From Whitman's romantic poems to Thomas Pynchon's Black City to Woody Allen's lens language, New York has inspired the aspirations and fantasies of generations of talented artists. Colson Whitehead, who has won the National Book Award, twice won the Pulitzer Prize, and was hailed by the media as "one of the most outstanding living American writers", was born in New York. As early as his first appearance, he presented the super-city with the prose collection "The Colossus of New York". At the beginning of 2022, Century Wenjing launched the Chinese version of "New York Colossus" for the first time in China.
Literary chameleon
In 2016, Whitehead's 16-year-long novel "Underground Railroad" was published and swept the United States, winning the National Book Award at the end of the year and winning the Pulitzer Prize the following year, becoming the only novelist in the twenty-first century to win both of these blockbuster awards with the same novel, and becoming one of the classic writers such as Faulkner, Ann Potter, Malmad, Updike, Walker, and Prue. Whitehead was in the prime of his creative years, unstoppable, followed by the publication of "Nicole Boys" in 2019 and won the Pulitzer Prize again, which was unique in the contemporary American literary scene.
Whitehead
Born in New York in 1969 and raised in the Upper East Side, Whitehead graduated from Harvard University and won the MacArthur Genius Award, the Guggenheim Award, and the Whiteing Writers Award.
In 1999 Whitehead published his debut novel, The Intuitionist, a speculative novel about the elevator inspector that attracted widespread attention and was shortlisted for the PEN/Hemingway Prize.
The second novel, John Henry Day, was shortlisted for the Pulitzer Prize, and Whitehead rewrote the story of John Henry, an American folklore figure of a black slave wielding a hammer and digging tunnels. In a special article in The New Yorker, John Updike praised him as a "gifted writer with free wielding power."
Set against the backdrop of elevated American history, "Underground Railroad" recreates the secret network of virtual reality in history, telling how Cora, a slave girl on a manor, escapes to the free world through the "Underground Railroad". "Nikkor Boy" tells the story of the horrific abuse that occurred in the teenage labor camp in the context of racial segregation in the United States.
Whitehead's work spans so widely and in a variety of styles that Harvard Magazine has called him a "literary chameleon," but he has always been committed to exploring the history of racism in the United States and the shadows that still linger in modern society. At a time of continued racial protest and political crisis in the United States, Whitehead's work has attracted more attention.
The essay collection Colossus of New York takes on a whole new style: it chronicles the multitude of beings in a super-metropolis in a dense and poetic language.
Faces in the crowd
The Colossus of New York consists of thirteen chapters and is also "thirteen ways to see New York." From Port Authority Station to Central Park, from Broadway to the Brooklyn Bridge, the author looks at important landmarks in New York City from an omniscient perspective, or is immersed in the noisy subway or strolls in the embarrassing rain, constantly examining the flowing faces while thinking about the relationship between people and the city.
People come to the city with their own excitement and dreams, chasing dreams here, and enduring the anxiety and exhaustion day after day. They have no name and have a unique association with the city in a certain action or moment.
"Every evening, he followed the same path to the same tree, as if to check if the tree was still in place."
"He was like an outlier fish. Everyone knows how to squeeze the subway, only he doesn't know. ”
"They make a loud noise like pigeons chasing bread crumbs in front of a bench, everyone thinks they deserve more, everyone feels they work harder than others, everyone is right."
Whitehead gazed intently at each of the nameless, revealing in precise brushstrokes the small details of the city that were easy to ignore and the vast meaning hidden behind it. When the crowd drags its ambition and vulnerability, coming and going on the road, their heartbeats are connected to form the heartbeat of the city.
From one face to another, from observation, contemplation to remembrance, Whitehead makes every resident of New York the protagonist of the book, perfectly reproducing the real sound of New York in the ever-changing rhythm of the crowd, while showing the charm of New York. Even in everyday, noisy, pushing scenes, he was able to use poetic language and surprising associations to transform it into an elegant jazz performance, a montage film, a vivid Impressionist painting.
This is also your city
Whitehead's brushstrokes delve into the collective unconscious of the people who once intersected with New York. If a man had lived in New York, the keen observations in the book would have made him smile; if he had never been to the city, New York would have hinted at the world in which he lived, and he could also find in the book the special connection between man and the city in modern society.
"What used to be a coffee shop is now a chain of pharmacies, where you first kiss is now a discounted appliance shop, where you bought your first suit is now a construction site, and a new office building is being built behind a wooden fence."
It's both New York and any metropolis that inspires anxiety and love. The crowd gathered and dissipated, bringing chaos and vitality to the city, and the city was constantly transforming in the flow of people. In his improvised aria, Whitehead expresses his deep attachment and admiration for New York, while also questioning the essential connection between man and the city.
"Maybe one day we realize that New York will continue to exist after we've left, and that day we'll be New Yorkers." Such sorrow and attachment are also buried in the hearts of those who have mixed feelings for Paris, London, Beijing and Shanghai.
Critics believe that although the Colossus of New York is not long, its density is too great to read quickly. Each word deliberately tries to slow the reader's gaze. This "slowing down" is undoubtedly meaningful, allowing the reader to deeply look at the city in which they live, while re-examining their own lives.
Nandu reporter Huang Qian