Cane by Jean Toomer (100 best novels of all time .TXT) ๐
Description
Published in 1923, Jean Toomerโs Cane was widely heralded as one of the first masterpieces of the Harlem Renaissance, and its author as โa bright morning starโ of the movement. Toomer himself, however, was reluctant to embrace an explicitly racialized identity, preferring to define himself as simply an American writer.
Inspired in part by Sherwood Andersonโs short story cycle Winesburg, Ohio, Toomer conceived Cane as a mosaic of intricately connected vignettes, poems, stories, songs, and even play-like dialogues. Drawing on both modernist poetry and African-American spirituals, Toomer imbues each form with a lyrical and often experimental sensibility.
The work is structured in three distinct but unnamed parts. The first is set in rural Georgia and focuses on the lives of women and the men who desire them. The second part moves to the urban enclaves of the North in the years following the Great Migration. The third and final part returns to the rural South and explores the interactions between African-Americans from the North and those living in the South.
Although sales languished in the later years of Toomerโs life, the book was reissued after his death and rediscovered by a new generation of American writers. Alice Walker described Cane as one of the most important books in her own development as a writer: โI love it passionately, could not possibly exist without it.โ
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- Author: Jean Toomer
Read book online ยซCane by Jean Toomer (100 best novels of all time .TXT) ๐ยป. Author - Jean Toomer
They know that the pink-faced people have no part in what they feel. Their instinct leads them away from Art and Helen, and towards the big uniformed black man who opens and closes the gilded exit door. The cloakroom girl is tolerant of their impatience over such trivial things as wraps. And slightly superior. As the black man swings the door for them, his eyes are knowing. Too many couples have passed out, flushed and fidgety, for him not to know. The chill air is a shock to Paul. A strange thing happens. He sees the Gardens purple, as if he were way off. And a spot is in the purple. The spot comes furiously towards him. Face of the black man. It leers. It smiles sweetly like a childโs. Paul leaves Bona and darts back so quickly that he doesnt give the doorman a chance to open. He swings in. Stops. Before the huge bulk of the Negro.
โYoure wrong.โ
โYassur.โ
โBrother, youre wrong.โ
โI came back to tell you, to shake your hand, and tell you that you are wrong. That something beautiful is going to happen. That the Gardens are purple like a bed of roses would be at dusk. That I came into the Gardens, into life in the Gardens with one whom I did not know. That I danced with her, and did not know her. That I felt passion, contempt and passion for her whom I did not know. That I thought of her. That my thoughts were matches thrown into a dark window. And all the while the Gardens were purple like a bed of roses would be at dusk. I came back to tell you, brother, that white faces are petals of roses. That dark faces are petals of dusk. That I am going out and gather petals. That I am going out and know her whom I brought here with me to these Gardens which are purple like a bed of roses would be at dusk.โ
Paul and the black man shook hands.
When he reached the spot where they had been standing, Bona was gone.
Ralph Kabnis, propped in his bed, tries to read. To read himself to sleep. An oil lamp on a chair near his elbow burns unsteadily. The cabin room is spaced fantastically about it. Whitewashed hearth and chimney, black with sooty saw-teeth. Ceiling, patterned by the fringed globe of the lamp. The walls, unpainted, are seasoned a rosin yellow. And cracks between the boards are black. These cracks are the lips the night winds use for whispering. Night winds in Georgia are vagrant poets, whispering. Kabnis, against his will, lets his book slip down, and listens to them. The warm whiteness of his bed, the lamplight, do not protect him from the weird chill of their song:
White-manโs land.
Niggers, sing.
Burn, bear black children
Till poor rivers bring
Rest, and sweet glory
In Camp Ground.
Kabnisโ thin hair is streaked on the pillow. His hand strokes the slim silk of his mustache. His thumb, pressed under his chin, seems to be trying to give squareness and projection to it. Brown eyes stare from a lemon face. Moisture gathers beneath his armpits. He slides down beneath the cover, seeking release.
Kabnis: Near me. Now. Whoever you are, my warm glowing sweetheart, do not think that the face that rests beside you is the real Kabnis. Ralph Kabnis is a dream. And dreams are faces with large eyes and weak chins and broad brows that get smashed by the fists of square faces. The body of the world is bull-necked. A dream is a soft face that fits uncertainly upon itโ โโ โฆ God, if I could develop that in words. Give what I know a bull-neck and a heaving body, all would go well with me, wouldnt it, sweetheart? If I could feel that I came to the South to face it. If I, the dream (not what is weak and afraid in me) could become the face of the South. How my lips would sing for it, my songs being the lips of its soul. Soul. Soul hell. There aint no such thing. What in hell was that?
A rat had run across the thin boards of the ceiling. Kabnis thrusts his head out from the covers. Through the cracks, a powdery faded red dust sprays down on him. Dust of slave-fields, dried, scatteredโ โโ โฆ No use to read. Christ, if he only could drink himself to sleep. Something as sure as fate was going to happen. He couldnt stand this thing much longer. A hen, perched on a shelf in the adjoining room begins to tread. Her nails scrape the soft wood. Her feathers ruffle.
โGet out of that, you egg-laying bitch.โ
Kabnis hurls a slipper against the wall. The hen flies from her perch and cackles as if a skunk were after her.
โNow cut out that racket or Iโll wring your neck for you.โ
Answering cackles arise in the chicken yard.
โWhy in Christโs hell cant you leave me alone? Damn it, I wish your cackle would choke you. Choke every motherโs son of them in this Godforsaken hole. Go away. By God Iโll wring your neck for you if you dont. Hell of a mess Iโve got in: even the poultry is hostile. Go way. Go way. By God, Iโllโ โโ โฆโ
Kabnis jumps from his bed.
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