Jennifer Jensen Wallach

60. Richard Wright: From Black Boy to World Citizen by Jennifer Jensen Wallach
published: 2010
format: 189-page hardcover
acquired: library read: Dec 10 -13 time reading: 5:13, 1.7 mpp
rating: 3
genre/style: Biography theme: Richard Wright
locations: Mississippi, Memphis, Chicago, New York, Paris
about the author: Chair of the history department at the University of North Texas

An efficient, compressed, easy-to-read biography. (I saw a non-professional review that called it YA, which encouraged me to pick it up because that's exactly what I wanted - an easy but reliable biography. I wouldn't classify it that way, though.)

Richard Wright is the author of [Native Son] and [Black Boy] and will be a 2023 theme for me. He was an independent spirit always. He grew up in Jim Crowe Mississippi, sort of escaped and became communist in Chicago & New York, where he made connections that helped him become a writer. Depression era Communist groups actively tried to be non-racist and attracted a large African American participation. Wright wrote furiously and finally found success with [Uncle Tom's Children], a collection of stories published in 1938. He later became a financially self-sufficient author. Uncomfortable with the racism in New York (and Chicago), he moved to Paris permanently as soon as it was possible after WWII. He notably never settled down. He constantly traveled, changed philosophies, had numerous affairs despite being married with two children. Also he was constantly watched by the FBI and CIA and seems to have had some serious anxiety because that. He had some strange ideas at times. Despite living in Paris and mixing with Parisian cultural life, circulating with Simone de Beauvoir and her milieu, he was distinctly American always. He never really learned French, and, when he traveled the world, saw it always through an American cultural context. This left him very uncomfortable with foreign mindsets and traditions, which he saw as backwards. His two major works, written mainly while he was living in New York, had a profound affect on American and French readers. He was a hero of James Baldwin and other expat and black writers.

The book is clean and does what it promises. Being a sort of rush through his life has at least two negative side-effects. One is that there is no time to really analyze his work or his thinking. The other is that facts outweigh the character. From the facts, we can tell Wright had some personal problems. He had a strong sense of entitlement that both gave me the strength to survive and leave the Jim Crowe south, and that also led him to become a very selfish, abandon his family, and ultimately become an isolated character. Actually he abandoned many things in his life - not just the south, but also Communism and its community, America, and many friendships and other relationships. What is lost in this book is the charm he clearly had, and the power of what he wrote and what it did to his readers. So, it left me with a touch of a bad taste, even though I know this is just an artifact of how the book is designed. That's why I left a nicely-done brief biography with only 3 stars.

I certainly still look forward to his key books. I'm a little weary of some of his later ones, especially his 700-page experiment with existentialism, [The Outsider]. Wright published less over his 13 years in Paris but did not stop writing. He wrote furiously. He died unexpected in 1960, (probably because of a bad medical care) leaving a lot of unpublished work. A lot of that has now been published (Wallach lists six works, including an autobiography and a collection of Haiku. Her list does not include [The Man Who Lived Underground], which wasn't published until 2021.). I'm not sure how much of all these works I will try to read.

Side note: I recognized many of his childhood stories in Mississippi. So I think I must have read all or part of [Black Boy] in high school.

2022
https://www.librarything.com/topic/345047#8001623… (lisätietoja)

"How America Eats" is my first read into the world of food culture, in this instance concentrating on the multi-cultural American experience. I have become interested in my own food journey and its connection to personal health, so a quick look through Kindle revealed this title as a possible place to start.

Author Jennifer Jensen Wallach reviews the evolution of American food choices and habits in this 241-page work, published by Roman and Littlefield in 2013. "How America Eats" includes acknowledgements, an introduction, eight numbered chapters, and notes on sources. The book starts out as a chronological history beginning with the Pilgrims and Virginia colonists; however, the last half of the book is more of a conversation of themes presented in the first half of the book.

The first four chapters describe what the author calls "foodways" in the initial years of the American experiment. Chapter 1, "The Cuisine of Contact" focuses on the initial English colonization efforts in New England and Virginia in the early 17th century and the colonists' interaction with Native American cultures they encounter. Chapter 2, "Food and the Founding", follows the foodways developed by the colonists in the generations leading to our nation's independence. Chapter 3, "Foodways in the Era of Expansion and Immigration" and Chapter 4, "Technology and Taste", follows American foodways development through its contact with foreign cultures found in its immigrants and with the rise of the Industrial Age. Chapter 5, "Gender and the American Appetite", discusses in details themes revealed earlier in the book, in this case the evolution of gender roles in the household due to the rise of industrialism and the wage earner. Chapter 6, "The Pious or Patriotic Stomach", speaks to Americans' perception of food beyond that of mere sustenance, while Chapter 7, "Food Habits and Racial Thinking", looks at American foodways development in light of the many cultures suborned to the American ideal. Chapter 8, "Food and Politics", shows how politics over and extended period has come to impact food choices--voluntary and involuntary. The Notes on Sources section contains references to the many secondary sources used in the writing of the book broken down by chapter. Unfortunately the author does not use footnotes or include a formal bibliography.

This book has been a fascinating read for me, introducing the idea that much of American food culture has been established for quite some time and not necessarily in a healthy way. For example, early in the book Wallach introduces the idea that Native Americans readily accepted the fact that they would be hungry for a time between food source availabilities, while the English colonists could not abide empty larders and stomachs, thus making them vulnerable in times of food shortages. Perhaps that tendency, nutured over time, manifests itself in the epidemic of obesity that dominates this country. Another significant point developed by this author is the concept of food culture imperialism, whereby American culture absorbs native or foreign foodways and assimilates them into the American mainstream without feeling the need to respect the originating culture.

My only gripe with Wallach is scholarship--the lack of footnotes overcomes the detailed Notes on Sources that she provides. Anyone looking to follow in Wallach's footsteps will have some work to do.

Despite that flaw, "How America Eats" is a good place to start studying a significant aspect of American culture.… (lisätietoja)