2010 Reading #3: Passing
Jan. 6th, 2010 12:10 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
snurri1. Young Adult Novel by Daniel Pinkwater
2. Avilion by Robert Holdstock.
3. Passing by Nella Larsen (Reread). I am finding it difficult to talk about this book, because it says so very much all on its own. I first read it probably twenty years ago, for my first English course in college; at the time I had never even heard of the Harlem Renaissance, let alone of passing. The title, for those unaware, refers to the practice--rare now, I suspect--of some light-skinned blacks of "passing" as whites; Clare is passing, and Irene is not. This is an anxious novel, concerned not just with race but with class and gender. Irene's fears for herself--of losing her husband and her comfortable middle-class life--are tangled up with her fears that Clare's secret will be discovered by her bigoted husband. The prose is a reflection of Irene's state of mind; controlled, but struggling to conceal outrage and frustration. A justified classic.
2. Avilion by Robert Holdstock.
3. Passing by Nella Larsen (Reread). I am finding it difficult to talk about this book, because it says so very much all on its own. I first read it probably twenty years ago, for my first English course in college; at the time I had never even heard of the Harlem Renaissance, let alone of passing. The title, for those unaware, refers to the practice--rare now, I suspect--of some light-skinned blacks of "passing" as whites; Clare is passing, and Irene is not. This is an anxious novel, concerned not just with race but with class and gender. Irene's fears for herself--of losing her husband and her comfortable middle-class life--are tangled up with her fears that Clare's secret will be discovered by her bigoted husband. The prose is a reflection of Irene's state of mind; controlled, but struggling to conceal outrage and frustration. A justified classic.