Specify Books In Favor Of Passing
Original Title: | Passing |
ISBN: | 0142437271 (ISBN13: 9780142437278) |
Edition Language: | English |
Characters: | Irene Redfield, Clare Kendry, Brian Redfield |
Setting: | Chicago, Illinois(United States) New York City, New York(United States) Harlem, New York City, New York(United States) |
Nella Larsen
Paperback | Pages: 122 pages Rating: 3.85 | 19157 Users | 1526 Reviews
Relation During Books Passing
Alternate Cover Edition can be found here. First published to critical acclaim in 1929, Passing firmly established Nella Larsen's prominence among women writers of the Harlem Renaissance. The Modern Library is proud to present Passing—an electrifying story of two women who cross the color line in 1920s New York—together with a new Introduction by the Obie Award- winning playwright and novelist Ntozake Shange. Irene Redfield, the novel's protagonist, is a woman with an enviable life. She and her husband, Brian, a prominent physician, share a comfortable Harlem town house with their sons. Her work arranging charity balls that gather Harlem's elite creates a sense of purpose and respectability for Irene. But her hold on this world begins to slip the day she encounters Clare Kendry, a childhood friend with whom she had lost touch. Clare—light-skinned, beautiful, and charming—tells Irene how, after her father's death, she left behind the black neighborhood of her adolescence and began passing for white, hiding her true identity from everyone, including her racist husband. As Clare begins inserting herself into Irene's life, Irene is thrown into a panic, terrified of the consequences of Clare's dangerous behavior. And when Clare witnesses the vibrancy and energy of the community she left behind, her burning desire to come back threatens to shatter her careful deception. Brilliantly plotted and elegantly written, Passing offers a gripping psychological portrait of emotional extremity.Be Specific About Appertaining To Books Passing
Title | : | Passing |
Author | : | Nella Larsen |
Book Format | : | Paperback |
Book Edition | : | Penguin Classics |
Pages | : | Pages: 122 pages |
Published | : | April 24th 2003 by Penguin (first published 1929) |
Categories | : | Fiction. Classics. Historical. Historical Fiction. Cultural. African American. Race. Academic. School |
Rating Appertaining To Books Passing
Ratings: 3.85 From 19157 Users | 1526 ReviewsArticle Appertaining To Books Passing
Huzzah for neat seguing of plot pulse and theme! This one proves to be a much better outing than Quicksand because it relies on dialogue and interactions between characters to gradually disclose its cleverly withheld secrets. Till the very end Larsen successfully kept me guessing at the hidden fears, ambitions and motivations that drive Irene Redfield and Clare Kendry - two light-skinned black women who subscribe to different forms of morally ambiguous survivalist ideology to counter the4.5/5My rating of this book has been compromised by my extremely recent previous reading of Larsen's magnificent Quicksand, it's true. Take it as one of those times where the scale depends solely on the capabilities of the sole author herself, rather than being one carefully calibrated across all of whom I've read. If the latter were the case, I would have to downgrade a great deal of other works read previously to this; as I have neither the time nor inclination for such things, simply take my
For the first time, I am participating in a women's century challenge in the group catching up on classics. My 1920s selection is Passing by Nella Larsen, a semi-autobiographical novella, in which a young, mixed race woman light enough to pass decides to live her adult life as white. Delving into the perception of race from a myriad of perspectives, Larsen takes her readers back to a bygone era when African Americans were beginning to make inroads in northern society. Irene Redfield and her
Nella Larson (1891-1964) was born in Chicago to mixed race parents. Her mother was Danish and her father was Afro-Caribbean, also with a mixed race heritage. So Nella was caught in between worlds, not quite white, not quite black, so it was natural for her to write of her life experiences. And that's what she does in Passing (1929). The story is set in Harlem and revolves around two women, Irene Redfield and Clare Kendry, both light skinned, one secure and happy, accepting her racial identity,
(4.0) I've had to cogitate on this for a while to see if I could come up with something to encompass my feelings on this book. Comparatively speaking, coming from a man of Caucasian descent in America, could I truly know what it felt like to be someone of color at this time? At any time? With that said, I must sayPassing. Now thats a term, in its current context, I wasn't familiar with. The fact that people literally had to pass as another race to be accepted is beyond me, but the color of one's
PASSING gets an above-passing grade. It was on my TBR list for so long that I'm not sure why I might have wanted to read it, but I'm glad I got through it and...yeah, I'm glad I read it.
I've been fooled twice now into thinking Nella Larsen isn't a great writer. She is. She controls her story perfectly; she gives you exactly the information you need at exactly the right time. Her stories are carefully constructed, each one building steadily towards a wallop. They make a huge impact. There's no fat, nothing that doesn't exactly need to be there. There's a six-floor walkup in one scene of Passing; the characters complain about it, and one makes a racial comment about it. It's
0 Comments