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A review by ralowe
Clotel: Or, the President's Daughter by William Wells Brown
3.0
spoilers i guess"_
real talk: does anyone know the reason william wells brown took all references to thomas jefferson out of the third edition in 1864 and fourth edition in 1867? why did he change the spelling of the title to match the name of his second and youngest child "clotelle brown,"ќ born in 1862 to his second wife, annie elizabeth gray? cultural historian ezra greenspan unsatisfactorily grazes the question in his 2014 600-page biography (*william wells brown: an african american life*, pg 379). i've been chasing racist ectoplasmic traces of enslavement since i picked up this copy of the fourth and jeffersonless edition from craig's friend stephanie syujco's conceptual art collaboration with the friends of the san francisco public library at the san francisco museum of modern art. named "added value"ќ, the installation of tables of books with read-y signage disarranged retail aesthetics to suit a fugitive reorganization of knowledge that featured critical pairings of books shrinkwrapped together; i can't remember what or if this edition of *clotel* was shrinkwrapped to. perhaps it might have been paired in unruly juxtaposition with something that offered some clue for how one might run alongside this supernatural runaway; and/or i could pay better attention. in the edition i read, "clotelle"ќ is the name of the main character whose mom "isabella"ќ in a midpoint climactic sequence, accompanied by engraving, flings herself off a bridge into the potomac to evade slavecathcers; in the 1853 original identical death-before-dishonour sequence, "clotel"ќ is the name of the mother and the main character is named "mary"ќ. this means that wells brown named the fifth and final person he parented into existence after a fictionalized character he adapted from sally heming. but i knew neither that biographical detail nor what i was actually reading in this edition. adrift the devious twisted mists of spectral conspiracy with whether this was ghostwritten, edmund quincy: "i should be a bold man, as well as a vain one, if i should attempt to improve your descriptions of what you have seen and suffered"ќ (quincy quoted in manisha sinha's *the slave's cause: a history of abolition*, pg 428). (anti)whiteness and (un)freedom. overall the novel's frenzy of themes and scenes is gratifying, its nonexclusionary essay looks forward to "BLACK DADA NIHILISMUS,"ќ but why the edit? greenspan dismisses that jefferson's disappearance is censorship (pg. 513, *william wells brown: an african american life*, 2014). yet the readily apparent fucked up whiteness in blackness, the deus ex caucasoid, ensures a refusal to find closure around the question of freedom.
real talk: does anyone know the reason william wells brown took all references to thomas jefferson out of the third edition in 1864 and fourth edition in 1867? why did he change the spelling of the title to match the name of his second and youngest child "clotelle brown,"ќ born in 1862 to his second wife, annie elizabeth gray? cultural historian ezra greenspan unsatisfactorily grazes the question in his 2014 600-page biography (*william wells brown: an african american life*, pg 379). i've been chasing racist ectoplasmic traces of enslavement since i picked up this copy of the fourth and jeffersonless edition from craig's friend stephanie syujco's conceptual art collaboration with the friends of the san francisco public library at the san francisco museum of modern art. named "added value"ќ, the installation of tables of books with read-y signage disarranged retail aesthetics to suit a fugitive reorganization of knowledge that featured critical pairings of books shrinkwrapped together; i can't remember what or if this edition of *clotel* was shrinkwrapped to. perhaps it might have been paired in unruly juxtaposition with something that offered some clue for how one might run alongside this supernatural runaway; and/or i could pay better attention. in the edition i read, "clotelle"ќ is the name of the main character whose mom "isabella"ќ in a midpoint climactic sequence, accompanied by engraving, flings herself off a bridge into the potomac to evade slavecathcers; in the 1853 original identical death-before-dishonour sequence, "clotel"ќ is the name of the mother and the main character is named "mary"ќ. this means that wells brown named the fifth and final person he parented into existence after a fictionalized character he adapted from sally heming. but i knew neither that biographical detail nor what i was actually reading in this edition. adrift the devious twisted mists of spectral conspiracy with whether this was ghostwritten, edmund quincy: "i should be a bold man, as well as a vain one, if i should attempt to improve your descriptions of what you have seen and suffered"ќ (quincy quoted in manisha sinha's *the slave's cause: a history of abolition*, pg 428). (anti)whiteness and (un)freedom. overall the novel's frenzy of themes and scenes is gratifying, its nonexclusionary essay looks forward to "BLACK DADA NIHILISMUS,"ќ but why the edit? greenspan dismisses that jefferson's disappearance is censorship (pg. 513, *william wells brown: an african american life*, 2014). yet the readily apparent fucked up whiteness in blackness, the deus ex caucasoid, ensures a refusal to find closure around the question of freedom.