you where it hurts and it does. I liked the entire breaking of the fourth wall – of the narrator speaking to the reader (highlighting his thoughts – extremely engaging technique), of how the book is written in the form of a sales manual (very clever), and most of all showing us the transformation of Buck, and how it impacts everyone he interacts with.

Black Buck is a book that takes time to get into. More than that, it is a fun read, over the top, and sometimes unrealistic, but please read it keeping all of this in mind. And what Askaripour says in the book, “If you’re not black but have this book in your hands, I want you to think of yourself as an honorary black person.”

The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison

Title: The Bluest Eye
Author: Toni Morrison
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 978-0307278449
Genre: Literary Fiction
Pages: 206
Source: Publisher
Rating: 5/5

I read this book a long time ago. I think it was 2001. It has been nineteen years, and my love for this book only grows with passing time. The Bluest Eye is a book that needs to be read by everyone. It is a book that is most contested, and also banned in schools and colleges in the US of A. It is a book that didn’t shy away from saying what it had to, when it was first published in 1970, and even after 50 years, it says all that it has to and reaches more readers every single day.

The novel takes place in Lorain, Ohio and tells the story of a young African American girl Pecola, who grows up in the years following The Great Depression. She is deemed to be ugly by people around her. She believes it as well. All she wants the bluest of eyes (like the Shirley Temple Doll), which to her is the quality of a “white girl” – the kind of girl everyone loves and adores. And even then, though Pecola is at the heart of this novel, she is the soul of the novel so to say, we as readers will never hear her side of the story. Morrison doesn’t grant us that.

I cannot say anything new about this classic that hasn’t already been said before. It has all been said in 50 years, and more. All narratives have been explored. All angles have been analysed. What remains at the heart of it is a story told that is traumatic, holding a mirror to our society, and showing the dark recesses of human nature.

Toni Morrison never did flinch from telling things the way they were. Yes, The Bluest Eye might make some readers most uncomfortable. But that’s the intent. To feel that discomfort and understand and empathise and see the world differently. Yes, it is about Pecola and her abusive father and her mother who cannot do anything. But that’s the truth Ms. Morrison wanted to bring to fore which she did most candidly – making readers question about beauty, about fitting in, and all of this through an impoverished black girl who just wants to be accepted, and the only way she knows it can happen is by wishing for pretty blue eyes.

The Bluest Eye even when I reread it this month made me look and see at every step of the way – in and out of this book as well. Morrison had said that she wrote The Bluest Eye because she wanted to read it. She makes us aware of children and their lives, their truths and their questions through Pecola and the children who are narrating this story (or have they become adults?). Pecola cannot be shaken, cannot be broken, and as heartbreaking and horrible it is, the only love Pecola seems to have known has come from her abusive father Cholly.

The Bluest Eye makes us see truths that we shy away from. Of how it feels not to be a whole person. Of how it is to know that our cracked selves are just a manifestation of the society we live in. Of how desperately we want the world to look at us differently.

The Bluest Eye to me is about where you come from and where you hope to go. It is all about what you dream about, despite the circumstances, despite what surrounds you, and despite what you look like to the rest of the world (in this case Pecola to the rest of the town and neighbourhood). The Bluest Eye is and will always be a landmark read for me. I will visit it more often than not. Morrison’s debut should be read, and reread, and read some more.