Black, Red and White

I was quietly excited after receiving Gramophone's call yesterday afternoon. Lungs by Florence + The Machine was finally in stock. I think the expressions I wore when I first heard it on the iTunes store must have appeared quite comical. Really, the digital album's 30-second previews were the first pieces of good music I had tasted in a long time. But that is quite understandable, I think. One reason would be how recent focus on coursework has been noticeably denying my ears of their privileges. Another reason would be how paying $20 dollars for a pack of empty DVD-rewritables would actually give you better music compared to the pop-junk that sit on the shelves these days. So I went down to collect it this morning after Discipleship class. And finally, on the train ride to Bugis, I got my chance to start reading I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou. Which is really the point of this post.

I don't know if it's just me, but I just couldn't quite appreciate Angelou's writing. The physical novel is roughly the same size as that of Paddy Clarke, same font, same thickness of cover - same publisher, but clearly has a completely different appeal altogether. I was honestly quite disappointed, but I'm not sure why. Maybe it was because I was unconsciously looking forward to reading it somehow.

Actually, a better reason would be how I've been quite smothered by black literature (or just novels concerning black culture) this year. On top of Caged Bird, I have to soak up the genius behind the famous Huck Finn, and the infamous Color Purple. In a nutshell, one could say that all three books create an impression of black culture intended to rectify culturally-biased misconceptions, especially with regard to black savagery in the form of illiteracy from a lack of formal education. Huck Finn and Color Purple are honest and touching. Caged Bird, at least as what it appears to me currently, is a little pretentious and ethnocentric. There is a hint of egoism about the way Angelou exploits her accomplished literacy to create expressions that are as varied as possible, such as by inserting parentheses here and there to elevate the complexity of the mind of a six-year-old girl.

Well, I admit that this was probably why it was so successful when it was published in the 1960s. It was very timely. It would have been unexpected and shocking for Angelou's target audience, the immodest white readership. But is this arrogance for arrogance?

Whatever it is, it doesn't quite work for me. Angelou was one of a kind, but at that time, the rest of her people were quite far from her measure of accomplishment. Diachronically, Huck Finn was true to its context, The Color Purple was true its context. Caged Bird...I just don't feel obliged to swallow the cup of White pride on the table, no matter how fired up Angelou must have felt during composition. Ain't intended for me anyways. And in my wrestling with that, I guess my appreciation of the text is inevitably compromised along the way, unfortunately. The great irony is that among the students studying these three texts, many of them are beginning to have sentiments that are similar to those that these books had originally intended to subvert. It's probably out of stress and ennui.

Nevertheless, I still hope I can finish the book by Wednesday, then start working on the key passages. 3 out of 24 IOC extracts come from the book, and I want to be ready for Murphy's law.

That aside, I must say that I quite enjoyed the Hitler-Boenhoeffer discussion with the choir earlier this afternoon. It was one the few times where the issue at hand was neither too complex nor too simple. It was edifyingly manageable. And I hope the reading material at the end was helpful.

Finally, given that I'll be attending a party tomorrow night, I have a feeling that my hands will be quite occupied with food, entertainment and the like at 8:22pm. Is that...wrong?