Word: books
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...mumbling of wild men saddled by demons. That's a good thing to remember when you're reading Yellow Back Radio Broke-Down. because it will save you the trouble of having to come to that conclusion on your own and then wondering where to go from there. The book is a junkyard for the left-over bits and pieces of American myths that couldn't quite be worked into The System; interesting how you often learn more about people from the stuff they throw away than from what they admit to keeping. Ishmael Reed has taken assorted scraps...
WHICH WOULD be fine if the book meekly promised to make its points according to some set up we've all seen before. A hip sermon maybe, railing against whatever the author feels up to taking on, or a straight allegory with an easy one-to-one correspondence between the symbols and what they represent, or even a clever satire with the edge precisely sharpened on some well-turned witticisms. But in this book, you never know what's going to come up next. One minute you're riding along, pleased with yourself for having figured out the subtleties hidden...
...know much about Ishmael Reed, but from reading his book. I imagine he'd make an incredibly good drunk. His writing is like that, sky high and reeling along, everything just enough out of focus so that you get the feeling he's tilted the whole world a few degrees his way and he's letting you in on what he sees. What you see and what you don't is up to your imagination. Reed has a lot to say about what he thinks this country has been up to in the past 200 years...
...ROUGHSHOD book, and it probably won't get to you much unless the back of your mind happens to resemble Reed's. He's having a good time taking a look at the same things CBS documentaries look at, without the pain of having to take it seriously. You'll find your own way of dealing with the book, but try not to think too hard about what he's got to say; enjoy the images he puts you on to, and the pictures that get conjured up in your head. You'll like it a lot more that...
...woman in the visitors' center was eager. She asked us to sign the guest book ("one of you is enough-or the group name") and spread a pamphlet's map out in front of the signer. We all watched while she whipped her pencil past three important houses ("They're closed now, but you can look in the windows."), quickly pointed out other important places, and started flipping through another book. She said that the other book explained everything and cost only a dollar. One of us naively asked why the "three important houses" were important, only to find...