Cane by Jean Toomer (100 best novels of all time .TXT) 📕
Description
Published in 1923, Jean Toomer’s Cane was widely heralded as one of the first masterpieces of the Harlem Renaissance, and its author as “a bright morning star” 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 Anderson’s 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 Toomer’s 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: “I love it passionately, could not possibly exist without it.”
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- Author: Jean Toomer
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Lewis: And he rules over—
Kabnis: Th smoke an fire of th forge.
Lewis: Black Vulcan? I wouldnt say so. That forehead. Great woolly beard. Those eyes. A mute John the Baptist of a new religion—or a tongue-tied shadow of an old.
Kabnis: His tongue is tied all right, an I can vouch f that.
Lewis: Has he never talked to you?
Halsey: Kabnis wont give him a chance.
He laughs. The girls laugh. Kabnis winces.
Lewis: What do you call him?
Halsey: Father.
Lewis: Good. Father what?
Kabnis: Father of hell.
Halsey: Father’s th only name we have fer him. Come on. Lets sit down an get t th pleasure of the evenin.
Lewis: Father John it is from now on …
Slave boy whom some Christian mistress taught to read the Bible. Black man who saw Jesus in the ricefields, and began preaching to his people. Moses- and Christ-words used for songs. Dead blind father of a muted folk who feel their way upward to a life that crushes or absorbs them. (Speak, Father!) Suppose your eyes could see, old man. (The years hold hands. O Sing!) Suppose your lips …
Halsey, does he never talk?
Halsey: Na. But sometimes. Only seldom. Mumbles. Sis says he talks—
Kabnis: I’ve heard him talk.
Halsey: First I’ve ever heard of it. You dont give him a chance. Sis says she’s made out several words, mostly one—an like as not cause it was “sin.”
Kabnis: All those old fogies stutter about sin.
Cora laughs in a loose sort of way. She is a tall, thin, mulatto woman. Her eyes are deep-set behind a pointed nose. Her hair is coarse and bushy. Seeing that Stella also is restless, she takes her arm and the two women move towards the table. They slip into chairs. Halsey follows and lights the lamp. He lays out a pack of cards. Stella sorts them as if telling fortunes. She is a beautifully proportioned, large-eyed, brown-skin girl. Except for the twisted line of her mouth when she smiles or laughs, there is about her no suggestion of the life she’s been through. Kabnis, with great mock-solemnity, goes to the corner, takes down the robe, and dons it. He is a curious spectacle, acting a part, yet very real. He joins the others at the table. They are used to him. Lewis is surprised. He laughs. Kabnis shrinks and then glares at him with a furtive hatred. Halsey, bringing out a bottle of corn licker, pours drinks.
Halsey: Come on, Lewis. Come on, you fellers. Heres lookin at y.
Then, as if suddenly recalling something, he jerks away from the table and starts towards the steps.
Kabnis: Where y goin, Halsey?
Halsey: Where? Where y think? That oak beam in th wagon—
Kabnis: Come ere. Come ere. Sit down. What in hell’s wrong with you fellers? You with your wagon. Lewis with his Father John. This aint th time fer foolin with wagons. Daytime’s bad enough f that. Ere, sit down. Ere, Lewis, you too sit down. Have a drink. Thats right. Drink corn licker, love th girls, an listen t th old man mumblin sin.
There seems to be no good-time spirit to the party. Something in the air is too tense and deep for that. Lewis, seated now so that his eyes rest upon the old man, merges with his source and lets the pain and beauty of the South meet him there. White faces, pain-pollen, settle downward through a cane-sweet mist and touch the ovaries of yellow flowers. Cotton-bolls bloom, droop. Black roots twist in a parched red soil beneath a blazing sky. Magnolias, fragrant, a trifle futile, lovely, far off … His eyelids close. A force begins to heave and rise … Stella is serious, reminiscent.
Stella: Usall is brought up t hate sin worse than death—
Kabnis: An then before you have y eyes half open, youre made t love it if y want t live.
Stella: Us never—
Kabnis: Oh, I know your story: that old prim bastard over yonder, an then old Calvert’s office—
Stella: It wasnt them—
Kabnis: I know. They put y out of church, an then I guess th preacher came around an asked f some. But thats your body. Now me—
Halsey (passing him the bottle): All right, kid, we believe y. Here, take another. Wheres Clover, Stel?
Stella: You know how Jim is when he’s just out th swamp. Done up in shine an wouldnt let her come. Said he’d bust her head open if she went out.
Kabnis: Dont see why he doesnt stay over with Laura, where he belongs.
Stella: Ask him, an I reckon he’ll tell y. More than you want.
Halsey: Th nigger hates th sight of a black woman worse than death. Sorry t mix y up this way, Lewis. But y see how tis.
Lewis’ skin is tight and glowing over the fine bones of his face. His lips tremble. His nostrils quiver. The others notice this and smile knowingly at each other. Drinks and smokes are passed around. They pay no neverminds to him. A real party is being worked up. Then Lewis opens his eyes and looks at them. Their smiles disperse in hot-cold tremors. Kabnis chokes his laugh. It sputters, gurgles. His eyes flicker and turn away. He tries to pass the thing off by taking a long drink which he makes considerable fuss over. He is drawn back to Lewis. Seeing Lewis’ gaze still upon him, he scowls.
Kabnis: Whatsha lookin at me for? Y want t know who I am? Well, I’m Ralph Kabnis—lot of good its
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