W. T. Lhamon, Jr.
Autor(a) de Raising Cain: Blackface Performance from Jim Crow to Hip Hop
About the Author
W. T. Lhamon Jr. is University Distinguished Teaching Professor of English AND George M. Harper Professor of English at Florida State University
Obras de W. T. Lhamon, Jr.
Associated Works
The Dylan Companion: A Collection of Essential Writing About Bob Dylan (1990) — Contribuinte, algumas edições — 96 cópias
Etiquetado
Conhecimento Comum
- Sexo
- male
- Educação
- Ph.D. Indiana
Membros
Resenhas
Estatísticas
- Obras
- 3
- Also by
- 1
- Membros
- 96
- Popularidade
- #196,089
- Avaliação
- 3.8
- Resenhas
- 2
- ISBNs
- 9
- Idiomas
- 1
Lhamon's analysis, on the other hand, discusses the development of lore cycles and, in particular, the displacement of folkore by poplore. His fourth chapter is devoted to a convincing argument of how urban based poplore overtook the rural oriented wellsprings of folkore in the 1950s. It is by far the best chapter in the book, although the subsequent chapters on Kerouac and Jackson Pollock are nearly as mesmerizing in their illustration of poplore at work. The foundational chapter on Ralph Ellison is also convincing, putting that author into what may seem for many a new context.
There are a couple of problems. Generally, Lhamon stalls when writing about music. There is no musical notation in the book, and that is really the only effective way to replicate for a reader who is seeing the sounds he cannot hear on the page. Instead, Deliberate Speed satisfies itself with musical aphorisms supported by a tidal wave of similes, metaphors, and other equivalencies. It just doesn't work.
Then, there is Lhamon's discussion of film. I'm not quite sure he understands film, because almost everything he says relates to themes and performance. That is the stuff of newspaper reviews, not scholarly study. And, frankly, the choice of Rebel Without a Cause as his example of the 1950s' cultural breakthrough cinema is cringeworthy. The film continues not to age well at all--as is the case with the rest of James Dean's star vehicles. Sorry, but it's true. Brando's The Wild One would have been a much better choice.
The same, finally, goes for the last chapter, which devotes itself to Wittgenstein and Thomas Pynchon. I don't care that Pynchon alludes to Wittgenstein. The comparison is forced and awkward. And, ultimately, it is unworkable, as Lhamon uses Pynchon's V as a device to collapse the works of his other subjects into a fitting summary and conclusion. Again, there is a better choice available: John Barth.
As I say, the book overall is important. In fact, I don't think it is possible to make a serious study of overall 1950s culture without looking at it. I do wish that Lhamon had taken some time to look at the more popular instances of mass literature and film from the period. It carried the same impulses, without positioning itself as "elite." For example, there is Sloan Wilson's The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit, which had a far larger impact during the decade than all the works of literature Lhamon mentions combined. There is also genre fiction, genre films, and genre television, all of which reflected or reacted to the cultural currents Lhamon discusses. More of that, please.… (mais)