First impressions of Kindred

From the little bit of the book that we have read, I once again see Kindred as a different kind of novel from the previous ones that we have read. I am starting to really enjoy this because the genres of postmodernism and history as fiction are in all of the books we have read but at the same time they are all radically different. Ragtime was more like a history book narration without much emotion shown by the narrator. Mumbo Jumbo was the exact opposite with the author often interjecting. Slaughterhouse-Five was even more different yet with a self evident, self deprecating narrator. Kindred is more of a traditional novel in my opinion. We have the elements that postmodernism is built on (with the time travel sci-fi and the historical fiction) but at the same time it follows traditional story telling. Also, there aren't many instances where you could jump out and say that something is historically inaccurate. Obviously Dana never time traveled but what I mean is that the historical aspect of Kindred is more in the setting than the events. In Mumbo Jumbo, Ragtime, and Slaughterhouse-Five we have specific events that we can dispute factually but Kindred's storyline strays away from this criticism. In this sense, Kindred is most like Slaughterhouse-Five because it is about fictional characters in a real setting (also the time travel bit).
Another way that Kindred is like more traditional stories is the actual plot. I have seen a few movies and TV shows where a character time travels and has to deal with ancestors or a time era that directly involves their existence. Unfortunately the only show that comes to mind at the moment is an episode of Family Guy in which Peter goes back in time and does things that make his kids not exist anymore but the storyline is a very familier one, unlike the other books we have read.
Overal, as all of the books we have read, I look forward to a change of pace.

So it goes...

As I was discussing in my previous blog post, Vonnegut does something in Slaughterhouse-Five that has raised a lot of varied responses from out class. I am referring to his repetition of "so it goes" every single time that somebody in the book dies. Some people thought that this was very annoying, and it was a pet peeve of theirs. Others said that they found it to be callous and disrespectful (a view that I disagree with wholeheartedly). I think this occurrence in the novel deserves much more analysis.
The most obvious way to frame this comment at the death of every one is to look at it through the view of Tralfamadorian philosophy. It goes very well with the whole viewpoint that death is not an earth shattering event but rather just a moment on everyones timeline. When someone dies physically they never actually die because of the memories and experiences they have created for others. Saying "so it goes'' at the end of each death could be viewed as making the reader focus less on the actual death an more on the rest of that persons lives; it serves as a tool to put death in to perspective. By definition it has to happen to EVERYONE so why not just come to grips with it.
I certainly see this argument as playing a huge role in why Vonnegut chooses to write this at the end of each death. I see another aspect to it as well; a very chilling one. Every time Vonnegut wrote "so it goes", I almost got goosebumps because of how scary that really is. It reminds me of how final life is and that it will happen to everyone, and not in a huge dramatic sequence but more in the form of a whimper. I see this as a man that has seen so much death trying to cope with it, and that in itself voids the disrespectful argument invalid.

Slaughterhouse-Five

My first impressions of this book are a huge sigh of relief. After reading Mumbo Jumbo I have to say that this style of clear sentence structure will not be taken for granted. I can truly say that I enjoy reading this book. It's topic is one of very serious ramifications but at the same time Vonnegut mixes in humor which I appreciate. One thing I did notice is the repetition of things in the novel. When ever Vonnegut wrote "I am Yon Yonsin from Wisconsin" I was immediately sent back into the novel Fight Club in the way that the narrator often repeats "I am Jacks ____". Along with this comes the "So it goes" every time somebody dies.
Vonnegut's connection with history is very interesting. On the very cover page there is a veritable cornucopia of contradiction. He goes straight from talking about the validity of his novels to UFO's. The narrator seems to want to represent the war as truly as he can but does not want to make any claims of 100% accuracy. This puts Vonnegut in a comfortable position because nobody is going to be questioning every word he writes but at the same time the novel will have much more weight than a normal work of fiction; "he was there". I also want to note the strange way that Vonnegut keeps on saying the novel that we are reading is crappy and a flop. It is very strange to read about the very book you are reading as being an enormous failure when you know for a fact that it is not. These various things about the book have me very excited to read on, and I hope that it lives up to it's introduction.

Postmodernism strikes again...

After finishing Mumbo Jumbo I had a pretty big moment of clairvoyance. My first blog post was all about how confused I was by the book and all of it's small anachronisms, spelling "errors", and general non clear writing style. Now obviously, the book didn't remain an extremely confusing bunch of mumbo jumbo and I did get used to the writing style. The chapters about the egyptian story were especially an example of when I was fully grasping the things the books were saying. Anyways, the moment of clairvoyance that I had was that all of this was confusion and non traditionalism was quite intentional and an absolutely perfect example of postmodernism; I term I have strangely neglected to describe Mumbo Jumbo as up until now. But it all makes sense, from the first page Reed breaks all of the rules. Mumbo Jumbo is in every way a postmodernist novel. He doesn't use "proper" english, he doesn't spell out numbers instead using characters, and even when recreating a historical event he doesn't change the voice of the people who seem to talk in the same exact way that everyone else in the book talks. Another example of how non modernist this book is can be seen in the random pictures strewn about the novel. Some of which can be drawn to some relation to the text but most of which have no apparent relation whatsoever. This is heavily reinforced for me because in the first edition of the book, all of the pictures are completely different, which leads me to believe that the pictures don't hold too much meaning within them. Everything that Reed does seems to be postmodern because everything he does is not at all what would be expected of a novel. Mumbo Jumbo does not follow any of the rules that we have set for novels.

Mumbo Jumbo is a bunch of mumbo jumbo to me

I'm going to be honest here, the first part of Mumbo Jumbo by Ishmael Reed has been quite confusing to me. The reason for this may just be that my reading level is not as high as I once thought or just that we went straight from reading Ragtime to this book. Ragtime was about as clear cut a book can get. There weren't many points where I was confused as to what was actually happening in the narrative because it was written in a very clear, history book kind of voice. 
Mumbo Jumbo on the other hand starts out with the first chapter on the first page. Sounds reasonable enough but I really mean the first page; before all of the publication information which comes right after the first chapter. I don't know why this through me off but it did. Along with Reed's use of numbers. He often, but not always, replaces the word one with the character 1. Even when he isn't referring to the number one (which ideally would still be typed out). I always thought this writing style was something that was born with the age of computers and the instant gratification of texting (and texting abbreviations); but this book was published in 1972. 
I know these little alterations have no actual impact on the information being conveyed but it was these little things that made me do a double take and frankly annoyed me. Every book I have ever read was different than this so it is hard to suddenly switch. Hopefully I have an easier time with the rest of the book now that I am used to this style of writing.

What's the difference between Fiction and History?????

I have only really thought about this question thrice really hard in my life. Once at the beginning of this class, the second time in class today, and the third time tonight. Firstly I would like to say that before this class I would have balked at that question. History and fiction are opposites right?! Well, not so much. While I definitely do not hold a viewpoint of history that states it to be almost the same as fiction like some people in class, I definitely think the differences are worth discussion. Now to the first time I thought about the question really intensely. In class, on what I believe was the first day, this was the prompt. When I first heard it I thought AH, easy. But when you actually start writing, it's a pretty tough topic. I mean, what really is the difference? It's hard to define! So many of the things that I believe to be history are simply just that. Things that I believe to be as history. They are just stories that I have been told and that I have accepted at face value. I am by no means trivialising the work that historians have done to collect evidence and first person accounts of historical events and compile them into an understandable story for the masses but on that same note, the only thing I have ever seen is the story. The basis of my trust in these stories is that I believe the history books to be peer reviewed and I wouldn't believe my teachers would knowingly lie to me. I guess what I am saying is that history needs to be taken with a grain of salt. You always have to remember that history is not fact; it is simply what we believe to be fact. This is immensely complicated and I haven't even scratched the surface of fictions role in all of this.
On that first prompt day, I said that fiction is anything it wants to be. It can follow historical evidence to the tee or go completely wild and have no bounds to anything historical. I can't say that This changed at all for me. I still believe that to be my best definition of fiction. Now to relate fiction to history, that's a whole different ball game.
There are many different ways that fiction and history are intertwined. Most all of the settings and events of fictional novels are somewhat based on historical evidence. Rarely will you find a novel where everything is made up and if it is, some of the themes will surely be borrowed from history. That's just natural, history gives us as a people a definition. On that same token, a lot of history is fiction as well. What I mean by that is the way history is conveyed involves fiction. Anyone can drone on and one about the boring facts and dates about history but at the end of the day, that's all they will be; facts and dates. What makes history real to us is the story behind it. The dialogue and the emotion that is by definition fictional. Historical reenactments are by no means completely accurate and contain a ton of fictional aspects to them. While history is important, the things that will stick out in my mind are the fictionalized lines like "let them eat cake!".

Panel Presentation!

Before anything, I would like to say how amazing that first round of panel presentations were. Everyone seemed to be an expert on their particular article and engaged the class the whole time. You guys really made me nervous for my panel presentation.

Anyways, I would like to respond to the first panel presentation on the article by Bernot Ortenderf. This was the article that was somewhat overtly making fun of Cushing Strout. The main point from this panel presentation that really stuck out in my mind was the one involving Scott Joplin and how analogous he really is to Coalhouse Walker. The story of how Scott Joplin wrote an opera was discussed and to give a brief overview: Scott Joplin wrote an opera that he was very proud of. The problem was that people of the time couldn't accept the fact that a black person had written an opera. That just wasn't cool in their minds. So no matter how hard Joplin tried, he couldn't get anyone to show his opera. This frustration is very palpable in Coalhouse Walker as well.

The scene that draws this perfect parallel for me is when Walker is playing music for the family and father makes the crass remark of asking Coalhouse to play some of those Coon songs. You can almost feel the gasp as Walker explains that "coon" songs are played by white people in black face; he didn't play that kind of music. You can sense in Walkers demeanor that he wants to break stereotypes and boundaries. He drives a ford, he is respectable, and he even goes so far as to ask for legal recourse for vandalism (I mean that with as little sarcasm to be conveyed as possible). Coalhouse Walker may be based on a character from another novel, but it seems to me that Doctrow drew a few too many parallels with Joplin to be ignored. This is all so wonderfully wrapped up when the newspaper couldn't find a picture of Walker so they just printed one of Joplin; basically the same thing, right?