Juneteenth
1 journaler for this copy...
Will start this weekend.
I'm less than 75 pages into it...its a complex novel that challenges me to know what is going on with the thoughts of the co-progtagonist Senator Sunraider as he lays in a hospital bed fighting for his life. Ellison is "signifying" with the language big time...flipping the script when I least expect it...more to follow as I near completion.
This book is not ready to be released, if ever. It took Ellison 40 years to write it and he died prior to it being published. So the final edit was not graced with Ellison's approval. Out of respect and honor I feel compelled to keep it.
It took me a while to warm up to the story due to the speeches of the 2 main character, one a minister, the other a politician. The minister, Hickman, is African American. The politician, Sunraider, is White (?). The minister has arrived in Wash. D.C. in order to "save" Sunraider from some pending danger intuitively felt by the minister. While giving a rallying speech on the Senate floor, Sunraider is shot. The story unfolds with the minister holding vigil at the hospital bedside of the Senator who is fighting for life. What unfolds are the events that have tied these two together since the Senator was born. Sunraider is not only wrestling with death but with the memories he has buried in order to re-invent himself as a race-baiting Senator. Hickman's love of who Sunraider use to be and what he meant to Hickman is pitted against the disdain of who he has become. The story is told through pensive reflection and memory of both men and through dream like consciousness...with very little dialogue actually exchanged between the two.
Half way through the book I becamed compelled with the tale and the assumptions that Ellison cleverly guises and offers his readers in thinking about democracy, race, and power. Power based on racial myths is a shaky foundation for a democracy. And not facing the truth of it leaves us solely with the hollow facts and the lies we quietly bow to.
It took me a while to warm up to the story due to the speeches of the 2 main character, one a minister, the other a politician. The minister, Hickman, is African American. The politician, Sunraider, is White (?). The minister has arrived in Wash. D.C. in order to "save" Sunraider from some pending danger intuitively felt by the minister. While giving a rallying speech on the Senate floor, Sunraider is shot. The story unfolds with the minister holding vigil at the hospital bedside of the Senator who is fighting for life. What unfolds are the events that have tied these two together since the Senator was born. Sunraider is not only wrestling with death but with the memories he has buried in order to re-invent himself as a race-baiting Senator. Hickman's love of who Sunraider use to be and what he meant to Hickman is pitted against the disdain of who he has become. The story is told through pensive reflection and memory of both men and through dream like consciousness...with very little dialogue actually exchanged between the two.
Half way through the book I becamed compelled with the tale and the assumptions that Ellison cleverly guises and offers his readers in thinking about democracy, race, and power. Power based on racial myths is a shaky foundation for a democracy. And not facing the truth of it leaves us solely with the hollow facts and the lies we quietly bow to.