Marlon James

padraig (u.s.)

padraig (u.s.)

a monkey that will go ape
Sidney Mintz's history of sugar, Sweetness and Power, has been on my to-read list years, should get around to that too at some point
 
F

forclosure

Well-known member
padraig (u.s.) said:
and yeah I'll have to check out his first two at some point

I'd assume w/o looking into it that the social bandit badman thing harks back to escaped slaves and maroon communities and so on, in folk memory

sounds like The Book of Night Women gets into that era - sounds like a really interesting book

I'm somewhat familiar with Haitian sugar plantation slavery, which was unimaginably brutal, can't JA was much better if any
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You can FEEL the tension and heat in book of night women I grew up hearing about JA slavery through family but also old rastas who can tell you about the history of an area during colonialism

I like it more than Seven Killings in part because it really does capture how different it was in the Caribbean compared to America and the ever constant paranoia regarding slave rebellions and riots
 
F

forclosure

Well-known member
padraig (u.s.) said:
initial generation often has some kind of resistance purpose, even if it's just blindly lashing out against injustice and can't be articulated

if that generation survives and prospers, it becomes a business, its own power structure

new generation comes along and 1) isn't desperate, or as desperate as the founders 2) is more interested in business opportunities

banditry is at cross-purposes with organized crime

organized crime wants to coopt power structures. bandits bring down bad heat, and get gunned down in the street.

it was the major theme of that John Dillinger movie Michael Mann and Johnny Depp did awhile back

Dillinger and his ilk as anachronism in the era of crime as large-scale, organized business
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To bring it to rap this is what separates a Jay Z from a Biggie where despite being born in BK roughly around the same time as Well as being a worshipper of money have Jay was always accused of being very callous even when he made his bullshit pivot from hustler to revolutionary
 
luka

luka

Well-known member
luka said:
i might read 7 killings one day. danny l liked it. thats the best i can do, sorry.
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just picked this up for £4 in greenwich market. i cant tell from the opening paragraph if it is trying and failing to be literary or trying and failing to be hard boiled. it's bad but not so bad i want to chuck the book in the bin.
 
luka

luka

Well-known member
you can see that. i was reading some more today. hasn't really caught me yet but might do once i get more of a feel for the characters
 
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