Rating: 
Summary: not good enough
Review: "The Ebony Tower" -- by Steve Sailer -- Published in National Review, 3/10/ . . . . . . . Although anthologies of black American writing have been published by the score over the last 150 years, this enormous tome is sure to attract much attention, due to the authority of the "Norton Anthology" brand name and the well-deserved celebrity of co-editor Henry Louis Gates, Jr. The multitalented Dr. Gates somehow manages to be a master political operator in the growth industry of multicultural studies, an impressive researcher into the history of black literature, and a graceful writer for general audiences. . . . . . . . Robert Conquest once observed that professors tend to be most conservative about their own area of expertise. Thus, Dr. Gates proclaims that his anthology defines the "canon" of the "best" African American writing, even though these are normally fighting words within cutting-edge English departments. Lesser multiculturalists disparage the very notion of objective merit and recognized masterpieces. They contend that literary canons are assembled to further the interests of the powerful, and that celebrating artistic excellence instead of social relevance "marginalizes" the poor. . . . . . . . To my surprise, this book heightened my respect for these philistine cliches of the academic left. In truth, canons are created by and for self-interested elites (but there are many elites besides that all-purpose bogeyman, the White Male Power Structure). The Nile-like length of this book, for example, benefits its 11 editors and other professors of African American literature. By "canonizing" 120 writers (at least a quarter of whom seem seem decent but quite dispensable) they have legitimized a vast supply of subject matter to stoke their specialty's publish-or-perish fires for years to come. In contrast, Gates and Co. were much more cavalier about the needs of those who will try to read their book. To squeeze 2,709 pages into a size that coeds would find "comfortably portable" (or, let's be frank, "tolerably luggable"), they had to specify paper of a thinness (and consequent transparency) seldom seen outside European public lavatories. Because you can see right through to the type on the other side of each page, stay close to a strong reading lamp and a bottle of aspirin. . . . . . . . Dr. Gates defends his old-fashioned philosophy of meritocratic selections as necessary to disprove theories of black intellectual inferiority. (Why this logic should not also rule out other forms of affirmative action remains unexplained.) Of course, no anthology, nor anything else, could prove that any two groups are equal in all ways, since this current dogma of uniform equality is simply not true: humans possess, in varying degrees, so many different skills that any non-random group is bound to be inferior on average to any other group in some manner. Indeed, this anthology reconfirms the inferiority of white Americans in certain mental talents. The most interesting black artists have not tried to demonstrate equality with whites through redundant me-too works. Instead, they have pioneered new forms, from ragtime to rap, that whites would never have dreamed of. . . . . . . . Indeed, the editors endorse several of the oldest stereotypes about What Blacks' Are Good At. For instance, the Introduction concludes by saluting black literature as "never far removed from the language of music and the rhythmic resonance of the spoken word." (Appropriately, this is the first literary anthology to be accompanied by an optional CD of songs and speeches). . . . . . . . This compendium raises the more general question of what is the overall contribution of blacks to American culture? One appealing, if possibly grandiose, perspective might be called the Patriotic Black Chauvinism of blues critic and novelist Albert Murray. In contrast to so many other black literary intellectuals, who've only been employed as professors and who now reside in such hotbeds of African American culture as Amherst and Santa Cruz, Murray is a retired Air Force major living in Harlem. Along with his friend Ralph Ellison (author of Invisible Man) and disciples such as trumpeter Wynton Marsalis, Murray has argued that rather than merely being a pitiful victim of racism, the black man's defiant sense of style makes him the most distinctively representative of Americans. That seems fairly plausible, if unprovable. A cruder version is testable: If America otherwise was as WASPish as Protestant Canada, would blacks by themselves make America a much more interesting place than Canada? Most definitely. (Of course, several other American ethnic groups could claim the same: after all, for better or worse, America is a lot less boring than Canada.) . . . . . . . But, where does African American literature rank? Its leading talents are certainly impressive. My personal favorites include turn-of-the-century man of letters James Weldon Johnson, poet Langston Hughes, dramatist August Wilson, and the delightful right-wing memoirist Zora Neale Hurston. Nevertheless, in the hierarchy of black achievement, literature would still have to fall somewhere in the vast middle ground, below the realms where blacks are world-conquering (e.g., music) and above those where they have yet to make much of a mark (e.g., high-tech entrepreneurship). . . . . . . . In contrast, the editors view the current state of black literature triumphantly, citing novelist Toni Morrison's 1993 Nobel Prize, a 1994 Atlantic cover story that claimed that blacks have replaced Jews as the leading "public intellectuals," and the burgeoning African American studies programs. Yet, black writers remain rarer than their abundant publicity would imply. The explanation of this paradox is that blacks dominate one particular topic -- Being Black in America -- which might be the juiciest subject of our era. In contrast, they don't yet publish much on other themes. Notice that you almost never find yourself saying: "Gee, I didn't know that writer is black." The only author in the anthology that I was surprised to learn was black was science fiction novelist Samuel R. Delaney. . . . . . . . Specializing in blackness offers many advantages to black writers. Nonetheless, some disquieting trends are apparent in the final section showcasing 35 current authors. (1) Black writers are increasingly employed by universities, often in teaching poetry-writing workshops and other notorious pyramid schemes. While these are acceptable diversions for wealthy white students, there are obvious ethical questions about organized attempts to lure smart black kids into making disastrous career choices. . . . . . . . (2) This increasing academicization means black writers now learn more about black history and black literature, but they're also more isolated from modern urban life. Thus, they tend to write less than about black life today and more about simpler, more racist days-gone-by. As we see in the Balkans, those who don't ignore their past are sometimes doomed to overemphasize it. . . . . . . . (3) In practice, multiculturalism turns out to be monoculturalism: Blacks lecture blacks on blackness, Hispanics teach Hispanics about Hispanicness, etc. Multicultural studies could better aid minorities by being honestly multicultural: by objectively comparing how various ethnic groups' strengths, weaknesses, and strategies have lead to differing successes and failures. In fact, some brave college (an oxymoron?) should experiment with requiring nonblack students to take an African American studies
Rating:
Summary: Bloated but interesting
Review: "The Ebony Tower" -- by Steve Sailer -- Published in National Review, 3/10/ . . . . . . . Although anthologies of black American writing have been published by the score over the last 150 years, this enormous tome is sure to attract much attention, due to the authority of the "Norton Anthology" brand name and the well-deserved celebrity of co-editor Henry Louis Gates, Jr. The multitalented Dr. Gates somehow manages to be a master political operator in the growth industry of multicultural studies, an impressive researcher into the history of black literature, and a graceful writer for general audiences. . . . . . . . Robert Conquest once observed that professors tend to be most conservative about their own area of expertise. Thus, Dr. Gates proclaims that his anthology defines the "canon" of the "best" African American writing, even though these are normally fighting words within cutting-edge English departments. Lesser multiculturalists disparage the very notion of objective merit and recognized masterpieces. They contend that literary canons are assembled to further the interests of the powerful, and that celebrating artistic excellence instead of social relevance "marginalizes" the poor. . . . . . . . To my surprise, this book heightened my respect for these philistine cliches of the academic left. In truth, canons are created by and for self-interested elites (but there are many elites besides that all-purpose bogeyman, the White Male Power Structure). The Nile-like length of this book, for example, benefits its 11 editors and other professors of African American literature. By "canonizing" 120 writers (at least a quarter of whom seem seem decent but quite dispensable) they have legitimized a vast supply of subject matter to stoke their specialty's publish-or-perish fires for years to come. In contrast, Gates and Co. were much more cavalier about the needs of those who will try to read their book. To squeeze 2,709 pages into a size that coeds would find "comfortably portable" (or, let's be frank, "tolerably luggable"), they had to specify paper of a thinness (and consequent transparency) seldom seen outside European public lavatories. Because you can see right through to the type on the other side of each page, stay close to a strong reading lamp and a bottle of aspirin. . . . . . . . Dr. Gates defends his old-fashioned philosophy of meritocratic selections as necessary to disprove theories of black intellectual inferiority. (Why this logic should not also rule out other forms of affirmative action remains unexplained.) Of course, no anthology, nor anything else, could prove that any two groups are equal in all ways, since this current dogma of uniform equality is simply not true: humans possess, in varying degrees, so many different skills that any non-random group is bound to be inferior on average to any other group in some manner. Indeed, this anthology reconfirms the inferiority of white Americans in certain mental talents. The most interesting black artists have not tried to demonstrate equality with whites through redundant me-too works. Instead, they have pioneered new forms, from ragtime to rap, that whites would never have dreamed of. . . . . . . . Indeed, the editors endorse several of the oldest stereotypes about What Blacks' Are Good At. For instance, the Introduction concludes by saluting black literature as "never far removed from the language of music and the rhythmic resonance of the spoken word." (Appropriately, this is the first literary anthology to be accompanied by an optional CD of songs and speeches). . . . . . . . This compendium raises the more general question of what is the overall contribution of blacks to American culture? One appealing, if possibly grandiose, perspective might be called the Patriotic Black Chauvinism of blues critic and novelist Albert Murray. In contrast to so many other black literary intellectuals, who've only been employed as professors and who now reside in such hotbeds of African American culture as Amherst and Santa Cruz, Murray is a retired Air Force major living in Harlem. Along with his friend Ralph Ellison (author of Invisible Man) and disciples such as trumpeter Wynton Marsalis, Murray has argued that rather than merely being a pitiful victim of racism, the black man's defiant sense of style makes him the most distinctively representative of Americans. That seems fairly plausible, if unprovable. A cruder version is testable: If America otherwise was as WASPish as Protestant Canada, would blacks by themselves make America a much more interesting place than Canada? Most definitely. (Of course, several other American ethnic groups could claim the same: after all, for better or worse, America is a lot less boring than Canada.) . . . . . . . But, where does African American literature rank? Its leading talents are certainly impressive. My personal favorites include turn-of-the-century man of letters James Weldon Johnson, poet Langston Hughes, dramatist August Wilson, and the delightful right-wing memoirist Zora Neale Hurston. Nevertheless, in the hierarchy of black achievement, literature would still have to fall somewhere in the vast middle ground, below the realms where blacks are world-conquering (e.g., music) and above those where they have yet to make much of a mark (e.g., high-tech entrepreneurship). . . . . . . . In contrast, the editors view the current state of black literature triumphantly, citing novelist Toni Morrison's 1993 Nobel Prize, a 1994 Atlantic cover story that claimed that blacks have replaced Jews as the leading "public intellectuals," and the burgeoning African American studies programs. Yet, black writers remain rarer than their abundant publicity would imply. The explanation of this paradox is that blacks dominate one particular topic -- Being Black in America -- which might be the juiciest subject of our era. In contrast, they don't yet publish much on other themes. Notice that you almost never find yourself saying: "Gee, I didn't know that writer is black." The only author in the anthology that I was surprised to learn was black was science fiction novelist Samuel R. Delaney. . . . . . . . Specializing in blackness offers many advantages to black writers. Nonetheless, some disquieting trends are apparent in the final section showcasing 35 current authors. (1) Black writers are increasingly employed by universities, often in teaching poetry-writing workshops and other notorious pyramid schemes. While these are acceptable diversions for wealthy white students, there are obvious ethical questions about organized attempts to lure smart black kids into making disastrous career choices. . . . . . . . (2) This increasing academicization means black writers now learn more about black history and black literature, but they're also more isolated from modern urban life. Thus, they tend to write less than about black life today and more about simpler, more racist days-gone-by. As we see in the Balkans, those who don't ignore their past are sometimes doomed to overemphasize it. . . . . . . . (3) In practice, multiculturalism turns out to be monoculturalism: Blacks lecture blacks on blackness, Hispanics teach Hispanics about Hispanicness, etc. Multicultural studies could better aid minorities by being honestly multicultural: by objectively comparing how various ethnic groups' strengths, weaknesses, and strategies have lead to differing successes and failures. In fact, some brave college (an oxymoron?) should experiment with requiring nonblack students to take an African American studies
Rating:
Summary: not good enough
Review: 2 major objections. the first is purely pragmatic. at over 2500 pages with large, closely printed pages, and incredibly thin paper, this book, though attractively designed, is simply too inconvenient for reading. the aim of an anthology, and of books in general, is to be read. the editors did not seem to have this aim in mind. perhaps 2 volumes would be better? what did they have in mind? academic advancement, perhaps, and above all a desire to "prove" african-american literature. the principle is "the bigger the better" or better phrased as "i am bigger than you". the effect, however, is just the opposite. and here comes my second objection: because too many worthless modern writers are included for size and diversity (another omnipotent word), the ordinary reader can often be repelled by the contents of this anthology. alice walker, for example, is immensely famous in our age, and for that reason perhaps a sample of her work ought to be included, but to do more and to praise her extravagantly reflects a lack of critical acumen. and indeed this is the major problem of this anthology. every writer, major and minor, is praised; some a lot some a little. and nobody is criticized, except perhaps for not being black enough, blackness here narrowly and conventionally defined by the editors. in so doing a sense of proportion is lost. the editors would do better to omit half of the unworthy writers, and include more first-rate works from the worthy ones, and condense the excessively wordy and politically correct introductions. please, let the works speak for themselves. let us remind ourselves that dubois, a magnificent writer justly celebrated in this volume, would find many of the selections unacceptable as literature. a canon is defined by principles of selection, exclusion, and discrimination. to discriminate against bad writing is the duty of the editor.
Rating: 
Summary: Excellent historical introductions.
Review: Excellent! I highly recommend it to anyone interested in African American traditions, history, literature. The CD will blow you away.
Rating:
Summary: Why no publicity about this great book???
Review: I read as much of this book as I could before I gave it to a colleague for Christmas. I have waited for months for the NYTimes to review it every Sunday. Perhaps they did it during the week. Why hasn't Oprah spread the word? This book should be next to every family's Bible. lhall@sewickley-acad,pvt.k12.pa.u
Rating:
Summary: An epic panorama of African American literature
Review: Taking upon yourself the task of creating an anthology that represents an entire literary and cultural tradition strikes me as a daunting task. The editors who helm such a project are almost playing god by deciding which authors and which works get into the "canon." Fortunately, the editors of "The Norton Anthology of African American Literature" have approached their duties with an expansive vision and an evident seriousness of purpose. The result is a collection which, although not without flaws, is a comprehensive and powerful sampling of a great tradition.The editors have chosen a rich selection of works from the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries. A good balance of male and female authors is struck. I was particularly impressed by the great range of genres. Poetry, essays, autobiography, short fiction, drama, sermons, song lyrics, and even a few complete short novels are included. Science fiction writers (Octavia Butler, Samuel R. Delany), writers also included in the canon of lesbian and gay literature (Audre Lorde, James Baldwin, Essex Hemphill) and writers whose works have an experimental edge (Adrienne Kennedy, etc.) are included. The extensive author biographies include fascinating information about each writer's life and body of work. Bibliographies and a chronology at the end of the collection are also useful. Of course, no anthology this ambitious is going to please everybody. As much as I liked the book, I still missed the presence of certain favorite authors (Pat Parker, SDiane Bogus, and others). And of the authors represented, there were those for whom I might have chosen some different or additional selections (Audre Lorde's essay "Man Child" would have made an excellent complement to the work already represented). And what about Afro-Latino/a writers like Jesus Colon? With the exception of Puerto Rican-born Arthur Schomburg, they appear to be almost entirely absent. I am sure that others with a love for and expertise in African American literature will cite other authors whom they would have liked to have seen included. And perhaps others will find the collection as it is simply too big (more than 2600 pages!) and overwhelming. But all things considered, this anthology is a truly impressive achievement. It is an outstanding resource for teachers, students, and general readers.
Rating:
Summary: Response to A Reader
Review: The thin paper and large number of pages are a trademark of the Norton Anthologies. It does not by any stretch of the imagination make them unreadable. I am working my way through the Norton Anthology of British Literature Volume I and it has about 2600 pages on this "thin" paper. I am finding the reading enjoyable. If you want to critize do on the basis of content of the book, not what it is made of.
Rating:
Summary: Response to A Reader
Review: The thin paper and large number of pages are a trademark of the Norton Anthologies. It does not by any stretch of the imagination make them unreadable. I am working my way through the Norton Anthology of British Literature Volume I and it has about 2600 pages on this "thin" paper. I am finding the reading enjoyable. If you want to critize do on the basis of content of the book, not what it is made of.
Rating:
Summary: Priceless!
Review: This book is a part of my library and a great resource tool. For any writer, researcher, black historian, or literature lover of any kind, this book is a must have. The criticism from the other reviewers is amazing. Must everything thing be analyzed? This book is a reference tool, an anthology of our black writers from the past to the present. If some are threatened by that, then that is their problem. What one may think of a writer's literature his his or her own personal opinion. I, personally would recommend this book to any college student and any college professor teaching literature. This is a keepsake!
Rating:
Summary: Priceless!
Review: This book is a part of my library and a great resource tool. For any writer, researcher, black historian, or literature lover of any kind, this book is a must have. The criticism from the other reviewers is amazing. Must everything thing be analyzed? This book is a reference tool, an anthology of our black writers from the past to the present. If some are threatened by that, then that is their problem. What one may think of a writer's literature his his or her own personal opinion. I, personally would recommend this book to any college student and any college professor teaching literature. This is a keepsake!
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