Category: race
- Frankie and Johnny Were SweetheartsJazz a novel by Toni Morrison. Plume/Penguin. 229 pp. $11.95 As I move chronologically through Toni Morrison’s fiction and arrive at her sixth novel, I’ve come to various conclusions: I think of her as a Southern writer. Actually, she grew up on Lorain, Ohio, and never lived in the South. (Lorain, as she describes it in the ...Read more
- Beyond GreatBeloved a novel by Toni Morrison. Vintage. 324 pp. $16.00. ***** I’ve been asking myself lately what literary greatness is, and how it comes about. Does the artist actually see and understand more than the rest of us, or does she just put it into words better? Back in the old days we talked about writers ...Read more
- Lives of Men and WomenTar Baby a novel by Toni Morrison. Plume. 306 pp. $10.95 The set-up of Tar Baby is brilliant, one of the most brilliant thing about it. Valerian and Margaret Street live six months every year in a beautiful house on an island in the Caribbean. She is his second wife, a trophy wife, we suspect, but ...Read more
- What’s In a Name?Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison. Plume. 337 pp. I wrote some weeks ago that I didn’t think Toni Morrison became a great novelist with Song of Solomon; she was great from the start. Song of Solomon was nevertheless a definite step forward, with a larger theme, a richer backdrop, and a more complicated story than ...Read more
- Lives of Girls and WomenThe Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison. Vintage. 206 pp. $14.95. Sula by Toni Morrison. Vintage. 174 pp. $15.00 After seeing the marvelous documentary, Toni Morrison: The Pieces I Am at the Full Frame Documentary Film Festival, I immediately decided that, though I’d read four of her novels in the past, I wanted to sit down and read ...Read more
- Better Than I ExpectedThe Upside. A film by Neil Burger. With Kevin Hart, Bryan Cranston, Nicole Kidman, Julianna Margulies. **** I went to this movie because I hadn’t been to the movies for a while, I was looking for something not too heavy, and I had seen the trailer any number of times, of Kevin Hart looking after a ...Read more
- They Got ChemistryGreen Book a film by Peter Farrelly. With Viggo Mortensen, Mahershala Ali, Linda Cardellini. ****1/2 I understand why critics like A.O. Scott might be reluctant to praise Green Book. It’s filled with so many racial and ethnic stereotypes that it’s almost embarrassing. The audience is often dying to laugh but not sure they should. When you’ve ...Read more
- Yes ButWidows a film by Steve McQueen. With Viola Davis, Michelle Rodriguez, Elizabeth Debicki, Carrie Coon, Liam Neeson. ****1/2 Widows is a movie that is deeply satisfying emotionally and aesthetically without—as far as I’m concerned—making a hell of a lot of sense. Veronica (Viola Davis) is the wife of a career criminal named Harry Rawlings (Liam Neeson), ...Read more
- There Was a WarGrant by Ron Chernow. Penguin Press. 1074 pp. $40.00. ***** A friend of mine once told a story about General Patton, that after he died he asked St. Peter to take him back in history and show him the greatest general who ever lived. St. Peter agreed, and they traveled back in time to a small ...Read more
- You’ve Just Paid the Artist a Wonderful ComplimentNow Go to Hell I wrote recently about Samuel R. Delany’s Dark Reflections, a novel in which Delany seems completely present, but has given himself another life. Instead of being a science fiction writer, Arnold Hawley is a poet. Instead of living in New York and teaching at Temple, he lives in New York and teaches ...Read more
- Full and StarvingHunger: A Memoir of (My) Body by Roxane Gay. Harper Perennial. 306 pp. $16.99. **** I’ll never look at a fat person the same way again. I use the word fat because that’s the word Roxane Gay uses; in fact she insists on it. She doesn’t like the euphemisms for her situation. She tells it like it ...Read more
- Portrait of the Artist as a Befuddled Old ManDark Reflections by Samuel R. Delany. Carroll & Graf. 295 pp. $15.95. ***** There’s nobody quite like Samuel R. Delany, and every now and then I have to read one of his books, often one I’ve read before (this is either my third or fourth time with Dark Reflections). He had an early career as a ...Read more
- But Who’s Counting?A Brief History of Seven Killings a novel by Marlon James. Riverhead Books. 688 pp. $17.00. **** I don’t know quite what to say about this novel, which I seem to have lived with for half my life (probably six weeks or so). It’s a massive novel about gangs in Jamaica, also the CIA in Jamaica, ...Read more
- Who Rolled this Joint?BlackkKlansman a film by Spike Lee. With John David Washington, Adam Driver, Topher Grace. *** I seem to be a minority of one, but I found this movie a major disappointment, perhaps because of my high expectations. I’m a Spike Lee fan from way back—Do the Right Thing is an old favorite—and I was looking forward ...Read more
- Arf ArfIsle of Dogs a film by Wes Anderson. With (among many others) Bryan Cranston, Koyu Rankin, Edward Norton, Greta Gerwig, Frances McDormand. ***** My friend Sally (whom I seem to be mentioning all the time here) recently wrote me the following sentence in an e-mail: “I was trying to think of books, current and always current, ...Read more
- Movies Movies MoviesFull Frame Documentary Film Festival 2018 My Lineup: The Issue of Mr. O’Dell/ Lovers of the Night; The Farm: Angola, USA;RBG; Owned: A Tale of Two Americas; 306 Hollywood; Three Identical Strangers; Las Nubes/Thy Kingdom Come; The Unafraid; Crime & Punishment. There comes a time when even the great ones have to hang up their spikes, or—before ...Read more
- No But I Read the ComicBlack Panther a film by Ryan Congler. With Chadwick Boseman, Michael B. Jordan, Lupita Nyong’o, Danai Gurira. **** I hate comic book movies, and almost never go to them. I don’t like movies with super heroes, and people with spectacular special powers. I don’t enjoy the special effects of modern movies, and get tired of preview ...Read more
- Bitch on Wheels Careens out of ControlThree Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, a film by Martin McDonagh. With Frances McDormand, Sam Rockwell, Woody Harrelson, Lucas Hedges. ****1/2 If I could sue a trailer for false advertising, I would sue the one I saw for Three Billboards Outside of Ebbing Missouri, which seems to promise a hilarious comedy in which Frances McDormand releases her ...Read more
- They Couldn’t Just Run Off in Her Prius?Victoria and Abdul a film by Stephen Frears. With Judi Dench, Ali Fazal, Tim Pigott-Smith, Eddie Izzard. *** I found this movie captivating. The story of an unlikely friendship between an aging Queen Victoria (Judy Dench) and an Indian servant named Abdul (Ali Fayal), it shows the lonely old woman—who has let herself go to the ...Read more
- Bake a Motherfucking Cake as Fast as You CanPatti Cake$ a film by Geremy Jasper. With Danielle Macdonald, Bridgette Everett, Cathy Moriarity, Siddharth Dhanajay, Mamoudou Athie. **** I should admit up front that I’m not a rap fan. I’ve tried—my nephew once made me a tape of rap’s greatest hits—but I couldn’t get into it. I like the rhythm at first, and the whole ...Read more
Recent Evening Mind Posts
Dogen for the MassesWeird From the Get GoTwo MasterpiecesMary, Erica, MirandaUntil the End
View Other Essays by Topic
aging (121)American literature (218)art (114)Buddhism (170)Christianity (125)creative process (249)death and dying (139)meditation (124)movies (161)music (36)race (106)religion (188)sex (172)spirituality (171)the art of narrative (255)Uncategorized (20)world literature (23)
Print
Dogen for the MassesWeird From the Get GoTwo MasterpiecesMary, Erica, MirandaUntil the End
View Other Essays by Topic
aging (121)American literature (218)art (114)Buddhism (170)Christianity (125)creative process (249)death and dying (139)meditation (124)movies (161)music (36)race (106)religion (188)sex (172)spirituality (171)the art of narrative (255)Uncategorized (20)world literature (23)