"The times were fantastic in a way that was beyond his imagination. Principles had become meaningless in the universal social ferment, yet leaders of the people still talked as if principles were the same principles." (137)
"People must amuse themselves to keep from going insane." (47)
-- Universal truths from Amiable with Big Teeth
I was familiar with Claude McKay as a poet, sociologist, and figure from the Harlem Renaissance, but this 1941 novel, rejected by his publisher and unpublished during his lifetime, was a surprise when I stumbled upon it at Faulkner House Books. A political satire of pinpoint accuracy, it is sharply focused on a very specific place and time: Harlem in the 1930s, in the wake of the Italian invasion of Ethiopia, when the efforts of black Americans at self-determination and global solidarity are subverted by larger, uncaring forces: in this case, embodied in the Communist party.
Which makes it sound like a heavy slog, and it does contain some speechifying about Trotskyism and other hot-button issues of its time, but it was a lively read, with a lot of finely-defined characters, romances that go in unexpected directions (including an interracial marriage), and period detail at sites from churches to taverns (one of them a gay bar!) where "they're still existing in the hectic speakeasy past and they can't realize that something is rotten with the world" (71). I'm tempted to use the advertising language of "not your grandparents' 1930s," but of course, it is, as it was.
Ethiopian envoy Lij Tekla Alamaya comes to the US on a PR/fundraising mission to help his country, and the upper crust of Harlem society embraces him, in an upswelling of interest in self-determination and global solidarity. His efforts are derailed, however, by backstage backbiting and petty power politics, largely orchestrated by the local Communist Party, which hopes to convert the same base of "Aframerican" people (McKay's consistent term) for their own ends.
It's interesting that, writing in 1941, when people were pressured to take particular sides, McKay was already writing that "the Fascists, Nazis and Communists all believed in and practiced a ruthless dictatorship over the peoples" (76). He's also already talking about "neo-liberals," who "advocated that Aframericans should surrender the right to think and act as a group" (136). The complications of expediency versus integrity are surprisingly contemporary. The black groups working to aid Ethiopia are pressured to join larger white groups, and told that any separation "will give the whites the justification for maintaining barriers against Aframericans" (30) -- although equal pressure isn't put on white spaces to equally include black citizens.
It's also very of-the-moment that people are frustrated with politics because in it, "human life to you is like playing a game of cards which you aim to win by hook or crook" (141-142).
Side note: during Alamaya's flirtation with Seraphine Peixota, the beautiful daughter of a Harlem power player, the following exchange takes place:
"This is lovely, but you should have a valet to pack your things and all that."
"Oh, your father had one ready for me, but I didn't need him. What's the use of a valet in a hotel? To lace my shoes and give me my hat? I still want to feel that I can use my hands. So I let him go."
"I don't think you should. That was a job for somebody, and there's a lot of agitation about the scarcity of jobs in Harlem." (102)
This is totally the story of Matthew and Molesley from the first season of Downton Abbey, when the middle-class heir is pressured into having a valet to lace his shoes, because otherwise someone is out of a job! One wouldn't have thought these guys would have much in common, but there you go.
McKay's Home to Harlem is definitely on my list now, if not yet on my list. Things change, so it might still turn up there!
McKay, Claude. Amiable with Big Teeth. New York: Penguin, 2018.
"People must amuse themselves to keep from going insane." (47)
-- Universal truths from Amiable with Big Teeth
I was familiar with Claude McKay as a poet, sociologist, and figure from the Harlem Renaissance, but this 1941 novel, rejected by his publisher and unpublished during his lifetime, was a surprise when I stumbled upon it at Faulkner House Books. A political satire of pinpoint accuracy, it is sharply focused on a very specific place and time: Harlem in the 1930s, in the wake of the Italian invasion of Ethiopia, when the efforts of black Americans at self-determination and global solidarity are subverted by larger, uncaring forces: in this case, embodied in the Communist party.
Which makes it sound like a heavy slog, and it does contain some speechifying about Trotskyism and other hot-button issues of its time, but it was a lively read, with a lot of finely-defined characters, romances that go in unexpected directions (including an interracial marriage), and period detail at sites from churches to taverns (one of them a gay bar!) where "they're still existing in the hectic speakeasy past and they can't realize that something is rotten with the world" (71). I'm tempted to use the advertising language of "not your grandparents' 1930s," but of course, it is, as it was.
Ethiopian envoy Lij Tekla Alamaya comes to the US on a PR/fundraising mission to help his country, and the upper crust of Harlem society embraces him, in an upswelling of interest in self-determination and global solidarity. His efforts are derailed, however, by backstage backbiting and petty power politics, largely orchestrated by the local Communist Party, which hopes to convert the same base of "Aframerican" people (McKay's consistent term) for their own ends.
It's interesting that, writing in 1941, when people were pressured to take particular sides, McKay was already writing that "the Fascists, Nazis and Communists all believed in and practiced a ruthless dictatorship over the peoples" (76). He's also already talking about "neo-liberals," who "advocated that Aframericans should surrender the right to think and act as a group" (136). The complications of expediency versus integrity are surprisingly contemporary. The black groups working to aid Ethiopia are pressured to join larger white groups, and told that any separation "will give the whites the justification for maintaining barriers against Aframericans" (30) -- although equal pressure isn't put on white spaces to equally include black citizens.
It's also very of-the-moment that people are frustrated with politics because in it, "human life to you is like playing a game of cards which you aim to win by hook or crook" (141-142).
Side note: during Alamaya's flirtation with Seraphine Peixota, the beautiful daughter of a Harlem power player, the following exchange takes place:
"This is lovely, but you should have a valet to pack your things and all that."
"Oh, your father had one ready for me, but I didn't need him. What's the use of a valet in a hotel? To lace my shoes and give me my hat? I still want to feel that I can use my hands. So I let him go."
"I don't think you should. That was a job for somebody, and there's a lot of agitation about the scarcity of jobs in Harlem." (102)
This is totally the story of Matthew and Molesley from the first season of Downton Abbey, when the middle-class heir is pressured into having a valet to lace his shoes, because otherwise someone is out of a job! One wouldn't have thought these guys would have much in common, but there you go.
McKay's Home to Harlem is definitely on my list now, if not yet on my list. Things change, so it might still turn up there!
McKay, Claude. Amiable with Big Teeth. New York: Penguin, 2018.
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