In 1955, while visiting family in Mississippi, Emmett Thiel, a 14-year-old black child, spoke a few words to a young female shopkeeper at a grocery store, who then called her husband and another white man, lynched the black teenager, and a few days later the bullet-pierced and mutilated body appeared in the river. In November 2014, Tamir Rice, a 12-year-old black boy, was on a swing in a street park with a toy pistol in his hand when he was shot dead by two white police officers. In August 2014, Michael Brown, a young black man, got into an altercation on the street with a white police officer and was later shot dead by the latter. In 2016, Ferrando Castile, a 32-year-old black man, was driving on the road when he was stopped by police and found to be carrying a firearm after inspection, but was killed by five consecutive shots from police without using it. George Floyd, a 46-year-old black man, was arrested on suspicion of using counterfeit money in May 2020 and was quickly thrown to the ground by a white police officer who knelt on his knees against his neck, and the black man died nine minutes later.
These people's names entered the 2021 National Book Award-winning novel "A Good Book" by black author Jason Murt, and although the author briefly mentions them and does not tell the scene of their killing, it is enough to convey a message to the reader, a message of suffering. To be precise, it is the suffering of black people in the United States, more precisely, the suffering situation of living in the United States as a black person, which involves not only the life and death risks that are often encountered, but also the things that any person's life has to face such as identity, struggle, enterprising, and goals, and as far as black people are concerned, these are so ordinary life contents for ordinary people, but in their case, because of their skin color, they become so confused, and then go to difficulties, or are thrown into the abyss of complete destruction. All of this points to an insoluble question: What is the "blackness" of blacks in the United States?
Written by| Jinhengshan
A heavy gaze on the situation of blacks?
The George Floyd incident in 2020 brought about another climax of the Black Lives Matter movement, which began in 2013. Jason Murt's novel is clearly inspired by the multiple incidents in the United States in recent years in which black people have been violently enforced by police and have lost their lives, and the black protest movement has become a clear background in the novel. On the other hand, the author's focus is not only on the events of the present, the first of which occurred half a century ago, but on thinking about the situation of black people in the United States, especially the causes of their misery, and trying to find the root causes of this occurrence.
The task of presenting this question in the space of a novel is simply too large for the author, for the simple reason that the suffering of blacks in American history, from early slavery to later disenfranchisement and then to the inequality and illegal treatment that they have to face thereafter, is too many and too frequent to be described as too numerous to describe. There have been many literary works on this subject in the past, and in recent years alone, the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize have been awarded to black writers many times. The difference in "A Good Book" is that it is quite difficult to explore the situation of black people from a higher level, to look at the pain of skin color from a more holistic perspective, and at the same time to include the present and history in a narrative. Jason Merter's approach is a combination of fiction and reality, telling simple and condensed stories, two stories that happen together, and at the same time adding a surreal means of description, interspersed with self-mockery, ironic tone and solemn, sad statement, to a certain extent, to complete the deep presentation of the suffering of black people, but also to develop a deep worry about their fate.
American writer Jason Mutter.
The novel begins with a scene with a surreal story, a black family of three suddenly discovers that a ten-year-old boy is missing, and the parents' anxiety is overflowing, when in fact, it is just the invisibility technique performed by the child has an effect, he is in a corner of the house, chanting the words "stealth, stealth" in his heart, and sure enough, a miracle happens, and he disappears in front of his parents. The little boy, hidden in the corner, watched with joy as his parents looked anxiously, listening to their conversations about how to find their son. The beginning of this seemingly comic story actually shows the author's continuation and play on the black literary tradition. Much of contemporary black literature has evolved thanks to the famous black writer Ralph Ellison's novel The Invisible Man, published in 1952 and won the National Book Award the following year, in which the protagonist has no name, and "The Invisible Man" is both his title and his name, and more importantly, it becomes a symbol of the difficult situation of the black man. Since then, the metaphor of the "invisible man" has been appropriated by many black writers, including Nobel laureate Morrison, and the relationship between black people and "invisibility" not only indicates the embarrassment of their life and social status, but also epitomizes the suffering they experience, which comes from history, takes shape in reality, and manifests itself in the present.
"Invisibility" is not only a traditional image in black literature, but also confronts the reality in which black people live. Jason Murt does not give a specific time background for the story in the novel, but the reader can perceive that the story of the little boy takes place in the United States today. Obviously, the author pretends to use this black literary image, on the one hand, to trace the black literary tradition, on the other hand, but also to link history and the present, and the past reality has not changed with time. The reason why the little boy in the story wants to learn the art of stealth is because it is the result of his parents repeatedly teaching him, they tell him that only by learning this technique can he avoid various difficulties, and at a young age, he does not know what suffering means, and hiding in him may be a fun game. But life soon made him understand that stealth did not help him avoid the criticism and pain he encountered in reality, and that stealth actually lost its effect quickly in this situation.
Racist worldview
The author of the novel gave the little boy the nickname: "Black Carbon" because his complexion was as black as char. Because of the special darkness of his complexion, his suffering was even more painful to the bone marrow. On the school bus to school, the author specially designed a plot to make a white boy who was five or three thick humiliate the "black carbon" to the fullest, but at this time the black boy lost his ability to be invisible, no matter how he prayed, he could not see the invisible coming, and could only painfully endure the humiliation of the white boy and the ridicule of other children in the entire carriage. Obviously, the plot here is in stark contrast to the scene at the beginning of the story, and the stealth technique that can be used freely in one's own home is like a waste on this occasion, and the author wants to show the irresistibility of reality. Metaphors in literature may become a means of description, perhaps as imagination to deal with reality, or even more so as a weapon of criticism, but no matter what, reality is still reality, and the different treatment of human nature caused by different skin colors is the basis of reality. The big white boy repeatedly asks the black kid: "Why are you so black?" This is a simple question, but it is also one that touches the depths of the soul, and it breeds disgust, hatred and intolerance, all depending on the color of the skin. This different vision of the body's appearance constitutes a physiological instinctive response for some people, which in turn rises to the emotional likes and dislikes of a person, which is an important way in which racism can occur.
Stills from the movie "Green Book".
Racism due to biological essentialism is really just a high-sounding excuse for some whites, just as Aristotle in ancient Greece attributed black skin color to climatic reasons, and the origin of blacks in the Bible is attributed by some to the curse of Noah, one of the first ancestors of mankind, on his son Hamm, which shows the contempt of one person for another, and its essence is the existence of social class inequality. In ancient Greece, slaves were not regarded as human species, and the descendants of Ham naturally became representatives of the bottom of society. Racism has cemented this inequality, and it has been universally accepted through the symbolic rendering of the color of the body, and in the United States, the color of the color determines the merits of race has become an unwritten universal mark in the eyes of some.
Since the sixties of the last century, after experiencing the strong impact and criticism of the civil rights movement, the view of racial superiority and inferiority in the social level of the United States is like a rat crossing the street, everyone shouts and beats, seems to disappear, but the other treatment of different skin colors has not disappeared since then, but has sneaked into the psychology of some people and has been solidified, once the atmosphere is formed, it will emerge from time to time, and racism is difficult to eliminate, which is an important reason. The novelist's focus on the immense suffering of skin color on black boys seems to be a simple description, but it actually reflects the cause of racism in the United States, and telling about the sense of skin color from the child's point of view, especially the condescending attitude from white boys, illustrates the danger of the essentialization of racism and the distorted degree of human nature associated with it.
On the other hand, the description of the problem of skin color is also a tradition of black literature, and readers can see the influence of skin color on black people themselves from Morrison's first work "The Bluest Eye", "white" represents beauty, and has become a measure of value among some black people, resulting in doubts and denials of themselves. In this novel, Jason Murt also uses this tradition. The little boy's grandfather repeatedly reminded his son to believe in himself before he died, because he had shown a special talent in painting, but the little boy's father hated this extremely much, because his pictures showed a beautiful image of white people, obviously the grandfather's generation was educated in white beauty, and the son's generation has begun to realize the danger of self-denial, but in the face of this problem, all he can teach his son is a kind of invisibility that serves as psychological comfort, This cannot but say that the pain of skin color is an indelible hidden pain and an indescribable pain for these black people.
The novel's use of the black literary tradition as a narrative device reveals the deep impact of racism that is still prevalent in today's reality, and it can be seen that the work confronts some discourses such as "post-race" in American society today, and that the idea that the racial issue has passed after Obama became president is only a naïve imagination. Racism not only exists, but also manifests itself as solidified and essentialized, and at the same time merges with the resurgence of American society in the civil rights movement under Trump, and the novel takes the real-life police shooting of black people as the background, showing the author's deep analysis of reality and a deep criticism of the United States.
The Montgomery Bus Boycott was a milestone in the history of the American civil rights movement. The Montgomery Bus Boycott, which began in late 1955 and lasted for about a year, demonstrated the determination and perseverance of African Americans and others who supported the civil rights movement to resist segregation and social inequality. The Montgomery bus boycott eventually led to a 1956 U.S. Supreme Court ruling ruling that Montgomery's bus segregation laws were unconstitutional.
On the other hand, the idea of "post-racial" does have an impact, which is reflected in another storyline narrated in the novel. The first-person narrator is an author who tells the story of the road show that sells his recent work, which forms another thread of the novel. This clue seems to have nothing to do with the aforementioned story of the black boy "black carbon." This is true from the development of the storyline, but in fact, in the encounter involving black people, especially the solidification of black identity, the two stories refer to each other, giving rise to the so-called "intertextual" relationship in literary theory, and behind this is the same doomed fate associated with black skin color.
This somewhat famous author, according to the arrangement of his agent, appears frequently and has infinite scenery, and the novel's descriptions of these aspects are humorous and sometimes funny, both satirizing the commercialization of the writing market and showing some of the author's own critical thoughts. But it is worth noting that the author did not realize that he was a black man, until he was suddenly mentioned by others on a certain occasion and suddenly woke up. It is in this place that the "post-racial" trend of thought shows some hints. It is clear that the first-person narrator of the status of a writer does not take his black identity seriously, which seems to indicate that the question of race is no longer a topic in this society at this time. Judging by his words and deeds, this idea has at least entered his subconscious. Being admired, cared for, and admired by others hides the difference in skin color, as if the invisibility technique expected by the little boy really worked on him.
Only, all of this was knocked back to its original shape in an instant. Even after realizing his dark skin, this did not affect his publicity campaign for his work much, but what changed was the sudden increase in the author's thinking about black identity and destiny. In addition, in order to make this thinking more targeted, the author of the novel, Jason Murter, specially designed another character, a black boy named "Child", who appeared like a ghost in this author's roadshow, accompanied by him, and disappeared at any time. Ghost images are also common descriptions in black literature, Morrison's masterpiece "The Darling" tells the story of ghosts, and the 2017 National Book Award winner of the National Book Award Jasmine Ward's work "Sing, Unburied Man, Sing" also uses ghost figures, Jason Murt re-uses such images on the one hand to pay homage to tradition, on the other hand, but also because ghost images can largely directly indicate the situation of black people, both in a symbolic sense and in a practical sense. Some blacks are in a state of both presence and absence. Their "presence" is because they cannot be easily eliminated historically, at least for blacks, and their "presence" is because their physical bodies no longer exist and can only appear in the form of ghosts. In this novel, Jason Mert's writer describes the incident in which the "child" was shot dead by the police. Despite some surreal depictions, the brutal fate of blacks in reality is evident through this description, forming the most realistic background along with some of the murders mentioned at the beginning of this article.
Literary criticism and the absurdity of reality
This kind of immediate, authentic background is also used in the stories of young black boys. His father was questioned by the police for no reason just because he went out for a walk at night, and was finally shot for no reason. Jason Mert sketches this indignant and infinitely embarrassing scene in an extremely simplified way. The reason for using minimalist descriptions is because there is no need to play up this familiar occasion too much. The existence of blacks was originally a problem in the eyes of those policemen, and by extension, in seemingly egalitarian societies, such things often occur, indicating that this is not just an incident of police violence, but whether some people are like them in the eyes of others. The existence of black people in such a society is not only a threat to survival, but also ontological confusion, which is the strong sense of reality that this novel wants to tell and face.
Toni Morrison, a famous American female writer. Born in Ohio in 1931, he worked as a senior editor at Random House and later taught at Princeton University and other universities. His representative works include "The Bluest Eye", "Solomon's Song", "The Darling", "Jazz", "Love", "Favor", etc., and has won many awards such as the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, the American Book Critics Association Award, and the National Book Award. In 1993, he won the Nobel Prize in Literature.
It is also at this point that the two stories in the novel end up merging into one. The ghostly "child" is the embodiment of the little boy's "black carbon", and the narrator of the novel continues to use surreal means to describe the "black carbon" expectation of disappearing near the end of the story, for him, only by completely disappearing, disappearing into the crowd, disappearing into the sky, floating in the sky forever, can he avoid the interrogation of the police, can he avoid the erosion of fear, and can he get out of the strange circle of violence. The disappearing imagery merges with the invisibility shown at the beginning of the novel, once again becoming the only way for the little black boy's family to survive. Disappearance is synonymous with being a ghost, and the state of being and not being is both a harsh revelation of reality and a philosophical concern about the survival of black people in the United States. This is why the novel uses surreal descriptions in many places.
From the reader's point of view, such a description may feel too weak, too indulgent in lamentation, and the author is only fantasizing about surreal miracles happening, allowing black people like the "Black Carbon" family to be beyond the mercy of fate. But it is precisely this appeal to the surreal that may more directly reflect the reality of reality, a reality that people cannot face, can only hope to escape, but have nowhere to go. This is a realistic environment, but also a psychological identity, which allows the object of the novel to go beyond a few specific black characters and point to the black whole as a race.
At the end of the novel, the black writer who sells his famous work says to the "child," "You and I are one." The "author", who once thought he was a celebrity, and did not even realize his dark-skinned body for a time, began to realize that, like that "child", they were all on the run, with a sword of fear hanging above their heads all the time, and they were all along the way. Naturally, this is not only the mutual identification between the characters in the novel, but also the recognition of the situation of black people in American society by the author Jason Mert as a black man, and to change their status, it is necessary to touch on the stubborn nature of racism, which is not just something that a literary author can do. But his work offers a glimpse of the reality that racism is still prevalent, and makes the body aware of the suffering that black people have experienced, and still suffer, and the indescribable nature of this suffering, which is enough to keep people alert to the racial problems in American society. This is a big reason why this novel won the award.
Written by/Kim Heng Shan
Editor/Zhu Tianyuan
Proofreader/Janin