Here is the book I am grappling with today. Other than his intro, it's excerpts from lit critics closer to the material, but in frustratingly short segments. Thoughts are provoked here and there, nonetheless. And the cover is Romaine Brooks' painting, La Baronne D'Emile D'Erlanger, ca. 1924. Et chat.
Dorothy Allison: " (As a dedicated politico of the era...) Flirting and sex had nothing to do with writing, however, nothing to do with remaking the world. ...But everything is connected, Bertha Harris announced to us at the opening of one of her classes, and 'Literature is not made by good girls.' ..."
A reminder that things have changed, that so many very recent cultural shifts are taken for granted too easily now.
I read a fantasy story about Stonewall that was very good until it kicked me out with a character saying something I never heard before the new millenium and certainly not in the early 70s. I grant that we all had less exposure to speech patterns from other places back in the day, but I was exposed regularly to all types of NY and east coast speakers, especially African American. My friend who grew up in Harlem in the 50s and went to school in Da Bronx, as she says, did not hear it either.
Colloquialisms, especially swearing and epithets are dangerous in historical stories. I finished it anyway, and it was good, but the magic had dissipated...
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