The author and anthropologist Zora Neale Hurston could not find a publisher for her book Barracoon that did not want her to make extensive changes to the manuscript (as I mentioned in my last blog post), and so her book was not released until 50+ years after her death, 80+ years after it was written.

The cause of the disagreement between Hurston and the publisher was that Hurston had written the story of Cudjo/Kossula in dialect. That is, she had transcribed his words as he spoke them (as an anthropologist concerned with preserving the speaker’s voice), instead of “translating” his words to “proper” English (as an author concerned with reaching a wide audience). The former style is more accurate; the latter style is easier to read.

I remember reading Huckleberry Finn for the first time—as a former high school English teacher, I have read it many times—and experiencing confusion and frustration when encountering Mark Twain’s rendering of the character Jim’s speech. I must have been halfway through the book before it finally dawned on me that chile meant “child” pronounced without the “d” sound. I kept reading it as “chili” (meat and beans in a bowl) or “chili” (a hot pepper) or “Chile” (the country) . . . none of which, needless to say, made any sense.

When I read Barracoon, I had no trouble with Hurston’s rendering of Cudjo/Kossula’s speech. I very much enjoyed reading the story in dialect, and I concur with her instincts to tell his story that way.* Then again, I am an experienced reader with two degrees in English. I wonder how well I would have been able to follow the story had I read it in my teens, or not pursued English degrees.

I am curious what you think about the following passage. Here Cudjo/Kossula describes his life as a 19-year-old, just before his town was raided and he was captured:

“I stand round de place where de chief talk wid de wise men. I hope dey see Cudjo and think he a grown man. Maybe dey call me to de council. De fathers doan never call me but I likee very much to be dere and lissen when dey talk. . . . I likee go in de market place too and see de pretty gals wid de gold bracelets on de arm from de hand to de elbow. Oh, dey look very fine to Cudjo when dey walkee dey sling de arm so and de bracelet ring. I lak hear dat—it sound so pretty.”

How easy or difficult did you think that passage was to read? What do you think about books that make extensive use of dialect?

*In full disclosure, I made a similar decision when writing my unpublished novel The Water-Creatures . . . and may well face the same consequences as Hurston . . . if not worse.

When I saw that the great Zora Neale Hurston had a new book out—her being deceased being not at all an impediment to this, and perhaps even, sadly, a furtherance—I rushed to buy it.

Barracoon: The Story of the Last “Black Cargo” is very different from the other work I have read by her, the superb literary novel Their Eyes Were Watching God. Barracoon is an anthropological work of nonfiction, and the making and publishing of it is quite a story in itself, covering vast tracts of space and time.

The slave trade was officially abolished by the U.S. in 1808. Despite this, ships were still making their way to the West African coast to trade goods for people as late as 1860—more than 50 years after the slave trade had been outlawed, and only one year before the outbreak of the Civil War. During this time, Africans on the coast were still raiding interior villages, capturing people, and housing them in barracoons—the term means “stokade”—to be sold as the slave ships arrived.

The last known slave ship, the Clotilda, sailed in 1860. The hero of Barracoon, known as either Cudjo (his American name) or Kossula (his African name), was captured at age 19 and survived the middle passage on that last slave ship. He was enslaved in the U.S. until the end of the Civil War in 1865, which occurred only a few years later. When he was freed, he lacked the resources to sail to Africa, to which he very much wanted to return.

Fast forward more than 50 years to 1927: Zora Neale Hurston, having learned that the now 86-year-old was the last known living person who was born in Africa and sold into U.S. slavery, visited him at his home in Alabama and recorded his story.

Hurston completed her manuscript in 1931. However, she could not find a publisher that did not wish her to make drastic changes with which she did not agree. When she died in 1960, the manuscript was still unpublished. Fast forward more than 50 years (again!) to 2018: Her book is finally published, and the voice of Cudjo/Kossula—the voice of someone who experienced the middle passage as a person sold—is finally being heard. This is vitally important and amazing because, as Hurston explains in her introduction, there are countless texts about the slave trade written by people in power, but not by people they exploited:

“All these words from the seller, but not one word from the sold.”

Now, this year, after so many 50+ year intervals, we finally have some words.

While writing my last blog post, I looked up the word peruse to make sure I was using it correctly in this sentence:

“(The inquisitive one wasn’t sure which, having spent the previous few hours perusing poetry instead of store ads.)”

According to dictionary.com, peruse has several definitions:

1. to read through with thoroughness or care
2. to scan or browse
3. to read

The site also provides these British definitions:

1. to read or examine with care; study
2. to browse or read through in a leisurely way

Hmm. So peruse can mean “study a text thoroughly” or “skim through a text lightheartedly.” Aren’t those opposites? And, just to keep the waters as muddy as possible, the term can also mean simply “read”—so it can mean either extreme, or no extreme at all. No wonder I was having trouble keeping the word’s definition straight in my mind!

Now that I think about it, though, the ambiguity of peruse makes it ideal for its particular use in my tale. Surely the inquisitive one would’ve perused poetry in the “study closely” sense, but would’ve perused store ads in the “scan leisurely” sense. But I needed only the one word. (How economical!)

Another interesting fact: the “read carefully” sense (first usage in the 1530s) is much older than the “read casually” sense (first usage in the 1800s). So the next time you’re reading a text written in the 1700s or earlier and encounter the word peruse, you will know which sense is meant without having to rely on context.

For more fun with ambiguity, look up comprise on dictionary.com and read the Usage note.

Can you think of other words that are ambiguous in having opposite definitions? I would love to hear of more examples.

It was 4am, and the inquisitive one was walking in the darkness and looking up at the stars. The inquisitive one had been inspired to do such a thing as a result of having just read the very short poem When I Heard the Learn’d Astronomer by Walt Whitman. But then suddenly, while looking up at the stars, the inquisitive one fell into a hole!

“Help! HELP!” cried the inquisitive one.

Sadly, unlike Aesop’s fabled astronomer, the inquisitive one had small hope of anyone hearing these cries. You see, it was Black Friday. Everyone who usually made a habit of wandering around the outskirts of the city at 4am was, at that point, inside Wal-Buy, Best Mart, or JCNickel—either that, or waiting in line for the doors of those establishments to open. (The inquisitive one wasn’t sure which, having spent the previous few hours perusing poetry instead of store ads.)

Nonetheless, refusing to give up hope entirely, the inquisitive one kept hollering and calling out.

“Help! HELP!” cried the inquisitive one.

Luckily, a turkey, who was as usual boycotting everything having to do with the holiday season, heard the cries.

“Help you? After what you did yesterday to my cousin? Fat chance!” said the turkey, and paraded off.

“Oh no! Help! HELP!” cried the inquisitive one.

Luckily, a Libertarian Party member, who was exercising the freedom that comes of choosing not to jostle within crowds, heard the cries.

“Me, help? Help yourself!” said the Libertarian Party member, and chose to walk somewhere else.

“Oh no! Help! HELP!” cried the inquisitive one.

Luckily, a Republican, whose family budget did not allow for frivolous spending that season, heard the cries.

“I would call 911, but funding for that service has been cut, in order to balance the budget,” said the Republican, and stepped into a waiting limo.

“Oh no! Help! HELP!” cried the inquisitive one.

Luckily, a Green Party member, who was boycotting everything made of or wrapped in plastic, plus everything transported to a store by means of fossil fuels, heard the cries.

“This must be a sinkhole caused by bad environmental policies! Don’t worry, I’ll stage a hunger strike at the White House. We’ll have this problem solved within four years!” said the Green Party member, and pedaled off toward Washington.

“Oh no! Help! HELP!” cried the inquisitive one.

Luckily, a Democrat, who was waiting until Small Business Saturday to do the season’s shopping, heard the cries.

“I feel so bad for you! How could this have happened? Ahhhh!” said the Democrat, and collapsed into a fit of tears and wails that were so loud, and so long lasting, that the inquisitive one could not make any cries heard above the racket.

The inquisitive one had just about given up hope when dawn broke, the sun peeked out from where it had been hiding, and light spilled into the hole. Suddenly, the inquisitive one saw the solution. It was so obvious, though, that it would be heartless of me to write, in all bluntness, the details of the particular means of escape; and so, out of deference to the poor inquisitive one, who asked me to keep the whole thing as quiet as I could (without, that is, my giving up my profession entirely), I will merely note that our hero made it safely out of the hole.

It was then that the inquisitive one walked back home in the sunshine, thinking about the moral of the story.

Do you know the Norman Rockwell painting called Freedom from Want? It’s the one where an elderly white couple is placing a cooked turkey on a not-too-elaborately set table, at which sit their smiling children and grandchildren.

It a gorgeous painting, with a lovely sentiment behind it. Isn’t it wonderful, the painting seems to ask, to live in a country in which we enjoy freedom from want, in which we have the luxury to enjoy a holiday dinner with our family? In which we possess perhaps not the fanciest tableware and home furnishings and clothing, but very functional and good tableware and home furnishings and clothing: just enough for health and happiness? And, golly, look at how healthy and happy we are! God bless the U.S.A.!

If I shut off the analytical side of my brain, I feel enraptured by the painting. It’s a monumental work of art. And yet . . . there’s that pesky voice inside my head that’s bringing up a slew of pesky issues. Why are there only white people in this representation of America? What about the Japanese internment camps that were being established around this time (the early 1940s) in the U.S.? What about people living in poverty? What about the Native Americans? What about all those Thanksgiving dinners during which the adults argue about religion and politics and complain about one another and get drunk and violent, as the children break things and hurt themselves and bully the littler kids to tears? What about people who are alone on Thanksgiving? What about the turkey that died to make this idyllic dinner possible? And on and on and on . . .

I had a similar double-sided reaction to reading the novel Dandelion Wine by Ray Bradbury. This passage, in particular, in which a man describes his wife, makes me cringe:

“She was miraculous. Her body, like his, was always thinking for her, but in a different way, shaping the children, or moving ahead of him into any room to change the atmosphere there to fit any particular mood he was in.”

Yikes! He mindlessly walks into rooms, as she bustles around nurturing the children—without his help—while also reading his mind and making things perfect for him? Bring me a bucket or an airline bag!

To be fair, this novel was written in the 1940s and 1950s, before the second-wave feminist movement of the 1960s began. Furthermore, to be fair, there are real, biological differences between men and women (on average, I hasten to add, with a wide and beautiful variation among individuals).

However, living in the 2010s as I am, I can’t help noticing threads throughout this novel that I would classify as overly sentimental and of narrow cultural scope. Of particular concern to me are the strict gender roles depicted, the pervasive nostalgia that (by definition) elevates the past to a greater glory than the present, and a disconcerting (in light of the politics of the present century) nonintellectualism that elevates “how things have always been done” over new ideas (which may or may not be good ideas, but should not, in my opinion, be discarded simply because they are new).

And yet . . . the compulsion to analyze everything can be oppressive. In truth, sometimes things are idyllic. There are rare occasions when the family is gathered and healthy, when Aunt Sue and Uncle Robbie have come to an unaccountable truce, when the children are excited about the flakes of snow and the picture books, when everyone is warm in both senses of the word and making jokes that are actually very funny, when everyone is enjoying hot cider mixed with various other ingredients, when Grandma’s old-timey recipe is out on the counter; and then you open the oven and carefully pull out the rack, and the turkey is perfect, just perfect.

And for decades, you cherish your memory of that one uniquely miraculous holiday gathering.

Happy Thanksgiving!