A man hasn't played in a year. He sits back down at the piano in front of a crowd, fumbles through the first set to polite applause, and then, with a little help from the band, wades out into the deep water without drowning.
That's the ending of the 1957 short story we read this week. It's also roughly what happened to us. It's been a month since our last episode, the Nabokov we promised is off the table, and this was our first time back at the piano.
Somewhere between a long argument about respectability politics, a detour through Isaiah 51, and a real investigation into whether scotch and milk is an actual drink, we found the rhythm again.
"For, while the tale of how we suffer, and how we are delighted, and how we may triumph is never new, it always must be heard. There isn't any other tale to tell, it's the only light we've got in all this darkness."
Raise your glasses of milk punch you filthy heathens.
Next up: Cam has picked something "on the easier side". It's Dickens.
Timestamps
(00:00:00) synopsis: a Harlem algebra teacher and his heroin-addicted kid brother
(00:03:31) Taking Children Seriously in 1950s Harlem
(00:07:20) which way, African-American man? respectability vs art born of suffering
(00:12:06) the uncle scene: how much is down to white oppression?
(00:18:37) is Sonny's dream childish magical thinking?
(00:23:01) whose side is the reader meant to be on, Sonny's or his brother's?
(00:26:28) society needs extremists, just not in your family
(00:30:11) scotch and milk, the cup of trembling, and the final set
(00:36:02) do great artists need heroin?
(00:40:34) Sinners: a modern take on this story, or corny Oscar bait?
(00:43:59) Creole's blues speech + next book
Next book
Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
Get in touch!
Email us at douevenlit@gmail.com
