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It‘s no secret that I struggle with a lot of poetry, and that didn‘t help my enjoyment of this collection. While I did like the short stories in Cane more than the poetry, there are some seriously striking and powerful lines sprinkled throughout the book. Unfortunately, I winced a whole lot at the near-constant use of the n-word and much of it felt repetitive. I enjoyed the afterword about Toomer‘s life more than the work.

⭐️⭐️1/2

#1001books

#ReadSoulLit - Eternally Classic: This is an innovative novel written in 1923 by the Harlem Renaissance author, Jean Toomer. Innovative in it‘s time as it experimented with the telling of the culture...of the sights and sounds...and tumultuous reality of southern black living and the beauty of black spirituality in vignettes and sketches of scattered poems, prose and a play. It is incredible in its vision of storytelling!
Highly recommended!

Read for class. Still can‘t figure out what it is. Is it a book of poems? A novel? I don‘t know, but I enjoyed it.

His prose reads the way jazz sounds! This awesome novel is a series of stories, revolving around richly drawn characters, experiencing life as an African American. If words blow you away then Toomer‘s Cane will be music to your eyes.

Through the use of an experimental, collage form Jean Toomer succeeds in creating a realistic representation of a fractured nation. The narrative ruptures are not repaired but the #sunshine at the end of Cane suggests the possibility of a rebirth for a divided U.S and spectral South.
An excellent read that I can best sum up as a cross-road blues.
#MarchintoOz @Cinfhen @Lizpixie

This short book took me 10 days to read! It includes poems, short (fictional?) pieces on different women (which I found annoying because that doesn't give you a full picture of a place), and then 2 short stories that were rather confusing--I think they would be better performed, it would certainly make following the dialogue easier. But I'm done! #1001books read 173. #192019 #1923

#riotgrams day 8: #BlackHistory

Nine powerful books in the chronology I read them throughout my years of schooling (from 7th grade through my degree in English lit).

Also, Jean Toomer's Cane is my official pick for #recommendsday -- gorgeous, vastly under-read modernist collection of stories, poems, and vignettes portraying the diversity of the African American experience in the early 20th century.

It's so hard for me to give this book a ⭐️⭐️ rating. I wanted to like it so much. But I'd be lying if I didn't. I really enjoyed the first half of this book and then Toomer lost me and I couldn't even bring myself to finish the last 4 pages. Wanted to #throwitacrosstheroom. ☹️

#HarlemRenaissance

So this was my final time for yesterday's #24in48 #Readathon. When I signed up, I intended to do more but that was before my daughter's ⚽️ schedule came out with 2 games this weekend. I still feel pretty accomplished and I hope to read even more in July.

Next up, finishing Cane. #24in48 #Readathon

@24in48

#Currentlyreading Cane, set in MLK's birth state, GA. This quote jumped out from the page.
Eight months after my Poppy died in 2009, I dreamed of him for the first time while on the "soil of my ancestors" at a family reunion in NC. When I mentioned this, my cousin, also at the reunion and who had lost his grandfather 5 months earlier, said he too had dreamed of his grandfather for the first time that night.

#harlemrenaissance
#southernlit

Katherine Mansfield died of tuberculosis while at the Gurdjieff institute in France. I was reading about that in Sarah Laing's Mansfield & Me on the same day that I learned, in the afterword of Cane, that Jean Toomer earned his income by teaching the Gurdjieff method in the USA. Love that kind of synchronicity.

Finished listening to this Harlem Renaissance classic last week. Feel like I need to read again in print for deeper appreciation. Verse segments punctuate vignettes; inventive use of language; surreal & evocative & surprising; dark subjects, violence, racism & sexism.
About 5 hours long, plus another 2 hours for the informative afterword by Rudolph Byrd.

Night, soft belly of a pregnant Negress, throbs evenly against the torso of the South. Night throbs a womb-song to the South.

Up next in audio. Fingers crossed.

Ifemelu is reading Cane in Americanah, which I put down to pickup The Sellout where pot illuminates Cane for Charisma #neato

CANE has some intense passages.