Colson Whitehead

**Mirabell** · 10-Jun-2011, 15:53

very good American novelist

New novel out in october

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/...500_AA300_.jpg

Here is one of the threads we have on the book http://www.worldliteratureforum.com/...Hides-The-Hurt

**Mirabell** · 11-Jun-2011, 12:55

I was underselling him. I think he's one of the best novelists of his generation, at least one of those with the most perfect control of the cadences and rhythms of English prose. Reading him, it's hard to imagine him not being able to pull of anything.

So while a Zombie novel sounds meh, I have no doubt Whitehead can pull it off with ease.

**Stiffelio** · 12-Jun-2011, 07:12

Originally Posted by Mirabell

I was underselling him. I think he's one of the best novelists of his generation, at least one of those with the most perfect control of the cadences and rhythms of English prose. Reading him, it's hard to imagine him not being able to pull of anything.

Who would you compare him with, style-wise?....Just to have an idea of what you mean by "control of cadences and rhythms".
Thanks!

**Mirabell** · 12-Jun-2011, 15:00

Originally Posted by Stiffelio

Who would you compare him with, style-wise?....Just to have an idea of what you mean by "control of cadences and rhythms".
Thanks!

Good question! I don't know! He has a very fluid and humorous style, slightly Pynchonian, I guess, but less heavy, and less strongly punning. But in his prose, not a word seems misplaced, he has subtle puns, and his lines flow like poetry, no matter how mundane the subject might be. His writing is very cerebral, but not so's you notice, although, as you can see from the two very different readings in the Apex Hides The Hurt thread I linked to earlier, not everyone feels that way. I could read pages and pages of his prose, but he's a bit stingy on plot sometimes, and what I read as exciting, others may find more dull. But with the new book, that should change. =)

**Bubba** · 13-Jun-2011, 14:57

I was doing my best not to post to this thread, but it was hanging around the top of the board so long I couldn't resist the temptation. Let me preface my considered remarks, then, by saying that I've never read a line by Colson Whitehead and that if ever I do it will be only to seek confirmation of my prejudices against his work. After all, there's little more satisfying than having one's wicked thoughts roundly confirmed.

I'm deeply skeptical of this writer's work precisely because his two most recent novels have been so dutifully--and almost uniformly positively--reviewed by the usual NYC magazines and papers, as well as by auxiliaries in the provinces and even, so it appears, on the Old Continent (one of said auxiliaries, I note, hedges a bit when asked for specifics about this "very good American writer"). In short, the hype is so excessive, so rank, that it rivals that trumpeting the releases of the latest novels by the current crop of American lady novelists (most of whom, by the way, even the two or three who are no longer spring chickens, look quite fetching in their publicity photos). With all of the publicity surrounding a novel that's not going to be released for several more weeks, how not to feel that you are being fattened for slaughter?

I'll also add that, as a black man, and a fairly cool-looking one at that, Whitehead makes an ideal little pet for overeager bien-pensants and left-leaning Europeans to lavish meaningless praise and caresses on, behavior that strikes me as ultimately more condescending--and even, in this instance, racist--than open prejudice.

I will admit that my prejudice here is unfair (I haven't read the man, after all); he is simply paying the price (with me) for what others have done.

**Mirabell** · 13-Jun-2011, 15:06

Originally Posted by Bubba

I've never read a line by Colson Whitehead.

Thank you.

If I hedge my praise, it was on finding that two readers whom I respect greatly, Scott Esposito (cf. said thread), and Christian G@rp of the Fric Frac Club, are far less than effusive. I will not take back a line of my praise, but I didn't exactly claim that he is a writer of blockbusters, and I may have to concede that his work, well written and brilliantly conceived though it may be, may not excite everyone, as it has this auxiliary. I think he is the best writer of his generation, and in two detailed reviews I believe I have made a good case for this.

http://shigekuni.wordpress.com/2009/...ides-the-hurt/
http://shigekuni.wordpress.com/2009/...nist%E2%80%9D/

**Bubba** · 13-Jun-2011, 16:09

Originally Posted by Mirabell

Thank you.

If I hedge my praise, it was on finding that two readers whom I respect greatly, Scott Esposito (cf. said thread), and Christian G@rp of the Fric Frac Club, are far less than effusive. I will not take back a line of my praise, but I didn't exactly claim that he is a writer of blockbusters, and I may have to concede that his work, well written and brilliantly conceived though it may be, may not excite everyone, as it has this auxiliary. I think he is the best writer of his generation, and in two detailed reviews I believe I have made a good case for this.

First, Mirabell, twice I mentioned in my brief post that I'd never read Whitehead, so I'm not sure your highlighting it a third time really serves any purpose.

And I'm not going to read your reviews of the Whitehead books in part because I often find you (or Shigekuni) prolix. You seem to me to gush a bit at times, too. I like you better, as I believe I've mentioned, when you're writing about soccer. But most of all I'm not going to read your reviews because I'm not really interested in Whitehead. What interests me is the meretricious way he has been very nearly anointed, as you put it, "the best writer of his generation." And I am likewise fascinated by the phenomenon by which, say, an ordinary German (let's call him one of the publisher's willing auxiliaries), a fellow who might read nineteenth-century philosophers and is capable of being moved to tears by a Bach cantata, a fellow, in short, who, at first glance, stands to gain nothing from doing so, not only fails to resist this onslaught of what is really little other than evil but actually upholds it, takes active part in it!

You're not meant to read into this post anything other than what I've said, by the way. I'm not the subtle type.

**e joseph** · 13-Jun-2011, 16:27

I've read Whitehead and strangely have way less to say than Bubba. He's OK. I read The Intuitionist (which I think I remember you saying was his best, Mirabell?), and enjoyed it, but it didn't really bowl me over or make me think I was reading one of the best novelists of his generation (but then who is?). Good not great; sort of lost steam as the novel progressed. Still though, struck me as a pretty good writer, one I'm not rushing out to read more of, but who I'd definitely read again if a new plotline looked interesting.

**Mirabell** · 13-Jun-2011, 16:33

Originally Posted by e joseph

I think I remember you saying was his best, Mirabell

At the time, maybe. =)
I would rate both his most recent novels considerably higher, and his Colossus of New York, on rereading it recently.

**Mirabell** · 19-Jun-2011, 14:57

Funny thing, Bubba, Whitehead shares your opinion on Ford (I assume)

From his really damn good review of A MUltitide of Sins
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/03/03/bo...e-affair.html?

A man in a wheelchair cannot just be a man in a wheelchair; he must be a vehicle to help a lame metaphor get around. Such is the method of the Well-Crafted Short Story. These stories, placed back to back, start to show their strings, although puppet master is perhaps not the way Ford would describe himself. When asked last year by The Kenyon Review what kind of relationship he has with his characters, Ford replied: ''Master to slave. Sometimes I hear them at night singing over in their cabins.'' Singing. So that's what that was. It sounded like whining.