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insertsthwitty 's review for:
Quicksand and Passing
by Nella Larsen
She was caught between two allegiances, different, yet the same. Herself. Her race. Race! The thing that bound and suffocated her. Whatever steps she took, or if she took none at all, something would be crushed. A person or the race. Clare, herself, or the race. Or, it might be, all three. Nothing, she imagined, was ever more completely sardonic.
Question: could the idea of Passing being contemporary enough to merit a movie despite having been written in the 1920s be even more sardonic?
Not too many years ago, we were obsessed with this very Western idea of linearity, of things progressing and moving forward, of achieving goals and then feeling good about them. Now we may have matured enough to consider it is not like this, it is more like a circle, of ideas merging and emerging over time. So it may not be that discouraging to think of Passing as a contemporary commentary on race. It is a thing that happened, happens and will happen.
(Or maybe it is like confetti (hello fellow Haunting of Hill House tv show fans), and ideas are sprinkled across time and space?)
Which one is it in the end? I imagine it’s a collective choice. I imagine it’s a personal choice. For me, the choice is a pacifist one (for now). I have had little energy to rail against the injustice of it all for a while now, but I did choose to rail for this book, so to say. Both Quicksand and Passing have not only been amazing reads in terms of the richness of character and vividness of details and sensuality, but it’s also enriched my understanding of race and identity and womanhood. I’ve been slowly renouncing the idea of justice (it’s a very slow and quiet thing for me) so I’m only a little melancholy that Nella Larsen has not written much more. Instead, I’m recommending this book to everyone so that the next time a woman like her comes along, she will write more for us all.
Question: could the idea of Passing being contemporary enough to merit a movie despite having been written in the 1920s be even more sardonic?
Not too many years ago, we were obsessed with this very Western idea of linearity, of things progressing and moving forward, of achieving goals and then feeling good about them. Now we may have matured enough to consider it is not like this, it is more like a circle, of ideas merging and emerging over time. So it may not be that discouraging to think of Passing as a contemporary commentary on race. It is a thing that happened, happens and will happen.
(Or maybe it is like confetti (hello fellow Haunting of Hill House tv show fans), and ideas are sprinkled across time and space?)
Which one is it in the end? I imagine it’s a collective choice. I imagine it’s a personal choice. For me, the choice is a pacifist one (for now). I have had little energy to rail against the injustice of it all for a while now, but I did choose to rail for this book, so to say. Both Quicksand and Passing have not only been amazing reads in terms of the richness of character and vividness of details and sensuality, but it’s also enriched my understanding of race and identity and womanhood. I’ve been slowly renouncing the idea of justice (it’s a very slow and quiet thing for me) so I’m only a little melancholy that Nella Larsen has not written much more. Instead, I’m recommending this book to everyone so that the next time a woman like her comes along, she will write more for us all.