Kiese Laymon's "Long Division" and Words

While Mitchell S. Jackson's The Residue Years ultimately won the 2014 Ernest J. Gaines Award for Literary Excellence, there were a few books on the short list for the award. One of those books was Kiese Laymon's Long Division (2013), a novel reminiscent, in some ways, to Octavia Butler's Kindred. Laymon's novel ostensibly takes place in 2013; however, characters oscillate between three different years: 2013, 1985, and 1964. The characters' movements through these varying years works to show that we should pay attention to our history and work to understand it; their time travel also highlights that even though things look like they have gotten better, a lot of the same issues still remain, just in varying ways. In this aspect, Laymon's novel treats some of the same themes that Gaines's work does, that of the changing, yet unchanging, times. I wrote about this last week in regards to In My Father's House.

Laymon's focus on language, and the use of it, should be seen as a discussion of the changing, yet unchanging, times. The 2013 section of the novel begins with the narrator City and LaVander Peeler preparing for a national contest entitled "Can You Use That Word in a Sentence," a contest that started "after states in the Deep South, Midwest, and Southwest complained that the Scripps Spelling Bee was geographically biased" (7). The judges give contestants a word, and the contestants must provide "correct sentence usage, appropriateness, and dynamism" to advance (7). The contest presents an interesting scene because while it supposedly represents those who do not have representation at the spelling bee, it ultimately just parades African Americans, Mexicans, and others in front of a national audience to essentially, as Billy says in Gaines's novel, to give lip service to change while not necessarily adhering to it.  

Part of that change relates to words and language as well. Throughout the novel, the usage and role of specific words gets discussed. Typically, the discussion centers around derogatory words that cause hurt and pain when spoken or written.  When City gets called in to the principal's office at the beginning of the novel, he ruminates on why Ms. Reeves summoned him there. He concludes that LaVander Peeler told her that City "called him a 'nigger'--not'nigga,' 'negroid,' 'Negro,' 'African American,' or 'colored'" (13). I do not want to get into too much detail about the novel, but the "er" at the end of the word above struck me, especially when thinking about it in relation to what happens at the conclusion of the novel when LaVander asks a chained up white man to spell the word. The man spells it with an "er," and LaVander simply replies, "All things considered, I don't think that's right" (252).

City deduces that LaVander turned him in because earlier someone turned LaVander in for calling City a "faggot." After the incident, LaVander began to use the term "homosexual" when taunting City "because he knew Principal Reeves couldn't punish him for using that word without seeming like she thought there was something wrong with being homosexual in the first place" (13). City muses about other derogatory words as well and their semiotic meanings. Ultimately, I think that these thoughts about the role of words, their meanings, and the way the power they have to construct and form people's perceptions of others is partly at the heart of Laymon's novel. Words, and even the correct usage of words, becomes a way that the past remains the same, as I mentioned earlier.

This discussion can be summed up by briefly discussing the "Can You Use That Word in a Sentence" finals. City gets eliminated on the word "niggardly." City provides a sentence that attacks the judges and the system they are perpetuating, using the word colloquially. He says, "I truly hate LaBander Veeler sometimes more than some of y'all hate President Obama and I wonder if LaBander Veeler should behave like the exceptional African-American boy he was groomed to be by his UPS-working father, or the, um, weird, brilliant, niggardly joker he really is when we're the only ones watching" (38). City's sentence gets him eliminated because the term means "stingy, cheap," and he does not use it in that way. Now, when providing a suitable example of the word, the judges highlight the power of language and how, without even referring to the color of the woman being spoken about, they perpetuate stereotypes even when using the term correctly. Their sentence is, "Perspiration covered the children who stared incessantly at the woman in the head wrap since she insisted on being so niggardly with the succulent plums and melons" (38). The sentence oozes with stereotypes by referring to the woman in a "head wrap" who protects her "plums and melons." City knows the word provided a catch 22, and as he leaves the stage, he extols, "I mean, even if I used the word right, I still would've lost" before he goes on a vociferous tirade where he calls out the judges and the audience on their fears (38).

This post barely touches on the role of language and semiotics in Laymon's novel, but I hope it provides a little glimpse into the way we use words and how they have an effect on people. If you haven't already done so, I would strongly suggest picking up a copy of Laymon's essays How to Slowly Kill Yourself and Others in America (2013). (The title essay can be found here.) They are excellent, and extremely reminiscent of James Baldwin and Richard Wright.

Laymon, Kiese. Long Division. Chicago: Bolden, 2013. Print.

"The Tenant" in Gaines's "In My Father's House"

There are varying things I could discuss for today's post in regards to In My Father's House (1978). However, I think for right now I just want to focus on a stylistic element of the novel that caught my attention on this read through. Specifically, I became intrigued by the elements of mystery and suspense that permeate the first parts of the novel but also continue through until the end of the novel. These elements appear in relation to the mysterious character who knocks on Virginia Colar's door on a rainy, winter night.

The stranger knocks on Virginia's door, and when she opens it, she sees "a thin, brown-skinned young man standing before her in a wet overcoat" with a "scraggly beard" and "Army field cap" asking if she has any rooms available (3). Virginia questions whether or not she should entertain providing a room for the young man, but her conscience overcomes her because she does not know where else he will go. Even though by-law the white motel should accept him, she knows that they will not do it. After agreeing to rent a room out to the man, he provides Virginia with some information. He tells her he is from Chicago, and she doesn't believe him. He tells her his name, Robert X, and she thinks about which group of people use "X" for their last name. At this point, Virginia again questions her decision to let Robert stay, but she acquiesces by continuing to wonder where else he will go.

From the opening scene, we, as readers, are left asking who Robert X is and why he has come to St. Adrienne. People see him walking through town at all hours of the night, Virginia hears him screaming in his sleep, and he stands out in the cold and rain in various spots throughout the community. All of this arouses suspicion among St. Adrienne's inhabitants, causing them to continually ask why Robert X has come to town. Robert tells them that he came to St. Adrienne to attend a men's conference and to meet a man. Robert X's appearance creates a sense of mystery at the beginning of the novel, and the continued lack of references to him by the name of Robert X throughout the first few chapters adds to this. We learn his supposed name on the third page of the novel, but after that initial introduction, he becomes referred to as "the tenant" by the novel's narrator.

When Elijah meets Robert on the street in chapter two, the men begin to talk. Every time Robert speaks, "the tenant" or "he" follows the verbal words. The act of referring to Robert not by the name he provides but by a generic term such as "tenant" essentially erases his agency at this point of the story because the narrator does not even acknowledge that Robert has a name, even it is not his given name. What does this do? If we think about the rest of the novel, the erasure of Robert's agency plays in to the struggles of Robert/Etienne in the text. He fails to protect his sister, and he fails, ultimately, to accomplish his mission in St. Adrienne. The "tenant" does not act, he only causes people to question.

More could be said here, but right now I'm not completely sure what I could say. What are your thoughts on this topic? Why is it important that he only becomes "the tenant" and not Robert X or Etienne at these early stages? Let me know in the comments below.

Gaines, Ernest J. In My Father's House. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1978. Print.

Gaines's "In My Father's House" and the Changing Times

Unfortunately, Gaines's 1978 novel In My Father's House is not one of his works that gets read very often in the classroom. In light of recent events throughout our country from Ferguson to Baltimore, In My Father's House should be read with an eye reflecting back on what happened during the Civil Rights Movement and with an eye towards what has occurred since then. The novel focuses on the "generational gaps" between fathers and sons created by the legacy of slavery, Jim Crow, and racial oppression in the United States over that past four hundred years. This is something Gaines mentions throughout his oeuvre, and it shows up in A Lesson Before Dying when Matthew Antoine talks to Grant about teaching the children in the quarters: "You'll see that it'll take more than five and a half months to wipe away--peel--scrape away the blanket of ignorance that has been plastered and replastered over those brains in the past 300 years" (64).

In My Father's House begin with Etienne/Robert X returning to St. Adrienne to confront his absent father turned Civil Rights leader Philip Martin. Initially, the narrative focuses on the mysterious character of Etienne who arrives in town on a rainy night during the winter. Once there, his behavior causes the community to question who he is, why he is there, and why he acts the way he does. They find out that his appearance in St. Adrienne has to do with Philip Martin. Martin is Etienne's father, in name only. Etienne comes to St. Adrienne to kill Martin because he feels that Martin has neglected him, his siblings, and his mother. After this revelation, the narrative shifts to focus on Martin and his struggles to mend the gap between Etienne and himself as he struggles to confront his past and maintain his leadership of the movement in St. Adrienne. While this is only a brief summary of the novel, it provides you with an indication of the novel's focus on mending the gaps created by the abominable institution of slavery in this country.

The novel shows, as does other post-Civil Rights novels by Gaines, that the strides made during the mid-twentieth century in regards to voting rights and other actions caused a shift in the forms of subjugation from legally sanctioned Jim Crow to other forms of containment. Billy, a young man that Martin picks up while driving around Baton Rouge, expresses these thoughts in his discussions with Martin. Billy explains that even though strides have been made in regards to Civil Rights things remain the same, if not worse. Speaking on this, he tells Martin,

Niggers can vote. Vote for what? Voting can't fill your belly when you hungry. Another nigger sit up there in the capital. Doing what? Another one go up to Washington. For what? They put another couple on television to broadcast news--them the changes you talking about? I'm talking about changes that keep white men from coming into South Baton Rouge and shooting down our people. If it happen, we pick up guns, we pick up torches, and we hit back. That's the changes I want to see. (163-164)

Billy embodies the feelings, I would argue, of the Black Power and Black Arts Movements. Even with strides in regards to things like voting rights, the situation remained the same. According to Billy, there may be some "token" African Americans in government and on television, but that does not accomplish anything according to Billy. He goes on to speak about the changes occurring in regards to agriculture and how those changes affect the people's relationship with the hegemonic system that works to keep them down. He says, "Go over all this place--empty fields, empty houses, empty roads. Where the people used to be--nothing. Machines. Every time they build another machine that takes work from the people, they hire another hundred cops to keep the people quiet" (168). Since they cannot work the land, the African American population Billy speaks of either left or remained struggled to find employment. While the sharecropping system worked to maintain control of the community, with that gone, what remained? For Billy, "cops" became the system's answer to maintaining "quiet."

Billy vocally espouses his beliefs, but in A Gathering of Old Men, the same ideas provide an undercurrent at the end of the novel. As the men wait at Marshall Plantation for Fix to arrive and lynch someone, the old men do not get the opportunity to stand up to him. Instead, they confront Luke Will, a new representation of racism and subjugation that contrasts with Gil and Cal in the novel. Discussing the anticlimactic nature of the novel, Gaines told Mary Ellen Doyle in 1983, "So Fix's kind of vigilante vengeance is dying out, but there will be the new Luke Will type. The Luke Wills are in the police department. Fix is seventy or eighty and can't shoot straight, but Luke will do it for him" (168-169). The "separate but equal" segregation of Fix and Jim Crow may not exist anymore, and because of this, Luke Will's form of subjugation does.

I could not help but think about recent events while reading In My Father's House, specifically when reading Billy and Philip's conversation in the car. Gaines's post-Civil Rights novels deals with these issues, sometimes subtly and sometimes overtly. In light of the incidents that have been occurring throughout the nation, we need to read Gaines in conversation with them because he provides us with insight into how the events in northern, urban cities affect people in southern, rural places like St. Raphael Parish. What are your thoughts? What are other aspects of Gaines are relevant to recent events? Share in the comments below and make sure you check out and add to the Baltimore Syllabus for resources regarding the events in Baltimore.

Doyle, Mary Ellen, S.C.N. "A MELUS Interview: Ernest J. Gaines--'Other Things to Write About.'" Conversations withe Ernest Gaines. Ed. John Lowe. Jackson: University of Mississippi Press, 1995. 149-171. Print.
Gaines, Ernest J. In My Father's House. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1978. Print.