Conjugating Hindi

Ishmael Reed's Conjugating Hindi is a hilarious work of satire clearly modeled on his past novels, particularly Japanese by Spring. A story inspired by Indian-American right-wingers like Dinesh D'Souza and the current political climate under Trump, it involves hysterical xenophobia and racism directed against India and its Diaspora after a politically assertive prime minister, Si, is blamed for a destroyed plane. The self-hating and racist Indian conservative commentator, Shashi, is forced to depend on Peter Bowman, or Boa, during this time until the situation cools down.

Along the way, Ishmael Reed inserts himself into the novel (unafraid to mock himself or the wounds of aging on his body), consistently criticizes gentrification in Oakland and rails against the Far Reich presidency (clearly an allusion to Trump), intersectionality, white feminism, and the racist practices of non-white immigrants who leap to join America's oldest pastime: putting down blacks. Reading this novel as someone who has never visited Oakland, it is apparent how devoted Reed is to the city and preserving its past and unique culture. 

While a thrilling and very concise work of satirical fiction, I was a little disappointed by this recent Red novel. First of all, it reads too much like Ishmael Reed's articles in Counterpunch or his social media accounts. While I usually enjoy those, I was expecting something more subtle instead of many lines that almost read exactly like his nonfiction. Expecting more distance between the author and the work, one nevertheless cannot help but enjoy the way Reed inserts himself into the story as well as a character from Japanese by Spring. 

However, the constant references or parodies of Hamilton and other lines inspired by Reed's earlier essays took away from developing the Si storyline. It never really goes anywhere, despite Si threatening a no fly zone over London and international tensions between the US and India. Moreover, Boa's mother is introduced into the story, but disappears, although I would like to think she may have played a role in the killing of Si. Instead of an off the rails wackiness, we get a wacky narrative featuring Maman Brigitte, racial stereotypes, and a growing awareness on the part of Shashi and Boa to their understandings of India, the US, and solidarity between oppressed peoples.

Of course, Conjugating Hindi is still worth reading. It provides a hilarious satirical perspective on the frightening political climate our of time. Reed's numerous rants, expressed through Boa, deliciously skewer white liberal sensibilities, deconstruct gentrification, critique the out of control costs of living in the Bay Area, and unpack the troubled racial, gender, and cultural dilemmas at play in India, the desi communities of the US and African-Americans. Considering the rise of Trump, resurgent alt-right voices, and the demographic shifts in the US, almost everything in this novel is disturbingly possible and relevant. Plus, it brings a smile to this reader's face to see Reed bring back in a clever yet outrageous manner the neo-Hoodoo/Vodun aesthetic. His illustrations accompanying the novel are also entertaining, provocative, and enhance the trickster aesthetic of the work. 

Humpty Dumpty in Oakland

Humpty Dumpty in Oakland is one of Philip K. Dick's stranger realist novels. Although it is, for the most part, entertaining and brings the Bay Area to life, the dialogue of the African-American characters does not ring accurate or authentic. Perhaps due to my disjointed readings of the novel, it also failed to coalesce, although the protagonist, Al Miller, does resemble several phildickian protagonists in his "everyday people" manner, who must confront larger corporate and business threats, the petty social divisions of his era, and force himself to stand for something instead of letting life pass by. The encroachment of development, suburbia, and the impersonal corporation descend into Marin County, as well, making flight from the homogenization wrought by American capitalism more difficult than ever. Ironically, one of the drivers of this process, Chris Harman, is searching for the remnants of a folk culture to record for his music label, and things take on a life of their own as small business confronts big business. Al and his paranoid perception of reality, matched by the dying Jim Fergesson's decline, lead to unexpected paths. Ultimately, Al does make a choice in his life, running off with the African-American realtor who always looked out for him. As to be expected, the typical Phildickian protagonist defies conventions, challenging the fantastical nature of reality.

A Naipaul and a Black Panther?

"Jim Jones, never an original man, was dealing in a common currency. On the day when Huey Newton was talking to those Boston students, the ideological irresponsibilities of a promiscuous decade were coming home to roost in Jonestown."

One of the strangest but most intriguing parts of Shiva Naipaul's Journey to Nowhere: A New World Tragedy, written about the Jonestown Massacre, is an interview with Huey P. Newton of the Black Panthers. Yes, Shiva Naipaul's famous brother met C.L.R. James, as well as attending a GOP convention featuring former Black Panther Eldridge Cleaver, so Vidia has met some prominent black radicals, but Shiva Naipaul struck me as more sympathetic to the plight of those on the receiving end of white supremacy. Certainly no leftist, Shiva Naipaul is critical of the posturing and bearing of arms by the Black Panthers, and even goes so far as to insinuate the extremist and alarmist rhetoric of Huey Newton and Angela Davis, talk of genocide and extermination of blacks, partly legitimate considering the racial backlash and failure of the Civil Rights Movement and Great Society to address poverty, actually fueled support for Jim Jones (Angela Davis herself allegedly supported Jones). The argument, if I may so crudely summarize, is implausible or at best, an exaggeration, but it may partly explain why so many black Americans joined Jones in Guyana and were willing to believe in him. Why not, if, as white and black radicals were saying, white America was hell-bent on destroying black America and the reality of living conditions for poor blacks were so horrific. That said, Shiva Naipaul is far too harsh on Huey P. Newton and does not seem to understand or concede to Newton that blacks patrolling the police is itself a radical act. Carrying guns and adopting militant titles and names is too much for Shiva, and morally or politically irresponsible, but perhaps that reflects Shiva's own political biases.

Despite the flaws and "blindspots" of Naipaul's understanding of race and the Black Panthers in the US, I actually enjoy his travel writing. He is witty, possesses an endearing sense of humor (in one of his other books, he jokes that he prefers the genial criticism of a West Indian who suggests Vidia actually writes Shiva's books for him!), is more perceptive than one would realize on issues of culture or race, but avoids the disturbing negrophobia of his brother. Despite sharing an 'Afropessimistic' attitude at times, Shiva occasionally shocks the reader by alluding to the dehumanizing way Europeans spoke of Africans, shares jokes about being cheated by a Kikuyu shoeshine boy, recognizes the ingenuity of Swahili civilization, and even has some insightful commentary on culture and identity in Australia. I think I prefer his travel writing to that of his brother...

Ishmael Reed's Japanese By Spring

Finally read Reed's Japanese by Spring, a powerful example of satire matched only by Reed's own Reckless Eyeballing. Some of the themes are the same, too, such as a critique of feminism, racism, the media, and a comparison of the experiences of one ethnic minority with that of blacks (Jews and Blacks in Reckless, blacks and Japanese in Japanese By Spring). Indeed, the novel is also a fun read for self-insertion. Reed becomes a character in the novel commenting on the media, stereotypes, university politics, the importance of multiculturalism, and the global world we all live in.

Though the main character, Chappie Puttbutt, plays the role of a black lackey for whatever force will empower him on his self-interested path to tenure and moving to the Oakland Hills, he eventually becomes a 'man' and no longer slavishly serves for white or Japanese masters who take over Jack London College. In many ways the novel is an amusing parody of the 'yellow peril' fears common through Europe after Japan's industrialization and imperialism in Asia in the first half of the 20th century, renewed by Japanese economic power in the 1980s and 1990s. The novel is also quite successful for seamlessly fusing parody, satire, and a political tract in defense of multiculturalism, integration, anti-imperialism, while celebrating Japanese (and Yoruba!) culture, history, and civilization. What dragged the novel down at times was Reed's occasional tendency to veer into rants and present data as if the novel was one of his essays, but that was not common enough to change the format of the work. Indeed, sometimes the moments where one really learns from the book is the more academic and pedantic wandering of Reed's pen, such as moments where we learn that the Japanese wanted peace with the US in 1941, somethign already known to the US government via spying on telegrams between Japan and Soviet Russia, thereby proving that the US never had to use the atomic bomb.

What stuck with me the most was how similar the 'culture wars' and fight to defend affirmative action and multiculturalism was in the 1990s to the present, even in the world where commodification and cooptation of 'diversity' have seemingly won out over the white right's academic backlash. To paraphrase the former white supremacist professor Crabtree on the white academic backlash to multicultural pedagogy, white academics on the right became worse than the rednecks they thought themselves superior to by rejecting others. Folks like literary critic Harold Bloom could learn a lot from Japanese By Spring.