These chapters were very entertaining! Everything from the smokey scenes of the ragtime club to the narrarator's realization of his musical prowess which earns him the title of "professor." I've always liked that idea of special nicknames being given out to musicians. This shows that it is a timeless concept in American popular music.
I greatly enjoyed the descriptions of life in the New York club playing music. As a musician I found this especially entertaining and compelling. His perspective was ideal for a young man of his age. Apparently he was an attractive and talented man. The ladies love him, the men admire him and hire him to entertain in the club. While the story is not always exciting the account of these days of his life most certainly are as he gets pulled only the slightest bit into the prospect of an affair with an unavailable but strikingly beautiful mysterious woman known as the widow. The intrigue finally hits its peak when the narrarator narrowly avoids bullets from the widow's scorned lover after he kills her in front of him.
It's all a bit fantastical really and dream-like, though the narrarator compares it to a nightmare as he retreats through the city streets only to be rescued by his millionaire and his valet. Then naturally he is whisked off to Europe the next day. It really does seem like something out of a Hunter S. Thompson novel until finally things chill out when the narrarator and millionaire finally have a heart to heart that marks one of the most compelling parts of the book when we hear the millionaire's argument against the narrarator returning home.
My first thought was, or course, "WHAT ARE YOU DOING!!!??? DON'T GO HOME! ARE YOU NUTS!!!???" Though he is in the middle of gay Paris with a man with as much money as God he decides to go home. Even he knows it's a bad idea, but he is a man on a search for himself. His identity, as it has been since the beginning of the tale, is more important to him than pretty much anything and he knows he won't find it in Cairo. So he must return home.
It is interesting that this decision comes only immediately after being showed up by another musician while playing his ragtime. This is an example of how music can be a competition at times and a musician's pride can be utterly destroyed after the musician's talents are diminished by another. While this seemed to play a part in the narrarator's decision I think it was a decision that he had already really made, but just hadn't realized yet.
An artist's realm is of monumental importance and makes a massive impact on the fruits of his labor. While the whole world is supposedly within the artist's scope it truly does matter what surroundings he places himself in. The narrarator believes he will be most inspired in the land of his birth and so must returnt there to be truly inspired and to take the unpolished diamonds that are the slave songs and turn them into his own masterpieces.
The millionaire's sentiments touch the narrarator. Not so much that they oppose his wishes, but that they indicate the care that he has for the narrarator simply because he does. We also, as the narrarator indicates see the millionaire for the first time as a critical and pondering man whereas before he seemed to only have two modes which the narrarator identify as gay or taciturn (pg. 147).
In any event the narrarator's return home is all a part of his quest. It is secondly a quest to perfect his art which he now loves and it is firstly a quest for identity and to have his identity recognized as well as recognize it himself.
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3 comments:
Great blog! I really enjoyed reading about the club scenes and the music even though I'm not a musician. I still enjoy it and I thought it was great the way the narrator started to play again and put the twist on the normal rag-time by playing it with the classical music.
I felt the same way as you did when the narrator decides to leave Europe. I think he is crazy and should have stayed, but I feel like there is a reason people do the things they do and deep down inside he knew what he was doing. I haven't finished the rest of the novel yet, but I'm looking forward to seeing if it was the right choice for him.
The Narrator might very well be crazy, but I think he’s got something to prove. Also, I think that his conversation with the millionaire reiterates many of the comments made by both black and whites of the time to members of the NAACP. It may not be fair, or “I sympathize, but…” The idea being that they NAACP and other organizations could not change the common African American. In this way, the narrator ideology represents Du Bois feeling of racial uplift, in his own way, though music.
much insight here. your really breaking it down and analyzing hard. i had similar feelings when he decided to leave paris, but it seems to find oneself and more importantly (at least this point) to find and help establish a nation within a nation's identity was more important to him. its a shame as we read on and find that none of his dreams are really achieved and his realization that that he wants nothing more than to live the american dream and succumb to the giant eagles claws of money and suppression. The only upside i saw was that he found love and that was important as anything else in the novel.
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