#BlackHistoryMonth Unbound
FEBRUARY
33. 
by Tarana Burke (no photo)
Finish date: 24 February 2022
Genre: memoir
Rating: B
Good news: #MeToo Movement: The movement was started in 2006 by a Black activist named Tarana Burke. Initially, the movement was focused on women of color….and their experiences with sexual violence. In 2017, white women began using the phrase as a hashtag. Their embrace caused the movement to gain a great deal of prominence This is Ms Burke’s story…
Personal: To quote the author just sums up the core message: “When you’ve experienced trauma, it fundamentally destroys part of you. But that doesn’t mean that what you create from those pieces isn’t a beautiful thing.” I must admit….this was a difficult book to read. To Ms Burke’s credit who is a survivor of sexual assault herself, she has made it her mission with the #MeToo Movement, to find a way to let other women know that they were not alone. Intense…and unapologetically frank…fearless memoir that I probably never would have read…but it is a way to challenge myself to learn who Tarana Burke is and why she is a survivor. Ms Burke was one of the TIME’S persons of the year: The Silence Breakers.
#BlackHistoryMonth Caribbean literature
30.
by 
Finish date: 22 February 2022
Genre: novel
Rating: B-
Review:
Good news: Narrator: Gertrude Samphire (70+) Historical timeline: pre-independence Jamaica (Aug 6 1962) right up to recent years. Timeline: 2-3 years –> Gertrude’s years in the retirement center. Structure: Chapters alternate between present time with ‘flashback” moments. Genre: Bildungsroman….but in the opposite direction!
Theme: abandonment.
Personal: Gertrude looks back…to the past…in her memories of her gloomy childhood, impetuous marriage, and struggles with raising a family. She keeps a journal that is filled with insight and dry humour…and takes the book beyond the everyday experience. Gertrude has seen too much,…heard too much and …lived through too much.
#BlackHistoryMonth Lynn Nottage
Jessica, Tracey and Cynthia
FEBRUARY
23. 
by 
Lynn Nottage
Finish date: 21 February 2022
Genre: Play
Rating: A++++++++
Review:
Good news: Structure: Now this was a real puzzle! Act 1 and Act 2 start the first scene in 2008…then the rest of the act is a flashback to 2000. Act 2 does end with 2 scenes in 2008 to give the play a feeling of closure, bookends the last scenes with the same characters that started the play: Chris, Jason and their parole officer, Evan. You get the feeling that these 2 young men are just out of prison for ….what? Read the play! Every time I read a play I learn more information that helps me read novels. Study one genre….and learn more about another!
Good news: Dialogue: We get a realist picture of life in a factory town…this is a “slice of life” play. The location reminded me of the Pennsylvania town depicted in the movie Deer Hunter . I always like to put faces on names….and in the play Sweat I could use some of the characters from that movie to breath life into the characters! Oh, I must watch that movie again!
Good news Location: Ms Nottage selected one of the poorest towns in USA in 2017 as the backdrop of the play: Reading, Pennsylvania. We walk into a blue-collar industrial town bar…a place where the factory workers would congregate.
Good News: Writing style: Ingenious how Ms Nottage creates two worlds: inside the bar, the lives of the characters and outside the bar by introducing the “radio news” before each scene. You can just picture barflies hanging over their beer listening to things that are beyond their home grown troubles (Wall Street Bailout, Bush administration, Obama-McCain debate).
Good news: Social commentary: this play had everything that would push the buttons of working class folks: black promoted to management, factory moves jobs to Mexico, union puts a headlock on the workers and wages are going to be slashed.
Good news: Characters: are from ethnic backgrounds including 6 men and 3 women. There is a deep feeling of racially-related disagreements that destroy friendships and turn into violent conflicts.
Personal After reading this play I was so impressed by Ms Nottage. She won the Pulitzer Prize twice in 2009 for Ruined and in 2017 for Sweat and she thoroughly deserved these accolades! While reading Sweat I had to remember a poem by Y. Komunyakaa Fog Galleon The poet describes the return to a industrial hometown USA. in just a few words he summed up what I felt after reading this play:
The whole town smells like the world’s oldest anger…..that turns workers into pulp.
#BlackHistoryMonth James Baldwin
FEBRUARY
28. 
by 
James Baldwin
Finish date: 20 February 2022
Genre: Non-fiction
Rating:
Review: A
Bad news: The second half of the book was very political and dense. I do remember the Black Panther Party and Angela Davis vaguely…but reading about it now, it felt so far away. But at the time JB was writing this book….there was a fresh black political movement that was awakening and for the times…very thrilling for some …and very threatening for others.
Good news: The first halve of the book was a very personal story about James Baldwin’s life. It just drew me into the book and at times I felt JB just siting here talking to me.
Good news: Excellent writing…and many insights made by JB in 1972…still ring true today. There are hard truths about the lives of black people in America. The doctrine of white supremacy which still controls most white people is a delusion. People who cling to their delusions find it difficult, if not impossible to learn anything worth learning. To be born black in America is an immediate, a mortal challenge. (G. Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, Briana Taylor, Duante Wright) Note: 18.02.2022 Kim Potter (ex-policewoman, Minnesota) will serve 16 months for killing a black teenager, Duante Wright…while in Tennessee Pamela Moses was sentenced to 6 years for trying to register to vote while on probation.
Personal: Any book by James Baldwin IMO is electric. There is a lot to absorb. I was struck by some his words written made 50 years ago: — People who treat other people as less than human must not be surprised when the bread they have cast on the waters comes floating back to him, poisoned. (pg 191) — The Western party is over, and the white man’s sun has set. Period. (pg 196) Captivating…when JB tells us in 1971 that …when the black man’s mind is no longer controlled by the white man’s fantasies…a new balance begins to make itself felt. (pg 189)
#WorthYourReadingTime
#Play No Man’s Land
FEBRUARY
??. 
by 
Harold Pinter
Finish date: 15 February 2022
Genre: Play
Rating: B
Review:
Good news: Two ageing writers: Hirst is a wealthy but crippled by his memories
…early stages of dementia. Spooner re-invents himself from memory as he goes along. The two old men reminisce about cottages they may have had. Pinter mocks social privilege of the upper class in England The lively conversation soon turns into a revealing power game. when two servants, Briggs and Foster enter the room. The relationships among these men are exposed, with trouble and hilarity. It’s a bleak, disturbing, small, intense and bitter play also very funny!
Good news: Style: Witty banter; awkward pauses (intentional to “wake up the audience”.
Language is used as a weapon. Memory…or lack of is not just as a dramatic device ….but as a key to understanding of the play. Title and end of play: No Man’s Land (reference to dementia)
Personal:
Strong point: this play whose dialogue is ‘fueled with alcohol’
It will make you laugh….and touch a heart string.
Strong point: Language is a like a cross-word puzzle…at times confusing.
Weak point: it must be seen on stage…and preferably with
…great actors like McKellen and Stewart!
What did I learn by reading this play?
Literary device: subtext
Pinter, however, preferred to focus on the subtext and tension beneath dialogue.
Example subtext in No Man’s Land:
Spooner asks Hirst if he often hangs “around Hampstead Heath”
and the pub Jack Straw’s Castle.
Both are notorious for homosexual activity in the 1960s and ‘70s.
Something one might miss…but this subtext is there.
#Short stories James Salter
JANUARY
27. 
by 
James Salter
Finish date: 10 February 2022
Genre: short stories (10)
Rating: F
Review:
Bad news: I read the first story…if this is the quality for the next 9 stories…I’ll finish this book very soon. I’ll give Salter 1 or 2 more stories the chance to convince me he is worth reading. Last Night presents a bleak picture of people whose lives have lost moral focus. Bah.
Bad news: James Salter is a John Updike wanna be. He tries to imitate Updike …without success. Themes: middle-class or upper-middle-class couples – Marriage – divorce – treatment of adultery – from to dinner-party to bedroom conversations.
Bad news: Stories are ‘padded’ with one-note dialogue reminiscent of Abbot & Costello routine “Who’s of first? What’s on second? I don’t know is on third…characters are stuck in a looping!
Good News: ….the stories are very short.
#Classic Macbeth
MARCH
??. 
by 
William Shakespeare
Finish date: February 14 2022
Genre: Play
Rating: A++++++
Review:
Good news: I celebrate Black History Month 2022 not only in books but also honoring IMO the best black actor ever: Denzel Washington. He’s charisma and originality shows he’s mastery and talent. When I watch a Denzel movie I can’t but watch it again. His presence holds so much attention and focus.
Good news: What an impressive play…when you read the text and WATCH the movie version by Joel Coen! Denzel Washington and Frances McDormand are magnificent. At times director Coen adjusts the play for a movie storyboard effect. In Act 1 Coen interweaves scene 4 and 5. So, if you’re reading the play while watching…you’ve been warned!
Good news: Classic play that I will have to read again. There is so much in Shakespeare’s play that I cannot absorb in one sitting.
Personal: The black and white visuals in the movie are mesmerizing in its simplicity. Act 5, 6 when Malcolm says: “Now near enough: your leafy screens throw down.” When you see this in the movie the words come alive! Don’t forget the three witches…so impressed with their spookiness!
Bravo Joel Coen….3 Oscar nominations:
Best Actor – Best Production Design – Best Cinematography!
#Spring is just around the corner…
- Spring is just around the corner….in my house!
- #BeatTheBacklog
- Reading and watching Thomas Becket by J. Guy
- John Adams by David McCullough.
#Short stories Redeployment
24.
by 
Phil KlayFinish date: 8 February 2022
Genre: Short Stories (12)
Rating: A+++++
Review:
Bad news: If you enjoy a SHORT story you can read in a few minutes….this is not your book!
50% = 6 VERY long short stories….but it is worth your readng time!
Bad news: NO glossary for terms often used in the military.
Bad news: Writing style…not my cup to tea. (first three stories…
Stories I would describe as helmet-cam fiction…jolting, graphic and dialogue is an alphabet soup of abbreviations, acronyms and brevity codes:
CASEVAC (casualties evacuation) – SITREP (situation report) – EOD (explosive Ordnance Disposal) – TQ (tertiary care surgical ) – UXO (unexploded ordnance) – FOB (forward operating base) – DFAC (the dining facility) – HUMINT (human intelligence)
Good news: Phil Klay’s intention was to build realism into his stories. He describes a leader and his decision making (narrator, the Sergeant) and gives us a taste of warfare at the platoon and squad level.
Good news: Klay tries to keep his book balanced. There are “touchy-feely” stories in which the reader can understand and empathize with the wants and/or needs of soldiers returning from combat. Klay uses scenes about letters from home while in boot camp, homecoming after a 7 month tour in Iraq, wife with tear streaked cheeks and a devoted Labrador to create impressive storytelling.
Good news: Just to give you an idea what the book is about…
Redeployment: Flight home….soldier remembers military operation…homecoming.
First story filled with shock and emotion….this is the hook to keep the reader reading.
I don’t know if I could take more of this type of raw fiction. It is not strange that so many soldiers suffer from PTDS.
Frago: (fragmentary order need to change an order) Urgent situation ….all torture, blood and guts It felt like I was watching a soldier’s body cam.
After Action Report: Soldier is guilt ridden after killing an the enemy.
Bodies: – soldier comes home and realizes he’s lost the love of his high-school sweetheart
….he redeploys and is moving on with life in the marines.
OIF: (code name for Iraqi war) – alphabet soup…just awful…filled with military abbreviations ad nauseam.
Money as a Weapons System: -long..indicating the idiotic attempts to change Iraq!
In Vietnam They Had Whores: – title speaks for itself
Prayer in the Furnace: best story!!
Psychological Operations: – soldier is back to school after deployment….too long, very anti climatic after pages and pages of war….not very interesting.
War Stories: – soldier tells friends what he’s been through (they want to know)..but no one really understands.
Unless It’s a Sucking Chest Wound: post Marines…now in law school
Ten Kliks South: soldier’s first kill…dog tags and a wedding ring. Story gave me goosebumps…so impressive.
Personal: It’s always hard to read about war and the crushing effect it has on the soldiers. I always have to force myself to open books like Redeployment.
It was a tough walk through all these stories. I will never forget this book when I watch the news about troops in a warzone. The last story Ten Kliks South …dogtags and a wedding ring. Story gave me goosebumps…so impressive. I needed a Heineken to numb my senses from the awful consequences of war. This book deserves ALL the prizes it has won…and then some.
#VeryVeryImpressed
#BlackHistoryMonth2022 Big White Fog
FEBRUARY
23. 
by Theodore Ward (no photo)
Finish date: 11 February 2022
Genre: Play
Rating: D
Review:
Bad news: This play was described as one of the most
powerful African American plays on the 1930s. So why didn’t I like it?
Act 1 – too slow, no real set up for emerging conflict…just introduction to characters.
Act 2 – scene 2,3 finally explode in race/family conflict, inter-black prejudice…but it is too little too late for this reader. Yes I noticed themes in 1938…are still relevant today….blacks cut off from opportunity: Vic’s son Les: his scholarship cancelled b/c of skin color but that was not enough to create an emotional connection to the play as…I had with Raisin in the Sun (Lorraine Hanesberry)
Act 3 -…just fizzles out.
Good news: Interested in African American drama? There are better plays to read.
Raisin in the Sun (Lorraine Hansberry)
Fences (August Wilson)
#WorthYourReadingTime
Personal: The play was relevant in its time (depression era)..offering an exact record of its times. But it was a somber, depressing play. Weak point: There was a constant heavy-handed leftist rhetoric, tone. Vic is Marcus Garvey follower, Pizer (Jewish student, friend of his son Les) promotes socialism. Weak point: The play occasionally shows its age: the family’s horror at the elder daughter’s prostituting herself to a white man seems overdone…and the climax is melodramatic. (Act 2:2,3) Strong emotional appeal with characters shouting and and threatening each other (Vic vs mother-in-law and wife) Weak point: covering a 10-year span from 1922 to 1932 In Act 3 there is a 8,5 year jump, too far to feel like a compact “problem play”. Probably the play needs to be seen on stage…and not read in bed at 10 pm. The sparks that must fly between Vic, Ella, Martha, Dan….that would salvage this story.
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